by Charles Todd
The shot reverberated as a shower of stone chippings flew to his left, peppering his face. He could feel them tear flesh, stinging all along his temple and cheek, as vicious as bird shot, barely missing his eye. Blood began to trickle in their wake.
Dale was closer than he’d thought.
Moving fast, Rutledge surged forward, the torch in his left hand, lashing out with it as Dale prepared to fire again. The blow caught him off balance, and Rutledge shoved hard.
Dale fell backward, grunting as he struggled not to keep sliding on the loose scree. Ignoring him, Rutledge reached down and caught Ruth Milford’s outstretched arm, pulling hard. Somehow she got to her feet, and he swung her behind him. “Go down. Find the path,” he said, and turned his attention back to Dale.
But the man had already begun scrambling back the way he’d come, stones scattering in his wake as Rutledge followed.
They made their unsteady way along the ridge, from tor to tor, and then Dale was sliding down, crying out as he lost his footing. The cry broke off as he caught himself with a grunt, and Rutledge could hear him just below, still picking his way down.
Rutledge started after him, heard him leap to the ground with another grunt, and start toward the trees.
He lost Dale in there, where it was black as pitch now, limbs slashing at him as he plowed his way through. The coating of leaves on the ground, slick from all the rain, was treacherous underfoot, and he found himself slipping and sliding, clinging to the rough bark of trunks as he kept going.
And then the trees were thinning, he was nearly in the open. Scanning for any sight of Dale, he stood catching his breath for a few seconds. But there was no sign of him. Rutledge was certain he’d come this way, at least until they’d reached the trees. But had he doubled back?
He started running, intending to skirt the long ridge until he could see Dale, but Ruth Milford came bursting out of the trees almost in front of him before he’d gone fifteen paces.
She was dazed, crying out as he came racing toward her, trying to turn back into the trees.
“It’s Rutledge,” he said sharply, catching at her arm, but she pulled away, ducking under the nearest limb, back into the trees.
He let her go, still searching for Dale.
In the distance he heard a motorcar start to move, reversing on the rough ground. Headlamps came on, blinding as they spun across him. And then the motorcar was speeding down the track, the light bouncing and lurching over the ruts.
He watched it go.
Then he turned and called Ruth’s name, shouting until she answered him and he could guide her toward him.
As she came out of the trees, he said, “He’s gone. In his motorcar.”
She was shaking. “Why didn’t he shoot me? He had the chance. Why?”
“He didn’t want a bullet in you. Or me. Or I daresay he’d have made short work of us all the same. Come with me. The motorcar is this way. Let’s get you back to the pub. Mrs. Blake is at the Esterly house. They are alone.”
When he had got to the village, he stopped at the Esterly house to collect Nan, and then drove on to the pub. He went in first, found it safe, and then brought the two women inside. Only then did he go to the lamp by the main door and light it. Ruth, still shaken, was busy locking all the doors.
In the brightening lamplight, Nan Blake looked at Ruth, disheveled, her hair down her back, cuts and scratches all over her face and hands. “Did you find Tildy? Oh, please, say you did.”
“She wasn’t there. It was all a trick.” Ruth sat down heavily in the nearest chair. Glancing toward Rutledge, she added, “You are bleeding.”
He remembered the splinters of stone. They were beginning to sting.
“Mrs. Blake—can you make some tea? You and your cousin need it.”
“Where are you going?” Nan Blake said quickly as he started toward the side door. “Do you know how late it is?”
But he had learned in the trenches how to go without sleep.
“I’m going after him. Lock up behind me. I don’t think he’ll circle back. Still—”
And he was out in the yard, turning the crank and getting behind the wheel.
Hamish said, “He willna’ harm the child now. No’ if she’s still alive.”
But Rutledge wasn’t convinced.
He turned on his headlamps and drove out of the pub yard. And hoped to God that he was heading in the right direction.
Ludlow, with its castle high above the River Teme, was a busy town, and he avoided it, searching instead for the least likely village where it might be safe to keep a small but very noticeable child. Where a family or a woman would be glad of the income she brought with her.
But which? He had a map, he’d have to make a circle of possible villages and ask in each.
Dawn broke as Rutledge stopped for petrol, and took the opportunity to wash his face at the pump, even if he couldn’t shave. He could do nothing about the small cuts, and his hands were scratched, his driving gloves torn in places.
The cold wind had kept up, and the clouds over his head were heavy. He wasn’t surprised when he ran through a series of snow squalls, dusting the countryside with white and making visibility difficult at times. The wind seemed to sweep the interior of the motorcar with gusts that left his hands cold on the wheel. Pulling up his coat collar, he drove on.
By the time he found Stockford, hardly more than a hamlet on a tributary of the Teme, it was quite late in the day.
There was a stone bridge over the river where once there had been a ford for stock on an old drover road. A small church stood on higher ground, ancient yews surrounding the gate set into the churchyard wall. A general store was closed for the afternoon, and when he went to knock at the vicarage door, he saw the small sign in the window to his left.
Rector James Easton, Walford Church, Walford. Services in Stockford every other Sunday.
He left the motorcar in the vicarage’s short drive and walked up the main street, past the shops and the general store, looking for someone he could speak to. But the weather kept them indoors.
Time was precious. He was about to turn back to the motorcar when he saw a face in a window, peering out at him.
He turned at once toward the door, and knocked lightly. Without urgency or threat.
The English didn’t care for strangers knocking at their doors, and at first he thought the man he’d seen in the window was not going to answer.
The door opened just as he was about to turn away, and Rutledge realized why it had taken some time for the householder to get there. He was sitting in a wheeled chair.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
He was a Bantam. Rutledge was certain of it. Broad-shouldered, but no more than five feet tall, a scar running across his jawline. One leg was missing. Although a rug was spread over his limbs, the empty space on the left side was evident.
He changed what he’d planned to say, had used in his approach to the residents of four other villages. Instead, he began, “Captain Rutledge,” and gave his regiment.
“The Scots.” The man nodded. “Bonny fighters, they were.”
“They were indeed.”
“If you’ve come collecting for the funds, I’m afraid you’re at the wrong door. I need more than I can give.”
“In the Bantams, were you? I had a good friend there. Milford was his name.”
The man shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t know him. Not my battalion, I expect. But then I was invalided out in ’17. He could have come up later.”
“Actually, I’m looking for the Rector. Not here most days?”
“’Fraid not. Left us to our sins, mostly.”
“I came in search of a grave. Our nanny. I can’t remember the name of the village. The bridge looked familiar, but not the church.”
“My Aunt Jo could probably help you, she’s lived here all her life. What was the name?”
“Patricia Long. Nanny Long to us.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t
sound familiar.”
Rutledge gestured toward the door. “Does she live with you? Your Aunt Jo? I’d like to speak to her.”
“She lives in the last cottage before the bridge. Did you come from Ludlow? You passed it if you did.”
“Thank you. I’ll ask her.”
He was about to turn away when the man in the wheeled chair said, “Tell her I’m waiting for my dinner. She usually brings it up.”
“I’ll be glad to pass that along.” He thanked the man, and went back the way he’d come. He could see the cottage as soon as he passed the churchyard. It was small, tidy, with a garden in the back and a run for chickens.
He was nearly there when the words came back to him. Tell her I’m waiting for my dinner.
It was well past the dinner hour. Slowing, he kept his eye on the cottage. Had the words been a signal—or were they an indication that something was wrong?
Another squall of snow came through, dusting his hat and his shoulders, swirling around the chimney—
There was no smoke coming out of the cottage chimney. And it was quite cold, given the wind and the snow.
He began to run.
The door was locked. He pounded on it two or three times, then went round to the back. The kitchen door opened under his hand, and he stood there for several seconds, listening.
The silence was ominous. There were pots on the cooker, but when he put a hand on its frame, it was barely warm. An onion lay half chopped on a plate. It was already withering.
It explained why her nephew was sitting at his window wondering where his dinner might be . . .
Moving quietly now, he stepped from the kitchen into the narrow hall, where the stairs went up and the two front rooms opened into the entry as it widened by the outer door.
He could see her then. Lying sprawled at the foot of the steps. Her white hair was dark with blood, and from the way her body was angled, he thought she must surely have broken her neck.
Going to her, dropping on one knee, he put his fingers at her throat.
To his surprise, there was a fluttering pulse. She was alive. But for how long? Stockford had no Rector, he hadn’t seen a police station, and there was very likely no doctor.
He began to work with her, his Army training coming back to him as he ran his hand up and down her limbs. He touched her head, saw the swelling and the cut on her forehead. Impossible to tell if that was from the fall—or a blow that had sent her reeling down the steps. But when he tried to move her body, she whimpered.
“Dear God,” he said under his breath.
What had happened to this woman, and why? If he’d found the person who was taking care of Tildy—where was the child?
He rose and took the stairs two at a time, looked in one bedroom, found a blanket on the floor and picked it up. Then he went into the other.
And there she was, in the ancient crib pushed against the far wall. Her knees drawn up under her, the side of her face pressed to the mattress. Her red-gold hair was matted, wet, and the sheet under her face was as well. The bastard had left her to cry herself to sleep, alone in the cold house with a dying woman by the stairs.
But she was alive.
He backed out of the room, so as not to wake the child, went down the stairs, stopping only long enough to spread the blanket gently over the quiet form. Then, unlocking the door, he ran.
The fire bell was outside the general store. He reached for the rope, and began to tug at the bell, long pulls that made it toll as if he were ringing changes.
Doors began to open up and down the street, and someone came out of the nearest house, shouting, “What are you about, man? Who are you—is there a fire?”
He knew he looked like hell. The dark shadow of his beard, the cuts on his face, his clothes rumpled. Hardly trustworthy. But he didn’t stop until several men had joined the first man.
Letting the rope go, he said, “My name is Rutledge. Scotland Yard, London. There’s a severely injured woman in the house above the bridge. I must go for a doctor. But she needs to be cared for now, until I can bring someone back.” He reached for his identification and held it out for the nearest man to see, and then held it again for that man’s neighbor. “Is there a midwife in Stockford? No? A woman who is good with caring for people? Find her. Bring blankets, pillows, get the cooker heated for hot water and tea. Keep that poor woman alive. But don’t move her, do you hear me? Someone pushed her down those stairs. I want to know who. Take down anything she says. And for the love of God, hurry.”
He started for his motorcar, when someone shouted, “How do we know it wasn’t you who pushed Jo?”
He ignored the man, walking swiftly to the churchyard and his motorcar.
But he stopped at the cottage, leaving the motor running, and went up the stairs again. Scooping up her blankets, he wrapped them around the little girl and then lifted her into his arms. He wasn’t about to lose sight of her.
He took her down to the motorcar as she began to whimper, and set her carefully in the footwell, close by the tiny heater, arranging her blankets around her to cushion her and keep her warm.
Looking behind him, he saw villagers running toward the house, some of them already carrying bundles of blankets. And someone had brought the nephew’s wheeled chair out to the road, and was pushing it with all haste as the man shouted at him to hurry.
The bridge was nearly too narrow for the motorcar, but he had driven over it earlier, and now he made short work of crossing it a second time.
In the footwell, the child began to cry. And he began to talk to her.
Hamish said, “Ye canna’ be certain she’s Tildy. Ye’re a policeman. There’s no’ any proof. No’ yet.”
Rutledge said, “Who else could she be?”
“Ye canna’ tak her away. No’ until yon woman can tell ye who she is.”
But he had taken her. And he intended to keep her where he knew she was safe.
22
Rutledge had no idea where to find a doctor, swearing at himself as he realized he should have asked someone in Stockford. But in the third village down the road, he saw a Constable walking on the High Street, and hailed him.
“I need a doctor. It’s urgent.”
“That way, sir. Just beyond the church. I’ll meet you there.”
He found the surgery, ran to the door, and knocked.
The doctor himself answered. “I’m sorry, Letitia—” He stopped. “Sorry. You aren’t Letitia, are you?” He looked at Rutledge’s face. “And you appear to need my services.” Peering at the cuts over the tops of his glasses, he said, “Come in. Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“Doctor—” He glanced at the bronze plate by the door. “Doctor Masefield? It isn’t for me that I’ve come.” He handed over his identification. “I have a badly injured woman in Stockford, a fall down the stairs. But it appears that she was pushed. Head injury, no indication of broken limbs, but internal pain—her ribs, possibly. Bring what you may need. Meanwhile, do you have a wife? A nurse? I’ve a very young child in the motorcar. She appears to be all right. But it’s urgent that I keep her safe. Can you take her in, and let no one come anywhere near her until I have seen to her—um—nurse?” He only knew the injured woman as Aunt Jo.
“Yes—my wife. She has some training. But this child—”
A wail rose from the motorcar.
The Constable, just coming up the walk, turned toward it.
“Wait,” Rutledge called to him. “She’s had a bad fright. Doctor? Your wife?”
But he’d already stepped inside and was calling to her.
Rutledge opened the passenger’s door, reached in, and lifted the crying child into his arms, making soothing sounds as he turned back toward the surgery.
He heard the Constable say, “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Carrying Tildy close to his chest, his hand at her head, he went back to the door, where a woman was just coming into view.
“Let me take her,” she said quietly, reaching
out.
“Her name is Tildy. Matilda. She’s been abducted from her parents. Don’t let anyone near her, do you hear me?” He had to raise his voice over the child’s bereft cries.
“She’ll be fine. Come here, love, let’s find you something to eat. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? And we can visit—”
His bag in his hand, Dr. Masefield came running down the passage, cast one glance at his wife and the child in her arm, then shut the door, saying as he did, “Lock it, Mary, if you please.” Turning to Rutledge, he added, “I’ll take my own motorcar and catch you up. Constable?”
“I’ll ride with the gentleman, sir, if you don’t mind. But come back with you.”
“Good, good. Carry on.”
The Constable nodded to Rutledge, then got into the motorcar. “Now, then,” he said, settling himself. “If you could just tell me what’s happened, sir—”
They had almost reached the bridge as the Constable asked, “And you are fairly sure she was pushed. It wasn’t a fall.”
“You’ll see for yourself. There—you can see the chimney just there across the river.” Smoke was rising from it now, and he was glad of it. As he crested the bridge for the third time, he could see lights in the cottage windows and people moving about.
The two men went inside. Aunt Jo—he had no other name for her yet—lay where he’d left her, still covered in the blanket from the bedroom upstairs, although others had been added to keep her warm. She was awake, and in pain.
The doctor set his bag to one side and knelt beside her. “Well, now,” he said, in his best bedside manner, “let’s have a look at you. That’s a nasty bump on the head. What happened?”
The Constable—Hardy was his name—had knelt just beside the doctor and was reaching for his notebook.
“My head aches terribly,” the woman said. “And here—I think I bruised my ribs.” Her voice was just a thread, but the doctor was taking her pulse, and he looked up at Rutledge. “Erratic, as you’d expect. Shock. Pain. But we’ll be all right.”
“What’s your name, madam?” the Constable was asking.