Charles Todd - Search the Dark

“The family might have been offered a ride. On a dray or a cart. In a car.”

“As to that, if they were taken up by a vehicle, it won’t have been a local one,” the constable said pedantically, as if explaining matters to a man of limited intelligence, “which tells me they’d be far beyond Charlbury by now. What would persuade them to stop here, when they could be miles away with a farmer who came from anywhere ’twixt here and the Somerset border?”

“Even so, he didn’t have wings! How did he reach Somerset without passing through Charlbury? Or Stoke Newton? This farmer of yours? He couldn’t drive his wagon through one of these villages without being seen by someone.”

“A number of carts and a wagon came through Charlbury,” Truit admitted. “None of them with any passengers! I asked around about that. And no one in my town offered a lift to someone coming from Singleton Magna.”

“Then why haven’t we found the other bodies?” Rutledge asked, not intending any reflection on the constable’s efforts, his mind instead on what the carts and wagon might have carried, and whether three people, two of them children, might have hidden themselves behind or under the cargo. But Truit chose to take the remark as a distinct challenge.

A deep flush spread up the man’s face. “That’s a matter you’ll have to take up with Inspector Hildebrand, sir. It’s not my place to answer for him!”

Washing your own hands, are you? Rutledge thought, but said only, “You’re right, of course,” and left it at that

But as he drove on, he and Hamish entered into a lengthy discussion of Constable Truit’s abilities and how he did his job. Hamish had taken a strong dislike to the constable and made no bones about it.

A chain was no better than its weakest link. And in the chain of villages that blocked the most likely direction the Mowbrays had taken from the railway station at Singleton Magna, the other two constables had been brisk, business-like, and courteous, men who knew their worth and took pride in exhibiting it.

Rutledge, thinking about it, decided he was coming back to Charlbury. Something at the back of his mind, unformed and more intuitive than rational, was aroused. Even Hamish was aware of it, though he said only, “It’s trouble you’re stirring up, but you’ll no’ be satisfied until you’ve sorted that one out!”

“He’s not dependable,” Rutledge pointed out. “He tells you whatever he thinks will make less work for him. He’s certain there’s no connection in Charlbury with the Mow-brays, and he may be right. But what if he’s wrong?”

“You no’ can walk away from it,” Hamish agreed. “Until somebody’s found the bairns!”

Hildebrand was out to lunch when Rutledge walked down to the police station, and rather than wait in the dark smothering confines of the place, he asked if he could speak to Mowbray instead.

The constable on duty, mindful of the tightrope he walked between this man from London and Inspector Hildebrand, dithered for two whole seconds, thinking it through. But Rutledge knew his man, and with the commanding presence of a former army officer standing in front of him and brooking no nonsense, the constable came down on the side of prudence and offered to take Rutledge back personally.

They found another constable in the cell with Mowbray, a cadaverously thin policeman who looked to be in the last stages of tuberculosis, but his voice was strong and deep as he stood up, speaking politely to Rutledge.

“He doesn’t have much to say, sir,” the watcher told him. “Just sits and stares. Or cries. That’s the worst, just tears rolling down his face and no sound…”

“Go have yourself a smoke,” the first constable told him, and he left with a swift stride that spoke volumes. “We can only keep a man here two hours,” he went on to Rutledge in an undertone. “I’d have a riot on my hands, else. Not the best of assignments.”

“No.” Rutledge turned to Mowbray, and said in a firm, quiet voice, “Mr. Mowbray? It’s Inspector Rutledge, from London.”

The bowed head came up with a jerk, the face tight with fear. “You’ve found them, then?” he asked, voice a thread of sound. “Are-are they-dead?”

“No. But I’d like to ask you-it’s hard searching for someone you’ve never seen. I’d like you to describe the children for me. As you saw them on the railway platform.”

Mowbray shook his head. “No, please-I can’t- I can’t!

“It would help,” Rutledge told him gently, “if we knew. If they seemed healthy-lively-or were quiet, shy-”

Mowbray clapped his hands over his ears, swaying with pain and grief. “No- don’t! Oh, God, don’t!”

He was relentless, it had to be done. “They grow fast, children do. Would you say Mary was a good mother? That she’d cared for them properly? Were they well filled out? Or had she neglected them, let them grow thin and pale-”

The bowed head came up again, eyes suddenly fierce behind the tears. “She’s a good mother, always was, I’ll not hear anything against my Mary!”

“You must have found it easy to recognize her -but much harder to be sure of them. The little girl must have gone up like a weed-they do, sometimes-”

But perseverance got Rutledge nowhere. With a gasp Mowbray threw up his hands, as if warding off blows. “I tell you I couldn’t harm them-they were alive!-I loved them-I wanted to hold them- for God’s sake, I loved them! ”

Rutledge reached out and touched the stooped shoulder, avoiding the eyes that looked into hell.

Like Hamish’s eyes, if he ever turned and found them watching him

Rutledge spun on his heel and went out of the room, his breathing disordered, his mind in turmoil. The constable came after him, then stopped. “You got him to speak-it’s more than I’ve been able to do!”

“Not that it did any good! Are you coming?”

“I’ll have to wait for Hindley to return,” he said. “If you don’t mind-”

“No, I’ll find my own way!” Rutledge walked down the passage, his breath coming roughly in his throat. Outside on the steps of the building, he ran into Hildebrand.

“You look like you’ve seen your own ghost,” he said, staring at Rutledge. “What’s happened?”

I’ll not go back into that building! Not yet! Rutledge told himself and said aloud, “Nothing has happened. But I want to speak to you where we can’t be overheard. Shall we walk down to the railway station?”

Grumbling about the heat, Hildebrand followed him as he strode off. “I’ve been out in the sun most of the morning,” he was saying. “I’ll be dead of sunstroke before we find those bodies. And half my men with me!”

“That’s what I want to speak to you about. I don’t think Mowbray saw either his wife or his children at the railway station-”

“Don’t be daft, man!” Hildebrand said harshly, stopping to stare at Rutledge. “Of course he did! That’s what started the poor sod’s rampage!”

“Listen to me, damn it! I think he believed he saw his wife-or someone who strongly resembled her. And children of the ages he remembered. They reminded him so forcibly of his family that he was thrown into emotional confusion. Just then the train pulled out, which meant he couldn’t confront the woman and sort it all out. By the time he’d made his way back to Singleton Magna again, he was convinced he had to be right, that she and the children had somehow survived. But when he couldn’t find any trace of them here, the longer he searched the more certain he was that there must be a conspiracy afoot to conceal them. And the angrier and the more determined he became-”

Hildebrand watched him with disbelief. He was in no mood for folly “The sun’s turned your wits, man! He knew his wife, he came after her, he killed her, and that’s why we’re searching high and low for those children-”