Charles Todd - A long shadow

Meredith Channing had also found it difficult to sleep.

When the scraping screech of metal had brought her to the door of the constable's house, she had stood there transfixed. Rutledge was lying in the lee of a destroyed wall, one arm thrown out to brace himself, the other one pinned under him. And then doors were flung open on all sides as the lorry roared on up the lane, and a young woman had come rushing out of a house to scream at the fallen man. It was like seeing something in a dream, she thought, only the sounds were real, the shouts and the cries and that unbearable scraping of metal against stone. The doctor had come running then, though she hadn't known who he was, taking charge and silencing the angry woman while Rutledge had struggled to one knee, then dragged himself to his feet. She'd come to her senses at that stage, knowing what she must do. And so she had called out to the doctor, and the woman in the house but one had stood there with her, saying something about dinner and what on earth had been in that driver's mind, to do such damage and then flee.

When Rutledge reached the house, she had looked at the scrape on his cheekbone and the bleeding wound in his leg, his hands scratched and filthy from the soft earth in the garden.

Lockjaw, the woman called Mrs. Melford was saying, and she herself had hurried to the kitchen to heat water and find strong soap. After all, she'd been trained, she knew what to do in emergencies. More to the point, it kept her hands busy.

And all the while her heart had been thudding in her chest, like a drum.

It had been a near thing, she thought. Too near.

It wasn't until later, when she was walking through the winter darkness with her arm touching his, that she realized she had stopped thinking about him as a policeman.

It didn't do to know people, she thought. It was better to hold them at arm's length, and then it was easier, much easier, to stand aside and let them die.

She had learned that in the war. Rutledge woke with a start and groped for his watch, lying on the bedside table. It was late, already half past seven. He groaned. How many hours had he slept? At most two or three. He felt as if his eyes had never closed.

He put his foot gingerly over the side of the bed and was relieved to feel less pain than he had during the night.

Hamish, his voice muted this morning, said, "Aye, but it's no' verra' handsome."

True, the swelling was still noticeable, the discoloration was worthy of an artist's palette. But he could stand with his full weight on it, after he had laced his shoes. The rest of his bruises were complaining, but not as vociferously. Stiffness plagued him, though, for a good ten minutes before he'd worked it out.

He shaved with haste and presented himself to Mrs. Melford, only two minutes late for his breakfast. He had to smile at her examination of the way he walked.

"Aye, she has a cane in yon umbrella stand."

And so she did. But she said nothing about it and disappeared into the kitchen as he sat down to eat.

When she brought in his tea, she finally said, "I'm still shocked by what I saw last night. It was some time before I could sleep."

"Accidents do happen," he told her. "The driver couldn't have been familiar with the weight of a lorry."

"Inspector, you needn't try to put a better face on it. Everyone in Dudlington is talking about your narrow escape." She looked down at him in the chair at the head of her table. "That's three-Hensley, the rector, and now you. What's wrong here? What kind of monster are we harboring!"

Hamish clicked his tongue at the turn gossip had taken.

"I don't think-" Rutledge began.

But she shook her head. "I'd wondered why Scotland Yard sent an inspector all the way to Dudlington just because a constable had been injured. I couldn't see why Northampton shouldn't look into it. But you know something, don't you? That's really why you're here-there's something else that you're keeping from us. I might as well tell you what people are whispering."

She wouldn't listen when he tried to convince her there was no conspiracy to keep the truth from Dudlington. She simply walked away, saying she was tired of lies.

Trying to shrug off the depression settling over him, Rut- ledge finished his breakfast and was just stepping into the street when the postmistress came out of Hensley's house.

"There's a letter for you, Inspector. From the Yard. I thought it best to bring it to you straightaway."

"Thank you."

She smiled, one professional to another, and went hurrying back to her little cage in the corner of the shop.

"It'ull feed the gossip frenzy," Hamish told him. "A letter from London." "Yes."

In fact, the letter had come from Sergeant Gibson. "I'm writing this at home," it began. "I dare not leave it lying about at the Yard."

Rutledge sat down at the desk in the little office and looked through the two pages of Gibson's scrawl, hoping to find something of interest.

What the sergeant had written, distilled into its essence, was that the search for evidence against Hensley was hopeless. The sprawling black lines went on.

The file is straightforward. Thefire, the blame settling on Mr. Barstow's competitor, and the charges brought against the man. But they never went to trial, those charges. Howard Edgerton's death was put down to infection. It's what took him off, true enough. I tried to look up his widow, but it appears she went to live with herfamily in Devon. The competitor, a Mr. Worrels, lost his business when the whispers had done their work. The file is presently listed as "Unsolved." I did discover the name of the man said to have set thefire. Barstow didn't do it himself, you understand. He hired a J. Sandridge, who was never caught. He'd been employed by Mr. Worrels and held a grudge over a promotion that never came his way Rutledge stopped reading.

Sandridge. Where had he heard that name?

Hamish said, "He doesna' live here." But Rutledge had a good memory for names. It had served him well in the war. He got up and went searching through the files in Hensley's box. Sandridge-someone had written a letter inquiring for him. It was from a Miss Gregory asking if there was another address for him. Coincidence? Or was there a connection? Dudlington was too small to hold so many coincidences. Rutledge went back to Gibson's letter, but there was nothing else of interest, except the last line.

I'd take it as a favor, if you burned this after reading it. After committing the details to memory, he did as he'd been asked. Although his foot was complaining stridently, Rutledge drove to Northampton to see Hensley. But the man was feverish, his face flushed, his body racked by chills. Hamish growled something about infection. As Rutledge drew up a chair, Hensley said, "I'm ill. It's that damned sister, she's been neglecting me." But the ward was filled with cases, and the nurses were trying to cope. Matron had ordered Rutledge to stay out of their way. The wall of a building had collapsed on Mercer Street, and five of the workmen had been brought in for surgery, along with two civilians unlucky enough to be walking beneath it. Rutledge had seen their families waiting in the corridor, wives white-faced and anxious, children with large, frightened eyes, clinging to their mothers and aunts. He said, "Constable. Why did Bowles send you to Dudlington? There must have been a good reason for the choice."

"There was a man retiring. Markham. I was given his place. What does it matter? I was just as glad to be away from London for a bit."

"For a bit?"

Hensley moved restlessly, then grimaced. "They lanced my back this morning. I could have told them their incisions weren't healing properly. They thought I was a com- plainer and ignored me."