by Charles Todd
They had come to one of the parties held for Jean, after the engagement was announced. Two older women in matching lavender gowns who had sat together on a small sofa, lips pursed, eyes missing nothing. He’d made a valiant attempt to talk to them, and had been very grateful when Jean’s mother had taken pity on him and rescued him. Jean had irreverently called them “the lady dragons.”
“Oh, yes,” he said, smiling. “I remember them.”
“I ought to be ashamed of wanting to escape, but they ask prying questions and then comment on one’s answers. There’s no pleasing them. I don’t think they’ve ever approved of me. Jean was always their favorite. But thank you for rescuing me today. It was very kind of you.”
“Josh’s loss was my gain.”
“I didn’t even think to ask if you had plans of your own—were you visiting someone at the hotel?”
“I’d come to use the telephone. I was given some information that means leaving London. But not today.”
“Then I shan’t feel too guilty.”
The cabbie was drawing up in front of the door. Baldwin’s had taken over a lovely old Georgian town house, renovated it, and turned it into a charming restaurant. The bones of the building remained in the interior, and there was a handsome gallery above the main dining room. Rutledge had been told that a harpist played there during the evening.
They were given a table for two near the fireplace, and as he helped Kate off with her coat, he caught a trace of her perfume, surprisingly exotic, sandalwood and lavender and something else he couldn’t name.
The waiter took her coat from him, and then Rutledge handed the man his own. These were whisked away.
As they took their seats, Kate said, “The child’s tea service that we chose. Was it successful?”
“Very. As it happened, when the tea service arrived, the little girl’s brother had just come down with measles. If I’d known, I’d have sent him something as well.” He didn’t add that the children’s mother had felt it was too expensive a gift.
“Poor little boy! I remember being thoroughly wretched and out of sorts.”
“My sister had them first, and I followed. I’m sure we tried my mother’s patience.”
The waiter reappeared just then with their menus.
In ordinary circumstances Rutledge would have ordered for her. Instead, he shared the menu with her. “What do you like best?”
She chose a soup, followed by a fish dish, with vegetables, and he ordered the roast pork.
Kate was very easy to talk to, but he was still too aware of what had happened in Cornwall, when she had been at risk. He hoped she didn’t think of that now, only of the art exhibit she was describing so amusingly. The last thing he wanted was her gratitude.
“And I wasn’t quite certain why the woman was painted with two faces, one red and one an odd shade of blue, but I was told that this was how the artist saw his wife. It wasn’t terribly flattering, good art or not. I shouldn’t think she would care to have the world know what he thought of her.”
The food was excellent, and he was enjoying her company. And then over their dessert, she looked at him for a moment, as if undecided about saying what was on her mind.
“What is it?” he asked, smiling. He thought for a moment that she was going to deny it, that he shouldn’t have pressed.
“Do you still miss Jean?” She was careful not to meet his eyes, dipping her spoon into the flan instead.
“No. Not for a long time, now.” He tried to be honest with her, but had to couch his reply in terms that didn’t reflect poorly on her cousin. It was Jean, after all, who had broken off the engagement when she saw the shattered man who had come home from France two years ago. He had set her free, and she hadn’t looked back, hadn’t even asked how he’d survived. That had hurt, more than he’d been willing to admit to anyone, even himself. “We weren’t suited, Kate. I think we both realized it finally. I’m glad she found happiness, brief though it was.”
Jean had died in childbirth in Canada where she’d gone to live with her diplomat husband.
Kate nodded. “A good many of my friends rushed into marriage that summer before the war. Not all of them have been happy. Jean couldn’t understand why you wanted to wait. It was wise, as it happened.”
They hadn’t talked about Jean before. Not like this. It was as if Kate wanted to make it clear that their friendship had little to do with the past.
“We expected the war to end by Christmas. Our lives might have been very different if it had. Four years is a very long time to wait for happiness.”
Jean had been a bright flame, dazzling and beautiful, and he’d been drawn to it, blinded by it. Whether he’d have fallen out of love with her when the fascination with that flame faded he didn’t know. She had demanded to be adored, while he had wanted what his parents had found, a loving partnership that had bound them together to the end. Jean, he thought, would have found any change in his adulation impossible to face, and he’d have spent a lifetime hiding it from her.
Kate said, “Unhappily, the war changed all our lives.”
Rutledge was struck by the sadness in her voice, and he wondered if there had been someone she had cared about. Someone who hadn’t come home.
He felt a sharp, unexpected stab of jealousy.
She looked up, offering him a smile. “How did we become so gloomy?”
He smiled for her, not trusting his voice.
“Are you leaving London for a new inquiry?” she asked, changing the subject.
“I’m trying to draw the present one to a close.”
“Is it a difficult one?”
“It has been, yes.”
“May I ask why you decided to return to the Yard after the war?”
He thought at first that she was referring obliquely to his shell shock. And then he realized her question was serious.
“It’s what I did before the war. I seemed to be suited to it. There was no reason to look elsewhere.” Yet it was more than that. He’d been grateful that the Yard welcomed him back. It had been his salvation, although Chief Superintendent Bowles had resented his university education. Still, the Yard needed to fill the vacancies left by those killed and maimed, and he was an experienced Inspector.
Nodding, she said, “I envy you. The volunteer work I did during the war was the most satisfying of my life. There are organizations. The Society of Friends is one. Although my father despises them for their opposition to the war and to conscription, I’m told their work with war refugees has saved thousands of lives. Not just in France but wherever there is a need. Russia. The Balkans. Armenia. The Red Cross is another. My parents are against it. But I’ve wondered if one of these might not be the right place for me. It was Josh who put me in touch with the Friends. He hasn’t served—so far I haven’t been able to speak to anyone who has.”
She was serious. He remembered something she’d said before, that she had learned that life was too precious to waste it worrying about small things.
“It’s dangerous work, Kate.” He felt uneasy, not certain that she fully understood the risks. “I’d be quite sure if I were you.”
She grinned suddenly, looking very young. “I shall have to learn several new languages. Do you know anyone who speaks Russian?”
“I don’t believe I do.”
“Nor do I.”
And they laughed together. But his uneasiness didn’t leave him.
He saw her home, although she warned him that he might encounter the cousins.
At her door, she thanked him again for rescuing her, then said, “I’m rather glad it was you who took me to lunch, and not Josh.”
“As glad as I am that he had to leave for St. Albans.”
And he meant it.
Rutledge was in a cab, halfway back to his flat, when he glimpsed Chief Inspector Leslie walking along the street, head down.
They’d moved on soon enough, and Rutledge didn’t think Leslie had seen him. He appeared to be deep in thought
. But his face was grim, as if his thoughts weren’t pleasant ones.
Was it absurd to believe that a colleague had committed murder? Surely it wasn’t the first time in the history of the Yard, but he couldn’t think of anyone else.
He’d known Leslie for years. That made it worse. He wasn’t a new recruit, or someone whose career was checkered. He’d been seen as a good policeman by everyone who knew him. Steady and reliable.
But what about Radleigh? Had he been a good man at whatever he’d done before the war? Or had his past led inexorably to murder?
“Ye canna’ be certain.”
Hamish was right, he shouldn’t judge Radleigh until he had gone to Manchester. Killer or victim, he deserved the benefit of the doubt. But what if he was also misjudging Leslie?
An hour later he was in his motorcar, driving out of the city.
Manchester was a gray town taken over by industry in the last century. Many of the workers lived in tenements put up for them, while others lived in lines of row houses, with almost no yard in front, street after street.
It took Rutledge half an hour or more to find the shabby back street where Radleigh had lived on the outskirts.
He went up the short walk and knocked at the door. Like its neighbors, 704 needed paint, but the brass knocker was well polished.
After a moment a woman came to the door. Her dark hair was put up in a kerchief, and she had a small child by the hand. A little boy of about three, he thought.
Her face changed as she looked him up and down. “You aren’t here about the rates—” She stopped, her shoulders braced for the worst. Only she had no way of knowing what the worst was about to be.
“I’m sorry. No. I’m looking for the home of a Corporal Andrew H. Radleigh. I’m told he gave this address to the Army when he enlisted.”
Hesitating still, she asked, “Who are you, then?”
“I’m a policeman from London. My name is Rutledge. May I come in? The street is not the best place to hold this conversation.”
“He’s not in any trouble, is he?” When Rutledge didn’t answer immediately, she added, “His mother—she’s upstairs resting. You’ll keep your voice down?”
“Yes.”
She opened the door wider, then pointed to an inner door just beside it.
He followed her in there. The room was cold, no fire on the hearth, but someone slept here, there was a comforter and pillows on the worn couch. She swept them away and asked him to sit, courtesy postponing the unavoidable.
“May I ask who you are?” He was afraid this might be Radleigh’s wife and child. “I’m afraid I don’t know who else lives here.”
“I’m Andy’s sister,” she replied. “Patience Underwood. We live here. Andy, of course—our younger brother George—our mother. It was the only way to make ends meet.” She took the chair by the cold hearth, her child at her knee, leaning toward her, staring at Rutledge from the safety of his mother’s side.
Rutledge realized she was apologizing for his having seen a bed in the front room. As if crowding a family into one dwelling was something to be ashamed of. He wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that half the houses on this street had more than one generation living together in the narrow three-story space.
She kept talking, her words tumbling out now. “My husband—Herbert—was killed in the war, and Andy’s wife and our father died of the influenza.”
“Your brother isn’t here now?” He had to ask, to be sure, before giving her such news.
“He went south—to London. To look for work.” Her gaze was riveted to his face, now, as if she’d read something there and was waiting for the bad news she was sure to come. “Why are you looking for him?”
“I should have thought there was work here. In Manchester.”
“Nobody wanted to hire him. He’s had seizures since the war. He was told that wasn’t safe, around machinery. It was just an excuse. He’s not well liked.”
“Why not?”
“It was before the war, before he enlisted. But people have long memories. He went to the police about something he saw in the factory. Well, it was his future wife who told him, but she was afraid to go to the police herself. Some of the women workers were being asked for more than a day’s work, if they wanted to keep their positions.” Patience glanced down at the small child at her side. “If you take my meaning?”
He did.
“After that, they looked for a reason to be rid of him. It was the war that saved him, he enlisted straightaway. When he came home, there’s only his pension and George’s, and mine for Herbert. But they aren’t enough to keep a roof over our heads. Ma talked to him about leaving to look for work, but he was worried about George. He was invalided out in the summer of 1918, he lost an arm and a leg in France, and he’s taken it hard. Andy finally left just after the new year. For London. He was sure he’d find something there, promising to send us a little as soon as he could. But we’ve not heard from him, except the one message that he’d got there safely.”
Rutledge remembered the thin body. No work, only enough food to get by, walking the roads looking for someone to hire him, and not finding anyone. He hadn’t come home because he had nothing to offer a widowed sister, an aging mother, a disabled brother. And he was too proud to tell them he’d had no luck.
“Was Andy much of a drinker?” he asked.
“No. Ma doesn’t hold with wasting money on drink or cigarettes. That was something else that made him unpopular. He never bought drinks for the lads.” Smoothing the child’s light brown hair, she said, “You never said why the police have come all the way from London.”
“Do you have a photograph of him?”
She got up and went to the mantelpiece. “This is his photograph in his uniform. He looks so much older now.” Taking down a framed photo, she brought it to him. “He was a Corporal at the end. I don’t have a picture of him then.”
He took the frame from her. It was hard to be sure, given the state of the dead man’s face, but he was nearly certain that he’d found A. H. Radleigh. The way his hair grew, the line of his eyebrows, the shape of the jaw, the placement of the ears—these matched the dead man’s exactly.
“I’m afraid—” he began, but she shook her head vigorously.
“No. You’re not telling me he’s dead. I won’t hear it. We’re counting on him. He was going to find work and we’d be all right. He promised Ma.” She was staring at him, angry tears in her eyes, refusing to hear what he had to say.
“I think you knew, when you saw me standing at your door,” he said gently.
“No, I’d hoped you’d come to hire him. And then I thought—I don’t know what I thought. It’s not true. I won’t believe it’s true.”
“He was in Wiltshire. Why was he there, do you know?”
“He never wrote, I told you that. Maybe he went to Reading or Stroud, or—I don’t know.”
“He was wearing his uniform—”
“He was proud of it, he wanted people to know he’d served King and Country. He was wounded, a wounded soldier.”
“—and an officer’s greatcoat.”
“He was given that. By the chapel. It was in a barrel of clothing collected for the missions. Only there was more need here at home. He didn’t steal it. He wouldn’t steal. Was that it? You took him up for theft? What did you do to him?”
The description fit. Too well.
“He wasn’t taken into custody. He was found dead in a place called Avebury. Did he know someone there? In Wiltshire?”
“He never said so. He served with his friends, with a Manchester regiment. What was he doing in Wiltshire? I refuse to believe you. You’ve got it wrong somehow. He wasn’t the only Corporal in the Army. There are Radleigh cousins in Shropshire. It’s bound to be one of them.”
Tears were running down her face, and her son, looking up at her, began to whimper, turning his back on Rutledge and burying his face in his mother’s lap.
He thought about what she
would see, if he took her south to identify the body.
But he had to say what he’d come to say. He’d never learned how to break such news. He didn’t think there was a way to do it with kindness or even sympathy. And he felt like swearing. For the dead man, for this family depending on him. It was a senseless death.
“We can’t bury him. There’s no money. Why did you come here, with your lies?”
“Mrs. Underwood. I have to tell you. Andy—Andrew Radleigh was murdered.”
She stood up, her face hard. “You can find your own way out. Don’t ever come here again, do you hear me? Ever!”
“Is there someone I can bring—”
But she didn’t answer him. She was out the door, on the point of slamming it behind her when she remembered that there was a woman resting upstairs.
By the time he’d reached the door, she had gone. The passage was empty.
Rutledge stood there for several minutes, thinking she would come to realize there was no escape. That the truth had to be faced sooner or later.
In the silence of the house, he could hear a child’s whimpering. He couldn’t tell where it was coming from, the sound was too soft to follow.
He finally turned on his heel and left, softly closing the outer door behind him.
15
It took time, but he finally found the chapel where the Radleigh family attended services, and he told the minister there that Andrew Radleigh had been murdered in Wiltshire.
The older man, white hair longer than it ought to be, his back stooped with age, shook his head. “He was a good son. He wanted to do what was right for his family. But are you sure? Are you certain that you’ve found our Andrew?”
It was an echo of Mrs. Underwood.
“Did Andrew drink?”
“I’ve never known him to take a drink. His mother is strongly opposed to it, and both she and her daughter have been active in the temperance movement.”
Rutledge described the body, the uniform and greatcoat. The scars. But he didn’t describe the manner of death.