Charles Todd - Legacy of the Dead

As the warmth of the sun touched his face, Rutledge took a deep breath, willing the tension to subside, willing Hamish into silence, closing his mind to the harshly sharp image of the woman he’d left in the comparative darkness of the small room at the back of the police station. Walking helped, each stride seeming to keep pace with the rhythm of Hamish’s voice, forcing it to remain just out of sight behind him.

What had appeared to be a search for Eleanor Gray had become a complex confrontation with the past and a young woman who might be cleared-or damned-by what Scotland Yard found out about both women.

It was a grave responsibility. It was also a professional conflict.

Rutledge turned toward the hotel, seeking sanctuary without realizing it, seeking the peace and quiet to think. Everything he’d learned here had changed its shape, throwing evidence and emotion and belief into a maelstrom of doubt. And then something Hamish was saying caught at his attention. He found himself listening now.

“It began as a moral issue,” Hamish told him. “That’s what you told yon constable. And who better to ask than the man who didna’ ken what to do about it?”

Mr. Elliot. The minister.

Rutledge reached the main square and went away from the hotel toward the church rising tall and dark from the pavement. Bare of ornament, it seemed to thrust heavily toward the sky, built by men who found in their faith a strong and abiding force but very little beauty. There was no churchyard here, but he thought it must lie behind the building. He’d noticed a wedge of green grass surrounded by a low wall of the same stone as the church, broaching on the street behind. And when he came to the corner of the church, he realized he was right. Headstones marched in tidy rows almost to the apse.

He paused to read the board by the main doors and at the same time saw the small wooden sign on the Victorian house just beyond the church. “Pastor” was written there in Gothic lettering.

He walked on and knocked at the house door. A woman opened it to him. She was young and frail, but she answered briskly enough, “Yes, sir?”

“I’d like to speak to Mr. Elliot if I may. Is he in?”

“He’s just come back from the kirk,” she replied. “Step in and I’ll ask if he’s receiving visitors just now. May I give him your name?”

“Rutledge.”

“Thank you, sir.” He could almost hear her mentally adding, You must be the policeman from London. She disappeared down a dark passage, the wood paneling there and where he stood in the high-ceilinged hall bare of decoration but highly polished. It offered a modicum of brightness in the general gloom. The only portrait was a formidable man with a graying patriarchal beard, wearing the garb of a churchman of two hundred years or more before. The eyes were dark and very stern, but the mouth was soft, almost gentle. A face that offered both judgment and compassion.

From down the passage Rutledge heard a light knock, and a door opened. After a moment, the young woman returned.

“Come this way, sir, if you please.” She led him toward the back of the house, where he found himself in a large room so crowded with furnishings and shelves of books that it seemed on the brink of collapsing in upon itself.

The man at the cluttered desk was of medium height and build, but he possessed a hatchet nose and the eyes of a fanatic-hot with the belief that he had answers to whatever questions confronted his flock. He was stony-faced, but the eyes were alive with his righteousness. Hamish, a Calvinist to the core, muttered, “He’d burn heretics at the stake if he could…” And there was no praise in the words, only warning.

Elliot held out his hand to Rutledge but didn’t rise. Rutledge took the dry, stiff fingers and shook them briefly.

“What may I do for you, Inspector?”

“I’ve been sent to Scotland to look into this business of the woman who called herself Mrs. MacLeod,” he began easily. “The child’s true mother may have been English.”

“I see.” Elliot frowned. “It could be possible. Yes.”

“Miss MacDonald, I understand, attended services in your church. Have you visited her since her arrest? As her pastor?”

“Only once.” His eyes moved around the room. “Nor has she asked for my counsel and guidance since.”

“Surely even she is worth saving?” Rutledge spoke quietly.

The fierce pale blue eyes came back to Rutledge’s face. “Redemption is not granted. It is earned. She refuses to confess her sins.”

Plural. “Sins?”

“They are many. Arrogance. Pride. Wantonness-”

It was noticeable that murder was not listed among them. Hamish pointed that out, growling. He had taken an instant dislike to the minister. Rutledge made an effort to maintain his own objectivity. But he found himself thinking that this man had used the anonymous letters to punish the recipient, not the sender. Which seemed an odd choice for a man of God…

“If the child is not hers, how can she be accused of wanton behavior?”

“I have watched a man sink to his knees and beg God’s forgiveness for the desire she had aroused in him, and agonize over his soul’s danger. He is a decent man, and he cannot bear the guilt.”

“Surely that is his sin to expiate, not hers.”

Elliot smiled coldly. “Women have always been temptresses. Adam ate the apple at Eve’s behest. He fell from grace with God, and our own Savior came to redeem that mortal sin. Redeem it on the cross with His flesh. Fiona MacDonald is a weak vessel. The spirit does not move in her. Such women are to be pitied.”

“From what I hear, no one has accused Miss MacDonald of being a poor mother. She loves the child she called her son.” He found he couldn’t speak the boy’s name.

“All the more reason to keep the lad from her. A God-fearing family will soon wipe away all memory of her and bring him up as he should be brought up. She has no claim upon him, after all.”

“Do you believe she’s guilty of the charges brought against her?”

“Oh, yes. Beyond any question.” Elliot rubbed his chin. “I have seen the faces of my flock turn against her. One by one. It is a judgment.”

“Then she will surely hang.”

Elliot looked him up and down. “Very likely. Why are you convinced of her innocence?”

Startled, Rutledge said, “Am I?”

“Oh, yes,” Elliot said again, steepling his fingers. “I haven’t been pastor of my flock these thirty-two years without learning how to read the men and women who come to stand before me. You are a guilt-ridden man, haunted by the war. And you believe you have seen the face of evil on the battlefield and learned to recognize it. Have you, indeed! You watched bodies shatter and minds breaking, in France. But I have watched souls destroyed.”

Rutledge unexpectedly found himself remembering Cornwall, and Olivia Marlowe. “It must be far worse, in its fashion,” he agreed evenly. “But since I am not God, I don’t presume to judge my fellow human beings. I want to find out the truth about Fiona MacDonald. It’s my duty as a policeman. To her. To you. To society.”

“Examine your own motives first, Inspector, and the truth will become clear. Wishful thinking is not the truth. Be careful that your own loneliness does not become a trap of error.”

Rutledge could hear Hamish, a rumble of hostility. Whether against him or against Elliot, it was hard to say. He said, in response to Hamish, I see her as you saw her Aloud he said carefully, “We’ve wandered from the purpose of this conversation. I’m here to ask if you can give me any information about the accused that will help me find the boy’s mother.”

“The boy’s mother is dead. Otherwise she would have come forward to take her child. There has been widespread publicity. By now she would surely have come.”