A Fatal Lie

by Charles Todd

  He couldn’t quite see her as a murderer. But women with children to protect could find resources within themselves to do what had to be done. Even if it included murder.

  “Aye, but yon husband didna’ believe he was deid,” Hamish said.

  He caught himself in time, and didn’t answer. Ruth was looking away, her eyes on the windows, seeing something he couldn’t read.

  After a moment she said forlornly, “Why my child? Why Tildy? How could anyone be so very cruel?”

  And that, Rutledge thought, whether she liked it or not, brought them back to Sam Milford’s sister.

  He used the excuse that he wanted to review the actual kidnapping again, and in the afternoon, questioned Ruth, her cousin, and her cousin’s husband. They couldn’t add anything new, they had been over this with the police at the time, and with Rutledge twice.

  When they had finished, he brought out his notebook and took the bit of ribbon from it, holding it up for the three of them to see.

  Ruth cried out as if she’d been stabbed in the heart.

  Donald got to his feet, swearing at Rutledge, his face twisted in anguish.

  Ruth reached for the ribbon. “She was wearing it. It was in her hair the day she was taken. Where did you find it? You must tell me, I have to know—in God’s name—”

  “Can you be perfectly sure of that? It could be a similar ribbon—”

  But Nan and Donald supported her, Nan saying over and over, “That’s Tildy’s, it was one of Ruth’s favorite bows for her hair. I’d recognize it anywhere.”

  “I found it in an empty house in Wales.”

  They stared at him, their questions tumbling over each other in their anxiety.

  But he said only, “The woman’s name was Ruth Middleton. Does that mean anything to you?”

  It didn’t. He hadn’t expected it to.

  Ruth was in tears now. “Does this mean she’s alive? Please—”

  But whether Gwennie—Tildy—or a child that didn’t exist—had lived in that house, or not, he didn’t know. And so he couldn’t answer them.

  Afterward, when Nan had taken Ruth home, Donald told Rutledge what he thought of him. “I hope you got what you wanted with that display of cruelty. But for my money you ought to be taken off this inquiry and someone else put in charge. It was mean, vicious, unnecessary. Ruth was beginning to heal. Then you gave her hope, and now it will all have to be done again. The weeping, the nights pacing the floor, the grieving. You ought to be ashamed of that.”

  “I had to know,” he said quietly. “Who else would recognize that bit of ribbon but Tildy’s family?”

  “Who is this Middleton woman? What’s she to Ruth or Sam or Tildy?”

  “I don’t know. Not yet.”

  “How did she come to have that ribbon?”

  “I wish I knew. It was the only thing in an empty house that didn’t appear to belong there. According to the police in the village, she lived alone there.”

  Donald began to pace. “Was she the kidnapper?”

  “If she was, according to the police, there was no child with her.”

  “Then what did she do with Tildy?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It was your business to know. Why didn’t you make her tell you?”

  “She had gone away. They weren’t expecting her to come back.”

  Donald swore. Then, rounding on Rutledge again, he said, “You’re leaving in the morning. And I don’t want to see you cross Ruth’s threshold again until you can bring her daughter to her.”

  “It’s what I’ve been trying to do,” Rutledge said grimly. “But so far, I have only a bit of ribbon. That doesn’t bode well for the truth.”

  He was alone in the pub after nine that evening.

  Will had served him his dinner, telling him stiffly that Ruth wouldn’t be available to see him off in the morning. And no one else had come in. Rutledge wasn’t sure whether that was by design or happenstance.

  He waited until the last lights had gone out in the village, and then quietly set out in his motorcar to where he’d left it when he’d first seen the figure walking toward Little Bog.

  The motorcycle was still hidden, just as it had been earlier. As far as he could tell in the dark, without using his torch, it hadn’t been moved.

  Walking on, he listened to the night sounds. The rain had stopped in late afternoon, but the sky was still overcast, cutting down on the ambient light. But the road had been well used in its day and, despite the encroaching weeds, was still a pale ribbon unspooling before him as he approached the ruins.

  He came in a roundabout way. The village had been built on a semicircular plan, with the works in the center and the stand of trees beyond that, closing the circle. Moving silently, he found the corner of a house from which he could just see into the black interior of the powder barn.

  A light flickered there, and as his eyes adjusted, he could see that it was from a flame—a fire on the hearth.

  There was no shadow moving back and forth across the orange flickers.

  She was not in there. He could feel it.

  More alert than ever, he stood watch.

  But the dancing flames held him, taking him back to the war and the precious warmth of the candle in his dugout, where he kept his company records and his diary and wrote letters to the relatives of the dead.

  He could feel himself drifting back there, to the sound of Hamish’s voice just outside the cloth that hid his light from German snipers.

  Rutledge struggled against the draw of the past, of the war. He could hear the shells now, ranging first, finding their target soon enough. And the scramble to get out of their path, to pick up the wounded and carry them to safety. Such as it was.

  He was being sucked into the darkness of his mind, and he fought now, his teeth clenched, his hold on the unlit torch all but a death grip.

  He hadn’t expected this—he hadn’t been prepared. And yet the nightmare rolled on.

  He wouldn’t scream. He wouldn’t—!

  Hamish said softly, “’Ware!”

  And somehow he heard the word and clung to it, rising up from the depths and shadows and feeling the rough stone edge of the cottage biting into his shoulder as he leaned hard into it.

  He’d heard nothing. But Hamish had.

  A footstep? He couldn’t remember.

  Something.

  He began to realize then. The fire on the little stone hearth was a decoy. It was there to draw whoever had come.

  Refusing to believe that she could have seen him—or that one betraying footprint—in the afternoon, he waited until moonrise.

  But she never came to the powder barn. And when he moved closer as the fire began to burn down, shadows changing in the uneven light, he knew she’d been clever.

  Where had she set her night camp? In the trees? The boarded entrance to a shaft? In what was left of the main building, where the manager must have had an office?

  The ruins were full of choices. If he searched, she would see him long before he saw her. And disappear again.

  While he had no choice but to retreat.

  Why had she come here? What had drawn her to the place where that child had been taken? Where her brother and his wife had lived?

  The questions rang through his head all the way back to the motorcar.

  Had she been here before and knew it was a sanctuary of sorts? Or was there something she had come for, was waiting for?

  According to the man in the slate quarry, Susan Milford was expected there.

  But he remembered hearing a motorcycle racing down the hill outside his hotel room window. Had that been her, on her way to the quarry, and the man had lied to him?

  Then who was here?

  A red fox vixen trotted across his path, nose up, sniffing the night air.

  A thought flashed through his mind as he watched her disappear. If Susan Milford had a familiar, as witches were said to do, it would be a fox . . .

  Hamish said as R
utledge bent to turn the motorcar’s crank, “Ye ken, if it is her, it could be trouble for its ain sake.”

  Hamish could very well be right.

  He didn’t sleep well, after he got himself quietly back into the inn. It was just after three in the morning when he heard a noise downstairs. His first thought was that Will had come to start the bread and leave it to rise. There was no bakery in Crowley.

  But he got up, left his boots where they were, and opened his door as quietly as he could. There was only darkness and silence from the head of the stairs. He made his way there and started down. As he did, he heard the quiet click of the door that led to the yard.

  Someone had gone out. He sniffed the air. No scent of yeast and dough. Moving quietly still, he brought back a mental picture of where the tables and chairs had been in the evening and avoided them in the darkness as his eyes began to adjust.

  There was no one in the yard as he reached the door and peered out. He thought he saw a shape by the barn, but it was too vague to be sure.

  He waited, but didn’t see any further movement.

  Nan or Donald could have come back for something. But at this hour?

  Short of lighting all the lamps, there was no way to tell if anything was missing or had been taken.

  After a time, he went back to bed, and finally fell into an uneasy sleep.

  He was finishing his breakfast in the morning when Ruth came in through the main door. She hesitated as she saw him sitting there, then gathered her courage and strode briskly toward the kitchen. She gave him a cold nod in passing, but didn’t speak.

  She came back with a tray and began to set several tables with silverware and cups. Halfway through, she stopped, and he heard her say, “That’s odd.”

  He looked up, saw that she was staring at the line of frames around the wall, those her father had put up of the miners in his day.

  One of them was missing, an empty space. It was at the end of the row that ran over the doorway and into the corner, where the line turned and came toward the main wall.

  Rising, he walked over to where she was standing.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  She turned on him, accusing. “Did you take that photograph down?”

  “No. Why should I take it?”

  “Well, it’s missing.”

  “What was the photograph of?”

  He expected her to say that it was one of the miners or possibly the machinery that they were working.

  “It was when Sam enlisted. He’d come back to the pub, and everyone was eager to buy him a drink, slapping him on the back, wishing him well. He’d wanted to join up, but he was too short. They wouldn’t have him. And then the call came for the Bantams, and he was off to Chester on the next train, eager to do his bit. I was against it, but he told me he couldn’t serve men in a bar when he could fight for his country. That he had to go and show them that he was as good a soldier as any man. And I let him go.” Her voice caught on the last word, as if she still felt a deep regret for all that had happened between the time she had sent him off to war and the day he’d come home again, finally.

  “Who would take such a thing?” she asked. “When? You were the only one here for dinner last night.” And then, sadly, “I gave you my best photograph of him. Why did you need that one too?”

  “I give you my word. I don’t have it. I’d looked at these, yes, but I hadn’t noticed that particular one. Or if I had, I didn’t know what it signified.”

  But he didn’t think she believed him.

  Had he been right after all? That Susan Milford had come back to Crowley? But for a photograph? It didn’t make any sense. How had she even known it was there? She must have seen his motorcar in the yard, must have known someone was staying in the pub. And yet she had slipped in and taken it as quietly as a thief in the night. Was she making trouble for Ruth, as Hamish had said? If so, she’d succeeded. He was about to tell Ruth what he’d heard in the night, then stopped himself in time.

  She already felt violated, believing that someone had come in and taken something else from her. He didn’t need to confirm her worst fears.

  He left soon afterward and this time drove all the way into the old ruins, up to the front of the powder barn, and blew his horn.

  But when he got out and went inside to look, it was swept clean. There was no sign that anyone had been there. Only the lingering smell of woodsmoke from the little fire. Even the stones had been taken out and thrown somewhere, so that the woman’s presence was wiped clean.

  When he was certain that she was no longer anywhere in the ruins, he went back to where the motorcycle had been hidden.

  It too was gone.

  She’d got what she came for.

  But why was that particular photograph important? How had she known it would hurt Ruth to lose it?

  Rutledge couldn’t believe that the Susan Milford that he’d been hunting was sentimental enough to want a photograph of her late brother.

  But then, odder things had happened.

  He got back into the motorcar, finally, and was on his way to Shrewsbury when a herd of cattle blocked his way. The farmer, touching his cap at Rutledge, moved them on, but while he was waiting for the last cow to meander across the road, he could have sworn he heard a motorcycle in the distance, traveling in the same direction.

  He sped up as soon as his road was clear. But he never caught up with it.

  13

  He came into Shrewsbury by the Abbey once more, and then threaded his way to Church Street and the Prince Rupert.

  Watching the Wednesday-morning traffic around him, he was about to turn into the yard when he saw what looked like the end of a Sunbeam motorcycle already there. Swerving back into the road, he went around the corner, out of sight, and left his motorcar there.

  Walking back, he stepped into the hotel and found a porter carrying a valise up to a room. He took the man aside and asked, “That motorcycle in the yard. Do you know who it belongs to? I think it might be a friend’s.”

  “The Sunbeam, sir? That belongs to Mr. Milford.”

  “Sam Milford?”

  “Yes, sir. He’s kept rooms here for years. Since the war, to my certain knowledge. He comes and goes, a busy man. A quiet guest.”

  “Small world, isn’t it?” he said affably, and gave the man something for his trouble. When the porter was out of sight, Rutledge left.

  Sam Milford had always stayed at a small, inexpensive, and unpretentious hotel in a very different part of town. The Pit and The Pony couldn’t afford any better accommodations—or so Rutledge had been told. He wondered now if Milford’s other reason was to avoid his sister. But then how had he known where his sister was staying?

  Rutledge kept walking until he’d reached the street where Hastings and Hastings had chambers. Finding a shallow doorway several houses away, he waited.

  An hour passed, and he moved on to another vantage point, patient and watchful.

  It was nearly two o’clock when his vigil was finally rewarded.

  A slim figure in a man’s black-and-khaki riding dress walked down the street, felt hat pulled low over his features. But he didn’t stop at the solicitor’s door. Instead he went past, and turned down a service alley between two other buildings. An hour later he came back the same way and walked on.

  A tall boy? A short man? Or a woman in a man’s clothes?

  Rutledge set out to follow at a distance.

  But Shrewsbury was a town of what the locals called shuts. Passages running between and under buildings, where it was impossible to keep his quarry in sight. And in the third shut, he lost her. Whether she had ducked into a shop on the far side or found another way out, he didn’t know.

  It was tempting to book his dinner in the Prince Rupert dining room to see who came to sit at Sam Milford’s table. He had never seen a photograph of Susan, he had only Hastings’s description to guide him. And that was not reliable.

  But Rutledge himself was not ready to be seen. As
long as she didn’t know he was there, he was free to track her.

  What role had Susan Milford played here? Was she a murderer? Had she been responsible for taking Tildy? If so, what had she done with the child? Was she haunted by that, and suffering delusions in Beddgwian?

  Hastings had the answers—he must have them. But he would surely lie. Speaking to him would only serve to put the solicitor and Susan Milford on their guard.

  He went back to the Prince Rupert, its handsome Tudor facade bright in the afternoon sun, and found a tea shop down the way where he could sit at a table that offered him a view of the hotel’s entrance. But she didn’t come back there. Or if she did, he never saw her.

  Then, just as the owner of the tea shop informed him that it was closing for the day, he glimpsed the Sunbeam pulling out of the hotel yard and turning his way.

  He hastily paid for his tea and hurried up the street to where he’d left his own vehicle.

  Where had she gone from the hotel? South to Crowley and Little Bog? Or across the river and on to Wales? But she had the photograph now . . .

  He cursed the crank, then was behind the wheel, heading as fast as he dared through the town’s busy streets toward the Welsh Bridge and the road west. He crossed over it and was into the outskirts of Shrewsbury without sighting the Sunbeam.

  Hamish said tersely, “Ye guessed wrong.”

  “We’ll have to see,” he retorted, and kept his eyes on the road ahead.

  It wasn’t until he was well on his way to Oswestry with nothing but instinct leading him that in the distance he caught sight of the Sunbeam again, just rounding a bend in the road.

  She was heading back to Wales.

  Cold air had followed the rain, sweeping in and dropping drifts of late snow in the mountains. Shaded roads were slippery with ice, almost invisible until a driver was nearly on it.

  Even here the motorcycle was running fast. Sometimes he found tracks in the pristine white snowfall, and at other times he could hear a faint echo across a valley. His motorcar ran almost silently, but its passage also betrayed him from time to time, as the road narrowed and the speeding tires, gripping the wet surface, made slushing sounds.