He could imagine how the wives of the baker and the greengrocer and the butcher would have relished that sort of scandal, and taken pleasure in rubbing Mrs. Ellison’s nose in her disgrace. He had to agree with Martha there.
“It’s possible that Emma hoped her mother would give her the necessary permission.”
“No. Somehow I can’t believe—she’d have come back if that were true.” She was agitated, as if he’d accused Emma of being immoral. After a moment, she added, “I’ve made a mistake in coming here. I’d hoped for news. Constable Hensley wouldn’t answer me either. It’s frustrating when everyone believes you’re too young to know the truth! But please don’t tell my parents I was foolish enough to come here alone. They’ll be angry with me. I’m sorry—” And she was out the door, without looking back.
He called to her, but it was too late.
Restless, he went for a walk to clear his head. He went as far as The Oaks, and then turned right, cutting across the wide sweep of fields that ran down to the little stream, where trees marked its winding path through the pastures behind Dudlington. The wind caught up with him as soon as he was out of the shelter of the village, and he could feel the cold penetrating his coat and touching his skin with icy fingers.
No wonder the village turned its back on the fields, however picturesque they might seem—they faced west, and the pre-vailing winds met no resistance on this open land until it reached the stone and mortar of man’s huddled world.
He turned and looked back. The sky was a leaden bowl overhead, and the fields were a withered brown. Dudlington looked small and insignificant from here. Constable would have found very little of interest to paint on these highlands, even if the cattle in the barns were put out to graze.
From here he thought he could see the backs of brown sheep in the pastures across the main road. They were the color of dark rich gravy, and their winter coats were thick and heavy.
The fell sheep in Westmorland had been white under their blanket of snow. He wondered what they’d make of these tamer surroundings, protected and cosseted by Lake District standards. It was, he thought, a measure of the will to survive, that living things learned to cope. Then why had Ted Baylor chosen today, of all days, to try to mend Barbara Melford’s broken heart? What had changed in his circumstances, or hers? Or had he come for an entirely different reason? Love? Or an attempt to survive? Baylor had been the first to find Constable Hensley lying there cold enough to be counted as dead.
Suddenly, without warning, Rutledge felt vulnerable, as if standing here he made a perfect target for anyone hunting him.
There was nothing to explain the sensation. Only a sixth sense honed in war. The small windows of the houses he could see from here were blank, closed against the wind.
And from the long barns that held cattle, well out of the village itself, it was a very difficult shot. Even if someone lay concealed behind the sheep, it would take a rifle to hit him at that distance.
Still, he stood there, searching the land all around him, turning slowly.
It was empty, he would have sworn it was empty. But so was the headland in Kent and the Upper Pasture in Hertford.
Something caught his eye as he looked at the taller building sitting at the crossroads. He could have sworn he saw someone at a window of the inn, a slight movement.
Hamish said, “Ye’re imagining trouble where there’s none.”
“You’ll be as dead as I am, if I’m wrong,” Rutledge answered tersely, the wind snatching the words out of his mouth.
“Aye. I’m no’ ready to die. You willna’ fail me a second time.”
But Rutledge was already walking briskly toward The Oaks, his mind busy, his eyes no longer scanning the fields that seemed to stretch empty and forever around him.
He didn’t care to be stalked. It was something that gnawed at the back of one’s thoughts, always there.
Will it be here? Or will it be not at all?
And he found himself clenching his teeth with the sense of walking once more into heavy fire, as he’d done so many countless times in France.
I was in the war, he told himself. And whoever it is hasn’t counted on that.
If the Germans couldn’t kill him, by God, it wasn’t going to be some coward lurking—
He stopped short.
Hamish said, “The dead soldier.”
Dead, but without a gravestone in the churchyard.
“Yes,” Rutledge said slowly, already moving again.
“Only he wasn’t dead after all. He’d disguised himself.
Somehow. But Tommy Crowell wouldn’t have known that.
He’d have walked up to whatever it was he saw, to satisfy his curiosity. And the hunter, not wanting to risk shooting the boy, had frightened him instead.”
“It wouldna’ hae taken much to frighten him,” Hamish answered. “The lad wouldna’ understand.”
“And if someone had heard him talking about a dead soldier lying in Mrs. Massingham’s grounds, he’d have been laughed at, made fun of.”
He was halfway to The Oaks now, his strides long and angry.
Someone came out of the inn, walked over to a motorcar, and drove away, disappearing up the main road to the north.
By the time Rutledge reached the entrance of The Oaks, he was out of breath. He’d run the last hundred yards, swearing to himself as he went.
“Keating?” he called, striding into the bar.
There was no one there, and he crossed to the door of the saloon and stepped in.
The fire hadn’t been lit, and the dark-paneled room was cold, shadowed. For an instant he thought he saw someone by the window and realized that it was a long portrait of a man in riding dress, standing in a leafy glade, his face turned toward a distant view that only he could see.
Shutting the door again, Rutledge went down the passage to the kitchen and startled Hillary Timmons into dropping a spoon she was drying.
“Oh, you did give me a start, sir!” she exclaimed, her hands going to her breast, as if afraid he was about to attack her.
He realized his anger and frustration must be visible in his face. Striving to control both, he said, “I’m sorry, Miss Timmons. I was looking for Mr. Keating.”
“I can’t think where he might be,” she answered, still tense. “But we’re closed, sir. He may’ve stepped out for a bit.”
“There was a motorcar just leaving. Do you know who the person was, driving?”
“I don’t know, sir! I wasn’t serving in the bar today.
We’d only a handful of people there, and Mr. Keating said he’d see to them himself.”
“Damn!”
She jumped again, and he apologized.
“Tell Keating I’m looking for him. I’ll expect him to come to Hensley’s house, as soon as he returns.”
“He—he doesn’t take lightly to orders, sir.”
“Well, then, you can tell him that if he doesn’t come to me, I’ll come after him and drag him there myself.”
And with that Rutledge turned on his heel, left the door to the kitchen swinging wildly, and walked out of the inn.
By the time he’d reached the house where he was staying, some of his anger had cooled.
But he felt that he was on the track of answers now.
16
Certain that Keating wouldn’t be on his heels, Rutledge went into the bakery to find the postmistress.
A warm wave of yeast and cinnamon and rising bread greeted him as he stepped inside the door. The trays of baked goods displayed in a counter were already well picked over, as if the baker’s shop had done a brisk business in scones and poppy seed cakes and dinner rolls.
There was a woman behind the counter who was so much like Martha Simpson that he assumed she was the girl’s mother. Her face was pink with the warmth of the shop, and her apron was dusty with flour. He nodded to her and walked on to the tiny cage in one corner that served as the post office. Mrs. Arundel, a rangy woman of about thirty, was sitting on her stool, counting coins into a tin.