Charles Todd - A Fearsome Doubt

And yet Shaw had slowly emerged, slowly been identified, his life probed, his activities examined, until the timing had damned him.

He had maintained that when he left, each of the women was still alive.

But coincidence could be stretched only so far. And Shaw’s way of life had been changed by the small pieces of jewelry and silver frames and bits of flatware that had been sold to men whose own livelihood lay in convenient memory loss and a rapid dispersal of questionable goods to other dealers.

Not one of them had described Ben Shaw. The man was forty. Young. Graying. Balding. A woman, they thought. Working-class. No better than she should be. Shabbily dressed and poor, but with a posh accent. Hard to trace, these remnants of a dead victim’s life, without help. But one or two had come to light in the windows of small shops, noticed by eagle-eyed young constables eager to make their mark…

One of those constables had been Janet Cutter’s son by her first marriage. George Peterson. The suicide…

Rutledge paced the floor, his mind absorbed in the past.

Hamish scolded, “Ye canna’ solve the problem, gnawing at it like an auld dog wi’ a shinbone! There’s work to be done here. You canna’ ignore it!”

Rutledge recalled Mrs. Taylor’s weary face, and the uncertain future of young Peter Webber.

Hamish was right. This was not the first time he’d had to juggle cases, when there was heavy pressure for answers. There had been times before the war when he hardly slept at all. And one of those times was the Shaw case.

Where had that mourning locket spent the last six years?

He looked at his watch, decided Dowling might still be at his desk. Leaving the room, he ran lightly down the staircase in the main lobby, and strode out the door, turning toward the police station. The evening was beginning to clear, a sharp wind brushing out the rain. Brushing out the cobwebs as well? Hamish wanted to know.

Inspector Dowling was just turning to walk home. Rutledge called his name and the man stopped, looking around.

“I’m late for my tea,” he said, “and I’m tired.”

“Come to the hotel and have dinner with me. I need to talk to you, and this is as good a time as any.”

Torn between his obligations at home and the chance of a fair meal, Dowling stood there in the street, his face a picture of his struggle. “Yes, all right, then. I’ll meet you at The Plough. I ought to tell my wife I’ll be late.”

He walked on, and Rutledge retraced his steps to the hotel. Halfway there, he encountered Elizabeth Mayhew on the street.

“Ian!” she said, startled. “What on earth-”

“I’m in Marling for the present. Assigned to deal with these murders.”

“Oh…” She bit her lip, as if uncertain what to do, whether to invite him to dine with her-or perhaps to stay at her house for the duration.

Reading the dismay in her eyes, he said gently, “I’ve a room at the hotel. Come and dine with me one night. But not this evening, I’ve got a meeting with Dowling.”

“He’s a good man,” she said distractedly. “I’d heard they had sent someone down from London. I never dreamed it might be you!”

“And the puppies. They’re thriving?” It was the first thing that came into his head. Their old easy companionship had evaporated like the evening’s mists, and he felt nearly as awkward as she evidently did.

“Yes-they’re growing-they’re quite adorable, actually, playful and sleeping less now that their eyes have opened-” She stopped, as if after such an enthusiastic report she felt she ought to invite him to come and see Henrietta’s brood for himself. The silence stretched out, as she searched for something else to say.

“I mustn’t miss my meeting,” he said. “Will you leave a message at the hotel desk, when you’ll be free for dinner?”

Relieved, she replied, “Of course. I’m-I’m glad you’re here, Ian. I look forward to dinner-”

And then she was gone, a quick smile begging for understanding as she went on down the street in the direction of the church.

He turned to look after her, saddened by the change in their relationship. But if there was someone, a new man in her life, then there would be little room left for Richard’s old friends. And he could appreciate that sea change. If he were courting a young woman whose late husband’s friends were in the picture, their presence would cause a certain degree of unease. Particularly judging whether the widow was yet free of the past, and what his own role would become if she wasn’t…

But he wasn’t courting Elizabeth. He was watching her fade from his life, a pleasant memory that was no longer his to enjoy.

Richard, Rutledge said to himself as he turned again and walked on to the hotel, it’s not my place to play dog in the manger. Elizabeth must make her own way.

But the sadness lingered. And a certain unacknowledged responsibility. He remembered what his sister Frances had said: “You’re afraid you are letting Richard down…”

Hamish remarked, “She’s no’ on her way to the altar. Only in the direction of yon kirk.”

And it was true. Time enough to worry later.

Dowling regarded the Plough’s menu like a starving man faced with a banquet.

Rutledge watched in amusement as the inspector chose very carefully, as if half afraid such an opportunity might not come his way again.

After they’d ordered, Dowling leaned back in his chair. “Sergeant Burke has told me about Peter Webber. How much faith do you put in what the boy had to say?”

“I don’t know,” Rutledge answered honestly. “But it’s a place to begin. Tell me, do you know someone called Jimsy Ridger?”

“Good God, how did you come to hear of him?”

“Apparently someone has been asking for him.”

“As in, someone who might be our murderer?”

As their soup was set before them, Rutledge replied, “It’s hard to judge. But rather a coincidence, don’t you think? Tell me about Ridger.”

Dowling spooned up the carrot-and-onion soup with great gusto, then said, “He’s not local. Never was. As a boy he came with the hop pickers out of Maidstone, a rough sort of child with a bullying nature and a particularly unclear concept of personal property. There were innumerable complaints about him. The hop pickers often camped or caravaned, you see. There were precious few things worth stealing, but it was easy enough if you saw a man’s pipe you fancied, or a silver bangle forgotten on a bench, even a bit of ribbon for the hair. Most of the adults, and the children who were old enough to work, were too tired to be overly troublesome, but the younger ones, with too much energy and too little guidance, were always skirting trouble. Ridger might have become the ringleader, if he’d been clever enough to go about it in the right way. But he was always out for himself. For our sakes, I was always glad he hadn’t seen his golden opportunity.”

“He came in the autumn, then, for the picking?”

“And sometimes the haying before that. Depended on the weather, you see, when one finished and the other began.” He finished his soup with a sigh of satisfaction.

“At any rate,” Dowling went on, “Ridger was soon off to fairer fields of endeavor. He ran away to London with an older boy, and his mother didn’t have the energy to care. Nothing was ever proved against Ridger. But there was a trail of near misses. Petty theft, some minor forgery, cheating old women out of their savings-the sort of trouble a boy is likely to fall into, running with the wrong crowd.”

“I’m surprised you followed his career.”

Dowling grinned. “Hardly that. From time to time I’d be contacted by London when they’d run out of likely places to look for him.”