by Charles Todd
He’d laughed at the time.
His meal arrived, and he was surprised to see he’d ordered the beef, with Yorkshire pudding and roasted vegetables, among them parsnips.
He had just picked up his knife and fork when there was movement beside him, and he caught the scent of Kate’s perfume.
Setting aside his utensils and taking up his napkin in his left hand, he got to his feet and turned.
Kate was standing there, wearing a pretty evening wrap.
“I came to apologize, Ian,” she said, laying a hand on his arm. “I was glad to see you this evening. I ran into Frances last week at The Ivy, having lunch with Peter and some friends. She was glowing with happiness. Peter is a lucky man.”
“They’re well matched,” he answered, smiling. Then, in spite of himself, he added, “How are you, Kate?” It was more than just a polite query. And they really hadn’t had time to talk alone. She had had a rough experience in Cornwall, and he’d been concerned about her.
“I’ve tried to put it all behind me. But sometimes I dream about the way it ended.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I’d have done, if you hadn’t been there.”
He didn’t want her gratitude. He said, “You were amazingly brave. A true soldier’s daughter.”
Kate grinned. “Ian. I didn’t feel very brave at the time.” Then, searching his face, she said, “You look awfully tired.”
“I’ve been out of London. Yard business.”
“Yes, Frances told me she hadn’t seen much of you since the wedding.”
“A policeman’s life,” he agreed.
She hesitated. “Will you take me to lunch one day, please? I know, I shouldn’t ask such a thing, it’s very forward of me. But I want to make up for my mother’s rudeness.” She glanced over her shoulder, toward the door.
“It would be my pleasure,” he answered her. “But you don’t need to make up for anything.”
They’d been speaking quietly, so that their conversation didn’t carry to the nearby tables.
“I do,” she said firmly. “One thing the war taught me, Ian, is that I can choose my own friends, be my own self. I watched men die in agony, desperate to live and go home to their families. It changes you, holding their hands as the light fades from their eyes. I myself came far too close to death. I will not waste my time worrying about little things, about which shoes I ought to wear with which dress, or whether I should put feathers in my hair or the pearl brooch. Or whether my mother approves of me.” She flushed a little at her own intensity. “Your dinner is getting cold. Good night.”
And she was gone in a rustle of silk.
He watched her leave, then sat down to his meal.
Kate and Jean might have been cousins, but they were as different as night and day. He hadn’t seen that in 1914, blinded as he was by Jean’s vivaciousness and charm. Kate had so much more.
But he wasn’t sure he’d take her to lunch.
Her mother had made it quite clear at the Christmas party that she had her own plans for her daughter’s happiness, and these didn’t include policemen.
He was about to pick up his knife and fork again when a thought left him dumbstruck.
He’d been thinking like a man, and not like a policeman.
Mrs. Gordon hadn’t been worried about him. She hadn’t been worried about a policeman diverting her daughter’s affections from a brilliant match. She had warned him off because she was fearful of Kate’s newfound independence and where it might lead her daughter.
“’Ware!”
Hamish’s warning coincided with the waiter clearing his throat.
How long had the man been standing there? But surely Hamish would have noticed if he himself hadn’t.
“Is everything to your liking, sir?”
Rutledge searched for an answer. Any answer.
“I was considering having a glass of wine. But I’ve changed my mind.”
“Enjoy your dinner, sir.”
He took his time over the meal, using it to keep him from thinking in so public a place. When he left, he found a cabbie as he walked out the door. It was just dropping off two men. They nodded to him and, still talking, walked into Simpson’s.
“Where to, sir?”
Rutledge gave him the address and settled back into his seat. He wasn’t sure how much work he’d manage tonight. The meal had been heavier than he’d wanted, and he was already feeling drowsy. And at the same time, restless.
They were passing through Trafalgar Square when the cabbie suddenly swore and reached for the brake.
Half a dozen young men had dashed out almost in front of him, laughing and shouting as they raced to the far side of the square. People had stopped to stare at them.
“Oxford,” the cabbie said in disgust. “Bad enough they’re a nuisance there, but why do they have to come down to London to drink?”
Rutledge barely heard him. He’d been watching the reactions of the onlookers, ranging from shock to smiles to distaste, the gaze of several young women following the men as they ran toward the nearest bronze lion, intent on climbing it.
And there, just behind the young women, was a face Rutledge knew.
He’d been trained to remember faces. To recognize them the next time he encountered them. Whatever the circumstances. Even under a hat. But the headlamps from a passing motorcar had just illuminated it for an instant. There was no doubt.
He’d just recognized Alan Barrington. On foot in the square. He’d stake his reputation on it.
“Stop here!” he ordered the cabbie.
“This isn’t the address—”
“I know. I just saw a friend.” He was fumbling for the fare, keeping an eye on his quarry all the while. Passing the man a handful of shillings, he opened the door and got out.
And in that tiny space of time, Alan Barrington had disappeared.
Rutledge searched for hours, taking each direction out of the square by turn, after he’d scoured the square itself. He knew even as he did that it was useless, a waste of time. But he kept at it until the square emptied of people and a quiet fell over the busy city. A light rain began to fall as he headed once more down toward Parliament, where streetlights were reflected in puddles in the road.
He passed Whitehall, The Blues in their brass helmets and capes standing guard tonight. When he looked over his shoulder he could see the glow from lighted windows at Number Ten, although the drapes had been drawn. Big Ben struck two in the morning as he turned toward the bridge. But he didn’t cross it. Instead he walked along the Embankment.
It was dark under the trees, and the river was even darker, moving like a black snake beside him as he made his way along the water. He couldn’t have said why he’d come this way, except that it was the only place he hadn’t looked.
But there was no one here except for a man walking briskly toward him, his hat low and his collar pulled up against the rain, even though he had raised his umbrella.
Rutledge slowed his pace, letting the man approach him. If it was Barrington, he had no reason to be concerned. He’d never seen Rutledge, he wouldn’t know that the figure coming toward him on the dark path was a policeman looking for him.
As the space between them closed, Rutledge said, with a slightly drunken slur to his voice, “Rotten evening.”
The other man gave him a curt nod but didn’t pause or speak. Rutledge walked on, not turning until he judged that the man had reached the end of the walk and was about to turn either right—or left. Then he went to stand by the river wall, looking back the way he’d come.
The man turned right, back past Big Ben across the road, back the way Rutledge had come.
Rutledge straightened, and began to follow.
It wasn’t Alan Barrington. But the man was his steward, Livingston.
Keeping his distance, Rutledge followed him.
Was he here by coincidence, walking out alone at this hour?
Or had he come here to meet Barrington? There could be no better place than along
the Embankment at this hour. No prying eyes, no witnesses.
He kept walking.
Ahead of him Livingston passed Downing Street and the silent Blues standing guard, walked on up toward Trafalgar Square. Within sight of Scotland Yard, unaware that the man well behind him was from the Yard. Rutledge kept his distance, his footsteps echoing against the buildings on each side. He’d begun to walk with a limp, as soon as they turned away from Parliament, so that he wouldn’t be connected with the encounter on the path.
Livingston strode on, oblivious of being followed. And then, just as he came to the head of the street where it faced Trafalgar Square, he saw a cabbie coming his way and raised his hand to signal to it.
The cabbie drew up to him, and there was a brief conversation. Rutledge had a feeling that the cabbie was telling Livingston he was off duty and on his way home. Money changed hands finally, and Livingston climbed into the back.
The cabbie pulled away, heading west.
Rutledge was sprinting by that time, but when he reached the square, it was empty, not another cabbie in any direction.
He slid to a halt on the wet road and swore feelingly.
Where the hell was Livingston going?
A hotel? A railway station?
“It doesna’ matter. Ye ken, if he was here to see Barrington, the meeting has happened. They willna’ meet again. It’s too dangerous.”
“Why not at one of his properties?” But he knew the answer to that. Too many eyes, too many witnesses. Too many chances that he would be seen and recognized.
In London the chances were slim to none. If it hadn’t been for the drunken Oxford students, Rutledge would have missed him as well.
For one thing, he thought, standing there in the rain, no one would expect to find a fugitive in one of the busiest intersections in London, filled with people. What’s more, it had been ten years. Who would think they’d recognize him after all this time?
No one, of course, except a policeman already searching for him.
There were no cabbies on the street, and no omnibus to take him home, although he looked in every direction. Rutledge started out walking, and then changed course. In his notebook was the address of the London house belonging to the Barrington family. According to the files, it had been closed up a year after Barrington had disappeared.
There was no reason to think it wasn’t still shut. By this time, staff would have been let go, the furnishings left in dust sheets, any item of particular value taken away to the house in Melton Rush or to one of the other family properties: paintings, silver, and the like. The Constable on that street would be instructed to keep an eye on the house, and someone would be hired to see to the upkeep of the house and grounds. Neighbors would complain if the front steps were left unswept, the boxwoods in the urns not watered and trimmed, the downstairs entrance left to collect whatever the wind tossed its way.
It was a long wet walk with Hamish busy in the back of his mind, while he himself gave some thought to what his options would be when he got to the house. It wouldn’t do to be taken up by a Constable for breaking and entering.
Rutledge smiled grimly at the thought. He’d caught more than one housebreaker in his time on the street. He knew their tricks.
It was close on three when he got to the street and stopped, casting about for the Constable. The rain had picked up, and the man was probably somewhere dry and comfortable. Rutledge felt a surge of envy. But he couldn’t count on that. He himself had used a rare London snow to look for tracks when there had been an outbreak of vandalism in the night.
He moved quietly now, but not stealthily, keeping to the shadows on the opposite side of the street from the Barrington house. When he was across from it, he studied each window. The drapes were drawn, to protect carpets and upholstery and wallpaper. And it was quite late for someone to be up. But he made certain that each window was dark.
Only then did he cross the street farther along and walk back up the square toward his objective.
Simply looking at the facade, someone would believe the house was occupied. The brass door knocker was brightly polished, and as he’d expected, the shrubs in the urns were as trim as if pruned yesterday. There was a narrow black wrought-iron gate at the side of the house, between it and its neighbor, giving access to the dust bins and the back garden, and he didn’t bother to open it, vaulting it instead. The narrow path was as tidy as the approach, and the garden at the rear was as perfect as if the family had taken tea there in the afternoon. No chickens here or pigeon boxes and work sheds. No scattered children’s toys or kitchen garden. This was no suburban villa, but the home of a gentleman with borders, plantings, a small white wooden gazebo, and a white iron bench under a tree.
A flagstone path led from the access alley to the rear door. Rutledge kept to that and tried the glass-paned door. Locked, as he’d expected. He examined the windows overlooking the garden, but they were as dark as the ones facing the square.
It took him twenty minutes to find a window he could open.
“Someone was here before ye.” Hamish’s voice was so loud in the silence of the night that Rutledge flinched.
He took off his wet boots, tied the laces together, and strung them over his shoulders before levering himself inside. He swore as he thought about the torch in the boot of his motorcar, back at the flat. But his eyes soon grew accustomed to the gloom, and then he began to move.
This was a narrow room for arranging flowers, with a flagstone floor, a tall wooden bench with shelves above it for vases and bowls, the shears and scissors in a tray, and a pitcher for water set to one side. Beneath was a bucket for waste.
“’Ware,” Hamish said. “Yon steward could ha’ stayed here.”
Rutledge opened the door as quietly as he could, and stepped out into a passage.
From there he explored the rooms on that floor, ghostly with their white dust sheets and linen bags over the chandeliers and even some of the paintings. There were empty places on the walls where other paintings had been removed. From the look of the rooms, someone must come to dust and sweep several times a year, but there was no sign of recent occupancy.
He made his way upstairs, all the way to the servants’ attics. Nothing.
Finally he went below stairs to the kitchens and servants’ hall. It was in the butler’s room that he found something.
Not proof, nothing he could take to Chief Superintendent Jameson and point to as evidence that Alan Barrington was back in London. He’d almost missed it, but saw it because he was thorough, taking his time, searching for small signs. Barrington was too clever to leave any obvious clue to his presence.
A leaf. Small, pale brown, the sort of leaf that would blow across the flagstones on a windy afternoon and attach itself to the sole of a shoe in the rain, to be brought indoors. He’d thought it was a bit of paper, at first, until he picked it up.
Someone had been down here, sitting in the butler’s comfortable chair, even sleeping there. Or waiting for time to pass until his rendezvous with the family steward.
As late as this evening. Because the leaf was still slightly damp.
“The steward, do ye think?”
But the steward had a right to be here. He’d have slept in one of the bedrooms. Even the master bedroom, if he fancied the role as surrogate to Barrington. Certainly not in the butler’s room.
And a thief would have been in too much of a hurry to find whatever he could steal and get away before the Constable noticed something amiss to sit down in the butler’s room where there was nothing worth stealing. The former butler would have taken his own belongings with him, while the rest, the keys to the wine cellar and other tools of his trade, would have been dealt with by whoever had closed up the house. On Strange’s instructions . . .
Rutledge took out his notebook, put the leaf in it, and returned it to his pocket.
He hadn’t been wrong at Trafalgar Square. The face he’d glimpsed behind the two women watching the Oxford students was
Alan Barrington’s.
Who else could it have been?
Where was he now?
And why hadn’t he come back here, after his meeting with Livingston?
If that was what had brought Barrington to London.
10
Rutledge left the Barrington house and for what was left of the night took up a position two houses away, in the tradesman’s entrance. The servants’ hall was dark, and no dog barked at him as he went around the railing and down the stairs to the door.
He waited as patiently as he could, in the event Barrington had taken his time returning. But his instincts told him it was a waste of time.
To be safe, he wouldn’t stay very long in one place. And if he’d met Livingston, he might not think it wise to trust the man.
Hamish was saying, “Ye ken, yon steward was alone on the path by the river. Easy enough to drop a body into the water.”
“Why? What did he have to gain? The steward?”
“He has a verra’ fine life as master of the house. You said yoursel’ that he might be tempted to sleep in the master’s bed.”
What were the chances of a body being fished out of the Thames and being identified as Barrington’s? A very alert policeman might think about a man missing for ten years, but it was unlikely, if he’d stayed in the water any length of time.
Rutledge could feel the cold through his boots now, standing in one place so long.
In the end he gave up and walked until he found an early cabbie to take him the rest of the way to his flat. He could have easily gone to his parents’ home, not all that far from Barrington’s square. He still had a key. But he no longer felt free to come and go as he’d done after the war. Knowing Frances would be happy to find him there for breakfast. That had brought a semblance of normal living that he’d badly needed when he had been discharged from Dr. Fleming’s care. He’d taken a flat because of his nightmares, but Frances had made it clear that the house was his still, to come and go freely. And that knowledge, that bulwark against utter despair, had kept him alive those early months. Knowing that to make an easy end would do two things—betray a dead man, and leave Frances alone without any explanation for his decision. He couldn’t confess to shell shock and the voice in his head. He couldn’t allow her to feel that somehow she’d failed him, when it would have been the other way around. He couldn’t let her shoulder his burden after he was gone.