Charles Todd - Legacy of the Dead

“I’ve told you before-I don’t know why. If I did, I wouldn’t be here, locked away from the sunlight and the wind on my face!”

“I accept that. Have you ever met the father of the boy you call Ian?”

The sudden shift in direction made her eyes widen. But her answer was swift and seemingly honest. “No.”

“You’re quite sure of that?”

“I have never set eyes on Ian’s father. Before God, it’s the truth.”

“Then,” he said with cold reason, “the trouble you are in today must come from the boy’s mother-”

“No! She’s dead. I have told you that.”

The interruption was so swift that she hadn’t allowed him to finish what he had planned to say- the boy’s mother’s family.

“She isn’t dead,” he said gently. “And that’s the problem, I think. She’s afraid of you. Afraid that you might tell her new husband about the child she bore out of wedlock. Afraid that you might grow weary of caring for the child, and decide one fine day to bring him to her doorstep. She is afraid of you, and she’s here in Duncarrick. Or close by. And it is she who has poisoned the town against you.”

Fiona was standing now. “Please leave.”

“Because I’m too close to the truth?”

“No,” she said, her eyes meeting his with firmness. “Because you are so very far from it that you frighten me. I thought-I thought once that you had believed me. I thought you might help me.”

“ You refuse to help me.”

There were sudden tears rising in her eyes but not spilling through the thick lashes. “I have done nothing wrong except to love a child that is not mine. If you want my help, you will have to promise that nothing touches Ian. Nothing! I have kept silent for his sake. I have tried to protect him, not myself.”

“From what? What is there that could harm him?”

“The people who might take him if they knew he existed. Who would want to punish him for what his mother did. Who would make him suffer because of what she had done.”

“What had she done?”

“She loved someone. Terribly. Deeply. It was wrong, but she-There were reasons why she did. And there was a child of that love. A woman in her position couldn’t go home with an infant in her arms and say ‘Forgive me, I couldn’t help myself. Let me pick up the pieces of my life and go on as if nothing has happened!’ ”

“Why haven’t you told the police this? The fiscal?”

“They’d demand her name to prove that I was telling the truth! And I was given Ian to guard and love and protect. Not to betray!” The tears spilled, running like quicksilver down her cheeks. “I am lost,” she said, “whatever I do. And it is better to hang than it is to fail. At least I would die knowing- knowing I had kept my promise to the end.”

He fumbled for his handkerchief and handed it to her. “Surely she would come forward if she’s alive. And spare you. For the boy’s sake-”

“No, I tell you, she’s dead. It’s her family I fear, not her!” Choking back a sob, she repeated, “I am not afraid of the dead.”

While Hamish argued fiercely in his mind, Rutledge said quietly, “I can see that you might have taken the child and given promises. But what would you have told Hamish MacLeod if he’d come home from the war and found you with a child you claimed to be your own?”

She stared at him, wretched. “He would have loved us both. He would have trusted me and loved us both!”

And for once, to Rutledge’s shame, the truth rang clearly in the little cell.

He went to see the procurator-fiscal late in the afternoon. Jedburgh was busy. The heart of the town was crowded, the shops doing a bustling trade along with the pubs and the hotel, people spilling out into the street in the path of carts and wagons jammed with goods. There had been a cattle market in the morning, and farmers in for the day seemed to be making the most of it. To Rutledge’s eye, the population of Jedburgh had nearly doubled, and no one seemed to be in any haste to go home again. Finding a place to leave his vehicle took nearly twenty minutes, and even then he had to pay a grinning, gap-toothed man for the privilege.

The procurator-fiscal’s office, overlooking the center of the town, was dark-paneled and furnished with mahogany and leather. The books lining the shelves above the handsome old desk were a blend of law and science and literature.

Burns was tall, stooped, and thin. A handsome head of white hair was brushed back from his forehead, and gold pince-nez concealed sharp blue eyes. A man used to command and discipline.

“Inspector Rutledge. It’s good of you to come. May I offer you tea? A sherry?”

Rutledge, judging him rightly, accepted the sherry, and lifting the golden liquid in its slim glass, he saw that the pattern etched around the base of the cup was of thistles.

“Have you made any progress in the matter of Eleanor Gray?”

“I know more about her now. She was a wealthy young woman with a taste for rebellion and an intense desire to study medicine. She worked with the wounded during the war, providing entertainment for them where possible and taking an interest in their care. She was invited to a house party near Winchester early in 1916 and accepted. But the officer she was bringing with her discovered he had more leave than he’d expected. She came north with him instead, apparently intending to spend a few days at his house. Whether she got there or not no one seems to know. Where she may have gone after that week no one seems to know. But the information I have is reliable, and puts Miss Gray in Scotland in the spring before the child was born. If she had just learned that she was pregnant, she could have arranged to wait for the birth of the child here, where she wasn’t as well known.”

“Yes, yes, that makes sense to me. Who was the officer, do you know?”

There was nothing in the procurator’s face to show that he was in any way prepared for the shock that was to come. Interest and a natural curiosity were there. Nothing more.

“We have reason to believe that the officer she had been friends with for some time was a Scot,” Rutledge said carefully. “I’ve been told by a reliable witness that his name was Robert Burns.”

The procurator was startled enough to tip his glass of sherry. He swore under his breath as a golden river trickled onto the papers in front of him, and he took out his handkerchief to stanch the flow. The room smelled heavily of the richness of the wine, and Rutledge set his own glass down, untouched.

“That is, as you may know, my late son’s name.”

“Yes. But there are, I should think, many men called Robert Burns to choose from,” Rutledge replied.

“Where was this house you spoke of?”

“I’m told it was in the Trossachs.”

Burns dropped the wet handkerchief into the paperfilled wastebasket at the side of his desk.

“My son had a house in the Trossachs. Not far from Callander. But I have never heard that he was acquainted with Eleanor Gray. If I had, I should have said something to Inspector Oliver and the Chief Constable. Furthermore, my son was to be married. If-if he survived the fighting. He was not likely to be in the company of other women in London. Nor was he likely to bring them to his house!”

Rutledge said soothingly, “If she was a friend, and in need, he might. Whether he was the father of the child or not.”

It offered a way out. The fiscal seized it. “He would indeed have given what help he could. But I cannot believe he would allow her to use his house. It was his mother’s house before we were married. She had left it to him. Robert was close to his mother. He would not have dishonored her memory.” He looked distastefully at the remainder of the sherry in his glass, as if he blamed it for spilling. “Besides which,” he said, rather spoiling the lofty effect of his earlier words, “if there had been anyone living in the house, I would have heard. There is a neighbor who looks in on it from time to time, has a key and all that. I would most certainly have heard! Mrs. Raeburn is very particular.”