Charles Todd - A long shadow

But not like this, not shot by someone who hid in the shadows, with no reality and no right to be his executioner.

It had all begun at Maryanne Browning's house in London. And it was time he went back to the beginning and found out what had gone wrong on the eve of a new year. He could hear someone shouting and looked up, distracted from his thoughts. Hamish said, "Yon rector." It was indeed Mr. Towson calling from the porch of his house, his voice thin in the rain and wind. "You'll take your death standing there, young man. Come and have a cup of tea before I freeze to death just watching you."

Rutledge splashed across the churchyard, found the gate in the wall that led to the rectory, and reached the porch like a wet dog, wondering what the rector would think if he shook himself violently. Not so much to rid himself of the water, but to rid himself of the mood that had swept over him.

Towson reached for his hat and coat, tut-tutting over their condition.

"I watched you for a good quarter hour, out there. Paying respect is one thing, foolishness another. I can't think you knew any of our dead."

Rutledge followed him from the hall into the parlor, gloomy in the light of a single lamp.

"I was looking for the grave of a Mr. Letteridge. Grace Letteridge's father."

"Ah. Well, it's nearer the rectory than the memorial garden you were standing by." He spread Rutledge's coat across the back of a chair and stooped to put a match to the fire already laid on the hearth. "Sit down, do. Why did you want to find him? Clifford Letteridge has been dead for five years, I should think. Yes, it must be going on five."

"I called on his daughter an hour or so ago. I was curious about him after our conversation."

"I'm not surprised. She's bitter, is young Grace, and I can't say that I blame her. She's had a sad life, and yet no thanks to her father, she's become a very fine young woman. Or could be, if she'd let go some of the anger inside her."

"She told me he drank himself into oblivion."

"His heart was dead long before he died, and that's the truth. He put food on the table, clothes on her back, kept a roof over her head, and sent her to church of a Sunday with strict regularity, and called that fatherhood."

"I wonder that she didn't marry, if only to leave such a cold and empty life."

Towson smiled. "I'm no fool. You're here to pry the secrets of other people out of me. Sit there and warm yourself, and I'll bring in a tray of tea."

He left the room, effectively cutting the conversation short.

Rutledge looked at the dark paneling on the wall and somber drapes at the window, then turned his attention to the portrait of an elderly man-a cleric, if he was any judge-hanging over the hearth. A grim face, with no humor in it or even kindness. Who did it remind him of?

Hamish said, "The minister who railed against my Fiona."

Yes, of course, that pitiless man in Scotland who would willingly have hounded a defenseless young woman to her death. And it had been a close-run thing. She had loved Hamish, and it had nearly been her undoing.

The similarity was not so much in their features, but in the unbending view both churchmen must have held of human frailty. Impatient to cast the first stone.

Towson came in, bearing a tray. "Lucky for you the kettle was on the boil," he said. "This should put some heart into you."

"Who is the man in the portrait?"

"One of my predecessors. He comes with the house, so to speak. I expect no one else wanted him. I've often wondered if he roams the rectory at night, unwilling to lie quiet in his grave."

Rutledge laughed. "What would you say to him if you met him in the passage outside your door?"

"I doubt we'd have much in common beyond 'How do you do, sir.' "

Rutledge offered to pour the tea, aware of the gnarled hands handling the pot, but Towson said, "I consider it a point of independence not to need help. At least until I've spilled scalding hot tea on one of my guests."

"You aren't going to tell me about the man in Grace Let- teridge's life." It was a statement, not a question.

"If she wants you to know, she'll tell you. You must understand it could have no possible bearing on Constable Hensley's assailant."

"No, but I wonder if it had some bearing on Miss Letteridge going to London in 1914, leaving young Emma Mason to fend for herself. And whether this man's death in the war brought Miss Letteridge home again, shortly before Emma disappeared."

"You're an imaginative sort, aren't you?"

"Then why does Emma Mason's name crop up so often in connection with Constable Hensley?"

"Yes, well, I expect every man wants to appear brave and worldly and exciting in the eyes of impressionable young women. When Hensley first came to Dudlington, he kept his head down, as a newcomer should. After all, he was the outsider, and he had to earn our respect, constable or not. But it wasn't long before he was bragging to anyone who would listen about his experiences in London. I can understand that Emma might be curious about the sort of life her mother lived, and so she encouraged him more than was proper. Mrs. Ellison would never have painted London in such a glowing light. She's convinced that London is little short of Satan's second address."

"I'm told it went beyond mere bragging, that he used his experiences to impress a young and vulnerable girl. What if she believed his stories, and ran away to London on the basis of them? Leaving Hensley to take the blame for her disappearance."

"To find her mother? It could have happened that way, yes. Still, I gave Emma credit for more sense."

"The fact is, she's missing. Surely if she went to London to find her mother, Mrs. Ellison would have been told she was there and safe. Or Mrs. Mason herself would have sent Emma home again, with orders to stay here."

Towson stared at him briefly over the rim of his cup. "Are you trying to tell me that after only a few days here, you believe that Emma is dead, and that Constable Hensley is being blamed for her death? That that was why he was shot?"

"I'm saying that whatever became of Emma-whether she died here in Dudlington or something appalling happened to her on her way to London-on her own she might never have considered doing anything so rash as running away."

"Yes, well, that's one way to look at it." Towson sighed. "I'm a trained priest, I know the shortcomings of human nature as well as most. It's just that I don't want to think of the child as dead. I'm sorry. I'd like to believe that her mother came back, and so one day might Emma."

"With or without a child?"

Towson stared. "You are a very hard man, in your own fashion. That was a cruel thing to say." Rutledge, leaving the rectory with a borrowed umbrella in his hand, asked the Reverend Towson if there were other strangers in the village, either as visitors or on business.

Towson, shivering in the cold air after the warmth of his parlor, answered, "I've not heard of anyone. And as a rule, in time I hear most gossip. Are you suggesting now that it could be something in Constable Hensley's past that caught up with him? Rather than trouble over Emma Mason?"

Rutledge fell back on the tried-and-true formula of an inquiry. "Early days, yet, to be sure of anything. I'm keeping an open mind."

Towson said doubtfully, "Yes, I see."

But Rutledge tilted his umbrella against the downpour and began picking his way over the flagstones that made up the path to the rectory gate, unwilling to be drawn into any explanation for his personal interest in strangers.

When he reached the constable's house again and climbed the stairs, intent on changing out of his wet clothing, the shell casing was gone. He left early the next morning, as soon as it was light and the rain had become a raw drizzle.