A Long Shadow (22 page)

She turned back, and he followed her up the walk.

He went to the rector's room first and told him that there was an attractive visitor downstairs.

"Who is it?" He raised himself on his pillows, drawing his dressing gown across his nightclothes.

"You don't know her. But I think you'll enjoy her company."

Towson, his spirits lifting, said, "Have I shaved properly? And my hairbrush, it's there on the top of the tall dresser."

When Towson was satisfied, he said, "Is Hillary still in the kitchen? I might ask her to bring us tea." His expression was longing, and Rutledge laughed.

"I'll see to it."

When he returned with Mrs. Channing, Rutledge watched in amusement as the rector's eyes widened.

"I'm so sorry to meet you under such unhappy circumstances," she said warmly, walking to the bed to take his hand. The Queen herself couldn't have done it more graciously, moving down long rows of wounded in a hospital ward.

Rutledge, standing in the door, saw Towson rise to the occasion and, even in his dressing gown, put on his churchman's face, finding the right words to welcome his guest.

Leaving them to get acquainted, he went down to the kitchen and asked Hillary Timmons to prepare tea.

By the time Rutledge came back with the tray, Mrs. Channing and the rector were gossiping like old friends. He found himself pouring the cups and passing them, listening to a conversation about the works of Dickens.

He had already told Mrs. Channing what he wanted of her, and now he explained what he needed to Towson. He borrowed Mrs. Channing for a few minutes to show her the way to the attics and warn her to beware on the stairs.

And then he left, going out the door to the back garden, letting himself out of the back gate, and walking openly up the sloping pastures toward Frith's Wood.

It took him no more than fifteen minutes to reach the wood and step into the outriders of trees. They seemed to close in after him, and he was in the heart of the wood, walking without haste first one way and then the other.

Hamish, unhappy with the exercise, made no bones about it, telling Rutledge roundly that he was asking for trouble.

"Nothing is going to happen," he said, his voice steady.

But he felt again that sense of being watched, and of something unpleasant surrounding him.

He moved on, in a half circle, then began to make his way to the fringe of the wood, before walking briskly back to the rectory.

Only once did he let himself glance at the windows of the Baylor house, but he could see no one there.

He found a very distressed Meredith Channing waiting for him by the stairs as he came through from the kitchen.

"You hadn't told me about the wood—not the truth!" she exclaimed, her hands clasped together in front of her.

"It's an old wood, surrounded by legend—"

"It's a cold and brooding place. And I thought I saw a shadow following you, looming there among the trees. I couldn't call out a warning—you couldn't have heard me if I had. But it was all I could do to stay by the window and watch."

"What kind of shadow?"

"I don't know, a darkness, something. I was too far away to tell."

He wondered for a moment if she'd made it up.

"You could see me moving through the copse then. Could you tell who it was, walking there? Or see what I was doing?"

"I could only be sure a man was there, in among the trees. Because I knew it was you, I could identify you, yes. If it had been a stranger, I couldn't have sworn to what he looked like. And there were times when you were concealed behind a knot of branches or thick patches of undergrowth. It really depended on the line of sight through the trunks and brush."

"You've just met the rector. Could you have identified Towson if he'd been out there?"

"I think I probably could have. Unless he was heavily bundled up in a coat and scarf. Then I'd have been less sure."

"Tell me about the shadow. Who was it?"

"It wasn't—you'll think me mad—it wasn't really human. It was something shapeless, hovering near you." Someone heavily disguised, like the soldier in Mrs. Massingham's pasture? Hamish had felt it too, that sense of danger.

"Was it something I could have turned around and touched? Or a sixth sense, created out of what you felt about that wood?"

Meredith Channing shook her head. "Don't ask me to answer that. I don't know. But I can tell you this much. I had the strongest feeling while I was watching that if you went into that wood after dark, you might not come out alive."

They thanked the rector and said good-bye, walking out into the golden light of an approaching sunset. It gave the cold and empty fields a glowing warmth, and set shadows by the stream, while the church spire seemed to be on fire.

"Come into the church," Rutledge said. "It may be too dark, but I'd promised to take you there."

Mrs. Channing was still distressed by her experience in the attics and her first thought was to refuse. He could see it in her face. But then she went with him to the tower door.

In the sanctuary there was still an afterglow, spilling through the stained glass and giving to the painted ceiling just the right blend of light and shadow to make it seem real, rising high above their heads into a blue sky with cushions of clouds that seemed solid enough for saints and angels to float on.

"How lovely!" she exclaimed, walking farther into the church and turning a little for the best view. "And how unexpected out here in the middle of nowhere."

"It's a trick of the eye," Rutledge told her. "Move this way and look again."

"Good heavens. That's quite amazing, isn't it? And very suitable here."

"Yes." He let her walk around on her own, her head tilted, the light sometimes touching her hair or her face or the burgundy of her coat.

"I imagine it wouldn't be easy to do this on a flat surface over your head, and know as you worked that it would have dimensions. When was it done?"

"Sometime in the early nineteenth century, when the village was moved here and rebuilt."

"Well, it was a gifted hand, I should think." She took one final look, and then went back to him, where he was waiting by the sanctuary door.

They stepped through it and shut it and were crossing the flagged floor to the main door, when there was a sound well above their heads.

As if something—or someone—had accidentally touched the clapper of the bell. The echoing note seemed to be caught somewhere above them, a resonance that had nowhere to go.

Rutledge looked up at once, to see if the bell rope had moved. It was stirring a little, but whether from being touched or from the wind through the shuttered windows by the clock face, he couldn't be sure.

He was strongly tempted to go up the stone steps to the wooden ones, and see for himself, but there was Mrs. Channing to consider as well.

She must have read something in his face, for she said, "Don't—"

"I think there's someone above us," he told her quietly. "I want to see who it is. Open the tower door and go back to the inn. I'll be all right here. He can't stay up there forever."

"No, if I leave he'll see me. He'll know you're waiting and be ready. No!"

It was true.

He debated for only a moment longer and then said, "Stay here."

He went up the stone steps swiftly and as quietly as he could, though his footsteps seemed too loud, filling the tower room with their noisy progress.

He came through into the level where the wooden flights began and looked up into the darkness of the tower. A single rotted leaf drifted down from above, brushing his shoulder.

The shutters cast slanted bars of light across the face of the bell, but below and above, there was gloom. And as he watched, the bars of light began to fade, and the gathering dusk left the tower completely dark.

There had been no one on the stairs when he had begun to climb. And no one beside the bell. He'd have wagered his life on it.

Whoever it was had climbed well up into the spire and was hidden there in the shadows that were growing deeper by the minute. And he himself had no torch with him.

Rutledge stopped.

There were better ways to catch whoever it was.

He made his way back down again, making no attempt to conceal his movements this time.

Mrs. Channing was standing there, face upturned, a pale blur in the dimness. "Ian?"

"Let's be off," he said, and opened the tower door for her.

In silence, they went down the walk to Church Street and then turned into Whitby Lane.

"Go to Hensley's house and wait for me there," he said to her. "I want to make my way back to the church."

"I'd rather you didn't—"

"Yes, but there isn't much choice. Go on, before I lose him."

She did as she was told, walking briskly up the lane without looking back. A sharp wind swirled a dust devil at her feet as Rutledge retraced his steps to the end of the street. There was a house on the corner, but no lamplight shone out its windows. He flattened himself against the outside wall and moved on to the next house, which faced Church Street.

He stopped there, his view toward the church open.

The houses fronting the street were quiet, and no one was about except for a large dog sniffing at the gutters. There was an empty motorcar standing in front of one door, and a lorry by another. He could hear the sound of hammering from that house, as if a tradesman was finishing work on a door or other wooden surface. The banging was rhythmic and steady, and then silence fell. From somewhere he could hear a child's voice, raised in a question, and another dog barked at the first, warning it to mind where it stopped.

Rutledge waited a quarter of an hour. And then the church door opened and someone came out, shutting it quickly behind him. He studied the night, looking for movement, and then began to walk around the church on the side away from the rectory.

Rutledge broke into a sprint, going after the dark shape.

He was fast, and he was determined, but by the time he reached the church, it was too dark to see where the figure had gone—out into the open fields, or north toward Frith's Wood, or whether it had simply disappeared into a back garden where it was to all intents and purposes invisible.

Rutledge searched for a good half hour but came up with nothing.

As he walked back toward Hensley's house, he said, "It wasn't a dead soldier this time. It was a living human being."

"With no guid reason to climb yon tower. Unless he'd followed you from the wood."

"Did he know the church tower could be climbed, before I went up it?" he asked, thinking it through. "Did he step inside the church while I was in the spire, unable to see him? I was so busy searching for the best view, I could have missed the sound of the church door opening."

Hamish didn't answer him.

"And where has he vanished to now?" Rutledge went on. But he'd seen the houses from the spire, each with its back garden and a few with a narrow alley that led to a street. There were a hundred places where someone could hide, without drawing attention to himself. He had the advantage, squatting in the dark, leaning into the shadow of a chimney, flattened into a doorway. It was a cat-and-mouse game that Rutledge was not likely to win.

That thought made him swear.

His footsteps echoed, the lane was quiet, the shops dark. Everyone had gone home. Soon Mrs. Melford would be setting her table in the dining room, expecting him to come. And Mrs. Channing was waiting for him as well.

There was a lorry coming up behind him, he could hear the changing of the gears as the corner was turned, and the sound of the motor gaining speed to take the slight rise in the lane.

At first he didn't make the connection. He assumed that the workmen had finished for the day and were leaving Dudlington. Or heading to The Oaks for a pint before going back to their place of business.

The odd thing was, they'd forgotten to turn on the lorry's headlamps.

The heavy vehicle was almost on his heels when he realized it wasn't workmen behind the wheel. Not at that speed—not without lights.

Hamish was shouting something, and Rutledge made a wild dive for the small rose garden in front of Grace Letteridge's house.

The wing of the lorry struck his leg and clawed at his shoe. He landed hard among the stubby rose canes, one of them stabbing into his shoulder, and his arm hurt as it took his full weight. Then he rolled.

A long, high-pitched screech of metal on stone filled the air, and the lorry's wing scraped heavily against the wall, knocking it inward on top of Rutledge before veering away. The heavy stones rained down on Rutledge's ankles and shins, even as he tried to see who was behind the wheel.

From down the lane there was shouting, two men racing toward the lorry, ordering it to stop. And doors were flung open on either side of the lane, light spilling out onto the cobblestones, silhouetting people attracted by the noise. He heard a woman's voice crying out, and then the lorry was gone, taking the turn into Holly Street with squealing tires before disappearing up toward The Oaks and the open road.