A Cold Treachery by Charles Todd Read Free Book Online Page A

letter that had come from Scotland the day before Rutledge had traveled north. This had invited him to spend the Christmas holidays with his godfather, David Trevor. And he had answered that the weather was too uncertain to plan on driving north in December.
    “It couldna' be any worse than this night.”
    Rutledge argued for a time and then fell silent, unwilling to be drawn again.
    Hamish was not satisfied, and kept probing at what he knew very well was a sore subject. It was not David Trevor that Rutledge was avoiding but his houseguest, the woman Hamish should have lived to marry. . . .

C HAPTER S IX

    T he stars were just visible as Rutledge drove into the small community hugging the roadside. Shops and houses mingled against the backdrop of the lake on the right and in the shadow of high peaks to his left. The main thoroughfare was churned into muddy ruts, freezing over in the predawn cold and cracking under his wheels. Another quarter of an hour or so, and it would be morning. But now the windows were dark, the streets empty. The door to the police station was shut, and no one answered his call as he stepped inside. He went back to the idling motorcar and began to search for his lodgings.
    A long ridge loomed above the village, its irregular outline smooth in the darkness, the rocky slopes shapeless under their white blanket. As if concealing their true nature. Below, Urskdale was oddly quiet, almost withdrawn. Rutledge soon found the rambling stone house that served as the local hotel—hardly more than a private home with rooms to let in the summer for walkers.
    Someone had shoveled out the drive after the earlier storm, and the new fall was not as deep. Rutledge made the turning with ease and continued past the side of the house into the yard behind it. Here there was a motley collection of vehicles between the stable and the sheds—carts, wagons, and one carriage—left helter-skelter as if the arriving searchers had been in great haste. Muddy tracks led from the yard towards the sloping land beyond, soon lost in the darkness.
    As Rutledge got out of his motorcar, a light came on in a ground floor window and someone peered out through the curtains. He walked around to the front of the house. After some time the door opened, and a woman asked, “You're the man from London?” Wind swirled up in their faces as she looked up at him.
    She was seated in a wheeled invalid's chair, her lower limbs covered by a soft blue blanket, and he found himself thinking that she had been brave to open the door to a stranger when there was a killer at large.
    “Inspector Rutledge. Sorry to arrive so late—or so early. The roads—”
    She nodded. “Do come in.” With accustomed ease she turned her chair and made room for him. “I'm Elizabeth Fraser. All the able-bodied men are out searching for the child. Mrs. Cummins, whose house this is, asked me to keep a fire in the kitchen and the kettle on. She's not well, and I've been staying with her. Inspector Greeley arranged for her to put you up while you're here.”
    He stepped past her into the hall and watched as she latched the door behind him before expertly guiding the chair ahead of him through another door that led to the rear of the house. He could feel the warmth as he followed her down a passage, as if a stove was beckoning him.
    Or was his mind dazed with exhaustion?
    Holding another door for her, he found himself in the kitchen.
    It was bright with color, the walls a soft cream and the curtains at the windows a faded dark green that complemented the floral-patterned cushions on the chairs around the table. A door led to an entry from the yard.
    “Would you care for a cup of tea?” She gestured to the kettle on the stove.
    “Yes. Please,” he answered, already awash with it but suddenly unwilling to be alone. The kitchen was ordinary, quiet, cozy—it had nothing to do with a murdered family or the faces of a jury or the voice of Hamish MacLeod in the rear seat.