Legacy of the Dead by Charles Todd Read Free Book Online Page B

up the receiver.
    He sat there in the tiny, smotheringly stuffy room that had been turned into a telephone closet.
    Stay where you are
—
    Was Bowles sending him back to the Gray house because there were new developments in the Scottish investigation and he’d been chosen to handle it at this end? Or had something else come up? But if that was true, Bowles would have left full instructions, telling him where to report and what his duties would be.
    It was also possible that Bowles was being perverse, making the assumption that Rutledge would fail in his attempt to reach Lady Maude, and ordering him not to retreat until he’d succeeded. He’d brought only a small case with him; he’d need more shirts, shoes, and another suit if he was ordered to stay beyond two or three days.
    Hamish said, “For all you know, he’s sacked you and is letting you dangle in uncertainty until he tells you himself—” Rutledge shut out the cutting voice.
    And meanwhile?
    He was free to spend the next two days in Lincoln or York. Before the war, he’d have leapt at the chance, having friends he could call on, houses where he knew he was welcome. But two of those friends were dead now, and a third was blind, in hospital, struggling to learn a new profession while his wife waited for him to come home. Still, there were hotels where he could stay—
    At loose ends, alone and with only his thoughts and Hamish as company? It wasn’t a prospect Rutledge relished. He found himself preferring to be called back to London immediately, with another investigation to be handled, keeping him busy, keeping him from remembering that he had ever had a past beyond the last week or even the day before today.
    Two days . . .
    Guilt stirred again. He owed his godfather a visit. Or an explanation. He was going to find it hard to do either.
    Hamish said, “Why does he no’ come to London?”
    David Trevor had turned the London architectural firm over to his partner in the last year of the war. His son’s death had taken the heart out of him, and he had retired to Scotland to heal. He was, according to Frances, writing a book on the history of British architectural style, but it might be no more than an excuse to bury himself in the past until he could face a bleak future.
    “For him Scotland offers sanctuary.”
But not for me.
    Hamish made no reply.
    After a moment, Rutledge picked up the receiver again and put in a call to David Trevor. His intent was to make his excuses, to satisfy his conscience. To explain that the press of business made a journey to Scotland in the foreseeable future unlikely. To put off what he could not face yet.
    Surely David would be willing to meet him in Durham or somewhere else for the weekend! A compromise to suit them both—on ground that held no memories for either of them.
    As Rutledge waited, Hamish said, “He willna’ come—”
    “He will. For my sake.”
    But twenty minutes later, Rutledge was driving north once more. This time toward the Border. Something in his godfather’s voice, a relief at hearing from him, a need that wasn’t spoken—a surge of warmth when he thought Rutledge had called to give his time of arrival—had made it nearly impossible to refuse or suggest any alternative. It had been taken for granted. As if nothing had changed.
    Better to return to the rain of London and the empty flat—better to go to York or Lincoln or Carlisle rather than Scotland, where voices at every turn would remind him of Scots he’d commanded. Men he felt he’d betrayed . . .
    There was hardly a town of any size in the Highlands that he didn’t know by name, because one or a dozen of the men under his command had lived there.
    How many lies had he told frightened boys facing battle for the first time? How many lies had he written to grieving women who had just lost a son or a husband? And yet his men had trusted him. He’d listened to them talk about families, crofts, the land, small victories won in short lives—