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The Kidnapping: An Ian Rutledge Original Short Story With Bonus Content

Page 4

by Charles Todd


  Surely they would send the men in France home quickly. It had been four long lonely unbearable years. Even the Army couldn’t expect families to wait beyond a month—six weeks. It wasn’t as if the Allies must occupy Germany. This was, after all, an armistice, not a surrender. The Germans would be as eager to go home as the British.

  Peter was some years younger than she, for heaven’s sake—though she’d never confessed to that, lying cheerfully about her age from the start. A man in his midthirties had no business going to fight in France. But of course he was a career soldier, fighting was what he did, in all the distant corners of the Empire. France was nearly next door; it would require only a Channel crossing and he’d be in Dover.

  She had never gone with him to his various postings—Africa, China, India—to godforsaken towns whose names she could hardly remember, and so he’d bought her a map and hung it in the sitting room, where she could see it every day, with a pin in each place he’d stayed. It had brought him nearer. One year he had nearly died of malaria and couldn’t come home on leave. That was the awful winter when Timmy died, and she had been there alone to do what had to be done. She had expected to lose Peter as well, sure that God was angry with her. But Peter had survived, and the loneliness had been worse than before, because there was no one in the cottage to talk to except for Jake.

  He’d sent her small gifts from time to time: a sandalwood fan from Hong Kong, silk shawls from Benares, and cashmere ones from Kashmir. A lovely woolen one from New Zealand, soft and warm as a Welsh blanket. Lacey pillow slips from Goa, a painted bowl from Madeira, its flowers rampant in the loveliest colors. Thoughtful gifts, including that small but perfect ruby, set in a gold ring he’d brought back from Burma.

  She had asked, on his next leave after Timmy’s death, to go with him to his next posting, but he had held her close and told her that white women didn’t survive in the African heat, and he’d resign his commission before he’d lose her. She had loved him for that, though she would have taken her chances, if he’d asked.

  She had kept back a new dress to wear for his homecoming, and each day now she must wash her hair in good soap, rinsing it in hard-to-come-by lemon juice she had also saved for the occasion. She could see too that she needed a little rouge, only a very little so he wouldn’t notice the new lines, thinking instead how well she looked.

  She’d reread all his letters until they were as worn as her hands, and knew by heart every one of them. They lay in a rosewood box by her favorite chair, where she could touch them and feel his presence.

  It occurred to her that she ought to do something—something so special that he’d always remember the day he came through the door and found her waiting. Something that would take his mind off her, and the changes he was sure to see first thing.

  Another thought struck her. His letters had been fewer and the weeks between them longer in the past two years. And there had only been one this year. Was he concealing something? She had dreaded word that he was dead, even though he’d spent most of the war safely behind the lines at HQ. But men were wounded every day. Still, if anything terrible had happened to him, he would surely have told her—or asked the sister in charge of his ward to write to her if he couldn’t. He would never keep a secret from her. Never. They had always been close and truthful with each other about the smallest thing. Well, of course not about the difference in their ages! He’d always lived a charmed life—he’d told her about the tiger hunt that went badly wrong, and the African warthog that had nearly got him, and the storm that had all but wrecked their troop ship in the middle of the Atlantic, the volcanic eruption in Java when he was trying to bring the natives to safety.

  But even charms ran out after a while, didn’t they?

  His last letter had been written in early summer, telling her how enthusiastic the British were to have the Americans come into the fighting after long weeks of training. He’d told her that he’d soon be busy “mopping up.”

  The Hun can’t last much longer now the Yanks are here. So, dear heart, don’t worry. I’ve made it this far, and I’ll make it home. You’ll see!

  But what if—?

  She put the thought out of her mind even before it could frame itself. If anything had happened, surely someone would have come to tell her.

  Instead she tried to think what she could do—what would cry welcome and love and hope, and show her gratitude for his safe return at last.

  She gazed around the small bedroom, at the curtains she kept starched and crisp, at the floral pattern of the carpet and the matching rose coverlet on the bed. No, not here. Leave their room as he remembered it. She went down the stairs, walking through each room with new eyes, trying to see it as Peter might. There was neither the time nor the money to buy new things, and besides, how many times had Peter told her he liked to find himself in familiar surroundings, because they offered him safety and the sure sense that he was home.

  Desperate, she went out to the gate, to see if she could fasten something there, a banner or ribbons. Not flags, flags had taken him off to war. And not flowers—there were none to be had at this time of year.

  She turned to look at the house, neat and white and holding all her happiness, except for Timmy. She wouldn’t change it for the world.

  And then all at once she knew what she must do. It stared back at her with such force she wondered she hadn’t thought about it before.

  The next morning, she walked down to the village and bought a tin of paint and carried it home jubilantly.

  That afternoon, as the sun came out from behind the clouds and the light breeze felt like early autumn again, she painted the faded gray front door a vibrant and glorious red.

  A Pale Horse

  A Pale Horse

  Charles Todd

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A PALE HORSE. Copyright © 2008 by Charles Todd. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  FIRST HARPER PAPERBACK PUBLISHED 2009.

  * * *

  The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:

  Todd, Charles.

  A pale horse / Charles Todd.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-06-123356-2

  1. Rutledge, Ian (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Police—England—Fiction. 3. Great Britain—History—George V, 1910 –1936—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3570.O37P35 2008

  813’.54—dc22

  2007018088

  * * *

  ISBN 978-0-06-167270-5 (pbk.)

  09 10 11 12 13 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Chapter One

  BERKSHIRE

  Early April 1920

  It was nearing the full moon, and the night seemed to shimmer with light.

  He walked down the lane and turned to look up at the hillside.

  The graceful white horse cut into the chalk by ancient Britons galloped across the green slope without stirring from its place.

  He couldn’t see it without remembering. That was the only reason he had chosen to live in this Godforsaken place. To torment himself until he couldn’t bear it any more.

  The horses had died too, in that first gas attack. It wasn’t just the men. The poor beasts couldn’t know what the low-lying mist wafting toward them brought in its wake.

  An eye
witness had likened the cloud to a great horse moving across a barren meadow, ambling toward the barn for its dinner. Not hurrying, not drifting, just moving steadily, without apparent purpose, without apparent design, following the wind as the horse followed the scent of its stall and the fresh hay heaped in the manger. But like the pale horse of the Apocalypse, on his back rode Death. And Hell had truly followed them.

  He smiled grimly at the imagery.

  He hadn’t been there when the Germans unleashed the chlorine attack against the Allies at Ypres. Yet it had changed his life in ways no one could have foreseen.

  He wished he’d never heard the name of that medieval Belgian town. He wished the Germans had never reached it. Or that the British had left well enough alone and let them have the wretched place.

  There was a silver flask of brandy in his pocket, and he felt for it, uncapped it, lifted it to his lips, then paused.

  What if he drank it to the dregs and crawled into the ruins of Wayland’s Smithy to die, like a wounded animal hiding itself away until it either healed or breathed its last?

  Would anyone care?

  A shadow was coming up the road toward him. It was Andrew Slater, the smith. It was impossible not to recognize him, even at this distance. Andrew was built like a church tower, tall and broad and solid. But the man didn’t turn at the lane. He passed by without speaking, as if sleepwalking, moving on toward the Smithy. Like to like.

  It would be crowded inside with the two of them there, he told himself with black humor. Not counting whatever ghosts lingered in that narrow Stone Age tomb.

  I envy Andrew Slater, he thought, there in the darkness. He lives only in the present, while I have only the past.

  He drank a little of the brandy, for courage, saluting the pale horse with his flask. Then he turned and trudged back to his cottage and turned up all the lamps for comfort.

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  THE KIDNAPPING. Copyright © 2010 by Charles Todd. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition December 2010 ISBN: 9780062061973

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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