Legacy of the Dead

18

THE NEXT MORNING RUTLEDGE RECEIVED BY PRIVATE messenger permission to take Fiona MacDonald to Glencoe, as long as they were accompanied by a matron and a constable.

It was not how he had wanted to go there. He had thought of it as an expiation, sitting in the fiscal’s office. He had seen it, too, as an excuse for getting Fiona out of that small, dark cell and into the light. A muddle of reasons, none of them wise.

But the sooner he went, the better, before someone changed his mind.

He arranged for sandwiches in a basket to be packed for the journey, and then went out to his motorcar to drive around to the police station.

Oliver wasn’t there. Pringle thought he had gone out the Jedburgh road to look into a theft of a lorry’s contents. “It seems,” Pringle ended wryly, “that the driver fell asleep and ran off the road. When he went to find help dragging the lorry out of the ditch, someone helped himself to the contents instead.” Pringle shrugged. “The driver’s in a rage, but Inspector Oliver isn’t likely to be swayed by that. We had an incident once before where a driver sold off part of the contents and then claimed he’d been robbed. Inspector Oliver has a long memory. You don’t make a fool of him twice!”

Rutledge found himself thinking of the skeleton discovered in the stables at The Reivers. Oliver had gone on from that embarrassment to find the bones in Glencoe—

Rutledge thanked Pringle and decided to drive out the Jedburgh road himself. But he had hardly reached the outskirts of Duncarrick when his engine spluttered, caught, and then died.

Swearing, he got out to crank it again, but nothing happened. Taking a look at the engine—and attracting two young farm lads who came to peer over his shoulder at the mysteries under the bonnet—he could see nothing wrong. He asked one of the young men to hold the wire while he turned the crank and checked the spark. It was clearly not that. There was fresh petrol in the tank, filled in Jedburgh just the day before. And he could see no indication that anyone had meddled with the car.

In the end, Rutledge commandeered a horse and cart to tow the vehicle (with accompanying humor from the old farmer who didn’t hold with infernal combustion) back into Duncarrick, where it was left to the mercy of the mechanic at the smithy.

He wouldn’t be traveling anywhere with Fiona MacDonald this day. Or tomorrow—

“And who will be pleased to hear that?” Hamish asked, irony heavy in his voice. “The fiscal?”

“Burns gave permission. But grudgingly.”

Rutledge went back to the hotel and searched the space by the shed where he usually parked the motorcar. A precaution.

He walked around the space, examining the ground. The dust had been scuffed, but no clear footprints were visible except for his own. The rear of the car had been in the shadows cast by the shed standing no more than ten feet away. Easy to crouch unseen there in the darkness late at night and take an ax to a tire, if someone wanted to disable the car. But the tires hadn’t been touched. And as far as Rutledge could tell, the engine hadn’t been damaged either.

He’d just driven the car hard for four days—

Everyone in Duncarrick knew whose car sat in the hotel yard day after day. No one in his right mind would touch it.

“Unless,” Hamish pointed out, “you’ve tread on toes.”

RUTLEDGE WALKED TO the police station and from Constable Pringle borrowed the key to The Reivers again. The inn wasn’t likely to yield more information than it had, but he wanted to go there on his own and be sure.

Clarence, the cat, followed Rutledge soft-footed from room to room, a silent white ghost at his heels as he took his time in each. He couldn’t have said when he started what it was he wanted here.

Such a place as The Reivers, he thought, was not made for the morning. The echoes of the night would linger still in the air—laughter and voices—someone singing off-key—and the smell of spilled beer and ale, the reek of smoke would drift down the passages. There would be an emptiness, a loneliness, as if the inn stood waiting for the doors to swing open again and new patrons to stride through them, thirsty for a pint and the companionship that went with it.

Now there weren’t even the echoes of the previous night. The inn had stood empty long enough that the only smells stirred by his passage were of dust and old wood, and in the kitchen, the ashes of fires in the great stove.

Hamish, at his back, noted the smoke-darkened beams and the polished wood of the bar; the windows with their starched curtains and the small pewter pots on each table that must often have held flowers; the pretty handmade coverlets on the beds of each upstairs guest room—hardly a temptation to whoring; the tidy row of hooks that held gardening tools in the small stone-flagged room off the kitchen. The cupboard that held linens smelled faintly of lavender and rose petals. The pantry was empty, only a few tins of food standing like sentinels on the long shelves. In the kitchen, dishes were stored neatly in a huge wooden dresser, great iron pots hanging within reach, the sink dry where vegetables ought to be lying, waiting to be scrubbed and cooked.

“I could hae’ lived here,” Hamish said wistfully, “and been at peace. With her. I wouldna’ ache for the Highlands if she was here wi’ me. . . . I could rest easy.”

Rutledge tried to shut out the soft voice at his shoulder and listen for other ghosts that should dwell here. Ealasaid MacCallum for one. Or the sounds of a small boy as he played with his cat or ran shouting from room to room with his three-legged stuffed horse. Or Fiona’s presence as she went about her daily tasks. But he couldn’t find them. Especially he could not find Fiona’s.

It was as if even the floors had been scrubbed clean of the imprint of her shoe, to remove the last sign of her. Fiona had lived here—and put down no roots that he could see. She had done her duty by her aunt, had kept the inn alive and busy, had nurtured a child there. And let no one inside her heart, not even the building that she called her home.

After a time, to break the heavy silence that seemed to pervade the very walls, he turned to the cat and knelt to pet her. She reared her head under his hand, her eyes mere slits, and began to purr. “What would you have to tell me if you could speak?” he asked softly. “Hmmm?”

A voice said, “She’s naught but a dumb animal, man!”

Drummond, Fiona’s neighbor and guardian now of the child, stepped into the room, his presence startling the cat. Rutledge got to his feet as she disappeared behind the bar.

Even Hamish had not heard Drummond coming.

“But she has eyes, doesn’t she? And no reason to lie. I think it’s time that someone told me the truth,” Rutledge invited.

“There’s no truth to tell. What brings you here again?”

“I’m looking into the past, to see what’s hidden there that frightens so many people.” And yet he realized now that he’d spent his time at The Reivers trying to find a measure of Fiona MacDonald. Looking not for evidence but for the character of a woman who was as elusive as a wraith with no substance . . .

Why, then, hadn’t she sold up and left? If she had not been happy.

Eleanor Gray’s words came back to him. “I could die—”

“Hummph.” Drummond was regarding him with dislike. “You’re a stupid man, then. It’s not in the fiber of this building. The past. It never was.”

“Why are you so certain of that?”

“Do I have to tell the police their business, then? Because the child wasn’t born here, was he! That’s where a sensible man would look, wouldn’t he? Where the child was born. If he can discover it.” There was a glint of challenge in his eye. As if he’d offered Rutledge an enigma.

“I’ve already been there. Where he was born. It’s a very ordinary clinic with a doctor too busy with his patients to care who they are. I’m told it was a normal birth, but the mother was very ill afterward.”

Appalled, Drummond stared at him. “And how, by God, did you discover any such thing? It’s more than Oliver ever did—or wanted to do!”

“I’m a policeman. It’s my job.”

Digesting the news, Drummond asked suspiciously, “Where might this clinic be found?”

Rutledge smiled. Interested, are you? “London. Carlisle. York. Your choice.”

Angry, Drummond said, “I won’t be taunted, policeman. Or made fun of. If you found the clinic, you found a name to put to that child. And to the child’s mother. Is that true?”

“Yes. I was given a name. It isn’t one I know.”

“And where might she be found now? On a hillside in the Highlands, bare bones with the corbies for company?” Something had changed in Drummond’s face. A tightness of the muscles under the eyes. A tension along the jaw.

“In her grave,” Rutledge answered, suddenly wary. He could feel the powerful emotion building in Drummond’s bulk. Why did Drummond care so much? Or if it wasn’t that—if he wanted the information for another reason— why the intensity? He added carefully, “If you know what’s best, you’ll leave her there. In her grave.”

“Why?” It was a growl.

“Because she’s safer there. And the child as well.”

“Which still leaves Fiona MacDonald in the hands of the hangman!”

“Not yet. Why should it matter to you?” Rutledge asked.

Drummond glared at him in hot, fierce silence.

“I’ve met no one else in Duncarrick save Constable McKinstry who gives a tinker’s curse for what becomes of her,” Rutledge repeated. “Why should you?”

Silence still.

Rutledge added, “Is it the tilt of her head when she listens to you? Or the smile in her eyes when she laughs—”

The fury erupted. “I’ll rip the tongue from your head!” He lunged, fast for such a big man, his fist grazing Rutledge’s cheek. But Rutledge had already stepped aside, catching Drummond’s wrist as he went off balance, turning to twist it high behind his back, forcing him hard into the edge of the bar as momentum carried him forward. Drummond was breathing heavily, well aware of the strength he possessed as he struggled against Rutledge’s weight—and nearly turning the tables. Rutledge’s fingers bit deeper into the man’s wrist, and he could feel the elbow strain.

“No, you listen to me, Drummond! If Fiona MacDonald is going to live, it will take more than you or I or anyone else can do to save her. Do you hear me? She’s doomed. And that child will grow up in an orphanage, believing what they tell him about her. If he remembers her at all, it will be with loathing.”

Drummond roared, swearing to kill Rutledge.

“Then help me, damn you!” Rutledge ended through clenched teeth.

He let the arm go and moved out of reach as Drummond swung around like an angry bear, his other fist just missing its mark. “I’ll help you to your grave—!”

“Touch me again and I’ll have you taken up for assault!” Rutledge warned him. “And if you’re in a cell, your sister will be the only one left to care for that child! Will she want that responsibility?”

He watched the battle behind the big man’s eyes, saw the furious desire to pound his fists into Rutledge’s face, saw the driving hunger to hurt. Dammed-up anger, too long restrained, long stored, needing release. And then saw, too, the swift victory of clear reason that overcame the wrath.

Rutledge tried another strategy. “Look, I’m sorry. But I can’t trust you if you won’t trust me. Do you see that? If I tell you whatever it is I believe I know, how can I be sure that it won’t reach the wrong ears?”

“What wrong ears?” Drummond was hardly coherent as he added thickly, “There’s a score to settle between us. The time will come when it will be settled.”

He brushed past Rutledge and went out the door, his breathing harsh and his anger still palpable. The clump of his hobnailed boots echoed through the bar.

Hamish, breathing nearly as hard, said, “It wasna’ clever to make him an enemy!”

“No, it wasn’t clever. But I think it was useful. He knows something, that man—or is afraid he knows something. And it must be damning, or he would have stepped forward in the beginning!”

“He lives next door—he might have seen what he shouldn’t.”

Rutledge shook his head. “Whatever it is, he won’t be made to talk.”

He found the cat, carried her to the bedroom where he had seen the indentation on the pillow, and set her there. She curled herself around, lay down, and began to spin, her purr a heavy sound in the silence.

“Fiona?”

Rutledge said the name aloud. The cat turned and looked toward the door of the bedchamber, ears pricking. But there was no one on the stairs. She went back to kneading the pillow, her eyes half closed.

Suddenly claustrophobic, even in the large, sunlit bedroom, Rutledge turned and left.

RUTLEDGE RETURNED THE inn’s key to McKinstry and went back to The Ballantyne. There was still a quarter of an hour before luncheon was served, and he went up to his room. Opening the door, his mind on Drummond, he stepped inside and then stopped. The hackles on the back of his neck rising in warning, he closed the door quietly behind him and stood there, just inside the empty room.

Hamish said, “It’s no’ the same—”

Someone had been here.

Not the maid. She had come and gone while he ate his breakfast. Even if she’d returned with fresh towels or to close the windows, his mind would have recorded that without thinking about it.

This was different.

And instinct told him it was not a friendly intrusion. Something below the level of conscious thought had pricked down his nerves. The war had taught him to heed instinct. . . .

He moved around the room, carefully searching with his eyes but touching nothing. Whoever it was had been very thorough, going through his belongings with painstaking attention to where each item had been before. But he—or she—had made certain that Rutledge would know his privacy had been invaded. His shirts in the drawer of the chest. His shoes on the rack in the wardrobe. The way his ties were folded . . . Each had been moved. Each had been put back very nearly where it had been. But with just enough change to catch the eye of a man looking for change—

Because the atmosphere had changed. It was alien. Hostile.

Drummond?

Rutledge hadn’t survived four years in the trenches without learning the skills of the hunter—and developing the sixth sense that kept the hunted alive.

Nothing had been taken. He was sure of that. The intent had been to show him his own vulnerability, not to steal.

It was, in a way, a gauntlet thrown down.

And not as a challenge.

More a very coldly calculated threat.

I can touch you—but you cannot touch me.

It was the first mistake that had been made in what had been—to this point—a very skillful game.

RUTLEDGE WAS JOINED at lunch by Inspector Oliver.

He made a circuit of the dining room, greeting first this person and then another, once stopping to listen to a man by the window and then laughing quietly as if he appreciated the humor of what had been said.

Hamish said, “There’s a man wi’ something on his mind.”

Finally arriving at Rutledge’s table, Oliver pulled out the empty chair on the other side and signaled to the middle-aged woman who was serving this noon. She came over, smiling, and said, “Would you like the menu, then, Inspector?”

“Thanks, Mary.” He nodded as she handed it to him, then turned to Rutledge and said affably, “What’s that you’ve ordered? The roast ham?”

“Yes. It’s quite good. Who are the people over there—the table by the fireplace?” He had seen the man out by the pele tower. But his interest was in the woman—he had questioned her about Fiona.

Oliver peered in their direction. “That’s Sandy Holden. Landowner. Had a horse farm, now trying to get by with sheep. He’ll make it. A good man.”

“And the woman?”

“His wife, of course. Madelyn Holden.”

“She looks as if she might be ill. Lungs, at a guess.”

“Good God, no. She nearly died from the influenza last autumn. Hasn’t got her strength back yet. The doctor says it will come with time, but Sandy frets about her. It’s been almost a year, and she’s no better. Shame, really. She was one of the finest horsewomen I’ve ever seen.” He turned to the menu. “It’s the ham, then. Or—there’s stew. They put turnips in the stew here. I’m fond of turnips.” He set the menu aside and added, “I hear you drove to Winchester. On this business or another?”

“On this business. We found someone who remembered Eleanor Gray from her schooldays and had kept in touch. Until, that is, the spring of 1916, when Eleanor was expected to spend a weekend at Atwood House. But she called Mrs. Atwood at the last minute and said that she and a friend were driving to Scotland instead.”

“Ah!” Oliver looked keenly at Rutledge. “Friend. Male or female?”

“An officer she’d met some time before. At least we think it’s the same man. He had enough leave left to make the journey. She came with him. No one has seen or heard from her since, as far as I can discover.”

“Are you certain about the timing? Eleanor Gray couldn’t have borne the child in the spring!” He shook his head. “This Mrs. Atwood has got it wrong, I think.”

“I could die— ” Rutledge could hear Mrs. Atwood’s light voice repeating the words. No, she hadn’t got it wrong. Eleanor’s mood had aroused her jealousy. And later her guilt.

But he said aloud, “She needed a place of refuge for the next four or five months. Someone may have let her have the use of a house or flat.”

“I see what you’re getting at. If she’d stayed on in London, her little secret wouldn’t have been a secret very long.” Oliver gave the matter some thought. The people by the window got up to leave, distracting him. He said, “I had wondered, you know. How a woman like that could spend dreary months in some out-of-the-way Scottish village. Made no sense. Well, I saw the house she grew up in, it was a bloody palace! A flat now, in Edinburgh or Inverness, that’s more likely! But surely it would have been easier to find someone in London to rid her of the child.”

“She was too well known in London. She was too well known in medical circles particularly.”

“There are back streets where such things can be done discreetly.”

“At a price. She might have feared blackmail.”

“Then why not in Glasgow—Edinburgh—Carlisle? She’d not have given her right name or her direction. Easy enough if she’d had a mind for it. Such things went on in the war. She wouldn’t be the first—or the last.”

Rutledge thought of the clinic and Dr. Wilson but said, “Perhaps she wanted the child. Or, at the very least, wanted it to live. And as soon as that was accomplished, she walked away from it.”

“Then you’re saying that the accused had no need to kill the mother—the child was hers for the asking!” Mary came to take Oliver’s order, and he settled for the stew.

“Yes. It fits the timing.”

“Then why hasn’t she turned up since? You’re off the mark! Eleanor Gray is dead, and we’ve found her bones.” Oliver leaned back in his chair and scanned the room. Without looking at Rutledge, he asked, “What’s this I hear from the fiscal, that you want to take the accused to Glencoe?”

He had finally got to the subject that had brought him here.

“She knows the terrain far better than any of us do. I’d like to confront her with her crime. And watch what happens.” There were other reasons. He had not let himself think of them.

“Her lawyer will tell you it’s not on.”

“Then let him come as well.”

“A bloody circus!” Hamish put in.

“Then I’m telling you it’s not on! I see no purpose to be served,” Oliver said angrily.

McKinstry came through the door to the dining room and stood scanning the tables until he saw Oliver.

He crossed quickly to Oliver’s side, bent over, and said quietly, “You’d better come, sir. There’s a message from the police in Glencoe.”

“I’ll be there in a quarter of an hour. Damn it, can’t you see I’m in the middle of my lunch!”

“Yes, sir.” McKinstry straightened and started for the door.

Oliver threw his serviette in his plate and got up, swearing under his breath.

Rutledge was finishing his flan. He started to follow, but Oliver motioned him back into his chair.

“No, this is my end of things.”

Rutledge acknowledged his barely veiled order and stayed where he was. It never paid to argue jurisdiction with the local man, even when you were in the right.

Hamish said, “He’s no’ finished what was on his chest.”

“Just as well,” Rutledge retorted. For an instant he thought he had spoken the words aloud.

TEN MINUTES LATER Oliver was back. His face was grim.

“They’ve found something up the glen. We’re on our way. Where’s your motorcar?”

Rutledge explained.

Oliver nodded. “Well, you’d better come along, then. You’ll want to hear what’s said.”

Torn between duty and dread, Rutledge slowly got to his feet.

GLENCOE HAD A long and dark history. The bloody massacre there on 13 February 1692, had left its mark in the very ground. And the great bulge of mountains that overshadowed the valley below seemed to hold a long and bitter memory in their barren rock.

MacIan of Glencoe had failed to take his oath to the King, William of Orange, by 1 January of that year. It wasn’t his fault; he had reached Fort William in time, but there he had been sent on to Inveraray. Still, a punishment was held to be in order.

Campbell soldiers were quartered on the MacDonalds.

The Campbells had lived peacefully for twelve days in MacDonald homes and eaten their bread and salt. Then, without warning on that dark, cold February night, the soldiers had risen from their beds and slaughtered men, women, and children indiscriminately. Those who escaped died of cold and hunger and wounds in the bleak, unforgiving hills. And for the handful of survivors, the name of Campbell was ever after anathema.

As Oliver’s motorcar passed Loch Leven and took the road south of the river that led into the heart of the glen, Rutledge could feel the press of time and anguish, just as he felt Hamish’s unspoken grief. He wished fervently that he hadn’t come. He’d planned to drive here with Fiona; he’d seen her as his shield against the glen, but he knew now, beyond question, that it would have been wrong then just as it was wrong now.

Even Fiona couldn’t protect him from the images in his own mind.

Not far from here, Hamish had been born, grew to manhood, and went off to war. This was land he knew so well, he had described nearly every inch of it to Rutledge the night before he died. It wasn’t imagination that peopled the great empty glen with memories, it was the stored knowledge of a lifetime. And the lasting voice of a soldier who had spoken softly in the candlelight but tellingly, the noisy darkness around the small makeshift hut they sat in notwithstanding, until Rutledge could have recited each and every word in his dreams.

As the miles rolled behind them, Rutledge relived that night with such ferocity that he was back again in 1916, even as he saw every turn of the road.

After a fashion, Hamish had come home.