The red-faced woman assured him that she had no knowledge of “that person.”
He thanked her and moved on. His next choice was a middle-aged woman in a neat blue coat and a hat with a modicum of style. A schoolmistress, he thought, walking the narrow line of decorum required by her position.
She was flustered by his question, and he wondered if she had known Fiona better than she wished people to remember.
“No-no, I really didn’t know her well. A passing-acquaintance. I accepted her for her aunt’s sake, of course, believing that Ealasaid’s family must be above reproach. It was a terrible shock when I heard-my first thought was ‘Oh, I’m glad her aunt isn’t alive to see her taken up by the police!’ ”
“You knew nothing about where Miss MacDonald lived before coming here? Her aunt never spoke of her niece in your hearing?”
“Well-that is, I believe-er-Miss MacDonald lived with her grandfather until his death. Ealasaid must have said something about that. I-I seem to remember that she- Ealasaid, of course!-thought very well of him. A good man- well-respected in the Highlands. Which made it all the more shocking that his granddaughter should-well, disappoint the family so horribly.”
She had managed to appear totally ignorant of any facts-aware only of hearsay and half-remembered gossip. Her pale brows and lashes fluttered as she asked plaintively, “Is there anything else, Inspector?”
He shook his head and thanked her.
Hamish was pointing out, “That one hasna’ the courage to stand alone. She’s too afraid of people turning their faces fra’ her.”
A harried young woman with boisterous twins dragging at her heels blushed when he stopped her, and turned her face away to speak to the boys. They were just old enough- three? four?-to have been playmates for Fiona’s son. “I saw her sometimes on the street, and for her aunt’s sake tried to be nice. But she wasn’t a woman I was likely to be friends with.”
“Did your children ever play together?”
“Oh-! Well-sometimes, when I called on Miss MacCallum. That is, it was not a usual thing, you understand. But young children-they don’t play very much at this age, do they? They- It was more a matter of sitting and staring at each other across the room and-um-sometimes passing a toy back and forth.”
“Did you feel that the MacDonald child was not a proper companion for your children? After all, his mother worked at The Reivers.”
“It was a very respectable inn! Miss MacCallum would never have allowed any impropriety there. No-it’s just that we live on opposite ends of the town. It was not convenient…” She let the words trail off.
Rutledge asked again, “Do you know where Miss MacDonald resided before she came to stay with her aunt?”
The woman scowled, and disentangled one boy’s chubby hand from the edge of her coat. “No, Donald, you mustn’t pull at me. We’ll be walking on presently.” She turned back to Rutledge. “I remember she said something about a family she’d lived with. How much she’d cared for the children.”
“Can you tell me who her friends were in Duncarrick?”
“No-of course I wasn’t close to her-she-I have no idea.”
Which was another way of washing her hands entirely of the matter. Hamish said, “She’s repeating what her husband has told her to say.”
Rutledge tended to agree with his assessment. There was neither warmth nor anger in her responses, only a determined effort to keep clear of the tangle of Fiona MacDonald’s affairs.
He let her go and crossed the street. Outside the milliner’s shop he met a tall, thin woman coming from the other direction. She had an air of fragility, as if she was recovering from an illness, but she moved with grace. When he removed his hat and spoke to her, she stopped with courtesy and waited for him to ask his question.
“I’m sorry,” she answered in a pleasant voice. “I’ve been unwell, and find it difficult to go into society as I used to. I don’t believe I have met Miss MacDonald. I can tell you Miss MacCallum was both respected and admired. She was very active in charity work and had a reputation for honesty in all her dealings. And as far as I knew, Miss MacDonald was a very fine young woman. The charge of murder against her is beyond belief.”
Hamish said, “Aye, it’s guid to hear the truth!”
This woman’s appearance and manner indicated that she might have been educated at one of the better schools. Or perhaps lived for a time in England. Rutledge asked, “Did you-do you know anyone by the name of Eleanor Gray?”
She frowned, considering his question. “Eleanor Gray? No, I can’t say that I ever met anyone by that name. I did know a Sally Gray.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“In Carlisle at a party given for my husband. But that was before the war. I haven’t seen her in years. Her husband was something in shipping, I think.”
A dead end. He thanked her and walked on, immersed in his own thoughts.
Realizing that he’d arrived at the stone monument at the top of the square, Rutledge stopped there for a time, listening to Hamish comparing this town with the scattered houses that comprised his own small village. Like most Highlanders, Hamish had been used to the silences of the mountain glens and the long, smooth mirrors of the lochs. These had given him, as a soldier, a resilience and a strength of mind that had raised him from the ranks.
Idly watching the medley of activity that gave life and color to the street, Rutledge considered the townspeople of Duncarrick. If anyone here had had close ties with Fiona MacDonald, they were busy now burying them as deep as possible.
It also seemed unlikely that Fiona had confided in her aunt.
But then, it was two secrets that Fiona held close. That the boy was not hers-and that she knew the identity of the child’s mother. For some reason, the latter must have been the darker of the two. Fiona had taken the very grave risk of going to trial for murder to protect it.
And if the mother was still alive As Mr. Elliot had so cleverly pointed out, she hadn’t stepped forward.
Why not? And where was she?
Hamish sighed. “Anywhere in England or Scotland, for starters.”
Rutledge turned toward the monument, one hand reaching up to touch the surface. This face was cold at this time of day, waiting for the sun to reach it. Like the town itself in some ways. Waiting for enlightenment.
The stone was a rough-hewn monolith set in the pavement. Links of heavy iron chain attached to four short iron posts encircled the stone, marking it as a shrine of sorts. On the side of the monolith that looked down the length of the square was a relief carved coarsely but tellingly into the stone. Houses, buried nearly to their rooftops in flames, jutted from the surface, and around the scene reivers sat on their horses, dressed in trews and leather jerkins, hats jammed on their heads as they watched the town burn. At the feet of the horses lay sacks of plunder and sheep milling about in fright.
Beneath the relief, three dates were incised in the stone-the three times Duncarrick had gone up in flames at the hands of English raiders. It was a powerful memorial, and Rutledge made a rough guess at the number of dead.
Or had the inhabitants been warned in time and found sanctuary somewhere in the fields or behind the stout walls of the pele tower, watching the night sky as their homes and possessions went up in black smoke, filling the cold air with choking ashes.
Small wonder the people here were a different breed from the citizens of southern English towns that had settled into quiet prosperity centuries before-where the tread of armies and the threat of fire and sword were a far distant memory. Small wonder that a stranger was welcomed for her aunt’s sake-and not her own. Small wonder that suspicion was so easily aroused, and trust was snatched back so readily.
Someone had known how to use Duncarrick’s entrenched character to reach out and anonymously destroy Fiona MacDonald. But to what end?
For what purpose?
Hamish said, “When I went to France, she was living with her grandfather. But when he died, she left the land and went to Brae-her last letter was fra’ Brae.”
It was where Rutledge had sent the only letter he had written to Fiona MacDonald. To tell her of Hamish’s death. He said, “Then I’ll have to go to Brae…”
