Todd, Charles - Ian Rutledge 23 - A Fatal Lie by Todd Charles

Author:Todd, Charles [Todd, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: 2021-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

Again they walked in silence, taking the right fork of the road to a cottage that was just out of sight of the stone bridge.

“My surgery,” Shepherd said wryly, leading the way up the short path to the door. Inside he took Rutledge into the little back room that he used to confer with patients. It was cold, no fire lit against the still-early spring chill in the air at these heights. But one was laid on the hearth, and Shepherd busied himself lighting it.

When it was burning to his satisfaction, he sat down not at his desk but in the chair across from Rutledge.

“There’s a woman here in town—well, was, actually. I haven’t seen her in some time. She lives in that small house that sits back in the trees just beyond the hotel. You probably haven’t noticed it. The house was to let, and she took it about three years ago. Arrived almost in the dark of night, you might say. One day the house was empty, the next it was occupied. She kept to herself. I wasn’t here then, still in France. Then one day the house was closed again, and she was gone. One of the local women thought she might have been recovering from an illness. She ordered from the shops, had it delivered, but she was sometimes seen walking in the early morning or late in the evening.”

Rutledge waited.

“Last summer she was back again. I saw her a time or two, and that’s when I was told about her. I kept an eye open, in the event she needed help, but she never consulted me. I told myself she might have been recovering from tuberculosis, and the mountain air was good for her.”

When he paused again, Rutledge said, “Go on.”

“We have heavy mists sometimes. Thick white cloying mists. They come down in the night, and sometimes don’t lift until midday. It was about ten o’clock on such a morning when I was summoned to the police station. Constable Jones is a good man, but this was beyond his ability to cope. I arrived at the station to find him dealing with a frantic woman. She was barefoot, cuts on her face and arms. She had come flying into the station, screaming for him to find her child. That the child was missing, and she couldn’t find her in that mist. I realized as soon as I saw her who she was, the woman from the little house.”

He got up to stir the fire. Standing at the hearth, his back to Rutledge, he said, “She kept repeating her story. That she’d awakened this morning, started down to prepare breakfast, only to find the front door standing wide. She couldn’t see the path, much less the road beyond. Closing the door, she went on to her kitchen, and when the porridge was ready, she went to call her small daughter. But the child never answered her, and when she went up to her room, it was empty.

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