Legacy of the Dead ir-4

by Charles Todd

  Fiona led him down the narrow passage that connected the inn to the little wing built into the side of it a hundred years earlier. She’d lived there since before her aunt died. And run the inn as well, from the time her aunt fell ill until custom dried up in June.

  He followed her, staring at her straight back and her trim waist. And felt sick. Removing his hat, he tucked it under his arm. His boots clattered heavily on the wooden floor. His uniform seemed to choke him.

  In the small room that served her as parlor, she gestured to the best chair and said, “I haven’t harmed anyone. It’s barbarous to say that I have!”

  “I’m not liking it myself, to tell you the truth!” He turned away to stare at the tall clock that ticked quietly in the corner. He didn’t feel like sitting down, nor did he want to stand there and hear his own voice speak the words. But it had to be done. “They’re saying that-” His throat seemed to close.

  “That what? You may as well tell me the rest!”

  He flushed darkly and said, “-that you’ve got no marriage lines. You call yourself Mrs. MacLeod, but it isn’t true, you’ve never been married.” It came out in an anguished rush. “Could I please see your marriage lines? It will stop the talk, it’s all I need.”

  Alistair had liked her for years. She’d had a suspicion that he was in love with her. Now she knew it must be true.

  The cat came in, twining herself about his legs, leaving a blur of hairs on the dark fabric of his trousers. White on blue. She could hear her purring. She had always been partial to Alistair. If he sat down, she would be in his lap instantly, head stretched up to rub his chin, an expression of serene self-indulgence on her face.

  Dragging her thoughts back to the policeman, away from the man, Fiona said, “And what difference does it make to anybody if I did have the child out of wedlock? I’ve done no harm to anyone. And I wouldn’t be the first to have loved a man while I could! The war has butchered them without compunction-so young that most of them cried out for their mothers. Tell me why it’s the world’s business, and not my private affair?”

  It was a tacit admission. Alistair recognized it and felt a great sadness for her.

  Gently he said, “Well, then, could you prove the boy is your own? Could a doctor examine you and say with certainty that you’ve borne a child?”

  She stared at him. Her face answered him before she could prevent it.

  After a moment, he went on. “If you haven’t had a child of your own, then how did you come by this one? That’s the question, Fiona! They think the mother’s buried here in the inn-under the floor, most like, or in the cellar. That you killed her and took the child and buried her where nobody would find her.”

  “In the inn-!” She blinked, disbelieving. “This inn? I had the boy with me when I first came to Duncarrick. How could the mother be buried here? It’s preposterous!”

  “I told them that. I told them your aunt was alive then and would never have been a party to such a thing. They don’t want to listen.”

  “Who is this ‘they’ so full of accusations! I have a right to know.”

  “Mr. Elliot has seen several of the letters sent to his parishioners-”

  “And done nothing about them! He didn’t speak to me once about them!”

  “I know, Fiona. It was wrong of him, he should have scolded half the town for paying any heed to them. He’s a man of some weight-”

  “I didn’t want him to scold the town, I wanted him to call these things lies! To tell me he didn’t believe what they said. To come here and sit with me, as proof that I am a decent woman! It would have been a comfort, Alistair! Instead he’s turned his back on me too.”

  “Aye, but listen to me, Fiona. Three days ago a letter came for him, this one mailed, not left on a doorstep. It wasn’t like the others. It wasn’t accusing; in fact, it tried to defend you. It said that you couldn’t be-er-a fallen woman, that you’d never been wed and you’d borne no children of your own. The letter didn’t intend to cast doubts, it was meant to show the rumors and whispers were false. It went on to say that it wasn’t possible to produce the lad’s true mother, to prove these claims. She’d died after giving birth, and you’d taken the lad away, keeping him for yourself. The writer swore she didn’t know where you had buried the woman’s body and ended by saying your aunt had been told lies, she hadn’t taken any part in what was done.”

  Fiona swallowed hard, the lump in her throat threatening to choke her. Keeping her voice steady by sheer effort of will, she asked, “Was this-this letter anonymous, like the rest of them? Or was it signed?”

  “No. It claimed that the writer was fearful to speak out. She’d held her tongue for your aunt’s sake, knowing Ealasaid MacCallum had been told lies. And she’s afraid she might be brought up on charges now.”

  Fiona caught her breath. “The address? Where did it come from?”

  “There was a Glasgow postmark, but that’s not to say it was written by anyone living there. You’d only have to drop it in a post box, wouldn’t you? The writer might live in Lanark-Inverness-” He looked down at his boots, missing her expression, bent to touch the cat, then thought better of it. Straightening up again, he went on earnestly. “Mr. Elliot went to the Chief Constable. The Chief Constable is not a man who likes anonymous letters and innuendoes. He told Inspector Oliver to get to the bottom of it. Inspector Oliver has sent me to have a look around. Mind you, only to see if any work’s been done in the last few years. To see if any of the flagstones have been taken up or the walls repaired or the cellars changed.”

  “No one has done work here-not since 1914, the start of the war. Peter, the old man who was my aunt’s handyman, can tell you no work’s been done-”

  “He has that. Inspector Oliver asked him. And your neighbors as well. But it would have been a secret business, after all. You’d not have told Peter, would you, if a body was being hidden? Nor your aunt, just as the letter said.”

  “It’s not true! And it doesn’t make sense-if I brought the child here with me, how could I bring its dead mother, to bury her here! In a trunk-? In the back of the carriage-? Over my shoulder?” She was feeling desperate, frightened.

  He winced at her bitter humor. “Mr. Robson addressed that. He said the mother might have recovered from the birth and wanted to keep the boy after all. And you stopped her when she came here to find him. I’ve had my orders-”

  “This is my inn now. I won’t have anyone tearing it apart to search for a body- there’s no body here!”

  “I must look, Fiona, or they’ll send someone else with a search warrant and an ax. Will you at least let me walk about and see with my own eyes that there’s nothing to find?”

  “No!” Startled by her cry, the cat tensed and then vanished behind the heavy draperies at the side window.

  “Fiona-”

  “No!”

  It took him a good half hour to convince her that he was the lesser of evils. That for her own sake she must agree to lead him around the premises. That he would look only where Fiona allowed him to look, move only what she allowed him to move. When, stiffly, she finally gave her permission, he said gently, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  But she ignored him. With a coldness he’d never felt in her before, she led him through the small wing, room by room, even where the child was sleeping in his crib, one hand tucked under his chin, and then through the aged building that had been her great-uncle’s inn and then her aunt’s, and now hers. Through the common rooms and the bars, through the kitchens and the cellars, and through the few bedchambers that could be taken by occasional travelers and marketgoers. Through the attics where old boxes and trunks littered the dusty floors amid the broken or outgrown furnishings stored there, the long-forgotten belongings of a family that had lived under the same roof for generations. To the cellars where there was still wine on the shelves but very little beer or ale-nobody came to drink it, and like the kitchens, the pantry, and barman’s little cubbyhole, the cellars were nearly empt
y. No sacks of flour or potatoes or onions, no tins of fruit or jars put up from the garden.

  He looked as thoroughly as he could without insulting her. He sounded walls and stamped on the floors, peered into the chimneys and moved the largest chests and dressers, opened the tops of trunks and sniffed at their musty contents. Kept his mind and his attention on his task without letting his own misery show in his face.

  When Alistair left, she accompanied him to the door and shut it almost before he’d thanked her properly.

  Behind its solid oak, where no one could see her, she leaned her forehead against the cool wood and closed her eyes. And then the child, rousing from his sleep, began to sing off-key to himself, a Highland song she had taught him. She made an effort to collect herself, and called, “I’m coming, darling.” But it was another minute before she could turn and ascend the stairs.

  Whatever Alistair McKinstry told his superiors, a fortnight passed before there were other policemen at her door, demanding to inspect the premises: Inspector Oliver, Sergeant Young, and both Constable McKinstry and Constable Pringle. In his anxiety not to offend her, McKinstry had not properly examined the outbuildings, she was told.

  Fiona, torn between fear and disgust, told them to search as and where they pleased, then shut the door in their faces and kept the child out of sight.

  It was in the stables in the inn yard that they found the bones, well hidden between the back wall and the little room the liveryman had lived in. Inspector Oliver had been the one to notice the unusual thickness of the plaster in one place. He tapped it with a hammer, found that there was space behind it, and tapped again, watching with interest as a spider’s-web crack ran across it. A suspicious man by nature, he went into the dusty room on the other side of the wall and found that a cupboard was not as deep as it ought to have been.

  They had the wall down, then, and the skull rolled out before they had even seen the rest of the bones crammed into the long, narrow space. As it came to a stop, grinning up at them, Constable McKinstry smothered a curse.

  The long hair still attached in places to the dry bone surely marked it as a woman’s.

  IT WAS NOT until late August that they arrested her.

  The bones in the stables had catapulted the investigation into a dozen new directions. Inspector Oliver, with grim thoroughness, had scoured Fiona’s past, had followed every lead that came his way, and had succeeded in bringing new information to light-damning information that supported the theory he found so compelling. The procurator-fiscal had seen fit, after speaking with the Chief Constable, to order a trial on the charge of murder.

  Fiona found someone to care for the boy and went to jail with an aching heart. She couldn’t be sure who her enemy was, or how he or she had tightened a noose about her neck so cleverly. But she did know one very important thing about this person. The planning and the execution had been quite shrewdly done. Someone had carefully arranged her death, and left it to the law to do the deed for him-or her.

  Which meant that someone hated her very deeply.

  But who was it?

  The only living person she might have asked was the one person she could never turn to for help. Even if she went to the gallows.

  She had made a promise, and she dared not break it.

  It was the boy she wept for in the night. She loved him completely and without shame. What would he be told now about the woman he believed to be his mother? Who would care for him and keep him safe if she was not there?

  The loneliness was nearly unbearable. And the idleness. She wasn’t used to sitting in silence the day long, with nothing, neither a book nor a needle, to make the time pass. Even as a child in her grandfather’s house, there had been books. A basket of mending. Letters to be written. Now there was no one to write to. Where were the many people who had claimed to be her friends, who had welcomed her first for her aunt’s sake and then for her own? She had been visited by none of them, had had no word of encouragement from them. She felt abandoned and wished with all her heart that her aunt were here to comfort her.

  And she had no faith in the lawyer who came to speak to her. There was something in his narrow eyes that warned her to be very careful. He was not the sort of man who trusted women.

  Charles Todd

  Legacy of the Dead

  3

  1919 LONDON

  He was standing on the road, looking beyond the low stone wall and down into the churchyard, where the slope of the land evened out. There had been rain in the night; the stones were drenched with it and stood out blackly in the pale morning light.

  His heart was pounding. The stones drew him like a magnet drawing iron, and he found himself trying to make out the name on each, searching for one he knew must be there. Then, with an effort of will, he turned to stare at the church tower, still swathed in low rain clouds, and at the tall windows above the door. He wanted to believe it was the church in Buncombe-Cornwall-but he knew it couldn’t be. He told himself it was a churchyard in France, but that, too, was a lie.

  A flicker of movement distracted him, and then he saw the girl in the shadows of the church door. She was carrying flowers, her arms full of blossoms and long spears of greenery, and as she stepped into the light, he saw that she was looking at him. As if she’d expected him to be standing there. As if she knew he would come, in the end.

  He couldn’t see her face clearly, but he instantly recognized her. And the grief in her eyes shamed him, cutting through his defenses.

  Terrified, he tried to turn away, and couldn’t. His feet were rooted to the spot, his body paralyzed by her eyes.

  She was coming toward him now, up the church walk. She was saying something to him, then she pointed to the side of the churchyard and the grave there. Only there wasn’t a body lying beneath the bare brown earth. He knew that at once.

  There were tears on her face, but no hatred. He thought he could have borne the hatred, but not the pity in her eyes.

  He began to walk toward her, not of his own volition but of hers, drawn to her, drawn to the drift of flowers she held, drawn to the grave they were destined for. She had brought enough flowers for the two of them to spread over the earth, to cover its ugliness. He could see it now, raw, without beauty or grace or the mercy of time, and he couldn’t face it-one more step and he would read the name on the stone, and that would be intolerable Ian Rutledge woke with a start, breathing harshly from shock.

  He was sitting upright, knees raised, head flung back, drenched with sweat and with horror, terrified of the heavy, suffocating blackness that surrounded him, that made him blind.

  Frantic, he put his hands to his face to claw the viscous mask away and touched-not the thick mud of the trenches but his own flesh.

  Surprised, confused, he tried to think. If he wasn’t in France, where was he? His hands floundered, found sheets-a pillow. The clinic?

  As his eyes grew accustomed to the impenetrable darkness, he was able to pick out the ghostly shape of his surroundings. A door-a mirror-a bedpost Rutledge swore. I’ve been asleep-I’m in my bed – I was dreaming -

  But it was several minutes before the vivid dream faded enough for him to shake off the overwhelming sense of doom it had left behind. In the back of his mind he could feel Hamish rumbling like heavy thunder-or the guns- trying to tell him something he didn’t want to hear-over and over again.

  Fumbling for a match, he lit the candle on the table by his bed, then got up and switched on the light. It blared down at him from the high ceiling, garish and stark after the darkness, but he was grateful for the reality it provided, pushing back the last remnants of sleep and of his nightmare.

  He pinched out the candle flame, looked at the watch lying beside the brass candlestick, and saw that the time was close to three o’clock. In France he’d often slept with a stub of candle clenched in his hand. Unlit-it would have been madness to light it-but a symbol of light all the same. He still kept one beside his bed, a talisman.

  This was London
, not the trenches, and there was no mud – He repeated the words, listening to their sanity.

  Around him were his own belongings: the carved armoire by the door to the sitting room, the mirror where he put on his tie every morning, the chair that had been his father’s, the tall posts of the bed he had slept in as a boy, the dark burgundy draperies his sister had helped him hang. All of them familiar, and in their own way, unexpectedly comforting. They had been his before the war, just as this flat had been, and returning here had been a bulwark against the intervening hell of the trenches. A promise that one day he would be the same man again.

  I’ve been working too hard, he thought, moving between the bed and the tall chest and coming to a halt by the table set beneath the window. He pushed aside the draperies. Outside, rain clouds were hanging heavily over the city. Gray and depressing. He turned away, letting the heavy fabric fall again. Frances is right, I need rest. It will stop when I can rest.

  His sister Frances had put it in no uncertain terms. “You look terrible, Ian! Tired and thin and still very unlike yourself. Tell Old Bowels to give you leave, you’ve worked as hard as ten men since you came back to the Yard, and the doctors told you quite clearly-”

  Yes, they’d told him. But in work was-sometimes-forgetfulness.

  Hamish, tireless at the back of Rutledge’s mind, said, “It’s no’ true, you canna’ forget. There’s only emptiness, sometimes.”

  “I’ll settle for that. When I’m weary enough to sleep, there’s peace- was peace,” Rutledge corrected himself. From long habit he answered the voice only he could hear, the voice of a dead man. It was as clear as his own in the silent room, with a Highlander’s soft accent, and so real it seemed to come from just behind him. As if the speaker might be standing there if Rutledge turned his head. But there was no one behind him-although the dread of being wrong about that was nearly as real as the voice.