Charles Todd - Legacy of the Dead

She frowned, considering his question. “Eleanor Gray? No, I can’t say that I ever met anyone by that name. I did know a Sally Gray.”

“Where did you meet her?”

“In Carlisle at a party given for my husband. But that was before the war. I haven’t seen her in years. Her husband was something in shipping, I think.”

A dead end. He thanked her and walked on, immersed in his own thoughts.

Realizing that he’d arrived at the stone monument at the top of the square, Rutledge stopped there for a time, listening to Hamish comparing this town with the scattered houses that comprised his own small village. Like most Highlanders, Hamish had been used to the silences of the mountain glens and the long, smooth mirrors of the lochs. These had given him, as a soldier, a resilience and a strength of mind that had raised him from the ranks.

Idly watching the medley of activity that gave life and color to the street, Rutledge considered the townspeople of Duncarrick. If anyone here had had close ties with Fiona MacDonald, they were busy now burying them as deep as possible.

It also seemed unlikely that Fiona had confided in her aunt.

But then, it was two secrets that Fiona held close. That the boy was not hers-and that she knew the identity of the child’s mother. For some reason, the latter must have been the darker of the two. Fiona had taken the very grave risk of going to trial for murder to protect it.

And if the mother was still alive As Mr. Elliot had so cleverly pointed out, she hadn’t stepped forward.

Why not? And where was she?

Hamish sighed. “Anywhere in England or Scotland, for starters.”

Rutledge turned toward the monument, one hand reaching up to touch the surface. This face was cold at this time of day, waiting for the sun to reach it. Like the town itself in some ways. Waiting for enlightenment.

The stone was a rough-hewn monolith set in the pavement. Links of heavy iron chain attached to four short iron posts encircled the stone, marking it as a shrine of sorts. On the side of the monolith that looked down the length of the square was a relief carved coarsely but tellingly into the stone. Houses, buried nearly to their rooftops in flames, jutted from the surface, and around the scene reivers sat on their horses, dressed in trews and leather jerkins, hats jammed on their heads as they watched the town burn. At the feet of the horses lay sacks of plunder and sheep milling about in fright.

Beneath the relief, three dates were incised in the stone-the three times Duncarrick had gone up in flames at the hands of English raiders. It was a powerful memorial, and Rutledge made a rough guess at the number of dead.

Or had the inhabitants been warned in time and found sanctuary somewhere in the fields or behind the stout walls of the pele tower, watching the night sky as their homes and possessions went up in black smoke, filling the cold air with choking ashes.

Small wonder the people here were a different breed from the citizens of southern English towns that had settled into quiet prosperity centuries before-where the tread of armies and the threat of fire and sword were a far distant memory. Small wonder that a stranger was welcomed for her aunt’s sake-and not her own. Small wonder that suspicion was so easily aroused, and trust was snatched back so readily.

Someone had known how to use Duncarrick’s entrenched character to reach out and anonymously destroy Fiona MacDonald. But to what end?

For what purpose?

Hamish said, “When I went to France, she was living with her grandfather. But when he died, she left the land and went to Brae-her last letter was fra’ Brae.”

It was where Rutledge had sent the only letter he had written to Fiona MacDonald. To tell her of Hamish’s death. He said, “Then I’ll have to go to Brae…”

He had come here to search for Eleanor Gray. If Oliver was right, she must be somewhere in Fiona MacDonald’s past. He had to find out where their paths had crossed-and if they had crossed. And why something that had not even happened in Duncarrick-the birth of a child-should cast such a long and deadly shadow over the lives of two women who should have had nothing in common. Oliver wasn’t going to like Scotland Yard meddling As if conjured up by his thoughts, down the square Rutledge saw Oliver coming toward him, in the company of a man in a well-cut gray suit. A second glance identified Oliver’s companion as the sheep farmer Rutledge had met that first day close by the pele tower. They were speaking earnestly, and then Oliver looked up, lifted a hand to hail Rutledge. He excused himself and, leaving the farmer, strode toward Rutledge.

“You look like a man in need of his lunch,” Oliver said.

“I feel like a man in need of a drink. But what I need now is to learn more about Fiona MacDonald’s whereabouts before her arrival in Duncarrick.”

Oliver studied him. “I should think the logical place to begin would be with Eleanor Gray’s movements after the quarrel with her mother in 1916.”

“Logical, yes,” Rutledge replied patiently. “But that’s a wider investigation and will take far more manpower. Why not narrow it by starting at this end?”

“Yes, I see. Well, the best person to tell you what you need to know is Constable McKinstry. But I’ve already been to the town of Brae, and I’ve been to Glencoe. There can’t be much left to find in either place!”

“You didn’t know to ask for Eleanor Gray.”

“No, that’s true. But I did ask about any other place the accused might have visited about the time the boy was born. For I can tell you this much-a woman with the Gray name and money would never have chosen backwaters like Brae or Glencoe to live in. The two must have met in Glasgow- or Edinburgh. And there’s your needle in the haystack again!”

Rutledge said thoughtfully, “If you were the daughter of Lady Maude Gray and expecting a child out of wedlock, a backwater might offer obscurity as well as seclusion. The larger the town, the greater the risk of being recognized.”

Oliver took a deep breath. “You may be right, of course. It’s possible. But not likely. Still, talk to Constable McKinstry. Tell him to let you read my notes.” Then, echoing a remark Rutledge had already heard that day, he added, “Too bad, in my view, that her aunt is dead. Or convenient-who’s to say?”

He walked on.

Constable McKinstry was on duty at the station, his chair back on two legs and a book in his hands. It was on Scottish law.

McKinstry, closing the book and lowering the feet of the chair to the floor, looked wretchedly at Rutledge as he listened to his request. “Fiona never confided in me. I’ll tell you what I can, sir, and what Inspector Oliver wrote in his report.” He put the book on a shelf behind him and added, “Did he send you? Aye, I thought so.” Wryly, he confessed, “It’s my punishment to be made to talk about her! The Inspector hasn’t forgiven me for the fiasco with the first skeleton. If I’d been thorough, it would have been my embarrassment, not his.”

“I need dependable facts. You’re most likely the only inhabitant of Duncarrick who isn’t afraid to admit you knew her. Man or woman.”

“That’s true enough.” McKinstry sighed. Considering how to begin, he looked at the ceiling, smudged with smoke from the stove, and arranged his thoughts.

“I was in France when Fiona arrived in Duncarrick. I remember my mother writing that Ealasaid MacCallum was having trouble with her right arm shaking and had sent for her niece to come and help out at the inn. Later she told me that in her view Mrs. MacLeod was a respectable young widow with a baby to care for, but strong and capable for all that. She’d lived in Brae, and if I should hear any news of men from there, my mother would be glad to pass it on.”