Charles Todd - Legacy of the Dead

He stopped, squaring the blotter and moving the ink pot to the other side of the desk. Then, absently, he moved it back again.

“To be honest, I never asked Fiona about her life before she came to Duncarrick. I was jealous, if you want the truth, of her husband. Only he wasn’t, was he?” He sighed. “Fiona left her grandfather’s croft in the spring of 1915, I do know that. She couldn’t run the farm on her own. It’s inhospitable country at best, but the old man had made it pay.”

“Aye,” Hamish said unexpectedly. “He knew the land better than anyone I ever saw.” There was a wistfulness in the voice at Rutledge’s shoulder. “Fra’ him I learned how to handle a team and to find water, when we needed to dig a well. I took a forked willow stick, skinned and dried. He said I had the gift-I could feel the stick stir and bend in my hands. And it was sweet water I found!”

McKinstry had gone on, unaware of the interruption. “Some cousins were willing to take it over-they were too old for the war, but still able-bodied. She said once that she wished the lad’s father could have been buried there in the glen, because he loved it so. At any rate, Fiona was glad of the position she found in Brae. It took her mind off the war. A Mrs. Davison was looking to hire a nanny for her children.” He paused. “Brae’s south of Glasgow. Just above Lanark.”

“Yes, I have a general idea where it is. Go on!”

“When her aunt wrote asking Fiona to come to Duncarrick, she was sad to leave Brae. But she promised to come as soon as Mrs. Davison found a replacement for her. She and the boy.”

“Miss MacCallum said nothing to your mother about the boy’s-history?”

“Her only worry was that Ian was so young and might distract Fiona from her duties at The Reivers. I thought it was a selfish view, but then, no one knew just how ill Miss MacCallum was.”

Rutledge made a note of Mrs. Davison’s name and asked, “What did the people in Brae tell Inspector Oliver?”

“Not much. That Fiona minded her own business, was friendly enough, and worked hard. No one was aware that she was expecting a child when she left there. And we’ve traced all the children born to residents in 1916. A woman named Singleton had a child in Glasgow that spring, but it’s accounted for, and the three born in Brae are accounted for as well. I never knew Fiona to mention any particular friend there-though she spoke often of Mrs. Davison and her children.”

“I’m considering driving on to Brae. To see if there’s any connection to Eleanor Gray to be found there.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, it’s a waste of time. I’ve seen Brae. A woman like Eleanor Gray would stand out like a sore thumb. It’s not the kind of place she’d be hiding herself away in.”

“Still, we must begin somewhere,” Rutledge answered. “All right, is there any other name you can give me?”

McKinstry took out a folder and opened it. When Rutledge had finished taking down two or three other names, he closed his notebook and said, “I’d like to speak to the accused again before I leave.”

“I don’t know-” McKinstry began doubtfully.

“It will take less than five minutes.”

And McKinstry, capitulating, took out the keys and handed them to Rutledge.

He unlocked the door for a second time and walked into the cell. Fiona MacDonald was sitting in the chair, her hands folded in her lap. But her eyes flew to his as he entered.

“I’m driving to Brae today,” he said, watching her face. There was a very slight tightening of the skin, as if she was not happy with the news.

“You will be seeing Mrs. Davison. Please tell her-” She stopped and shook her head. “No, I don’t suppose she’d want a message from me now.” Her fingers folded and smoothed a pleat in her skirt. “I forget, sometimes, that a murderess has no past. But if the children should ask about me-please, will you tell them that I’m well and think of them often?”

“I will.”

She managed a smile. “They’re too young to know about murder. They’ll be glad to be remembered. And I do think about them. It takes my mind off other-other things.”

He said without stopping to think, “I wish you could trust me and tell me the truth.”

“It isn’t a matter of trust,” she answered quietly. “It’s a question of love.”

“Love?”

“Yes.” She looked away. “I can’t explain it, except to say that there are many faces of love, and sometimes they can be cruel. My mother loved my father so deeply that she grieved herself to death for him. And left me with only a grandfather and an aunt to care for me. I was the child of that love, but it didn’t matter enough to her to want to live. I never understood that. I still don’t. I didn’t want to die when Hamish did. I wonder, sometimes, if that meant I didn’t love him enough.” Her eyes searched Rutledge’s face, begging for reassurance.

“It isn’t a question of loving him enough. The man I knew in France wanted with all his heart to come home to you-”

He caught himself in time, before he’d destroyed the comforting lie of a hero’s death for King and Country. Clearing his throat, he said instead, “-and he’d have wanted you to live. Above all, he’d have wanted that.” For once he knew beyond question that he spoke for Hamish. “And if you lost your own mother when you were very young, you must see that it’s wrong to leave the boy unprotected, as you have.”

“You’ve told me yourself that I’d not be allowed to keep him!”

It was true. But he said, “You were wrong to allow yourself to be taken up on a charge of murder-wrong to allow the evidence to go on pointing to your guilt. Wrong to accept the fact that you will surely hang! There may come a time when the boy will need you and you won’t be there.”

Hamish cried out that it was wrong to use her own words to force her to surrender whatever truth she had hidden so long, so well.

She seemed fragile and alone in this ugly cell, but Rutledge did not make the mistake of underestimating her strength. She squared her shoulders with a courage he deeply admired and replied, “It must be a painful way to die. I’ve made myself try to imagine what it’s like-”

Harshly, caught up in his need to bring her to her senses while there was still time, while they were alone in this cell and there was no one to stop him, ignoring his own conscience hammering at him over the anguish of the voice at his shoulder, he said, “I’ve watched men hang. What happens to the body as you die is not something a woman would wish for herself.”

She had flinched as he spoke, and he instantly regretted the words, cursing himself. Wanting to recall them. But they seemed suspended like a wall of coldness in the air between them.

He took a single step forward, then stopped short, forbidden by who he was-and who she was-from offering any measure of comfort. “I’m sorry-”

She said only, “I won’t be alive to know, will I?”

But as he left the room, he could see the tears filling her eyes.

Charles Todd

Legacy of the Dead

Dodging a lorry, then a dog sniffing the pavement with intent interest, Rutledge walked back to the hotel. He encountered Oliver just coming out the door.

“Found McKinstry, did you?”

“Yes, thanks.” He was on the point of walking on, and realized all at once that Oliver had something he wanted to say. Rutledge stopped and waited.

Oliver looked over Rutledge’s shoulder at the square beyond, as if surveying his domain. “I’ve thought a good deal about our Eleanor Gray and what might have brought her to Scotland. The father of the child might have been a Scot. Women can be sentimental about such things as their time draws near, and she might have decided the child ought to be born here. Or perhaps it was the father’s last wish in his last letter. Who’s to say? But there’s our reason for coming north! Lady Maude’s daughter or not, she’s still a woman, and apt to go mawkish. Do you agree with me so far?”