by Charles Todd
Better to return to the rain of London and the empty flat-better to go to York or Lincoln or Carlisle rather than Scotland, where voices at every turn would remind him of Scots he’d commanded. Men he felt he’d betrayed…
There was hardly a town of any size in the Highlands that he didn’t know by name, because one or a dozen of the men under his command had lived there.
How many lies had he told frightened boys facing battle for the first time? How many lies had he written to grieving women who had just lost a son or a husband? And yet his men had trusted him. He’d listened to them talk about families, crofts, the land, small victories won in short lives- lonely men leaning against the wall of a trench in the dark watches, wanting to remember home, or lying on a stretcher, trying to die bravely. The Scots had made good soldiers and they’d died hard. Not in their tens or hundreds, but in their thousands. Rutledge felt a duty to them still, and it was a burden he hadn’t healed sufficiently yet to put down. It wasn’t easily explained-but it was there, that sense of duty to the dead.
He was going to Scotland now, there was no turning back It’s not as if I’ll be driving as far as Edinburgh, he argued with himself. The Lodge is in the country, for God’s sake! Once there, I could be anywhere-in any part of Britain. It will have to be done sometime. I can’t hide from the past-somehow I must do this It would be arrant cruelty to call again and say I’ve changed my mind But in the deep recesses of his mind, he could feel Hamish refusing to accept any justification Rutledge might offer. For Rutledge this was a hurdle of the spirit. For Hamish it had been the unacceptable horror of dying in France-his permanent exile from the Highlands. He had not come home then. He would not come home now.
The strain of traveling with that stiff, solid wall of refusal began to take its toll.
Approaching Newcastle, on a whim Rutledge took a side turning and drove west for a time, toward Hexham. When he stopped the motorcar in the middle of nowhere, he got out and walked nearly a mile to where the Great Wall that Hadrian had built across the top of England so many centuries before snaked still across the green land. A rampart of earth and stone to keep the Scottish barbarians at bay, supported in its day by forts and garrisons, shops and sentry posts, long since crumbled and covered by time. He had come here as a boy, and the memory of it had stayed with him.
Soldiers had lived and fought and died here, but that was not the odd pull of this place. It was the rolling green land, the high bowl of sky-the vast stillness.
There had been no peace in France. Men standing cheek by jowl in the trenches had had no privacy. The guns, even when silent, could be heard in the bones, that ache of thunder that dulled the brain and deafened the ears for hours afterward. The aeroplanes passing overhead, horses struggling through the mire, the lorries moving up, voices swearing and singing and talking day and night. Or screaming and cursing in pain after an attack, and the barking of dogs searching for the living among the dead.
There had been no stillness in himself either, with Hamish rampant in his mind. He was never truly alone.
But here it was palpable-the quiet He stood there, looking up at the empty blue sky, his head tilted back, his arms out from his sides, his fists unwittingly clenched. And drank in the stillness.
Even the wind had dropped off. Hamish, for a mercy, was silent. And there was no birdsong; the birds had turned south to winter in another climate. The beating of his heart seemed muffled beneath his coat.
Stillness.
It seemed to spread through him, it seemed to wrap him about, it seemed to fill him full.
For nearly a quarter of an hour he stood there alone and listening.
When he turned away to walk back to the car, there were tears in his eyes.
But he had found the strength he needed.
6
Morag Gilchrist greeted Rutledge at the heavy front door of The Lodge almost before he’d knocked.
She had looked after this house just south of Edinburgh for nearly three generations of the Trevor family, and nobody seemed to know just how old she was. If anyone asked, he was given short shrift. Morag’s back was straight as a sergeant-major’s, her eyes as bright as a crow’s, and her hands as soft and steady as a girl’s.
“Mr. Ian!”
He thought for an instant she was going to embrace him. There was such warmth in her face that it seemed to reach out to him. He put his arms around her instead, and she let him, then pushed him away with a “Pshaw! You’ll muss my gown, lad! Give o’wer!”
Her black gown, to the floor, was nearly as stiff as she was, Victorian and a badge of honor, like the heavy ring of keys at her waist on a silver chain.
David Trevor came out of the room just off the passage where they stood, and gripped Ian’s hand hard, with something in his face that made them both feel deeply the loss that neither spoke of.
Trevor’s son had died at sea in the third year of the war. Ross had been as close to a brother as anyone Rutledge had known. It was still a raw grief.
He was led into the sitting room, small and low-ceilinged and old-fashioned, with comfort apparent in every cushion and a fresh fire on the hearth. The dogs, after their first joyous welcome, curled themselves at his feet with sighs of contentment. The tick of the clock was steady, peaceful. A glass of good whiskey seemed to appear in his hand before he’d settled in the chair opposite the one he knew his godfather favored. The stiffness and fatigue of the long drive vanished. He was, in a sense, home.
Hamish, after hours of angry turmoil, seemed to find his own peace here too. Or was it the fact that Rutledge himself had crossed a border in his mind as well as an invisible line on the landscape? He thought it might be both.
“How was your journey-?”
It was the beginning of a long and undemanding conversation that lasted until Trevor heard the clock on the mantel chime the half hour.
“We’ll be late to our dinner and Morag will scold me for keeping you here when you want to change. Go on, it’s the old room, under the eaves.”
But large enough not to be claustrophobic. Rutledge knew it well; he’d stayed there on his visits, boy and man, since he could remember.
At the door, Trevor clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s damned good to see you. I hope you’ll stay as long as you can!”
Then his eyes slid away toward the fire. “Mind Morag, will you? She hasn’t been the same since-well, since the news came. She’s showing her years now, and it’s a pity. But she loved him, you know.. ..” His voice trailed off.
Rutledge managed to say, “Yes. I know,” and made his way down the passage to the stairs.
His throat felt thick with grief. Ross had been clever and handsome and destined for a brilliant future in his father’s architectural firm. And now he lay at the bottom of the sea with tons of metal strewing the seabed around him, one more Navy man with only a memorial to mark his death. Rutledge had received the news in France, one soft spring morning that heralded another gas attack. There had been no time to mourn. There seldom was.
Morag came out of the room that was his, having brought him hot water and fresh towels. She stood with hands clasped in front of her until he reached the top of the stairs and walked toward her. Her eyes were on his face, a woman who had known him from childhood, who had scolded him for mischief-making, saved him cakes left from tea, dressed his scrapes, and mended shirts torn by tumbling out of trees. He couldn’t turn away, and so he smiled.
“Were you hurt, then? In the war?”
“Nothing that hasn’t healed,” he told her, lying for her sake.
But her eyes read more in his face than he realized. “Aye, that’s what the letters said, but letters aren’t always the whole truth, are they? I wanted to see for myself.” She paused. “Do you dream, is that it?”
Wordlessly, he nodded.
“Aye. I thought as much. Well. That will pass. In God’s good time.”
She followed him to his room, smoothing the towels on the rack, twitching the curtain
s, moving the chintz-covered chair a quarter of an inch. Then she said quietly, “Mind Himself, lad. He’s still grieving. You saw the terrible change in him now.”
Rutledge had-the hair grayer, the new lines about his mouth, the dark circles under his godfather’s eyes. Trevor had aged-but not from age.
“Aye.” She nodded. “Don’t let him sit and remember-”
“No. I won’t.”
“Come down to the kitchen in the morning.”
“I will that,” he said, and she grinned at him.
“I’ll have hot scones for your breakfast, come Sunday.” It was a treat, a remnant of childhood. She walked on down the stairs to put the finishing touches on the dinner she’d made.
The two men sat late over their port that evening, and Trevor took out the book sent to him by a young architect who’d joined his firm in 1912. Edward Harper had been killed in 1917, blown to bits with half a dozen other men, when an ammunition wagon went up in their faces.
“Tell me what you think of this.” The way he unwrapped it and handed it to Rutledge showed clearly how he himself treasured it.
During his months in France, Harper had managed to finish a collection of watercolors-cameos of men of every rank and unit he’d come across. African chausseurs, Malay coolies, a French dragoon, a cocky Australian grinning cheekily. A Sikh of an East Indian regiment wearing a gas mask, his flourishing black beard framing it like a giant ruff. A range of pugarees-turbans-each identifying the district Indian troops had come from. Spahis, native Africans in French service, who collected trophies. Scots in kilts and a Belgian infantryman in his odd helmet. These were indisputably individual portraits, each vividly captured. It showed a remarkable talent.
“It’s wonderful,” Rutledge said, and meant it. It also showed the public face of war, cheerful and colorful, without the casualties and the horrors. Safe to send home. But he said nothing of that to Trevor.
Rutledge sat there, turning the pages, thinking of all the men he’d watched die, and all the skills that had died with them. And for what? He wished he knew.
“I’ll frame them for the office,” Trevor was saying. “A memorial of sorts.” Then with intense anger, draining his glass, he added, “A waste. God, it was all a bloody waste!”
And Rutledge, watching his face, knew that he was thinking of his son.
The weekend was, oddly enough, healing for both men. They walked in the early morning, they sat and talked by the fire, they took the dogs out to flush game, by common consent leaving the guns at home. There had been enough killing.
Hamish, his presence always there, kept silent for the most part, as if he, too, had taken some pleasure in Trevor’s broad interests and quiet humor. Rutledge wondered if the two men would have liked each other in life. Or if his own precious and precarious sense of peace had held Hamish at arm’s length. But when Rutledge was alone, it was as it had always been, a trial of the spirit.
When he arrived in the kitchen on Sunday morning, Morag wasn’t alone.
In the big room with its iron stove and old-fashioned hearth, the scent of fresh scones was warm and delicious. But the thin, fair man who stood up from the table, pink with embarrassment and determination, was wearing the uniform of a policeman. A Scots policeman.
Morag, fetching the teapot from the stove where it had been steeping, told Rutledge, “He won’t go away. His name’s McKinstry, and he’s the grandson of my late sister’s husband’s cousin. He wants to see you.” In Scotland, kith and kin cast a wide net.
“McKinstry,” Rutledge acknowledged, taking his accustomed chair and moving his cup closer to Morag as she turned to pour. “What brings you here?”
“Inspector Rutledge,” the young Scot said with formality. “I’m not sure, sir. That is to say, it’s business, my own business, I’ve come about.”
“Just as well. I have no jurisdiction here. I’m on holiday.”
“Aye, sir. I’ve been told that.” The constable glanced uneasily at Morag. She, apparently, had made it quite plain that no kin of hers would disturb Himself’s guest. “I’m from near Jedburgh. The town where I’m stationed is smaller and not on the main road. I doubt you’ve ever heard of it until now. Duncarrick, sir.”
Hamish, who had been on edge since crossing the border, was already busy speculating and not liking the answers he found.
It was the town that Inspector Oliver had come from, the policeman who had so enraged Lady Maude Gray. “Yes. I’ve heard of it.” Morag had set the plate of hot scones in front of him and a dish of butter. He wished McKinstry to the devil but listened politely as he reached for his knife. The man, unwittingly, was an intrusion of things Rutledge had deliberately put out of his mind for these few days. Hamish, stirring as Rutledge himself felt an upsurge of tension, was an undercurrent half heard.
The constable’s face brightened. “It’s not a troublesome place. I know the people well enough, I can’t say they’re any worse than people are in the next town or the next-”
“Get on with it, McKinstry!” Morag said.
The scones were excellent. Rutledge had dreamed about them at the Front-the food had been unspeakable, and after a while nobody paid any heed to what he was swallowing, but there were other times when a sudden memory brought back a taste so vivid, it seemed to linger on the tongue. He found himself thinking of Ross, who had always sat across from him, grinning as they put away one after another until the plate was empty.
McKinstry cleared his throat, unaware that he was standing behind Ross’s chair, his hands touching the worn wood of the back, infringing on a memory.
“Inspector Oliver informed me late yesterday afternoon that there was a man coming from London to help us in the matter of Lady Maude Gray’s daughter. Rutledge, the Inspector said the name was. I came this morning to ask Morag Gilchrist if it was one and the same man she knew. She said you were here on holiday, but if I was brief, I could ask-”
Rutledge, another scone halfway to his mouth, stared at the young constable. A man coming from London… Rutledge, he said the name was… He turned sharply to look toward Morag, but she was working at the oven, her back to him.
When he’d spoken to the Yard Friday morning, nothing had been said about continuing to Duncarrick. Was he now expected to report his conversation with Lady Maude to the Scots in person? It would be very like Bowles to throw a subordinate to the wolves, if the Chief Superintendent saw unpleasantness ahead. The man had a knack for taking cover at the right time! Or had some new information come to light at the teaching hospitals? Whatever it was, Rutledge had a sudden nasty feeling that he was going to be the sacrificial lamb He was aware that McKinstry was still talking. “… and it’s what London may have given you that worries me, added to the fact she’s incarcerated, awaiting trial-”
Who was incarcerated? Rutledge said, “We were speaking of Eleanor Gray-”
“Yes, sir, that’s true, but it’s only circumstantial evidence at best. All the same, I’ve a feeling that’s sufficient to hang her. In Duncarrick, any jury picked will be ready to vote guilty before they’ve heard a single word. Overturning public opinion is the hurdle, and I’ve not got the skill to do it,” McKinstry told him earnestly, an undercurrent of severe strain in his voice. “But surely there’s a way? I’ve come to ask you to keep an open mind, and search for it. To my way of thinking, if we fail her, we’ve failed ourselves as policemen!”
It was a heartfelt appeal, and very near to insubordination. The constable stood there, young and determined, knowing that he’d placed his job in jeopardy by questioning the decisions of his superiors in Duncarrick, but believing strongly enough in what he saw as duty to put his trust in a stranger. There were a number of people at the Yard who would have had McKinstry up on charges. A constable was not allowed opinions.
But his appeal was wasted on Rutledge, who knew only the English side of the investigation. “I haven’t any idea what you’re talking about,” he said flatly. “So far London hasn’t told me anything. I
came north to speak to Lady Maude Gray, and I have had no orders to continue to Duncarrick.” As Morag set a plate of eggs before him, he went on, “For God’s sake, man, sit down and eat some breakfast, so that I can enjoy mine!”
McKinstry said, flushing, “I’ve had mine, sir, if it’s all the same to you!”
“Then sit down and drink a cup of tea. And start at the beginning.”
The constable pulled out a chair and glanced at Morag. She brought him a fresh cup and set it before him without a word. She didn’t need words to convey the message that he had overstepped his bounds. He could read it clearly in her face.
Hamish, moved to comment, said, “He believes what he’s come to say.”
McKinstry poured himself a cup of tea, added milk and sugar like a condemned man determined to show courage eating his last meal, and then, without tasting it, began rather stiffly. “There’s a woman in my district. A good woman-but she’s been the subject of anonymous letters. Not mailed, you understand, just stuck in the corner of a door or left pinned to a clothesline, wherever they’d be noticed first thing in the morning.”
“All right, anonymous. What did they say? There’s usually a theme.”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, sir, they called her a whore. And as word spread, the rumors followed. No one confronted her with the accusations. That’s what I find hardest to accept. No one gave her a chance to explain. Instead they turned their backs on her. It appeared she’d lied to people, you see, and they saw it as a betrayal of trust.” He stopped, frowning. “At least that’s what they must have told themselves to excuse what they were doing. I can’t see any other explanation. Then, to make matters worse, it came to light just after the letters began that she might have murdered the mother of a child she’d claimed was her own. She was taken up on that charge. Inspector Oliver will tell you the case against her, and about the bones. My concern is that the jury will hang her if they can, because it’s human nature to want to believe you can’t be fooled for long.”