The Piper
Author: Charles Todd
Date: 2017-01-10T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Scotland Yard inspector Ian Rutledge returns shell shocked from the trenches of World War I, tormented by the spirit of Hamish MacLeod, the young soldier he executed on the battlefield. Now, Charles Todd features Hamish himself in this compelling, stand-alone short story. Before the Great War, Hamish is farmer in the Scottish Highlands, living in a small house on the hillside and caring for a flock of sheep he inherited from his grandmother. When one spring evening he hears a faint cry ringing across the glen, Hamish sets out in the dark to find the source. Near the edge of the loch he spots a
Publisher: HarperCollins

Dedication

For Danielle, who asked for a Hamish mystery!

And for David, who played the pipes.

Contents

1. Cover
2. Title Page
3. Dedication
4. Contents
5. The Piper
6. An Excerpt from Racing the Devil
7. Chapter One
8. Chapter Two
9. About the Author
10. Also by Charles Todd
11. Copyright
12. About the Publisher

The Piper

The Highlands, Spring 1914

The old house shuddered in the wind that roared up the glen, swept over the shoulder of the lowest hill, and then dropped howling into the loch on the far side.

Hamish MacLeod, swathed in a heavy coat, made his way to the stone step, put his shoulder to the door, and forced it wide enough to allow him to step inside.

He had to put his shoulder to it again before he could shut it, ramming home the bolt.

Around him the house creaked and groaned, but it had held together for well over a hundred years, and he thought it might survive another night.

The house had begun life as a weathered stone croft, small and tightly built against a Scots winter, and cool in the few days of high summer when the sun baked it. But mostly it huddled with its back to the rains that rolled across the western coast of Scotland. Down the centuries, the MacLeods had added to it until it was a comfortable size.

The first of the line had come to MacDonald country from Skye, to marry into that clan and put down roots of his own. And he hadn’t looked back, nor had his kin.

Hamish fumbled in the darkness for matches, lit the lamp kept on the table by the door, and watched as light picked out the familiar surroundings of his home. Standing in a growing pool of rainwater dripping from his clothing, he made a wry face. His granny, God rest her soul, would have had something to say about that pool. But she had died in November, bequeathing the house and the land to him, the last male of his name. He began to strip down, leaving his wet kilt and coat and the scarves that had protected his head in a pile, walking barefoot through the main room to his bedroom to find dry clothes. The house shuddered again, and wind swooped down the chimney to dust the hearth with dry ash left from the last fire. A wild night, he thought as he pulled on his boots, and likely to grow wilder before the gale passed.

He’d done his best for the sheep on the hillside. And they were canny beasts, they knew how to shelter in the lee of stones and burrow deep into the heather. But they would be hungry when this weather had passed, and their coats would lie limp and heavy with moisture on their backs.

Sheep keeping wasn’t his livelihood. He’d inherited them because the women of the house had always prided themselves on spinning the very finest wool from their own bloodline of sheep, dying it and weaving it into cloth that sold well at market. Now there was no one to spin or dye or weave, though the wheel still sat in a corner and the loom was in the attic. But he didn’t have the heart to sell the sheep to the butcher. His granny had called them by name, for God’s sake, and there had been times as a boy when he wouldn’t have been surprised to be penned among them when he was more than she wanted to deal with at the moment. His granny had been a strong woman, and she had had the respect of everyone up the glen.

Dressed again, he came back to the main room and set about rebuilding the fire in the heavy iron stove. His grandfather had put that in, and his father had bought the fine English dresser for his mother’s best dishes. Hamish himself had brought in running water from the stream above the house, put up a line for drying clothes on a fair day, and built a chest for her linens. He’d even mended her ancient loom. Quiet gestures of his respect and love. Now the house felt lonely and empty without her formidable presence. It was time to take a wife, and she had told him so as she lay dying.

“And no’ any woman will do, Hamish, do ye ken?” she had said urgently. “Follow your heart, lad, and ye’ll no’ regret it.”

He had had to promise. But then he already knew the wife he wanted.

When the fire was drawing well, Hamish put the kettle on and went into the kitchen to take down the tin of tea. He was just reaching for the teapot when he lifted his head and listened.

His hearing was acute. And he thought he had caught the faint sound of a voice calling against the wind.

After a moment, he decided that it was only the gale’s keening instead, and he finished spooning the leaves into the pot. Waiting for the kettle, he walked over to his favorite chair, the tall handmade one that had belonged to his grandfather’s grandfather, and sat down, letting his dark head fall back against the smooth wood.

He had gone into town on a matter of business, had had the great good luck to catch a glimpse of Fiona walking with her aunt, and then had spoken to the solicitor who had drawn up his granny’s will and now was called upon to drawn up another. His own.

Hamish had put it off, as men tended to do, but last month there had been a climbing accident up the glen, a man from Carlisle falling from the rock face he’d been scaling. Hamish had helped to bring his body down. That had reminded him to settle his own affairs. But the question of where to leave his own property was still facing him. There was no one to inherit the MacLeod land. No one left of his bloodline, not until he married and had sons of his own. Or daughters. And it would be a pity to lose what his ancestor had begun.

He had no ties with the village school where he’d been an above average student. He had no ties to the kirk where he worshipped of a Sunday—mostly out of habit because his granny had gone every Sabbath of her life and took him with her, brooking no argument. He had become a staunch Covenanter in spite of himself. There were friends, good ones, but this was MacLeod land in MacDonald country, and somehow it had seemed wrong to leave it out of the family.

It wasn’t until he was casting about for a solution when he realized that there was one person he would gladly see in possession of his grandmother’s belongings and her possessions and his. Someone to wear her bits and bobs of jewelry, to sit in her chair, to sleep in her bed.

Fiona. MacDonald though she was, she might one day be a MacLeod. If he had his way.

An orphan like himself. And yet he’d hesitated, because this house on the shoulder of a mountain was not as close to the village as she might like, away from everyone she knew.

He caught the faint sound again. Not a sheep in trouble. Not a dog, lost and afraid. Human. He was nearly sure of it.

Getting to his feet, he set the kettle off the stove, went to find a dry coat and boots, then lit the old iron lantern that was kept by the hearth.

Resigned to another soaking, he pulled on the coat and twisted the still damp scarves around his still damp hair. Unbolting the door, he felt it nearly ripped from his fingers as the wind caught it. And the lamp on the little table guttered and went out.

Cursing, he lifted the lantern high, pulled the door shut, and set out, calling, across the windy night.

He knew the land intimately. Walking half blinded by the rain whipping hard at his face, he moved well away from the house and lifted his head again to listen.

There it was. Toward the loch.

He moved in that direction, calling at the top of his voice, willing whoever was out there in this gale to hear him. And what was the fool doing out in one of the worst spring storms in memory? Wandering in the dark like a loon?

For an instant he thought he saw movement, but it was only the whirling drive of the rain. No one else was out here. No one else had any reason to be.

Wait—was that the sound of someone replying to his calls, torn away into the night but still there long enough to help him pick his way through the heather on the hillside?

He moved swiftly now, his feet certain, the lantern swinging wildly in his grip as the wind buffeted it. He was wet to the skin for a second time, but he paid no heed. After casting about near the loch, feeling the spray in his eyes as he turned into the teeth of the gale, he finally saw what appeared to be someone lying just feet from the waterline.

Breaking into a run, he covered the distance quickly, setting down the lantern for a better look.

It was a slim figure, young, he thought. Surely not a girl? But no, the legs wore trews, tartan trousers. As his hands ran over the length of the body, he felt something like broken bones tangled in the legs, and then realized that he had found a piper’s bag instead. But what shape was the man in? It was nearly impossible to tell if he was breathing or not. Hamish couldn’t hear his own breath, harsh from the run.

He bent down, pulling the lantern close, feeling its warmth against his wet skin. And then he saw the fair lashes flutter. But there was blood, dark against the cold pale flesh of the forehead, and his fingers touched a long tear half hidden by fair hair.

Still kneeling, he gathered the body into his arms, then somehow pulled the pipes and bag on top of it, leaving a hand free for the lantern. The flame danced and bobbed as he gathered himself, rose to his feet, and felt the weight of the wind as he took up the weight of the body. He nearly went down, setting his teeth as he turned his back to the gale.

Then the wind shifted a little, and he could make his way directly back toward the dark shape of his house, climbing steadily.

Rain lashed them as he walked, and he tried to shelter the young man as best he could, but by the time he struggled up the path leading to his granny’s door, he knew he was nearly at the end of his own strength. It was all he could do to find the latch, shift his weight against the door, and nearly fall inside.

There was nowhere to put the young man but the floor. Hamish went down on one knee, lowered him gently onto the rumpled clothes he’d taken off hardly more than an hour earlier. Or was it longer than that? Had he really been outside for so long? For the little clock on the table was chiming ten.

Using the strength of his upper body to shove the door closed, he lay down next to his unexpected visitor, his arms spread wide, taking in great gulps of air. Finally, having caught his breath, he got to his feet to ram the bolt home. He found the lamp and lit it once more.

His unexpected guest looked to be in a bad way.

“I’ll ha’ to gie mysel’ anither dog,” he said aloud. “I’d ha’ found him faster, wi’ a dog.”

The room was warm enough from the heat of the stove and the fire. Hamish hurried into the kitchen. The kettle was lukewarm at best, but it would have to do. Pouring the water into a basin, catching up a cloth from the rack, he went back to bathe the lad’s face and hands. He could see that head wound now. Deep and still bleeding. Why hadn’t the lad died? The gash was deadly enough.

He pulled off the heavy jacket the boy was wearing, then went to fetch blankets, one to put down closer to the stove and another to spread over him. Moving him gently, he thought, He needs a doctor. But there was no way to bring one here tonight.

Setting the pipes aside, he tucked the blanket around the boy—he couldn’t be more than sixteen, surely?—and then went to fetch dry clothes for himself and something to wrap the wound to stop the bleeding. But it was a good sign, that bleeding. The lad was still among the living. That done, he went to the cabinet against the wall and took out the bottle of whisky, then found a spoon. Moistening the back of the spoon with the whisky, he drew it lightly across the bluish lips.

After a moment his patient licked his lips, and Hamish tried again. By the third attempt, he thought there was a little more color in the pale face.

“That’ll do ye, laddie,” he said, and put the whisky away. By this time the kettle was singing merrily, and he made a cup of tea to warm himself and then poured a little in a saucer for his guest.

It was a hit or miss business, trying to get a few warm drops down the boy’s throat without choking him, but that and the blankets were enough finally to bring him out of his stupor, and the fair lashes moved, then opened wide with shock.

“It’s all right,” Hamish said, smiling. “I brought you up from the loch. I’ll no’ harm ye now after going to all that trouble.”

He thought he caught a smile in the wide blue eyes. And then the boy’s hand jerked toward his knees, wildly searching. Hamish reached over, lifted the pipes for his guest to see, then set them gently down again close by. “They’re here, and safe. But ye’ve no’ the wind to play them just now, so let them be.”

The boy nodded a little.

“A piper, are you?”

The pale lips tried to form a word. Yes.

“I’ve no’ the gift,” Hamish said, still kneeling on the floor. “But my grandfather did. He tried to teach me. Going to play somewhere, were ye, when the gale came doon?”

A nod.

“Well, then. Ye were verra’ lucky. You should ha’ stayed the night where you were. Are ye comfortable enough? There’s a bed in the other room. And food in the larder. But I’m wary of moving you while yon head is bleeding sae fierce.”

He offered more tea, and the boy sipped a little. But he was spent, and Hamish himself was nearly so.

Doing what he could, he made the boy comfortable on the floor, fed him a little more tea, and then got up as his patient slipped into a light sleep.

Going through the boy’s pockets, he searched for something that would tell him who this was. But neither his pockets nor the pipe bag had a name to give him.

With a last look at the boy, he got up, sat down in his chair, and finished his own cup of tea. As the warmth spread through him, he felt the leaden weight of his fatigue. He fought it as long as he could, twice going to stand over his patient, twice feeling for a faint thread of pulse, a little stronger each time. And then his own exertions took their toll. He tried to force his eyelids to open once more, but they refused, and he sank into a deep sleep.

His last thought was a wry Ye’ll ha’ to see to him now, Granny.

When Hamish MacLeod awoke, a cold gray Highland dawn was peering through his windows. The lantern had guttered in the night and the lamp as well. The wind had dropped, and the silence in the cottage was fraught with something he couldn’t quite name as he struggled up from the depths of exhausted sleep.

His wet clothes lay where he’d left them, the stove had gone out, and there was an odor of damp wool in the room. He sat there, rubbing his face, feeling the stiffness in his body, the heavy growth of the night’s beard, and tried to think what it was he had to do this morning.

And then he came to himself with such a jolt that the chair creaked in protest.

The lad. The piper.

Leaping out of the chair, he turned toward the hearth where he’d left the boy lying.

And stared. No blankets—no slim sprawled body—no fair head dark with blood—no blue eyes watching him from the floor.

Nothing.

Hamish realized that he was standing there with his mouth agape, and he shut it smartly.

He couldn’t believe that the lad had recovered enough in the night to slip away without rousing the man sleeping in the chair not ten paces from him. But it was possible. It was just possible that he had. But where were the blankets?

Hamish stumbled into the bedroom and found them neatly folded and still a little damp.

He went to the door to see if he’d drawn the bolt when he came in from searching for the cries he’d heard.

He hadn’t. Or else the boy had left it off the latch.

Hamish stood there.

The piper had gone out into the night a second time. It hadn’t been something he imagined. And there were his own wet clothes to prove it. Two sets.

And if the piper had left, trying to reach whatever appointment he might have had to play, he would surely die on the road long before he reached his destination. The cold that had followed the gale would see him dead if the head wound didn’t.

Galvanized, Hamish caught up his coat and set out.

He hadn’t imagined the cold. There was a rime of frost everywhere, crisp under his feet as he ran toward the loch. But the shoreline was empty save for the debris the waves had left behind, leaves and twigs and even clots of drying froth marking where the wind had blown them.

He jogged along the water’s edge and soon picked up straggling footprints, weaving along the shore where walking was easier, sometimes faltering toward the thick grass and heather that marked where the loch ended and the land began.

Small footprints, not his, someone else’s. And then signs of something dragging. The pipe bag?

The lad was weakening; he’d find him soon.

But he didn’t. He walked another mile, and then in the distance he saw several men standing in a path that led toward the main road. A long walk for an injured man.

As he increased his speed, running now, he realized that two of the men were standing looking down at something lying in the heather. A third man was kneeling beside it.

Whoever they were, they’d found the lad.

One of them saw him coming, said something to the others, and all three men turned in his direction. The one kneeling slowly got to his feet.

“Is he all right? The lad?” Hamish called.

They said nothing, waiting for him. One of them, the man who had been kneeling, was a constable.

And then he realized that there was a stillness about the body lying there in a scrub clump of heather that was unnatural.

He stopped. The fool of a lad was dead. But what had driven him out of the house? Had he been that afraid of his rescuer? Or was it something else?

And where had the three men come from? The constable wasn’t from the village. He knew the policeman there. The one beyond? But that was some distance. How had they got here so fast, given the gale that had wracked the night?

His mind alert now, he walked on, taking his time.

“And you are?” the eldest of the three men called as he came nearer.

“Hamish MacLeod. I live in the croft just o’er the hill from the loch.”

The youngest of the three men, the constable, leaned forward for a quiet word with the rest. Hamish remembered him then. He’d been among those called in to search when the man from Carlisle had been reported missing.

That search too had ended in tragedy.

“Know this lad, do ye?” the constable asked.

“He’d been hurt. In the gale. It was verra’ fierce in the night.”

“Hurt? How?” The older man asked.

“Well, ye can see for yoursel’s. His heid. I did what I could, but he wouldna’ stay.”

“His name?”

Hamish shook his head. “He didna’ tell me. I could see he was a piper.” He looked down at the body on the ground. In death the lad looked even younger than his years. And where were his pipes?

“Did you, now. And how was that?”

“He had his pipes wi’ him.” Looking around, he added, “He must ha’ dropped them as he weakened.” But he remembered how the lad had frantically searched for his pipes, there by the warmth from the iron stove. Would he have abandoned them to save himself? Hamish thought not.

Someone had stalked him, then, waited for him to die, and taken them. Without them, who would know the lad was a piper?

“What brought you oot here looking for him?” It was his turn to ask questions. “How did ye know he was in trouble?”

After a moment the older man said, “We didn’t. The lad was supposed to meet us at the police station yesterday.” He lifted his chin in the direction of the village. “It was a set meeting. He never arrived. When the gale was over, we set out to find him.”

“Arrived from where?” Hamish asked.

“Inveraray.” Grudgingly.

The Campbell stronghold. Hamish had no time for the Campbells. “Was he a Campbell, then? He’s no’ wearing the tartan. That’s a MacInnes.”

The men watched him. “Bruce MacInnes,” the Inspector said finally. “That’s his name. He was coming to give information on a murder.”

Surprised, Hamish said. “Was he indeed?”

“On his way to Inveraray he was a witness to a crime. He spoke to the local man there, and Campbell sent him along to us.”

Hamish pointed to the head wound, no longer bleeding into the rain-soaked hair. “How did he come by that?”

“We’d like verra’ much to know oursel’s.” The older man turned to the constable. “Stay wi’ him, please, Chisholm. Mr. MacLeod, perhaps you’d like to take us back to your house, and tell us what you know about this man.”

He stood his ground. “I’ve explained. He was caught in the gale. But he wouldna’ stay the night. He left before first light.” When the wind dropped at last? It was likely.

“Aye?” The older man pointed to the scuffed heather at his feet. The third of the three had not spoken. “I’m thinking he was set upon just here. By person or persons unknown. That wound is still raw.”

“That may well be,” Hamish said. “But it was no’ here. He had that wound when first I found him, down by the loch. If he was set upon, it was before that. But no’ verra’ much before. He was in a weakened state. I heard him calling during the gale.”

But had he heard that? Had he heard instead the cries of a man being attacked?

He remembered something else. “I didna’ find anything on him. No’ his name, nor where he had come from.”

“Indeed?” the older man said again. “But he was carrying a medal. A gold one. He’d won first place in Inveraray. By all accounts, young as he was, he was a fine piper. I think, Mr. MacLeod, it would be best if ye took us to your house.” He turned to the third man. “Thank you, Abernethy. Will you go back to the village and ask them to send a stretcher party?”

With a nod, Abernethy turned and started back the way he must have come.

“I didna’ attack him, nor did I rob him,” Hamish said quietly. “And I have nothing to hide. But I’ll have your name before I open my door to ye.”

“Inspector Bethune.”

With a last glance at the young body lying crumpled in the cold wind, Hamish turned and without waiting to see if anyone was following, set out for his house.

But the constable stayed to stand guard over the corpse. Bethune, at his heels, was winded by the time he and Hamish had walked up the path to the house door. A town man, Hamish thought, not used to long treks in the hills.

“What do you do for a living, Mr. MacLeod?” Bethune asked as he walked through the door and into the front room. His eyes were casting about, taking in the ancient spinning wheel in its corner, the hearth and the black stove, the furnishings, the doors to the other parts of the house. The damp clothes still lying on the floor where Hamish had dropped them.

The room, Hamish thought, felt cold and damp as well. The fire had burned low. But he had no intention of replenishing it now.

“I farm,” Hamish said, and turned to light the lamp. “It’s a good living. I have land o’er the brow of the hill. I take on help when I need it, and the rest of the time I manage on my own. One of the whisky distilleries buys my corn. They find it’s what they need. Something to do wi’ the amount of sugar. It was my grandfather who first planted that seed, no’ I. He learned of it from a man in Strathmeyer.”

The Inspector was digging through the wet clothing on the floor. “There’s no blood here. I don’t see anything that looks like blood.”

“That may be,” Hamish replied. “It was raining fit to drown a man.”

“Did you wash up his wound?”

“I did, with rags from the kitchen. I burned them, after. There wasna’ any point in trying to clean them.”

Bethune went across to the stove and began poking around. But any rags had been consumed in the night.

“Look,” Hamish said, “I didna’ harm the lad. I had no reason to.”

“Do you mind if I search? For his pipes. The medal.”

“I do mind,” Hamish said. “I’ve done no wrong here. But I have nothing to hide. The house is yours to search where ye please.”

He sat down in his great-grandfather’s chair and left Bethune to it.

Half an hour later, the Inspector returned to the front room, cast a longing glance into the kitchen. The stove remained cold, and no one had put on a kettle. Then he sat down across from Hamish without asking permission.

“It’s this way,” he said, and reached into his pocket for a notebook. “We have two dead men on our hands. We didna’ know how the first died, but we were suspicious. He was fra’ Edinburgh, ye ken, and no’ the sort of man who might take it into his heid to spend a week in the middle of nowhere. We thought it more likely that he was meeting someone instead. Or hiding from them. Nevertheless, he took a wee croft on Loch Linnhe, and it came wi’ a wee boat. One morning he took it out, it developed a serious leak, and he couldna’ swim. According to the doctor, he drowned. The boat was found before the body washed up.”

“But ye’re no’ satisfied.”

“There was a large sum taken from the dead man’s account before he left Edinburgh. It wasna’ in the croft. It wasna’ on his person. And there was a bruise on the back of his head. The doctor suggested it had happened when the man tried to save himself as the boat was going down under him.”

“The witness?”

“He was sitting on the hillside, on his way to Inveraray, eating his lunch. He saw a boat tow anither boat out into the loch. A man scuttled the smaller vessel, and then he rowed down the loch and out of sight. We havena’ found where he put ashore.”

“The piper—the lad—could he identify the man who was rowing?”

“I think it’s possible he could.”

“Which is what brought him from Inveraray. To tell you what he’d seen.”

“That’s the sum of it.”

“Did you no’ think of going to him? He was only a lad. It was a verra’ great responsibility you put on him.”

“We had no reason to believe he’d been spotted by the man in that boat.”

“Aye, well, if he could see the man, it’s likely the man could see him and pretended no’ to notice him there on his hillside.”

Bethune shook his head. “I think it’s more likely that when the rower reached the spot, our piper was gone, and he was forced to track him to Inveraray. But there was a great gathering for the piping, and no’ a very good time to kill again.” The Inspector cleared his throat. “Ye ken, we’re learning this after the fact.”

“Cold comfort to the laddie with the pipes. His killer left him to be found, he didna’ hide the body. But he took the lad’s identification in the hope that that would delay the police. I’d like verra’ much to hear why you were so soon on the spot.”

“As to hiding the body,” the Inspector told him shortly, “it’s possible that now the gale had passed, you’d decided you should see to it smartly.” He gestured to the pile of clothing by the door. “You were out in the gale. You admit to that.”

“And I brought him here. Ye ken, he couldna’ ha’ been in his right mind when he left this house. But he knew he was expected, and he intended to keep his word, late or no’. Why did you set out to find him? You havena’ told me.”

The Inspector shifted uncomfortably, glancing across at Hamish and then away again.

“There was anither murder. Anither piper, only this one was older. I think the rower realized his mistake too late. We got word from Inveraray concerning that death, and set out straightaway to look for our man. We had to hire a guide. That’s the other man you saw. Abernethy.”

“I’ve killed no one. You’ve wasted your time searching my house. And ye’ve lost your chance to find the man you’re seeking. He couldna’ have got far.”

The Inspector flushed. “We didna’ ken the lad had been seen, not until last night when word came from Inveraray about the ither piper.”

“Perhaps he wasn’t seen. But heard. Perhaps when he’d finished his meal, he practiced for the competition. Standing there playing the pipes. The sound carries. The rower might have heard it and circled back. Which raises anither point. How did yon piper know there was murder done on the loch while he was watching? If he only saw the boat being scuttled?”

“Inveraray was asking people if they’d come in by way of the loch. Looking for witnesses to a boating accident, ye ken. The lad told them what he saw.”

Hamish shook his head. “It’s no’ verra’ well done. Three men dead, one of them the lad. And ye havena’ a clue to be going on with.”

The Inspector rose. “Because we found nothing in your house, it doesna’ mean ye’re in the clear. Understand that.” He gestured to the empty landscape beyond the croft. “Who knows what’s out there in the heather, or up the mountain, or for that matter, weighted doon in the loch.”

Hamish stayed where he was. “Ye can search, of course. I willna’ gie ye any trouble o’er it.” He paused, then went on. “Have ye ever shot grouse, Inspector?”

“Grouse? No, I’m a city man mysel’. I have no interest in the shooting.”

“It’s a verra’ popular sport. No’ to my liking, but it’s done. A cousin is a ghillie on one of the estates north of here. He talked aboot it. Ye feed the grouse all year to keep them happy where they were. No’ wandering the hills in search of food or straying to anither man’s property. Instead they’re fat and ready for the shoot when the visitors arrive. The deer as well.”

“No’ very sporting,” the Inspector replied sourly.

“No, but these great estates make guid money fra’ the shooting. My cousin was well tipped when the bags were large. What I’m thinking is, we might try a little feeding of the grouse, and then invite someone to come and shoot them.”

The Inspector was heading for the door. “I’m no’ here to shoot grouse, nor am I here to feed them. You’re mad if ye think you can persuade me to any such enterprise.”

“I’m no’ persuading you,” Hamish said, impatient with the man. “Ask your constable or yon guide. They’ll ken what I mean. What I’m offering is to set mysel’ up as the grouse, while you feed a few lies where it might matter, and then we’ll see who comes to shoot.”

The Inspector stopped at the door. Turning, he said, “Ye’re verra’ sure that our murderer is still hanging about.”

“If he tracked the lad, he kens verra’ well that I brought him in out of the gale. He kens verra’ well that you’ve come to this house and stayed a wee while. He could be wondering just how much I’ve been telling ye. And he’s wondering what the lad told me. There was no gold medal in his pockets, ye ken. But now the pipe bag has been taken. He’s greedy, yon murderer. Was he still searching for yon medal? Or leading the police astray?”

“Even if the piper told you everything, it wouldna’ be admissible in court. You must know that. There were no witnesses to that conversation. You could as well ha’ made it up to save yoursel’.” Bethune’s hand was still on the latch.

Hamish rose from his chair. “Aye. That’s true. But then the murderer doesna’ ken how much the lad was able to tell me. He could ha’ given me a description. More than that, he might ha’ seen the man again in Inveraray and learned his name. That might explain why he was in such haste to keep his appointment with the police, in spite o’ the weather. Ye ken, the murderer didna’ question the lad out there in the gale. He struck him down and left him to die, thinking there was an end to it. A piper goes all o’er Scotland, playing wherever there’s a competition. And the lad’s killer might ha’ feared he’d see him again one day, and point him out.”

The Inspector stood there, debating with himself, his gaze on the tall Scot.

Three bodies on his hands and no one in custody. Hamish could read the thought running through the man’s head.

Making up his mind, Bethune said, “It’s a foolish notion, ye ken, but I canna’ go to the Fiscal in Edinburgh and tell him that I’ve naething to show him.”

“Ye’re to tell no one what we’re about. No’ even yon constable,” Hamish warned. “Or it willna’ work.” He thought about something more. “Why was the man in the boat murdered?”

“We don’t know,” the Inspector said. “Theft? Blackmail? A falling out? When we put a name to the killer, we’ll learn more. What’s worrying is how ready he’s been to kill again. To prevent any connection with yon dead man in the loch.”

“It was personal, then?”

“Verra’ likely, aye. You’ll want to be careful, MacLeod.”

They walked outside, and the Inspector made a show of shaking Hamish’s hand, then handing him a card. When Hamish took it, Bethune walked away, leaving the younger Scot standing in his doorway.

Hamish looked down at the card. Inspector Alistair Bethune. What, he wondered, had really brought this man all the way from Edinburgh to meet a piper from Inveraray? If he didn’t know the reason behind the murder, surely he knew something that was worrying him. And his failure to meet the piper in Inveraray must be haunting him now. An inquiry that might have been solved easily had suddenly got out of hand.

He went inside and made himself porridge for breakfast. And then he set about his preparations.

From a distance he could see that the stretcher party had arrived and Inspector Bethune had removed the piper’s body, for the constable standing guard over the corpse had gone. It was shortly after noon, and he’d given them all the time they needed before setting out. Some twenty minutes later he found the old shepherd who minded MacDonald sheep, and offered him a drink from the bottle of whisky he’d brought with him. Grateful for a little warmth from the cold, the old man listened to the questions Hamish put to him.

“I didna’ see the lad,” he said. “But there was a man, middle-aged by his walk, o’er by the stream that runs doon to the loch. Ye ken the one, it flows strongest in a gale. This man had field glasses. I saw him put them to his eyes. I’m thinking he’s looking for deer, but now I wonder if it wasna’ the lad he wanted to find.”

“And you couldna’ tell anything more about him?”

“No’ in all that rain. I took him for a poacher, ye ken. And I took care he didna’ see me in his turn.”

“Height? Clothing?”

“He wore a dark cloak with sleeves and a cape o’er his shoulders. And he was a good bit shorter than you. Fra’ the way his cloak hung, I’d say he weighed a stone or two more.”

Hamish was over six feet. He put the man on the hillside at five foot ten, and that was close to the height of the guide the police had used to take them to the loch, although he was wearing a heavy coat and a kilt, not a cloak. But by that time the sun had come out . . .

He thanked the shepherd, gave him another dram of whisky to keep out the cold, and walked on. He dared not leave the bottle. The old man would be drunk by nightfall. And who could blame him?

Mary MacDonald lived in a wee croft on the side of the mountain overlooking the loch. She was the widow of Ewen MacDonald, who had served King and Country in the Argyll and Sutherlands. Gray-haired and self-reliant, she had known Hamish’s grandmother for many years, and when he appeared at her door, windblown and red-faced with the cold, she hurried him inside and put on the kettle.

“What brings ye out in this weather?” she asked, half scolding, half worried, as she settled him by the fire. “It’s no’ fit for man nor beast.”

“I wasna’ the only one out in the gale last night,” he said, holding his hands out to the blazing fire. “Did ye hear anything?”

“The howl of the wind,” she said tartly. “Enough to raise the hackles on the dog’s back.” She pointed to the elderly dog lying on the handmade rug, unperturbed by Hamish’s advent.

“It would take more than wind to rouse that one,” Hamish said. “Are ye sure that’s all it was?”

“He didna’ go to the door and whine,” she said. “But earlier, he did, come to think on it, and when I went to my window, I saw a man in the distance. I took him to be lost, for he had something in his hand, and the way he held it, I thought it might be a compass. He must ha’ known the house was here, but he didna’ come to my door to ask his way. Still, I put the kettle on.”

She made Hamish a cup of tea and he drank it gratefully, thinking of the old shepherd out on the hillside with his flock. Mary MacDonald chatted on, glad of company, and he listened politely, knowing it mattered to her.

Before leaving, he asked if she’d also seen a lad in the hills, carrying a bag with his pipes, but she shook her head. She hadn’t.

He went on his way, busy with his thoughts. A man not as tall as he, a man with field glasses and a compass. Possibly a poacher. But most certainly hunting something. Or someone.

His next call was up the glen at a croft much like his own house, which had been added to and rebuilt over the centuries. He didn’t know this man well. He had come to the glen six years before, buying land that had belonged to Jamie MacDonald. There were whispers that the newcomer had had a checkered past, but that was the way of gossips. Archibald Kerr appeared to be a bookish man, according to those who had been in his house, while others reported that he was a widower still in mourning for his late wife. Still others claimed to know for certain that he had spent the last twenty years as a guest of His Majesty’s Prisons. The man who carried the post claimed that packets from one Sarah Kerr arrived from Edinburgh at irregular intervals, although the handwriting—still according to the man who carried the post—was distinctly masculine in appearance. Hamish was of the opinion that Kerr was a retired civil servant who preferred his privacy.

Kerr was outside, bringing in another scuttle of coal from the bin and an armload of heather to dry. He stopped when he saw Hamish coming up the lane that ran to his house.

“Good day to you,” he said warily when Hamish was within hearing distance.

“Good day to you,” Hamish replied easily. “I’ve come to ask if you heard any disturbances in the night, or saw strangers passing down the road yonder.” For the house overlooked the single road through the glen.

Kerr eyed him for a moment. When he answered, it was grudgingly. “I heard no disturbances. But I saw a lad coming down yon road as I drew my curtains. He was wet through, and he could see my lamps lit. If he’d needed shelter, he had only to knock.”

“And no one following him?” Hamish asked, turning to walk with him as Kerr strode on toward the house with his burdens.

“I didna’ spend my evening by the window,” Kerr replied shortly. “Besides, a regiment could ha’ passed, and in that gale I’d ha’ heard naething.”

It was true, but Hamish had the feeling that Kerr was being intentionally unhelpful. Then why admit to seeing the young piper, but not to anyone following the lad? Why not deny both? Or had the piper sought shelter here and been turned away, which meant that Kerr couldn’t safely deny his presence.

He was not invited to step in. Kerr nodded, and with a foot swung the door shut behind him as he went inside.

Hamish, glancing toward the window that overlooked the road, saw a pair of field glasses lying on the sill.

His last visit was to the croft at the end of the loch, where a ghillie by the name of Ogilvie lived. He’d worked most of his life on an estate above Loch Lomond, and Hamish suspected that he’d also had a hidden whisky still on Loch Lomondside. For by all accounts, Ogilvie had more money than was usual for a gamekeeper to earn on a small estate, even given the gratuities of grateful guests with full bags of grouse. He kept himself to himself and went twice a year to Edinburgh, for reasons no one else had ever learned.

Ogilvie was sitting by his fire, reading a book. His dog, younger than Mary MacDonald’s, was at the door growling before Hamish knocked.

Ogilvie was a bluff man with iron gray hair and shoulders nearly as broad as his girth. He welcomed Hamish and ushered him in to the fire, unwittingly asking the same question as Mary MacDonald had done.

“What brings ye out on sich a cold day?” he inquired, stepping over to the cupboard where he kept his own whisky. He held out a glass, and Hamish took it.

“I hear there was someone wandering about the glen last night. A man, and later a lad.”

Ogilvie’s eyebrows twitched together. “And how did ye come to know that?”

“Because I found the lad with his head nearly cleaved in two. And if I didna’ do it, and you havena’ done it, someone else was abroad.”

Interested, Ogilvie said, “Was there, indeed?”

“Aye. The old shepherd saw him, and so did Mary MacDonald. He must ha’ come this way.”

“I do na’ care for the sound of that.”

“No. I didna’ think ye would. He wasna’ a friend, then, coming to call?”

“He wasna’ a friend,” Ogilvie replied. “But I’d like to hear more.”

Hamish told the man what he knew.

“And Inspector—Bethune, is it? He’s been to see you?”

“He was all for taking me up as the lad’s killer.”

“Alastair Bethune? Aye, I know him. That’s to say, by reputation. He’s no’ a man of these parts, but he is well known about the city.”

“He had a guide with him.”

“Aye, that’s no surprise. Bethune couldna’ tell his arse from his elbow, past the walls of Edinburgh.”

Hamish smiled. “But who would he hire as guide?”

“That’s a verra’ good question. I tell you, I do na’ like the sound of this!” He got up and went away for a bit, then returned wearing a heavy coat, a thick scarf at his throat, and sturdy boots. “It seems I’ve run oot of tobacco,” he said blandly, “and there’s naething for it but to walk into the village, cold or no cold.” He whistled to the dog, and then handed Hamish his coat. “Are ye coming, lad?”

“I have things to do at the house,” he said. “Before nightfall. But I’d be obliged if you said nothing about Kerr or Mary MacDonald having seen this man. I willna’ put them at risk. They couldna’ identify him, if he stepped through yon door. But you may say that I was looking for him.”

Ogilvie eyed him. “It puts you at risk instead.”

“Aye,” Hamish said. “But then I know what’s coming. They don’t.”

They left the croft together, and walked some distance in silence, heads bent against the wind that pushed the cold down the mountainside, whispering though the handful of trees along the loch. When Hamish parted company with Ogilvie, he nodded, then set out for home.

It was more than time to find himself another dog, he thought, breasting the wind and setting his teeth against the cold. The sun hadn’t shown its face for most of the day, but Hamish skirted the loch for half its circumference. He didn’t find what he was looking for.

He turned toward the croft, and then halfway there, he changed his mind, walking instead into the village.

The cold wind had kept most of the inhabitants off the street. Only a hardy few were in the pub, and a handful was at the greengrocer’s. Hamish kept looking. He had just turned a corner by the tobacconist’s shop when he spotted his quarry coming out the door, a packet of cigarettes in his hands. Hamish caught up with him in three long strides, startling the man.

“The Highlander,” the guide said, staring up at him.

“Any news of the lad? The piper?”

The guide shook his head. “They arena’ telling me anything. The body was taken to the doctor’s surgery. Puir lad, he couldna’ be more than sixteen.”

“You arena’ local,” Hamish commented. “What brings you here to this part o’ Scotland?”

The man shrugged. “I took a party walking around Loch Lomond. They decided to stay in a house above the loch for a few days, and I was free to do as I pleased. The Inspector came looking for someone who could guide him toward Inveraray. He said he knew the western coast but no’ this part of Scotland. He was looking to meet a witness, he said. I took him up the glen three days ago, and he paid me well for it. But we didna’ cross any tracks coming down the glen. He was that disappointed. Then after the gale had passed, he collected the constable and asked me to take him back again. That’s when we found the body.”

“Can ye prove ye’re a guide?”

The man glared at him. “Here’s my card.”

There was an address in Glasgow on the card. Hamish committed it to memory before passing it back. “I havena’ seen you in these parts before.”

“I usually guide in the Isles. But these men were no’ very experienced at climbing, and I thought it best to stay away from the riskier walks. They’re fra’ London, this lot. A man and his three sons.” He grinned. “The walking tour was his idea, and no’ theirs. Ye should hear them complain.”

Hamish laughed with him, then went on to speak to the local constable.

“Aye, I’ve seen him before. Abernethy. He makes a fair living taking climbers out. I’ve heard no complaints of him.”

“And Constable Scott?”

“Aye, he was here with yon Inspector. A guid man, Scott. He’s fra’ the next village. I canna’ think why Bethune brought him here. I wouldha’ been happy to work wi’ him.”

“Any news of the lad?”

“I did hear the doctor say that cold and the blow on the head had done for him. It’s still murder, any way you look at it. Inspector Bethune tells me it’s Edinburgh’s inquiry, but I’m no’ sae sure of that.”

Hamish considered looking into the guide’s story about the clients he’d left on Loch Lomondside, but that could wait. Time was growing short and he still had much to do.

There was a last task he’d set himself. He scoured the heather that ran down to the stony edge of the loch, crisscrossing it in a methodical pattern, his gaze on the brown, still-wintry branches of heather as he walked.

And then he saw what he was looking for. Half hidden beneath a heavier, older shrub lay the drones and the lad’s pipe bag, almost impossible to spot until he was almost close enough to step on them.

He retrieved them carefully and stowing them under his arm, he went home.

There was nothing he could do for the piper except to clean his pipes and set them aside for any of his family who might want them.

But the gold medal wasn’t with the pipes. He’d searched the scratchy, stiff branches and the ground beneath them before he was sure of that.

Something to think about.

By sunset, a soft rain had begun to fall as the wind dropped and the cold moderated. When Hamish stepped out his door, he could feel it gently brushing his face, and the shoulder of the hill was a darker shape against the clouds scudding overhead. He couldn’t see the loch from here. The silence was that profound quiet of the hills and glens of Scotland, broken only by the whisper of the wind, and he listened to it for several minutes before shutting the door again and, for the first time since the night of the gale, shoving home the bolt.

He sat up for a time, reading by the light of the lamp on the table next to his grandfather’s grandfather’s chair. And then he readied himself for bed.

Turning down the coverlet, he rumpled the bedclothes but didn’t lie down. Instead he walked quietly through the dark house to take up his post by the bulky shape of the stove. But not before he’d drawn the bolt on the door. Making himself as comfortable as possible, he settled to wait.

He could hear the little clock ticking on the mantelpiece and the occasional settling of the croft as the night cooled. There was a strange quiet beyond his door. He thought there must be a haar out there, a sea mist rolling inland to the lochs and glens, obscuring everything it touched with a fine white dampness.

It was not a very good night, he thought, for grouse hunting. Feathered or human.

Wondering where the watchers had found shelter, Hamish hoped they’d had the sense not to drink or smoke. The smell of whisky and cigarettes could travel some distance in a haar, giving them away before they even realized that they’d been compromised.

Time passed. The night had settled in, and Hamish thought it must surely be going on three by now. If there was moonlight, it was hidden by the mist. In all the old tales of the clans, murder was done after moonset, the blackest hour. He smile wryly at the thought, and shifted a cramped leg just a little.

Would the killer come in through the front door, or would he choose the rear door from the small kitchen garden? It didn’t matter. Hamish had a clear view either direction.

And then he heard it. Stealthy movement on the far side of the croft. He rose quietly and crossed to the window in his bedroom. Beyond the glass, there was only a thick blanket of white. As he stood to one side, watching, a shadow paused just below the window and rose cautiously to peer inside, before dropping out of sight again.

It wasn’t what he’d planned for, but it would work out fine, he thought. And save his granny’s furniture from two men battling it out inside. He went silently to the door that opened onto the path in front of the croft. His fingers were on the knob when he felt it move under his hand. Standing behind the door, Hamish froze. It gently, slowly opened.

Someone stood there listening. And then as slowly it closed again.

Two men? One waiting by his window, and another one here? Hamish swiftly calculated the best way to deal with them. Crossing the floor, avoiding the spots that were sure to creak, he reached the kitchen door, opened it, and slipped outside.

Nothing happened. No one was waiting for him there.

He stepped away from the door, keeping to the wall of the house, listening.

Somewhere near the loch a bird, roused from its sleep, called in alarm.

Three men, then.

He’d have to take them one at a time.

Without needing to watch where he put his feet, he started toward the corner of the croft, in the direction of his bedroom. He reached the corner, and there he stopped again to listen. In the heavy mist he could see only inches in front of him, but sound carried. Taking a chance, he carefully moved around the corner.

The rush, when it came, was sudden and ferocious.

Hamish had a split second’s warning, and ducked. Something moved with force and speed above his body, where his head had been, a fist he thought, and then he rounded on whoever was behind him, smashing into the solid weight of a man.

It was a hard-fought two minutes but Hamish was the younger, he knew the terrain, and he had no intention of becoming a victim. He gave no thought to Bethune, somewhere in the heather waiting for a signal, instead holding his own. Then he felt his foe weakening, and he delivered the coup de grâce, finding his knee and then his jaw.

Whoever it was went down heavily. In the distance Hamish could hear the bird again.

He reached down and picked up the collar of the limp form at his feet and hauled it like cordwood back to the still open door.

He dumped his prisoner unceremoniously and went to light a lamp. Before he could find it, the front door slammed back on its hinges, and someone was there, a cudgel in his hand.

Hamish reacted without conscious thought, thrusting out a foot to trip the figure coming fast across the threshold, then reaching down to rip the cudgel from his hand.

With a growl of anger, the man scrambled to his feet, and Hamish struck him then, bringing him to his knees. The man grunted in pain before collapsing on the floor.

He could hear the third man now, running through the heather, heading for the kitchen doorway. With the cudgel in one hand, he fumbled for the matches and lit the lamp. He needed light now to know where all three men were.

The wick flared and took, just as Constable Scott came charging through the kitchen door, then stopped short, momentarily blinded by the sudden brightness.

Hamish held the cudgel at the ready, but the constable stood there staring at him.

“What in God’s name?” he began, looking from Hamish to the two men on the floor of the front room.

The man by the door, shaking his head to clear it, got to his knees. It was Bethune. “I heard the fight, I thought you were a dead man. Who hit me? Was it him?” He pointed to the man still lying on the floor.

Hamish stepped forward, rolling the unconscious man over. Under the heavy coat, he was dressed in corduroy trousers and a woolen shirt. The same trousers and shirt he’d been wearing earlier in the day.

“Who the hell is he?” Inspector Bethune, swaying on his feet, looked bewildered.

“His name is Ogilvie,” Hamish said, staring down at his prisoner. “But what the hell he was doing outside my house this night is more than I can tell ye.”

Coming to his senses, Ogilvie groaned and then shakily sat up. Hamish reached down and gave him a hand, and Ogilvie got to his feet with an effort. “I came to warn ye,” he said to Hamish, bloody and incensed. “I didna’ know it was you, lurking about outside. I thought it was him. Damn it, he’s no’ what he appears to be,” he went on, pointing a thick finger at Bethune. “He’s no’ a policeman.”

Hamish raised his eyes to meet Bethune’s. No’ so tall as you, the old shepherd had said. Using field glasses . . . A compass in his hand, Mary MacDonald had said. Knows western Scotland better than this part of the country, said the guide, Abernethy.

The description fit. The piper’s killer.

It fit Ogilvie as well, although he was thicker about the middle.

“You’ve got your man,” Bethune was saying. “Congratulations, MacLeod. I’ll see him back to Edinburgh.”

Hamish was silent, watching Ogilvie.

For Ogilvie would have needed neither compass nor field glasses to find his way about the glen, and his eyesight was clear and sharp. A ghillie’s eyes . . . He could have spotted the piper coming down the glen before anyone else took notice.

Meanwhile, it had been Bethune, forced to take on Abernethy as his guide, who’d seen to it that someone was with him when they found where the piper’s body lay.

There was one last question to resolve.

Hamish moved before Bethune or the bewildered constable quite realized what he was about. The Inspector fought hard, but he was no match for the tall Scot. The constable, protesting vociferously, tried to intervene, while Ogilvie saw his chance and stepped forward to bar Scott’s way.

“Mind yoursel’, laddie!” Ogilvie was saying sharply. “I’ve seen him in Edinburgh, and he wasna’ doing the law’s work then, I can tell ye. He runs a verra’ troublesome house of cards, and if ye do na’ pay your debts, you find yoursel’ in the Nor’ Loch!”

Or, Hamish thought, Loch Linnhe?

Hamish pushed Bethune into the nearest chair. Holding him there, he turned to the other two men.

“Empty your pockets, if you please. Now,” he said to the constable and to Ogilvie, who put up a fuss at the order. But in the end, both men did as they were told.

Ogilvie held out a pocket watch, handkerchief, small knife, a few coins.

The constable, flushed with anger, turned out his own pockets. The contents were similar, except for the key to the handcuffs at his belt.

Then Hamish took it upon himself to try once more to empty the Inspector’s pockets, while the man struggled to stop him.

With his hand halfway out of the pocket, Hamish turned to his two witnesses and said, “Look.”

It was the gold medal. They could see, even in the lamplight, the Campbell arms embossed on the back. Hamish drew it the rest of the way out. It was from the piping contest in Inveraray.

Ogilvie sighed. “I told you he was no’ a policeman.”

“Then how did he come by the card he was carrying, identifying himsel’ as one?” Hamish demanded.

“There’s a printer in a close on Prince’s Street. He’s easily bribed. A useful disguise, I should think, claiming to be a policeman. The piper would ha’ trusted him.”

“I found that confounded medal on the piper’s body, for God’s sake,” Bethune was shouting at them. “Where else was I to keep it safe?”

“You’re a liar,” Hamish said harshly. “It wasna’ there when I brought him in fra’ the gale. Nor in the bag wi’ his pipes.” He pointed across the room. “I found the piper’s bag where ye left it to rot in the heather. You’d ha’ been smarter to throw it in the loch.” He turned to the constable. “I guessed that his killer had the medal fra’ the start—he took it after knocking the lad o’er the head. There’s no’ a man or woman in the glen would touch the dead lad’s medal.”

The constable spoke then, slowly digesting what had happened. “He sent me to the loch. He said there was movement by the water.”

“Well,” Hamish said reasonably, “it wouldna’ be verra’ clever to let you witness him killing me.”

“And I watched Bethune try yon door,” Ogilvie added. “But he lost his nerve, ye ken. He came back with a cudgel, and that would ha’ killed ye fine. By the time yon constable reached the croft, you’d ha’ been dead, the cudgel by your corpse, and Bethune here lamenting that your killer had got away in the haar.”

Bethune put up a fierce defense, but it was no use. The gold medal, winking in the flickering lamplight, was his judgment.

It was Ogilvie, still limping a little, who agreed to accompany the constable back to the village with their prisoner.

“It’s for the best, MacLeod. Ye ken, it’s the duty of yon constable to bring in the piper’s murderer. I’m staying wi’ the two of them to be sure Bethune doesna’ escape. I never liked the man. He cheats at cards.”

Hamish wasn’t pleased with the decision; he’d wanted to see Bethune into a cell and charged. But he let them go, watching them from his doorway until they were out of sight in the mist.

Unable to sleep, he went to the cupboard where he’d put the lad’s pipes and set about cleaning them. It was late, close to five o’clock, by the time he’d finished, wrapped them in a towel, and put them away again. Someone would come for them. One day. The medal would be handed to the Fiscal, in evidence. For now.

Tired finally, and ready to sleep, he went to bed. The rain had stopped, and a ragged moon shone through the last remnants of heavy mist, brightening his window.

It was close on dawn when Hamish MacLeod came wide awake, sitting up in his bed.

From the direction of the loch came the sounds of a pibroch he recognized at once. His grandfather had played it but never like this. The sound, echoing over the water, was pure and stirring. It was “The MacLeod’s Lament,” and he listened to it with his face turned to the window.

When it was finished, he lay back down again, and closed his eyes.

It was the only time the piper played for him. He wasn’t sure in the clear light of morning whether it was his imagination or a dream.

But his granny would say, with the certainty of one who possessed the Sight, that the young piper had paid his debt to the man in the croft.

An Excerpt from Racing the Devil

Read on for a sneak peek at the next book by Charles Todd

RACING THE DEVIL

An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery

On sale February 2017

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Chapter One

Late June 1916

It was a way of daring Fate. Of spitting in the eye of the devil.

On the eve of what was to be the worst battle of the war, the coming Somme offensive, all leave had been canceled, and men who had anticipated at least a few days in rotation were ordered to return to the line before midnight.

In a more or less sturdy French barn that had somehow escaped the lot of the heavily shelled farmhouse connected to it, an enterprising sergeant had set up what passed for an officers’ mess. The food was appalling—he had learned to cook in Bodmin Gaol, although it was anyone’s guess whether he’d been an inmate or hired staff—but he had come into possession of the contents of an abandoned wine shop (or so it was said), and word had got around that what he served was of fairly decent quality.

The seven officers seated around the scarred, three-legged table had drunk bottles of his best claret, and the bleak mood had changed to a sober acceptance of what they would soon be facing. Verdun was in trouble, the French desperately holding on by a hair, the death toll rising. Britain was mounting a flanking attack to prevent a German breakthrough, and it looked to be a bloody shambles. None of them expected to survive.

The bombardment that they now knew to be the prelude to tomorrow’s attack had been going on for several days, rattling nerves but with any luck leveling the German trenches they would have to attack at dawn. And the Germans, forewarned, would be waiting, if the artillery barrage had left any alive.

The seven men were strangers, had never served together. But they soon discovered that before the war they had lived within a hundred miles of one another along the southern coast of England. They had one other thing in common: an enthusiasm for motorcars. Three of them presently owned one. The other four spoke pensively of what they would buy if they lived to see the war’s end. Candles danced and sputtered in rusty tins, a feeble light that made it easier for tired men to say whatever was on their minds.

It was then that the name of Randolph Graves came up. He had driven in the Grand Prix de Monte Carlo not once but twice, and had come very close to winning both events. One of the seven had known him, but the others knew of him. Anyone mad about racing knew who Randolph Graves was.

“Bought it at Ypres,” the Captain who had known him said. “I went to see his widow when I was last in London. She took it hard, poor lass. She’d been at school with a cousin. Not much I could do but say the usual. Died for his country. Brave as hell. An example to his men. I doubt it was much comfort.”

“You never know,” the only Major present commented, finishing his glass. “My father, now, says much the same sort of thing about lads I’ve grown up with. As if,” he added sourly, “sacrifice is a fine end. I’d much rather survive, thank you very much.”

“What will you do when it’s over?” the Lieutenant queried, passing the nearly empty bottle. “Stay in the Army?”

“God, no,” the Major said as he passed the bottle on. “I had my eye on a Rolls before that damned Archduke got himself shot. My father talked me out of buying it. Made a certain sort of sense that summer. But if I live, I’ll have it now, and I’ll drive it to Monte Carlo to watch the race.”

That led to a discussion of model, speed, and cost.

“There’ll be new chassis designs when this is over,” another Lieutenant put in. “Bound to be.”

“At least between Paris and Monte Carlo, there’s been no fighting,” the Major added, a touch of yearning in his voice. “The Grand Prix should commence again without too much trouble. Unless of course the roads haven’t been maintained.”

“If there are any men left who can drive in it,” the Captain retorted bitterly, shifting in his chair. “It’ll be down to us, more’s the pity. And none of us have that skill.”

“I say. Let’s make a bargain. One year after the war is over, let’s meet in Paris. With our motorcars. And race each other to Nice. Not the Grand Prix. An affirmation that we survived. Something to measure our future by.”

Surprisingly, they grasped at the straw offered, agreeing with the enthusiasm of men who knew they were doomed and didn’t want to believe it. The sergeant brought out another bottle, still dusty and quite old. They finished it, serious now, laying out the details of their future, the hotel where they’d stay in Paris, the hotel where they’d celebrate their arrival in Nice, how to bring the motorcars across from London, what route to follow south.

It was taunting Providence, but they didn’t care. It was something to hold on to, when tomorrow dawned and they were in the thick of whatever was to come. A talisman.

As they walked back through the dark to their respective sectors, the guns were still at it, lighting up the night sky, shaking the earth beneath their feet.

“I don’t envy the poor devils under that,” someone said quietly.

“No. But the more of them killed tonight, the fewer we have to face tomorrow or the next day,” the Lieutenant replied grimly.

What they didn’t know was that the shelling would not penetrate the German trenches. Could not. They had been built far better—and much deeper—than those in the British lines.

And so on July 1, when the first charge went over the top, they were met with a taste of hell.

The South of France, Above Nice, Late Autumn 1919

Andrew Brothers watched the sun set over the hilltops and took a deep breath. He was tired now, and the lamps were being lit in the isolated villages clinging to their perches where the central massif ran down to Nice and the sea. They beckoned, promising food and possibly even a bed. But he couldn’t stop. The others hadn’t, he was sure of it. And he wanted very much to reach the Promenade des Anglais first. Not to best the others, but for his own sense of accomplishment, a way to end his own war. He hadn’t been able to do that in the past year. It still haunted him in ways he’d never expected. And so he’d come to believe that this race would put paid to the trenches and all they represented. Proving he was a whole man at last.

He wondered how many of the others felt the same way.

There were only five now. Dobson had bought it on the Somme, some said cursing the Germans as he died. Everett had developed gangrene after a skirmish near Passchendaele, his foot shot off and infection creeping up his leg inch by inch. The doctors had done what they could, but there had been no hope from the start. He’d written Brothers a rambling letter, mostly claiming that even without his foot, he would ride in the motorcar with them by turns and smell the sea as they ran down to Nice. He’d been dead by the time Brothers got it, and there was something macabre about it, that certainty Everett felt that he would survive to make the journey.

Truth be told, none of them had expected this week would come. Not after the Somme, where they’d all realized they were living on borrowed time, walking dead. For one thing, they’d been more than a little drunk that night in late June, Midsummers hardly past, the days long and warm. Drunk and a little mad. Defiant.

The odd thing was, he could recall it clearly, as if it were yesterday. The scavenged tables and chairs, whatever cups and mugs could be found in the ruins of shelled villages, a dented coffeepot, a saucepan or two, and a few skillets. The sergeant was nothing if not enterprising. He himself had drunk his wine from a porcelain cup with lilies of the valley painted on it. The Major, he remembered, had had a child’s silver christening mug.

They’d been daft even to think it might be possible. And yet it had seemed possible somehow. The barn had still smelled of horses and, oddly enough, of chickens. Nothing like the trenches, where the stench of urine and sour sweat and death seemed to permeate the muddy footpath and the scarred walls.

At the time it all seemed to make perfect sense. They’d toasted each other and wondered what the girls were like in Nice, and ignored the coming battle. The night was quiet, except for a cricket in one of the stalls. They’d laughed and passed the bottles, all of them a little drunk.

By the time he was back in the lines, he was cold sober and wishing he weren’t.

He’d had to borrow his brother-in-law’s motorcar to keep his rendezvous at the Hôtel Ritz in Paris.

Tommy hadn’t been happy about it, but he’d relented in the end. And so Brothers had walked into the hotel, found the other four in the bar, and endured the good-natured chaffing about being the last to arrive. “But not the last to Nice,” he’d told them, and realized he meant it.

There was no prize for winning. A bottle of the best French brandy they could find. If the winner chose to share it with the others, all well and good. If he didn’t, no one would raise an objection. Being alive—and whole—was all that mattered.

Brothers also recalled—far too clearly—standing in the trench at dawn on July 1 three years before, waiting for the signal that the attack would begin. And thinking that he had hardly known the men he’d made the pact with. He’d decided that it was for the best. Their deaths wouldn’t touch him. He’d lost enough friends. He didn’t care to make new ones.

And yet, with each attack he survived, he’d told himself, I’ll race to Nice after all. By God, I will!

That had become his mantra, and he told himself that if he lived, it didn’t matter about the others. He’d make that drive alone. To prove he was still alive. If he had to beg, borrow, or steal a motorcar.

They weren’t meant for racing, any of the vehicles the five men had brought to Paris. Nothing like the low, sleek Grand Prix models that swept around the curves and dealt easily with tight corners. Randolph Graves would laugh. But none of them cared. They had lived through the worst that life had to offer. It had taken their youth and their nerve and their joy. And still they had survived.

He shook himself, staring ahead. Tendrils of mist were beginning to swirl in front of his headlamps, and as he came into the next turn, he realized that he could see nothing to his left—where the long drop had been until now—but a sea of white. With the setting of the sun, mists had crept up the cliff faces all along here. Lost in the past, he hadn’t noticed, but now they were moving up toward the heights above him, and in a matter of minutes he was going to be

He didn’t know this road. They had all been warned that the descent into Nice was dangerous, a series of twists, turns, and switchbacks with nothing between the motorcar and plunging into ravines but a man’s skill. Bad enough to drive it in the dark, but in a mist? Madness!

He began to slow, leaning forward to peer through the windscreen at the road. It was vanishing one instant, reappearing the next. And then without warning there was a clear patch, and he took the bend holding his breath, uncertain what he’d find as he rounded it.

A flash of light behind him distracted him for an instant, but he had no time to glance at his mirror. As it was, he almost missed the next turn as mist eddied at the last possible second. Swearing, he gauged his speed and kept to the right, so close to the cliff face that he felt the scraping of branches against his wings.

Tommy, he told himself grimly, would be cursing if he knew.

The mist thinned a little, revealing a straight stretch of road for about twenty yards, and he drew a breath of relief. He couldn’t see the drop on his left, although he knew it was there, but he sped up a little to take advantage of the easier run.

Something tapped his motorcar hard in the rear, catching him completely unprepared. For an instant, Brothers nearly lost control, reflexes kicking in even as he veered left and fought to bring himself right again. Risking a look back, he could see a vague shape in the mist behind him. No lights—whoever it was was running without lights.

But the next bend was already on him, and he had no time to think about that. He edged around it, working the brake, and then he was hit again.

Shouting at the other driver, he kept his attention on the mist-shrouded road, hunched over the wheel, gripping it with both hands.

Who the hell was behind him? And what was he trying to do?

The next time Brothers was struck, he nearly went over the edge, his tires spinning in the loose grit and underbrush. Yelling, he felt himself sliding, the left rear seeming to lean into the void, and then almost miraculously, he was back on the road.

Fully alert now, he gunned the motor to earn him some space, skidded in the dust toward the drop as he took the next curve at speed despite the mist, and thanked the gods watching over him that there was no one else on the road. Another bend loomed, and he almost misjudged what he could see in the brightness of his headlamps, for the ruts were deep and treacherous, filled with shadows. It was a sobering moment. But it was a risk he’d have to take.

The other car was behind him again, and this time when it struck him, it sped up, pushing him, in spite of the possibility that in sending him crashing over the edge, the other driver would fail to disengage in time to save himself.

Brothers had a moment’s clarity. If he stayed on this road, he’d surely be killed. He didn’t know why or by whom, he only knew that if he didn’t do something soon, either the mist or the man behind him would win.

And then he saw it. As the mists shifted a little, there was a broadening in the road. Lights, blurred by mist, high above his head. A village perched on a promontory—like so many others he’d passed during the late afternoon.

Was that a turning? Yes, and it was wide enough for him to swing in a loop off the road and come back just behind his tormentor. Without signaling, at the last possible second, he whipped the wheel to his right—and then pulled it hard left, praying that he hadn’t overshot the turn. He flew into the street, listening to the scream of braking behind him, fully intending to turn the wheel again, finishing the circle. And then his danger registered.

Half hidden by the mist was a narrow bridge, low stone walls looming on either side. Too narrow for his motorcar. His brother-in-law’s motorcar, he reminded himself in a panic. The bridge was too close to miss. He was headed straight toward it, and there was nothing he could do.

He gripped the brake, pulling hard, sideslipping on the loose grit, bracing himself for the unavoidable shock of collision. Fast as he’d been going, he was going to wreck Tommy’s motorcar and kill himself.

He never knew what had saved him—bald luck, his own skill, or the excellent brake. The motorcar came to a sudden juddering halt that threw him against the steering wheel so hard he thought he’d broken ribs.

Stunned, pinned there and helpless, he turned his head to look for his tormentor. But the other motorcar had been swallowed up in the mist. Even the rear lamp was only the faintest glow that vanished even as he watched.

He sat there, his hands shaking on the wheel, his chest feeling as if breathing were impossible.

And then he got out, walking to the bonnet to look.

He didn’t think there was a coat of paint’s space between the wing and the stone abutment.

It took him a good ten minutes to collect himself again. The certainty that he was going to die had rattled him—and then cleared his head as it had done in battle. Now it was lost in such a surge of anger that he was shaking with it. Anger that someone had brought back what he had been most ashamed of in France, that courage had not come naturally to him, as it had seemed to do for many other men. Finally an overwhelming relief that he and his brother-in-law’s motorcar were safe.

He left the motorcar there, crossed the narrow bridge on foot, and started up the rutted lane that climbed to the village above. The mists were heavy here, and he had to watch where he was walking. A twisted ankle wouldn’t do—and he had no way of knowing how the land dropped off to either side. At length he found himself passing a house to his right as the lane narrowed into a street with buildings on either side. A church—shops—a turning that led even higher—more shops and houses—and then he was abruptly stopped by a low wall. The mist roiling up from below enveloped him, cool and damp. But for the wall, he’d have gone straight over before he knew the precipice was there.

He swallowed hard.

Surely the damned village had a bar of some sort? He badly needed a drink, and his flask was in the motorcar God knew how far away.

Brothers turned back the way he’d come. And then someone stepped out of a door on his left, and he saw what he wanted—a few tables, chairs, and a wall of bottles. He nodded to the man who had just left, went through the open door, and realized that he wasn’t sure what language these people spoke, whether his French was sufficient.

“Cognac,” he said, and the proprietor, a heavyset man with a beard, answered.

Brothers shook his head, and the man pointed to several bottles. He recognized the label on the second one in line, and nodded.

He had two stiff drinks before paying the man and walking back to the motorcar.

Dutch courage be damned. He was going to have to drive on to Nice, like it or not, and the mists were no better, the road ahead no straighter.

He was startled to see that he’d left the motor running. Getting behind the wheel, he sat there for a full minute, letting the brandy warm him. And then he reached for the brake, let in the clutch, and drove on.

It was a test of endurance, the next few hours. At times he had to feel his way around the bends, judging them as best he could. And always in the back of his mind was the worry that the other motorcar had pulled over somewhere to wait for him.

When he finally came out on the straight stretch of road that ran on toward the city of Nice, he barely noticed the bright lights of the villas and hotels ahead of him. He couldn’t have said just when he’d run out of the mist. Two miles back? Three? Almost as if it had done its worst, failed, and finally had given up without any warning.

He found the Hôtel Negresco without difficulty. It stood on a corner overlooking the Boulevard des Anglais. It had been a French hospital during the war and was only just recovering. A room was waiting for him. He asked the man at the desk to see to his motorcar, walked on to the lift, and went up. He didn’t want to speak to anyone else, no half-drunken postmortems of the drive, no celebration of victory. What he needed was sleep. Being first to reach Nice no longer seemed to matter.

The next evening, Brothers walked into the hotel bar, prepared for the welcome and a riotous night.

What he found were three other drivers sitting around a table, their faces gloomy, their shoulders slumped, as if they’d been in the same chairs for hours.

Brothers crossed to their table without speaking, and they looked up, at first startled and then delighted to see him. Slapping him on the back, calling for another glass. But it was a strained welcome.

“What? What’s the matter?” he asked as champagne was poured into his tall, elegant glass. A far cry from the makeshift cups so long ago on the Somme . . .

“We’d just about given you up,” he was told. “Haven’t you heard? There was a terrible crash up in the hill country last evening. One of the worst stretches. There was fog, you see, and he missed the curve. Someone reported it at first light, and they went up after him. The rescuers. Took hours to reach the site. Motorcar a shambles, of course. He’s alive. That’s all we know. They won’t tell us any more than that.”

Brothers barely heard the rest of it. He wanted to ask if there had been another vehicle involved, but something in their faces held him back.

And he wasn’t certain that he wanted to know. More to the point, he couldn’t bear to relive what had happened to him. Not this soon. What’s more, these men were strangers, really. Nice enough and all that, but he never expected to see any of them again. Better to leave it. He took the chair pushed out for him, downed his champagne, and listened to the jumbled account they had been given of what had happened.

And wondered if he’d been meant to go over the edge as well.

But who the hell could have done such a thing? And in the name of God, why?

He wanted to search their faces, he wanted to know if winning had mattered so much to any of these three men that they would kill to be first. Hard to believe.

Still, just how well did he know any of them?

It wasn’t until much later that another thought came to him.

What if the motorcar that went over the edge had been the one trying to send him into the ravine?

Chapter Two

East Sussex, November 1920

There was a heavy rain that evening, wind-driven into vast curtains. The roads leading to the cliffs were passable—just—if they were negotiated with care, although traction could be nasty where the mud was thick. When it mixed with chalk and whatever rubble had washed down in the storm, it was slick and unpredictable.

Not a night fit for man or beast. Even the sheep had huddled in the lee of the hedgerows, wet and miserable. The long, steep, winding road down into the Gap was particularly treacherous, but it was seldom used, and the locals knew to avoid it in bad weather.

It was nearly midday when a farmer by the name of James, who had a holding near East Dedham, went out to the cliff meadows to see how the sheep had fared. It had rained heavily well into late morning, dark clouds coming in from the east and sweeping on toward Dover. He had stood by the window watching the downpour, anxious to be on his way. By ten, the wind shifted and the rain settled into a cold drizzle that swept over the chalk headlands from the sea. Half an hour later, he set out, worried about the sheep.

Two hours later, James walked into Burling Gap, the closest village, to seek out Constable Neville.

“From the look of it,” James said, describing what he’d found, “he didn’t know the road, and like as not, blinded by the rain, he lost his way. What happened next I can’t say, and there’s no way of telling whether he was heading toward Burling Gap or away. The motorcar rolled, you’ll need horses and ropes to right it. He was thrown clear. I saw him there just beyond the bonnet. Dead, of course. There’s no question.”

“Who is he?” Neville asked, dreading to hear it was one of his neighbors.

“Damned if I know. I didn’t recognize him, and there’s a good deal of blood about. You’ll have to bring him in and see for yourself.”

There was no doctor in Burling Gap. The nearest surgery was in East Dedham, which had expanded after the war, while Burling Gap had been fighting the encroaching sea. High as they were here, the sea cliffs were still low enough to give some access to the narrow strand below, and men of the Gap had made their living from the sea and the shipwrecks along this part of the coast for generations.

Neville found a lad to take a message to Dr. Hanby, and after that collected half a dozen men and four horses. He led them to the long sloping road that came down into the Gap, and even before he reached the motorcar, he could see it, on its side like some wounded beast. It wasn’t until he was some twenty yards from the motorcar that he could see the body lying facedown in the grass, half hidden by the bulk of the vehicle. The man’s hat, sodden with rain, lay just beyond, almost within reach of his hand.

“That’s Captain Standish’s motorcar,” Harry Bainbridge said suddenly.

Neville turned to him. “Are you certain of that?”

“Certain enough.”

It had been a long climb up the headland, but they were used to it. Reaching the scene, they went in silence to stand near the body. Neville kept them back as he stepped forward and leaned over for a closer look.

“Dead,” he confirmed, and behind him there was a shifting of feet as the others accepted the news. Neville knelt then in the wet, bruised grass to study the body.

The motorcar hadn’t rolled over it. He could see that much. A man, wearing a heavy coat, his hair still wet with rain and dew. No indication that he’d been badly injured and had tried to crawl to the shelter of the vehicle. A quick death, then. That, Neville told himself, was one mercy. He wouldn’t have wished to lie out here the rest of the night, life dwindling, waiting for help that never came.

Reaching out, he gently turned the body over so that he could see the face. Behind him there was a sharp indrawing of breath.

The onlookers had glimpsed the clerical collar even before the dead man’s face came into view.

“It’s not Captain Standish,” James said, and watched as Neville brushed the wet hair out of the dead man’s face. “It’s Rector,” he added then, in a stunned voice. “But what’s he doing here in Captain Standish’s motorcar?”

There was a deep gash at the hairline, blood caked across the pale, lifeless face, but Neville knew that James was right. “It’s the Rector,” he confirmed. “Mr. Wright.”

Wright had served at St. Simon’s in East Dedham for some years, except for the four years of the war, when he’d been chaplain to one of the Sussex regiments.

“We can’t leave him here,” someone was saying, and walked back to the horses to fetch the stretcher while Neville went through Wright’s pockets in an effort to confirm his identity. One of his more unpleasant duties, he thought as he did it. Clearing his throat as he opened the dead man’s purse, he said, “There’s money here. And his identification.” He put them away again before getting to his feet and brushing at his wet knees.

Turning to look at the motorcar, he made a note of the crushed wing, the broken windscreen, and the smear of dark green on the dark red boot. The driver’s door was standing wide and at an awkward angle. Neville thought it was likely that as Wright was thrown out of the vehicle, the door swung back and caught him in the head.

He was nearly sure that Wright had been alone in the motorcar—there was no sign of a passenger, and no blood in the interior to indicate that someone else had been injured. As any passenger surely would have been as the motorcar rolled and he was tossed about inside. And if he had survived unhurt, undoubtedly he’d have come for help. It wouldn’t have been the farmer, James, who discovered the wreckage.

Satisfied, Neville nodded to the men with the ropes and horses, and they moved forward to begin the task of righting the vehicle. Harry Bainbridge was already helping another man to lift the Rector’s body onto the stretcher. He was lashed there with the extra lengths of rope, and Bainbridge turned just as the motorcar jerked and swayed and then crashed back on its wheels again, raising a shout from the men guiding the horses.

Neville went to look it over once it had stopped rocking, jotting information into his notebook as he studied the vehicle. He knew very little about motorcars, but he could see the damage done and judged it to be fresh. But then Captain Standish would be able to confirm that.

“What shall we do about it?” one of the men with the horses asked. “Not like it’s flotsam on the beach.”

This raised a chuckle from another man, and the first turned to glare at him.

But Neville was walking up the road some distance, casting about for any reason why the driver had lost control.

What he found instead was a second set of tracks, at one point overlapping those of Standish’s vehicle.

He followed the second tire marks for a distance, realizing that both were often on the grass, not the packed chalk and earth surface of the road. And he didn’t like what he saw.

Keeping his thoughts to himself, he walked back toward the now-upright motorcar.

“Anything?” Harry Bainbridge asked, meeting him partway.

Neville shook his head. “I wonder if he fell asleep at the wheel.”

Bainbridge shook his head. “In that storm? Not very likely.”

“Well.” Neville nodded to the men who were to carry the stretcher. “All right, then, to Dr. Hanby with him.”

James said, “What shall we do with the motorcar?”

“Take it to Trotter’s garage. If anyone can find out what went wrong, he’s our man.”

“I don’t think it will run,” one of the men with the horses said. “Pull it, then?”

“Just be careful of the horses on the hill.”

“Not to worry,” the other man said.

They set off, the stretcher bearers in front, Neville bringing up the rear.

James fell back to walk beside him. “Not the best of starts to the day.”

“No.”

“Will you be handing over the inquiry to Constable Brewster?”

Neville stopped, forcing James to halt as well. “The body was found in my patch. I reckon that means I’m in charge.”

“But Wright’s from East Dedham,” James said.

“Not that it matters,” Neville replied, walking on. “I’m sending a message to the Chief Constable, asking him to bring in Scotland Yard.”

“Is that really needful?” James asked, surprised.

Neville glanced at him. “Do you think Constable Brewster would be any happier than I am, dealing with Captain Standish and the Rector’s Bishop?” Still seeing uncertainty on the farmer’s face, he added, “And we don’t know what it was that made Rector borrow the Captain’s motorcar.”

“Surely he had a sound reason?”

“I’m not eager to pry into the Captain’s affairs. Or the Rector’s. I’d rather hand it on than take it on.”

James shook his head. “To tell the truth, I hadn’t given it any thought.”

“No, I expect you hadn’t,” Neville said, “but I had. It’s my duty.”

James considered him for a moment. “Still. Scotland Yard.”

“Nothing wrong with Scotland Yard,” Neville answered blandly. “By now they must be accustomed to being caught in the middle. You’ll be required to give evidence at the inquest. I’ll have to do the same.” He nodded toward the men ahead of them, struggling to keep the motorcar on the road. “And so will they.”

James fell silent, considering that prospect. “You must do as you think best,” he said finally, and with a nod walked on to join the stretcher bearers and their sad burden.

Neville watched him go, satisfied. He had no great belief in Constable Brewster’s ability to do more than keep the peace in East Dedham. Better the Yard, indeed. And he himself had seen enough to know that there was more to the Rector’s death than a motorcar losing control in a night of wind and rain.

Walking on to the doctor’s surgery, watching the stretcher make its way toward East Dedham, he could see the rainwater dripping out of Wright’s clothing and through the canvas.

Poor soul. It was not a suitable end for a man of the cloth. But then Wright had been much more than that. And God willing, Scotland Yard would send someone capable of dealing with what very well might be murder.

Dr. Hanby confirmed that the Rector’s neck had been snapped, most likely by the blow from the vehicle’s door as Wright had been thrown from the rolling motorcar. “It was quick,” he said, looking up at Neville. “He wouldn’t have suffered.”

“I’m relieved to hear it. He lay out there all night.”

“I’ll have a look at the rest of him, cursory of course, but necessary. It will have to wait until later in the day. But I expect no surprises.”

“Nor I,” Neville responded.

Hanby gestured to the bruised face. “You’re satisfied with the identification? Or do you want his housekeeper to be sent for?”

“I shouldn’t worry Mrs. Saunders with that. It’s Mr. Wright, no doubt about it. And those are his belongings.” He indicated the ring of keys and the dead man’s wallet. “Trotter has the motorcar for the time being. Do you know of any kin?”

“He never spoke of any family,” Hanby said, covering the body with a clean sheet. “A private man, the Rector. But I expect Mrs. Saunders will know who to send for.”

Shortly afterward, Constable Neville went on to the rectory of St. Simon’s Church. It was set back from the road on the far side of the churchyard, well out of sight of the cortege that had made its sad way to the doctor’s surgery. In the Middle Ages, wool had built East Dedham and enlarged its church before the market declined. Still, during the Great War, the demand for uniforms and blankets had seen to a small resurgence in income here and elsewhere, although not enough to bring a return to real prosperity. Close up, even East Dedham was showing the cost of war.

He made his way up the path to the rectory’s door. Like the church, the house was built of flint, sturdy and rather attractive with its stone facings and peaked roof. But while the church had Norman antecedents, the rectory was much later. It had been renovated early in Victoria’s reign, and a later Rector had set out gardens, softening the severity of the flint in spring and summer. Now the beds showed only the last bare spikes of late autumn amid withered leaves.

Neville stood at the door for a moment before lifting the brass knocker and letting it fall. Listening for footsteps, he tried to arrange the words he would have to use when the housekeeper opened the door. But it was hopeless. He wasn’t a man who found it easy to express sympathy. He’d have given much for a pint before coming here, but one didn’t deliver bad news while reeking of strong drink.

It was several minutes before a woman with graying hair put up in a bun on the top of her head opened the door to him.

“Constable,” she said, nodding to him. “If you’ve come for Rector, he’s gone out,” she added apologetically. “He was supposed to be back late last night, but he must have been kept over. I hope it’s not urgent business brought you here.”

“Might I come in a moment? It was a walk from Burling Gap. I could do with a glass of water.” He hadn’t meant to begin that way, but he found it hard to tell her, bluntly and on the doorstep, what he’d come to say.

“Yes, of course.” She moved back, allowing him to enter the cool dimness of the hall, then led the way back to the kitchen. “What was it you wanted with Rector?”

He didn’t answer straightaway. As she busied herself fetching a glass and pouring water into it from a jug kept cool in the pantry, he looked around at the plain, old-fashioned kitchen. It was built to hold a large family, like the house itself. Two infant chairs stood on either side of the door to the back stairs leading to the upper floors. Nearer where he stood, the Welsh dresser gleamed with patterned china, large platters and serving dishes handed down from generation to generation. The table itself, in the center of the room, could easily seat ten at a pinch.

Mrs. Saunders handed him the glass, and he drank a little before saying, “I expect you’ll be wanting to sit down.” And without waiting for an invitation, he pulled out one of the straight-back chairs and held it for her before taking one for himself.

She was alarmed now, although he’d tried not to let her guess what he’d come to say. There was nothing for it but to come out with his news and then give her time to take it in.

“There was an accident up on the Gap,” he said slowly. “The steep part. Motorcar went over off the road and rolled, killing the driver instantly.”

“Oh, my dear,” she said softly, almost relieved, and he realized that she thought it was on behalf of the dead man that he’d come. “Anyone we know?”

“The driver was Rector,” he said, and watched her face change.

“Rector?” she repeated. “Surely you must be mistaken. He doesn’t own a motorcar.”

“It was borrowed. But he was driving. There’s no doubt about that. And as far as we can tell, he was alone.” Neville picked up his glass and then set it aside.

“Oh, my dear,” she said again, and this time her voice dwindled into a sigh.

“He didn’t suffer,” Neville repeated, trying to reassure her. Then, fiddling with his helmet, he said, “Whose motorcar would he be likely to borrow? Do you know?”

“But he left here on his bicycle just after two o’clock. He was calling on that farmer whose son is dying of his wounds. Timmy Melford.”

Neville knew Melford. And his farm was nowhere near where the motorcar had gone off the road. Nor was there a bicycle in the wreckage.

She was saying, “Poor lad, he was in hospital for months. They brought him home to die. The wound in his chest wouldn’t heal, and finally turned septic. There was naught to be done for him. A nice lad, grew into a nice young man.”

Neville said gently, “Let me get this straight. Rector went to the Melford farm on his bicycle. Was he intending to go somewhere else from there?”

“He never said. But he did ask me to leave his supper, that he might be home late. He’d often stay until the undertaker had come. It was never touched, his supper. I found it this morning, just where I’d set it.”

“I see.” Changing the subject now, he said, “Is there anyone I can bring here to keep you company?”

She shook her head. “I’d rather be alone, at least for now. I might go to my sister’s tonight, if that’s all right. First I’ll need to lay out clothes for the undertaker.”

“There’s no family to be notified?”

“Rector never spoke of any. His mother died when he was young, and his father while he was in seminary.” She looked around the kitchen. “He loved this church. I expect he’d want to be laid to rest here.”

“Is there a will? Anything that might tell us what his last wishes might be?”

“If there was, he said nothing of it to me. You’d have to ask his solicitor. Mr. Edgecombe.”

Neville resigned himself to traveling back to the Gap in the dark. The days were short now, and it was already nearly two o’clock. There was the message to be sent to the Chief Constable as well. He sighed.

He stayed a little longer with Mrs. Saunders out of kindness, eating the bit of cake she’d insisted on offering him, the hospitality of the rectory.

The Rector’s solicitor had chambers in a narrow building with a dark green door, set between the tiny stationer’s shop and the greengrocer’s. Edgecombe’s clerk informed Neville that the solicitor was in Pevensey for the day, and wouldn’t be back until late afternoon on the morrow.

So much for that. Disappointed, Neville went on to the pub, where he begged paper and an envelope, and sat down at a table in a back corner to write his request to the Chief Constable. That done, he went around back to where he’d heard a brewery van offloading the week’s supplies of beer and ale, and persuaded the driver to carry the letter to Arundel, where the Chief Constable lived.

“Mind you hand it directly to his housekeeper,” Neville told him. “Not to a housemaid.”

His next call was at the police station to inform Constable Brewster of Wright’s death.

He found Brewster half asleep at the table that served as his desk, his helmet set to one side and his feet on the blotter. As Neville recounted the morning’s events, Brewster shook his head. “There’s a loss. He was well liked, Rector was. But what was he doing driving on the Gap road?”

“God knows.” Neville told him what he felt Brewster ought to know, then waited for the other man to think the matter through.

“Here, this should be my inquiry. You should have sent someone for me.”

There was a querulous note in his voice now.

“He died in my jurisdiction,” Neville countered. “But there’s doubt about why he was there. According to the housekeeper, he was going to the Melford farm yesterday. On his bicycle. But he hasn’t been back to the rectory since.”

“Are you certain it’s Captain Standish’s motorcar? He’s not likely to be lending it, even to Rector.”

“Certain as can be.” He paused. “The general opinion is, this is a matter for Scotland Yard. My advice is to leave them to it.”

“Why? It appears to be straightforward enough.”

“But what if it isn’t?”

Brewster stared at him. “Do you know something I don’t?”

“There’s nothing to know. Except that Captain Standish won’t be best pleased that his fine motorcar is at Trotter’s. Mark me, he won’t take to using a bicycle.”

“No,” Brewster said slowly. “But as you say, it’s your patch, not mine.”

Closing the door of the police station, Neville wished for his own bicycle. He could have asked the loan of Brewster’s, but he’d have had to explain why.

The church clock was just striking three as he turned toward the Melford farm.

It was a good three-quarters of an hour before Neville reached the house, set in a fold of the land and protected by half a dozen trees that leaned with the prevailing wind, their tops like shrubs set on nearly bare trunks. The light was already fading, and the temperature was dropping as he came up the track to the house. Like many of its neighbors, it was built of flint, long and rambling, nestled into its setting. He stopped to button up his tunic again—the pace he’d set himself had been warm work—and then went on to the door.

It was hung with black crepe, and there was no answer when he knocked. He stood there, waiting patiently, but no one came.

Finally, nursing a stiffening knee, he walked around the house to the kitchen door. Through a window he could see Mrs. Melford sitting at the wooden table, staring into space.

He startled her, even though his knock was hardly more than a tap. For an instant he read hope in her eyes as she opened the door. Then she said, “It’s Constable Neville, isn’t it?”

“Yes, from over to the Gap. Is your husband at home today?”

She moved aside to allow him to step in. “He’s gone into Seaford to speak to the undertaker. I thought at first you might be from there, come to tell me—he’s taken it hard. The boy’s death.”

He could see her clearly now as she lit the lamp. She looked tired, a tension about her eyes that told him she wasn’t sleeping well. He thought perhaps she had had a long battle with hopelessness, even before her son’s death.

“I’m sorry to hear he’s gone,” Neville said. “He was always a good lad, Timmy.”

“It was a blessing,” she said, but there was doubt in her voice. “Watching him waste away—but the house seems so empty now. I listened night and day to his breathing. You could hear it anywhere in the house. I don’t know that I can bear the silence.”

Not knowing what to say that might bring her comfort, he said gently, “Actually, I’ve come to about Rector. His housekeeper told me he was planning to call on you yesterday.”

Her eyebrows went up in surprise. “Rector? He’s not been here. I’ve been expecting him all the day long, but we haven’t seen him.”

“When was he last here?”

“It’s been four days, I should think. Yes, I’m sure of it. He stopped by often, looking in on Timmy and us. It was a comfort to all of us.”

He nodded in sympathy, uncertain whether to tell her that Wright too had died in the night. “There was a motorcar crash last night,” he said finally. “Rector was killed. I’m that sorry to have to be the one to tell you.”

Her hands to her face, she stared at him. And her first thought was for her late son. “But who will bury Timmy now?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Melford. The Bishop will send someone, I’ve no doubt.”

“I can’t get over it,” she said. “Rector dead too.” Tears filled her eyes as if this was the final blow, and Neville stood there, unable to think of anything to say.

Rousing herself, she said, “I’m forgetting myself, Constable. Could I offer you a cup of tea? I was just about to make one for myself.”

But she had been sitting there lost in thought, not starting to make tea or cook the evening meal. He thanked her for her courtesy and asked if she’d be all right, left alone, waiting for her husband and the undertaker.

“Yes, I’ll be fine,” she said, and walked with him to the door.

He stood by the window, watching her walk back to the table and sit down again, lost in her own grief.

Despite his stiff knee, he set himself a fair pace back toward East Dedham. There he encountered half a dozen people who asked him if it were true, about Rector.

He’d intended to go home, fetch his bicycle, and continue to Captain Standish’s house. Instead, cursing the steady climb up to the scene of the accident, he looked again at the torn turf and the bruised grass. Finding what he was after, he took out his notebook. He squatted where the two sets of tire tracks converged. The light was going fast now, but in the afterglow, he could just see the patterns where the mud from the road had marked the place where two vehicles had driven onto the turf, their tracks overlapping. He began to sketch what distinguished the sets, then made certain he got it right in each case. Already the distinctive marks were harder to see, and he cursed himself for not coming back here before he went on to the Melford farm. As he rose from his cramped position, his knee reminded him why he had not come sooner.

Standing there, notebook in hand, he looked around. It was as if he were alone here at the ends of the earth, only the wheeling gulls overhead, coming in from the sea and adding their calls to the ever-present sound of the wind. Not a single other soul in sight, not even the sheep, who had moved on. He shivered, for no reason that he could think of, and snapped his notebook shut.

On the long walk back to the Gap and the remnants of his own village, he found himself thinking that the cottages here, even though they were made of the same flint, couldn’t hold a candle to those at East Dedham. The roofs were still in need of repair, even two years after the war had finished, and several could use a little paint around windows and doors. But there was no money to put toward repairs. Perched as it was on the very edge of the great chalk cliffs, where it had set for centuries, Burling Gap was slowly crumbling into the sea. Since 1905 he’d watched the decline, watched the houses of neighbors fall into the sea in winter storms that ate at the cliff faces. How many were gone already? He recounted the names of those who had lived here. One or two had tried to rebuild a little farther inland, but the rest had moved on, taking what they’d managed to salvage with them. For there was little enough work here as it was.

But it was his patch, and he liked it. As long as one house remained at the top of the cliff, he’d not be leaving it.

The first stars were just showing as he limped to his door and stepped inside. He wasn’t sure he could make it to the chair by the cold hearth, his knee threatening to buckle first.

He was too old to walk as far as he’d done today. Come to that, he was close to being too old to pedal, but he dared not complain to anyone. Since the war’s end there had been talk of closing the police station at Burling Gap and adding the hamlet to the jurisdiction of East Dedham. To Brewster’s jurisdiction, a man too lazy to care.

Sinking at last into his chair, he leaned his head back on the cushion.

If the Chief Constable agreed to his request to bring in the Yard, Neville prayed that whoever they sent owned a motorcar. Unlikely, of course, but it would make short work of distances and be a blessing.

A man could always wish for something, couldn’t he?

About the Author

CHARLES TODD is the New York Times best-selling author of the Inspector Ian Rutledge mysteries, the Bess Crawford mysteries, and two stand-alone novels. A mother-and-son writing team, they live on the East Coast.

Discover great authors, exclusive offers and more at hc.com.

Also by Charles Todd

The Ian Rutledge Mysteries

- A Test of Wills
- Wings of Fire
- Search the Dark
- Legacy of the Dead
- Watchers of Time
- A Fearsome Doubt
- A Cold Treachery
- A Long Shadow
- A False Mirror
- A Pale Horse
- A Matter of Justice
- The Red Door
- A Lonely Death
- The Confession
- Proof of Guilt
- Hunting Shadows
- A Fine Summer’s Day
- No Shred of Evidence
- Racing the Devil

The Bess Crawford Mysteries

- A Duty to the Dead
- An Impartial Witness
- A Bitter Truth
- An Unmarked Grave
- A Question of Honor
- An Unwilling Accomplice
- A Pattern of Lies
- The Shattered Tree

Other Fiction

- The Murder Stone

- The Walnut Tree

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Excerpt from Racing the Devil copyright © 2017 by Charles Todd.

the piper. Copyright © 2017 by Charles Todd. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Digital Edition JANUARY 2017 ISBN: 9780062678096

Witness Impulse is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.

Witness and HarperCollins are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.

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Table of Contents

- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- The Piper
- An Excerpt from Racing the Devil
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- About the Author
- Also by Charles Todd
- Copyright
- About the Publisher