Cold Comfort

AN INSPECTOR IAN RUTLEDGE STORY

CHARLES TODD

Contents

Cold Comfort

An Excerpt from Hunting Shadows

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

About the Author

Also by Charles Todd

Copyright

About the Publisher

Cold Comfort

France, Early 1915, at the Front

IT WAS HOT this far down in the tunnel. Here, at the very end, there was only room for the three of them—Lieutenant Rutledge, the officer in charge; a private by the name of Williams at the left wall already passing over his bayonet in favor of a small knife as he scraped quietly at the chalk surface to enlarge the space; and Corporal MacLeod listening for sounds from the enemy burrowing their way toward the British lines in a counter tunnel, the stethoscope in his hand moving gently over the walls and ceiling. He glanced at Rutledge from time to time with a shake of his head.

Nothing.

It was an ominous silence.

A runner had just brought Rutledge the news that a German prisoner had been interrogated and there was the very real possibility that the enemy was working on its own tunnel, and that it could in fact parallel their own. If he was farther ahead, if he’d already packed his charges in his forward chamber, similar to the one that Rutledge and his men were still enlarging at their end, then chances were that the enemy’s would go off first, burying the three of them alive.

The Germans had already used tunneling to fearful advantage. It was very simple: dig a tunnel that burrowed deep below No Man’s Land to reach a spot beneath the British or French trenches opposite, then pack the final chamber with high explosives, set off the charges, and wreak shockingly effective havoc in the lines. And then launch an attack while one’s opponent was still reeling. It was a variation of one of the favorite ways of breaching castle walls, something medieval armies had excelled at. Only instead of blowing up a trench, it weakened and brought down enough of the massive fortifications to allow the attacking army to rush inside. Dangerous work then, dangerous work now.

The Allies had had no choice but to use the same strategy as the Germans—and they were still learning. A team of miners from South Wales had been brought in because they were experienced men, capable of digging as well as shoring up the tunnel as they went.

The problem was, once the Welshmen were close enough to the German lines to be heard, picks and shovels had to be replaced by tedious, nearly silent scraping, inch by inch. Otherwise the enemy would hear them and take deadly countermeasures.

Rutledge had been sent down to relieve the officer in charge of the chamber, standing his eight-hour watch with his own corporal, Hamish MacLeod, whose hearing was particularly keen. And in place of the Welsh coal miners, Private Williams had been given the task of carrying on as quickly as he could without making a sound. He was a slate miner from North Wales, and it was clear several of the Welshmen from the South had resented the choice. He had been what was called a rock man, who drilled and set the explosives to bring down the great slabs of slate, and his touch was delicate. Fair for a Welshman, nearly as tall as Rutledge and MacLeod, he was a quiet man who kept to himself.

The knife picked away gently at the surface, filling the pail with surprising speed without a sound. The larger the chamber at the end of the tunnel, the more explosives that could be packed into it.

Two feet still to go, before the Royal Engineer overseeing the work would be satisfied.

All at once Hamish MacLeod held up a hand. Rutledge touched Williams’ shoulder in the same instant. The Welsh private stopped, knife in midair, hardly breathing. Rutledge waited.

MacLeod took out a bit of paper, scribbled something on it, and handed it to Rutledge.

Not digging, it read. Packing.

The Germans must be worried that the prisoner had talked, and taking no chances, they were preparing to blow up their own tunnel as soon as possible, which meant they were already under the British lines. What MacLeod had heard was the soft footfalls of men carrying charges forward to stow in the already completed chamber.

Rutledge signaled to Williams and MacLeod to precede him back along the dark worm that was the British tunnel, and they carefully made their way to the main shaft.

Captain Marsh was standing there, a frown on his face. “Why have you stopped?”

“They’re packing,” Rutledge said. “We’ve got to hurry if we’re to set off our charges before they finish and set off theirs.”

“Damn,” Marsh said. “Are you quite sure? There’s no time to send for the Royal Engineers to verify this.”

MacLeod stood his ground, holding up the stethoscope. “I’m sure,” he replied.

“I don’t trust those things,” Marsh snapped, considering the young Scot. “The old pan-of-water system was more reliable. When the water moved, you knew for certain.”

“Nevertheless,” Rutledge said, “the runner warned us that the Germans were ahead of us.” If Captain Marsh refused to believe Corporal MacLeod, or sent them back to the unfinished chamber while he consulted the Royal Engineers, then Rutledge and his two men would be the first to die as they frantically worked at the walls. If the explosion didn’t kill them outright, they would be buried alive and then slowly suffocate.

“Yes, all right.” Marsh looked up the shaft, calling softly to the men waiting there.

It was a matter of minutes before the charges were being brought down. Five men followed, carrying them barefooted down the tunnel to the end. Williams, eyes narrowed, watched them go.

“I’ll set the fuse,” he offered, a little too casually.

And Rutledge, who had been an inspector at Scotland Yard before the war had begun, in 1914, had the strongest feeling that the man didn’t trust a coal miner to do the work properly. The question was, why? Private Lloyd and Private Jones had been chosen because they were experienced men.

His time at the Yard now seemed like years ago, not just a matter of months. Still, dealing with murder inquiries, he’d learned to trust his feelings, his instincts. And something about the way Williams had spoken had caught his attention.

Marsh went back down the tunnel, overseeing the placing of the charges. It would be a full load, and by the time the space at the end was packed and the bags of chalk were piled against the charges to make sure the blast was contained and didn’t blow back into the British lines, the Germans might well catch them all like rats in a hole. A risky business, but they all knew that.

Rutledge stood to one side, cautioning the men passing the charges to mind what they were about and to be as quiet as possible. Twice he saw the one of the miners glare at Williams, but whatever the problem was, it would have to wait. When the last charge had been laid, the bags of chalk were taken down and packed tight, and then it was only a matter of setting off the blast. Williams collected his gear and prepared to connect the fuse to the blasting caps.

But Marsh didn’t send for Williams.

Instead, it was Private Lloyd who set the fuse. The last man out, he came racing down the tunnel, grinning broadly as he passed Williams.

Everyone scrambled up the shaft, out of harm’s way, grateful for the night that covered their movements. The sector closest to them had kept up a desultory fire, to be sure the Germans were well occupied, and the rifle flashes lit No Man’s Land with brief bursts of brightness.

The caps were crimped onto the fuse and set off.

The seconds ticked away.

Rutledge glanced at his watch, counting them.

The fuse should have reached the charges by now. Standing beside him, Marsh stirred, well aware of time passing.

“It was all right,” he said. “Private Lloyd set it, while Private Jones stood by. They’re good men.”

But blasting caps could be uncertain. The crimp at the fuse could be bad. The fuse could have gone out for any number of reasons.

Rutledge checked the caps. They appeared to have worked.

“Why didn’t you summon Williams?” he asked over his shoulder as Marsh watched him.

“Time was short. Lloyd said he could deal with it. He and Jones. They’ve done it before.”

Rutledge straightened, turned and walked toward the tunnel shaft. “There’s no time to discuss it. The fuse has to be checked.”

Any delay meant that the German tunnel would blow first. And no one was precisely sure where under the line of British trenches it ended.

Captain Marsh peered around in the darkness. “Lloyd? Where are you?”

“He’s gone to the latrines,” someone answered. Rutledge thought it was Private Jones, but he couldn’t be certain where the voice had come from

“Williams, then,” Marsh pointed to him. “Go with Rutledge, man.”

Rutledge took the bulky stethoscope from MacLeod, who was protesting, saying he should be the one to go, but Rutledge shook his head and was already letting himself down the shaft, not waiting for Marsh or Williams.

The two men, officer and private soldier, bent their heads and ran down the tunnel, not worrying about noise until they were within twenty feet of the chalk barricade. Slowing, the two men crept forward, Rutledge’s torch searching for the fuse.

“It’s gone under the bags of chalk,” Williams said in a whisper. “Look.”

They stopped short. The fuse had burned to this point. Was it still lit? Or had it gone out, accidentally snuffed by the lack of air or the weight of the barrier?

Rutledge could feel the cold sweat breaking out as he stepped cautiously over the fuse and knelt by the sacking just above it. Hearing only his own heart beat as he put the stethoscope in his ears, he pressed the bell against the lumpy chalk surface and listened.

The fuse was still burning.

And there was no telling now how much time was left.

“Run!” He was already on his way, Williams ahead of him, both men silently counting off the distance to safety. They had barely reached the shaft, out of breath and already grabbing at the ropes, when the air seemed to be sucked out of the space around them, and the charges blew.

The ground shook beneath their feet, and across No Man’s Land, a vast plume of earth rose high in the air then rained down like black sleet. Rutledge could hear it even as he threw himself to one side, but Williams was caught in the ropes, dangling like a puppet.

And then Captain Marsh was there, pulling Williams up, shouting to Rutledge. In that same instant, the German charges blew, shattering the night with their thunder as a second plume of earth went straight up, blotting out the stars, this time tearing apart half a sector of the British line and finishing off the British tunnel.

There would be no charge tonight across No Man’s Land to follow up at the weakest point of the line, where the tunnel had torn apart its defenses. The damage on both sides was too great.

The Welsh miners and their officers, Rutledge among them, lay where they’d fallen, dazed, half deaf, covered in the stinking earth, and then they were scrambling to their feet, racing for the trenches to pull out the British wounded and dead. Men had been tossed every which way, some of them still unaware they’d been hurt, others deafened or stunned by the shock waves, staring up at their rescuers with blank eyes.

It was five hours later, the wounded dealt with, the dead carried out, repair work already underway in the damaged line of trenches, when Rutledge collected Corporal MacLeod, Captain Marsh, and Private Williams, then sent for Privates Jones and Lloyd. They went to stand at the head of what had once been the shaft to the blown tunnel.

He was very angry as he faced them. Captain Marsh had already refused to lay the blame at anyone’s door, insisting that fuses and explosives were undependable down in the tunnels, that delays had occurred before.

But Rutledge wasn’t satisfied. Too many men had died to sweep the delay under the proverbial rug. And he was determined to get to the bottom of what had happened on his watch.

“That fuse was too long,” he said. “As a result, it allowed the Germans to set theirs, and fire their own charges. We lost good men because of it. They weren’t sappers, they were my men, in my sector. I want to know what went wrong.”

Marsh cleared his throat, shifting from one foot to the other. Rutledge grimly waited for someone to answer him.

“It was the right length,” Private Jones said finally. “I was present when Aaron—Private Lloyd—cut it. And I saw him crimp the fuse to the caps. It was done the way it should be.”

Private Lloyd stared straight at Rutledge. “There must have been a problem with dampness. Sir.”

The two Welshmen were very much alike, dark haired, dark eyed, broad shouldered from years in the collieries, coal dust still deeply ingrained in their faces and hands. Lloyd, the handsomer of the two, possessed a cockiness that bordered on insolence, only just falling short of defiance.

“It was three minutes late,” Rutledge retorted. “It was still burning as Williams and I reached the chalk bags. It should have gone off well ahead of the German trench. It should have smothered their fuse.”

“It was the right length,” Lloyd repeated stubbornly. “I knew what I was about.”

Captain Marsh interrupted. “It comes down to my fault. I didn’t check it. We were working against the clock. It looked all right.”

Williams couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “We were nearly killed. Lieutenant Rutledge and me. We shouldn’t have had to go down there once it was lit.”

Private Jones glared at him. “I tell you, the fuse was all right. Private Lloyd here knows what he’s about. We measured right.”

It was the word of Private Jones against Rutledge’s own observations. And it was true, they had had to work in haste.

There was something he ought to remember about these two men, Lloyd and Jones. But he was tired and it escaped him. Something he’d been told by the officer who had brought them up to the front lines.

He said, “Captain Marsh?” Hoping his superior officer would back him up.

But he didn’t. Marsh had no experience with explosives, only the tunneling itself. “We were unlucky,” he said finally. “The Germans were farther along than we knew. I’m sure that’s the answer.”

Fighting to bottle up his anger, Rutledge said, “I don’t believe it is.” He turned and walked back to the lines and his sector. He realized halfway there that Private Williams had followed him. He slowed so that Corporal MacLeod could precede him.

When the young Scot was out of hearing, Rutledge stopped and turned. Williams stopped as well.

“I think they were trying to kill me,” the man said quietly, glancing over his shoulder to be certain they were alone. “Lloyd and his half-brother Jones.”

That’s what he’d been trying to remember. The two Welshmen were half-brothers.

The officer had pointed this out, mentioning that they had insisted on serving together. It wasn’t uncommon for entire villages or men from large estates to insist on serving side by side. But in this case, it made a difference.

Whether the fuse was long or short, it was likely that Lloyd and Jones would stand up for each other in a crisis.

“Why?” Rutledge snapped. “Why did they intend to kill you?”

If Williams was right, he, Rutledge, was dealing with cold-blooded murder. Of the men in the trenches, and nearly of Williams and himself. What kind of hate, he wondered fleetingly, could account for so much killing?

For an instant, he felt himself back at the Yard, questioning a witness. Only there, he faced only his chief superintendent’s wrath, not German rifle fire. He smiled grimly to himself at the thought as shots stitched the trench wall just inside the barbed wire that protected it.

“They don’t believe I’m a slate man. Or that I come from the slate mines below Mount Snowdon. They think I was one of the clay kickers from Manchester. The men who were digging the sewers.”

“Why should it matter?”

“I don’t know.” Williams shrugged. “This isn’t the first time they’ve attacked me.”

“What do you mean?”

Shelling had commenced, now, first from the German lines, probing shots along the sector with the damaged trenches, and then answering bombardment from the British lines.

Rutledge sprinted for the safety of the trench wall, and Williams followed.

“It was on the train, coming up from Calais,” he said breathlessly, as earth from the shelling rained down on them. “I was tripped, and when I went down, I was hit hard and kicked. It was Lloyd, I’d swear to it. And Jones didn’t try to stop him. Someone else had to step in. Marching toward the Front, someone—I never saw who it was, but I can guess—shoved me into the path of a lorry. If the driver hadn’t swerved just in time, I’d have been run down. Add to that, this is the second time I’ve been faced with a long fuse.” He shrugged again, his face shadowed by his helmet.

“Are you sure it’s the same men?”

“Yes, two of the Cardiff miners. Taffy Jones and Aaron Lloyd had seen to the fuse that time too.”

“Then why did you go back down that tunnel with me? If you knew they’d done this before?”

“Because I wanted to see for myself what had happened. I never made it as far as the chalk face that other time. Captain Marsh had to dig me out. I had nothing to show for being half buried alive except suspicion.”

Rutledge nodded. “All right. I’ll see what I can discover.”

Later, as they kept watch in the middle of the night, Rutledge told Corporal Hamish MacLeod what he’d learned from Williams. The young Scot was steady, good with his men, and observant. Rutledge had come to trust him.

“Did they know each ither before they came to France?” He passed the periscope to Rutledge, whose turn it was to look over the lip of the trench without attracting the attention of any waiting sniper. “The three Welshmen?”

“I don’t believe they did.” The night was quiet after the barrage.

“It’s a puzzle,” MacLeod said. “The question is, how could they be sure it would ha’ been Williams who went back down the tunnel?”

“Because he should have been the one to set the fuse. And because he was sent back the last time it was too long. His responsibility.” Rutledge considered the question. “And because Lloyd wasn’t there. He’d gone to the latrines.”

“Aye. Verra’ convenient, that. Ye ken, if it was on purpose, yon long fuse, they didna’ care if you’d died along with Williams.”

“Whatever their reason for wanting to kill Williams, it has to run deep.” He shook his head. “The problem is, there’s nothing we can do until there’s more solid evidence. I can only hope Williams survives that long.”

But nothing happened to Williams when the next tunnel was set off. Or the next. Rutledge was there, keeping an eye on what was being done.

It was nearly a week after that, toward midnight, when Private Williams was found lying in a pool of blood and half dead.

The soldier who discovered him, Private MacRae, a Scot from Stirling, reported to Rutledge after seeing Williams back to a forward aid station.

“Rumor says he was careless and a sniper got him. But we havna’ had a sniper this fortnight.”

“Rumor . . . was there a name attached to that rumor?”

“It was a Welshman. He was at yon aid station, suffering from a boil on his foot. He said Williams was too tall for a Welshman, and the sniper found an easy target.”

Rutledge considered what Private MacRae had said. Too tall for a Welshman. . .

It was true, Williams could give Jones and the rest of the South Wales miners a good three inches. Sturdy men, compactly built, darker. Williams had a leaner, thinner build, and his hair was lighter. Was that why some of the miners thought he must be from Manchester? Or had Jones and Lloyd started that lie?

But coming from Manchester—or any other English town where industry thrived—was hardly a reason for murder.

“What was the name of the Welshman, do you know?”

MacRae shook his head. “I didna’ think to ask.”

On his next rotation a few days later, Rutledge went behind the British lines to look for Private Williams. He was still in hospital, the shot having missed his lung but damaged his shoulder. Bound up with his left arm braced in the air like the broken wing of an aircraft, Williams lay back against his pillows with the lined face of a man in pain.

“A very little bit lower, sir, and I’d have been done for,” he said, as Rutledge sat down in the chair by his bed and asked how he felt.

“I’ve just spoken to the doctor,” Rutledge replied. “He tells me the bullet entered from the back. Not the front. This wasn’t a sniper’s work.”

“I don’t know who it was. I didn’t see anyone. I was coming back from the shaft we’d been digging. It was dark, quiet. And I felt the shot before I heard it. It spun me around and still I didn’t see anyone.”

Rutledge found that part hard to believe. Williams must have glimpsed the man. And even if he weren’t positive, he must have had his suspicions.

“You aren’t planning on a little private revenge, are you? This is an Army matter. Let the Army deal with it.”

“I’m tired of being hunted, sir. That’s all.”

“The doctor has reported the wound as suspicious. It will be investigated.”

“Yes, well, that may be.” He turned his head away so that Rutledge couldn’t see his eyes. “He’ll claim—whoever he is—that he was cleaning his rifle. And he’ll have a witness, you can be sure of it.” His voice was bitter.

“All the same, I’ll have a word with Jones and his half-brother.”

Williams smiled without humor. “Good luck to you, then. Sir.”

Back in the line again, Rutledge found Captain Marsh during a lull in the fighting and asked permission to speak to the Welsh miners.

Marsh shook his head. “They’ve been sent back. We’ve got Griffiths’s clay kickers now. They know what they’re about. No fuse problems since they took over the task.”

“When were the miners sent back?” Rutledge asked sharply.

“Yesterday morning.” He shook his head. “Two had to be dropped off at the base hospital. A nuisance, that. One had a shell splinter that wouldn’t heal, he said, and the other had a broken toe. I don’t know where the other miners will be posted next. Where they’re needed, I expect.”

“Did you examine these wounds?”

“There was no time. The Sisters will sort them out.”

“Who were these wounded men?”

“Privates Jones and Lloyd.” Marsh frowned. “Look, Rutledge, what’s this about? What have you got against those two? They didn’t shoot themselves in the foot, you know. They had a legitimate reason for stopping by the base hospital.”

He had his answer.

The base hospital for this sector was where Private Williams was being treated. And if Jones and Lloyd intended to finish what they’d begun, this was very likely their last chance.

The Germans attacked five minutes later, and a vicious defense was all that kept the British line from folding. Rutledge, encouraging his own men, held his sector, and managed to rally men down the line as the Germans breached the barbed wire, firing down into the trenches and tossing grenades as soon as they’d come within range. When the British machine gun, which had jammed, had been cleared and opened up again, it turned the tide, and the German advance became a shambling retreat.

Relieved to find they had fewer dead than he’d expected, Corporal MacLeod, set about collecting the wounded.

He pointed to Rutledge’s roughly bandaged arm. “Ye’ll need that attended to as well.”

“I can’t leave. Not until I’ve been relieved.”

“Aye, and ye’ll be down with the gangrene, wait and see.”

Later, when the relief column came down the line, Rutledge went back to the nearest aid station to look in on his wounded men.

The doctor insisted on treating him as well. Examining Rutledge’s arm, the doctor looked up. “You’re lucky that shot didn’t sever the artery. You’re out of the line for three days.”

His men were in rotation, in the reserve trenches where they could lick their wounds and rest. They were safe enough. It was his chance. “I’d like to visit a soldier sent back to the base hospital. Can you arrange it?”

“You should be resting. Still—if you’ll ask one of the Sisters to see to clean bandages tomorrow, and you don’t exert yourself unduly and start with a fever, I see no harm in it.”

“I give you my word.”

There was room in one of the ambulances heading south with the next contingent of wounded. Rutledge took a seat next to the driver. The man smelled of wine, and glad to have an audience, he launched into a long monologue, never pausing as he rambled from one thought to the next. He was from Leeds, he said, a baker before the war, and he hated France.

Rutledge, left to his own thoughts, wondered if he was making too much of the danger to Williams. Now that he was on his way to the base hospital, nursing his aching arm as the ambulance bounced and slid through the ruts, he told himself that the orderlies and Sisters were the only protection Williams needed. Killing someone in full view of so many witnesses was different from shooting someone in the back. What’s more, Williams wouldn’t be leaving the hospital anytime soon. He wasn’t likely to encounter either Jones or Lloyd even when he did, for they would be reassigned elsewhere.

Then why, Rutledge asked himself, did he feel such a sense of urgency?

Just then the driver said something that brought his mind sharply back to the rambling soliloquy.

“I’m sorry—what was it you were saying?”

But the driver took exception to Rutledge’s sudden interest. He retorted gruffly, “I shouldn’t have told you—”

“But you did. You said you were given a choice between prison and enlisting. Since your lungs weren’t good enough, you had no choice but to drive an ambulance.”

“What if I did?” he asked sullenly.

“Before that. Why was it you were brought up on charges?”

“I told you.”

“Tell me again. Or I’ll report you for drinking and ignoring your patients back there.”

“All right, then, you needn’t cut up stiff over it. I tried to kill a man. But he lived.”

“Who was the man?”

“He was a trades union man. He caught my brother when he tried to cross the strike line and go back to work. Fred needed the pay, he couldn’t afford to be out on strike.”

“Where was this strike?”

Goaded the man said, “What are you, a copper? Why does it matter?”

“Was it in England—or was it a colliery in Wales?”

“Of course it wasn’t Wales, it was in Lancashire. The trades union men beat him nearly senseless. And the doctors said they couldn’t do anything for him. He died the next morning. He was a good man, and he left a wife and three little ’uns. Tell me that’s fair?”

“It isn’t fair. But neither is attempted murder. Were they brought up on charges? The men who did this to your brother?”

“There was no one who could identify them. No one saw anything,” the driver said bitterly and turned his attention to what passed for the road. They traveled in silence for the rest of the journey.

Rutledge found Williams sitting on the side of his cot this time, trying to manage to spoon up the dinner he’d been brought.

Taking the chair from the next bed and sitting down, Rutledge greeted him and then said, “Are you a trades union man?”

Williams stopped, the spoon half way to his mouth. “Am I what?”

Rutledge repeated the question.

Shaking his head vehemently, Williams said, “No, by God, I’m not. Sir.”

“I suspect Jones and his friends think you are.”

Williams stared at him. “I’ll be damned. But why?”

“I don’t know. It could be the reason they’ve tried to kill you. There’s bad blood on both sides of that fight. Men have been murdered. And Williams is a common-enough name in Wales and in England. You could have lied about your background at the slate mines.”

“I haven’t. But there’s no way to prove it, short of sending to the manager of the mine.”

“The coal miners have been moved back from the Front. Griffiths has brought in some of his clay kickers, men building the Manchester sewers. More to the point, at least two of the coal miners were on their way here, to the base hospital. Lloyd and Jones. It may be a coincidence, and it may not. Watch yourself. You’re in no condition to do battle with anyone.”

“There’s truth to that, God knows.” Williams realized he was still holding his spoon in midair, and he set it down carefully. “I don’t like this.”

“Then tell me what you saw that night, when you were shot. Let me charge whoever did this.” Rutledge gestured to the bound shoulder.

“My word against theirs? No, it won’t save me. Can I be moved to another hospital?”

“By the time the paperwork is completed, it could be too late. I’ll see if I can persuade Matron to put you on the next convoy to England.”

But Matron shook her head after Rutledge had made his request. “We have far more serious cases than this one. Private Williams is healing well. I can’t justify sending him back.”

“His life could be in danger, if he stays here.”

“Surely you exaggerate, Lieutenant. We’ve had no trouble at this hospital. The men who are here need care, and there’s no time for or thought of private quarrels.” She looked at a list. “What’s more, I don’t even have a record of the two men you’ve mentioned. Private Aaron Lloyd, Private Taffy Jones. It could be that you are entirely mistaken.”

But she didn’t know Private Lloyd or his half-brother. It was worrying that they hadn’t been treated yet—where were they? And Williams’ willingness to believe in the danger facing him was further proof that he wasn’t satisfied that the two Welshmen had finished with him.

Rutledge went to have a final word with Williams. “Matron won’t consider England. Still, I’ve warned the Sister in charge of this ward that you have enemies. It’s the best I can do. I’ve also asked one of the orderlies to watch for Lloyd and Jones, and report to Matron. It’s possible they won’t turn up here, that they’re waiting for you come to them. I wouldn’t go walking far, if Sister asks you to start exercising your legs again.”

“I’m grateful, sir. Truly I am.”

Rutledge stayed at the base hospital another day, walking through the wards, speaking to the patients, keeping an eye open for Private Jones and Private Lloyd. On the third day, his ambulance was set to leave for the Front and he had no choice but to be aboard, if he was to rejoin his company.

He spoke to Williams a last time, and five minutes later he was settling himself in the uncomfortable seat beside a different driver when he heard a commotion in the ward he’d just left.

“Wait for me,” he ordered the man as he got out and sprinted back the way he’d come.

He found a Sister bleeding from a blow to the face, and down the ward, where Williams had been lying just minutes before, he could see an overturned chair and bedclothes dragged out into the aisle. Men were sitting up in their cots, shouting to Rutledge, pointing back the way he’d just come.

He bent over the Sister, asking her, “What happened here?”

“Two men—they took away Private Williams. I couldn’t see their faces. They were wearing hospital masks. I don’t know where they’ve taken him.”

He shouted for help, but didn’t stay to explain to the staff rushing to the Sister’s aid, his mind already busy with the problem of where the three men might be. Had his own presence at the hospital precipitated this attack? Or the fact that he was seen to be leaving?

And then he heard one of the ambulances roaring into life, men shouting, and someone firing a shot.

He raced toward the line of ambulances he’d just left, saw his driver lying on the ground, dazedly trying to raise himself on his elbow. An orderly was already kneeling beside him. Rutledge ran on to the second ambulance in the line and called to the driver, “We’ve got to stop them.”

But the driver leapt out of his door, shaking his head. “They’ve got a weapon.”

Rutledge took his place behind the wheel, gunned the motor, and pulled out of line, turning in the direction of the fleeing ambulance heading fast toward the main road to Calais.

The ground was wet from recent rains, and he could feel his tires slipping and sliding in the viscous mud. Holding grimly to the wheel, he drove as fast as he dared, and then, when he saw he was making no headway, faster than was safe.

He was gaining, even as the ambulance bucketed across what passed for a road, narrowly missing a column of men marching toward the Front. He could hear the big guns behind him, opening up for another punishing marathon of shelling. And then the ambulance ahead of him skidded wildly, spun around, and missed a yawning ditch by inches. The driver got control again, but it had given Rutledge his chance. Praying that the tires would hold, he rammed his foot down on the accelerator and came up even with the fleeing vehicle.

Someone swung open one of the rear doors, and Rutledge could see Private Lloyd kneeling there. Behind him lay Williams. Lloyd was raising a revolver, pointing it toward Rutledge. But Williams somehow managed to use the rigid brace on his shoulder to spoil the man’s aim just as he fired. Furious, the man backhanded him, sending Williams hard against the metal side of the ambulance, just as Rutledge sped past, cut in front of the vehicle, and forced it into the low wall that was all that was left of what had been the approach to a French barn.

The ambulance hit the wall at speed and came to a jarring stop, throwing Private Jones, the driver, into the wheel and then the windscreen. By the time Rutledge had braked and got out, he could see blood running down Jones’s face. But it was the man with that revolver who was his main target.

He ran to the back of the ambulance and flung open both doors. Williams and Lloyd lay on the floor in a jumble of legs and arms.

Rutledge could hear another vehicle coming after him, but there was no time to wait. He climbed into the ambulance and pulled the unconscious Williams out, setting him against the stone wall. And then he went back for the armed man.

But Private Aaron Lloyd had broken his neck in the crash, his head striking the metal rim of the upper berths that held stretchers in place. He lay where he’d fallen, the revolver still clutched in his hand.

Leaving him, Rutledge went to look at the driver. Jones was badly hurt but alive, his nose and cheekbones broken by the impact with the windscreen.

“What the hell were you trying to do?” Rutledge demanded, pulling him from behind the wheel and leaning him against a wing. “Was it worth it, this abduction? Your half-brother is dead!”

“Williams ran off with my wife,” Jones tried to answer, his voice muffled by his bleeding nose. “Then he left her in Manchester to die penniless and alone.”

“Was he a trades union man? This Williams?”

“Aaron thought it likely. He came to the village where Sarah was staying with her sister. There was trouble with the colliery owner, and the man had to get out. When he left, Sarah went with him.” He closed his eyes. “Williams was the right man. I swear he was. My brother told me. He recognized the bastard.”

“Williams is a slate man. From North Wales. He had nothing to do with your wife.” Rutledge was watching the approaching ambulance come to rescue them. “Your brother lied to you.”

“Aaron never lies. Williams is from Manchester.”

“Then why didn’t Lloyd try to stop Sarah—or call you to come to Manchester to fetch her back? Where was he all this time, watching and doing nothing, letting her die alone?”

Jones stared at him through bloodshot eyes. “He said he tried. He said he even followed them to Manchester, but Sarah wouldn’t listen.”

“Apparently Aaron was a great one for saying. Where was he?”

“He was ill, bad lungs. He was sent away to recover. Away from the coal dust.” After a moment he added unwillingly, “To the same village. That’s how he knew.”

“And he didn’t warn you? He didn’t summon you to come and put a stop to whatever Williams was up to?”

The man’s gaze went to the open doors at the rear of the ambulance. He couldn’t see his brother’s body from where he lay. He made to get up, and Rutledge shoved him back down. “He said—” Taffy Jones began again.

“Why weren’t you holding the revolver on Williams? Why was it Aaron? She was your wife. You should have shot him.”

“He said I had no stomach for what had to be done. It’s one thing to be killing Germans. The blood’s up. I’d failed twice, when it came down to it. He said he’d see to it. Are you certain he’s dead? I don’t believe you.”

“Don’t you understand, you fool? I’d wager it was Aaron who ran off with your wife. Abandoned her when he had finished with her. And she was too shamed to come home again. Why else would he have been in the back of the ambulance, with the weapon? He didn’t want you to confront Williams. To listen to him. Why was he so insistent that Williams had to die? She was your wife, not his.”

Jones roused himself, putting a hand up to his nose and eyes. As if to fend off what Rutledge was saying.

“He wouldn’t do such a thing. You’re lying.”

“He tried to persuade you to kill an innocent man. For all I know, it was Aaron who shot Williams in the back—for you. Your revenge.”

In spite of the bloody mask that was Jones’ face, Rutledge could read his eyes. “It’s true, then. Bloody cowards, both of you,” he said in disgust.

“He told me he was a better shot. Doing it in cold blood.”

The other ambulance had caught up with them. An orderly jumped out and ran to Jones, then peered into the back of the stolen vehicle. Another came to kneel beside Williams, still lying against the wall but just regaining consciousness.

A third was demanding to know what had happened.

As Rutledge got to his feet, Jones tried to shake his head but was in too much pain. “I won’t believe you. Not until I’ve spoken to Aaron.”

“Believe what?” the orderly demanded. “Sir, we need to get these men to hospital. And what am I to do about that ambulance?”

Rutledge moved back. “I’ll explain later. Just now I want this man to be held under guard for attempted murder. There will be other charges, but that will do for now.”

The orderly lifted Jones to his feet. Jones looked up at Rutledge. Something stirred in his eyes. And then he lashed out at the man holding his arm.

Rutledge swore as the wounded man broke free of the orderly’s grip and stumbled toward the back of the ambulance. He held on to the doors and leaned in, peering at his brother’s body. “He wouldn’t have lied to me,” he insisted, his voice heavy with grief and pain. “Not Aaron. Not about Sarah.”

Rutledge pointed to the revolver. “Where did he get this?”

“He took it from a dead officer. He couldn’t find Williams in Manchester—he thought the bastard might be in France. And he was. Family honor, Aaron said.” Jones put up a hand and wiped at the blood on his face. “I loved her. I never thought she’d betray me. But when I looked at Williams, it all made sense. She always did have an eye for tall men.”

“Lloyd must have been afraid that you’d find out the truth and go after him instead. And so he tried to persuade you to kill an innocent man. That’s the only thing that makes sense. Family honor indeed.”

“He’d never lied to me before.”

“Have you asked Sarah’s sister? Did she describe Williams?”

“Aaron spoke to her. He said. I was down the mines, you see. I couldn’t go. But he could. What with the pneumonia.”

“You’re a fool,” Rutledge said again. “For all you know, Sarah is still in Manchester, waiting for your half-brother to come back from the war. You have only Lloyd’s word that any of this happened, and under the circumstances, I’d not trust anything he said. And if Williams was killed, you’d have hanged for it. Not Aaron. Didn’t it occur to you that if the Germans didn’t shoot you, your own side would? For murder? Cheaper than a divorce.”

Jones lunged at Rutledge, but the orderly caught him and this time held him.

Leaving them, Rutledge went to search the pockets of the dead man, and stopped, staring at something he’d just pulled out of Lloyd’s tunic.

Stepping out of the ambulance again, he held what he’d found out for Jones to see.

It was a letter. It didn’t require a policeman to realize that Jones recognized the writing. He also recognized the name on the envelope. Private Aaron Lloyd.

Jones snatched the letter from Rutledge’s hand. Pulling the sheets out of the envelope, he unfolded them and started to read. Halfway through, he crumpled the pages in his fist.

“He told me she was dead! Buried in a pauper’s grave.”

Without warning, he reached into the ambulance, took the revolver from his half-brother’s dead hand, and before Rutledge could stop him, he fired three shots point blank into Aaron Lloyd’s inert body.

And then he dropped the weapon and meekly followed the orderly to the waiting ambulance. Stepping inside, he sank into the nearest cot, his hands shaking.

Rutledge bent down to retrieve the discarded letter.

It had been written only three weeks before. The first paragraph told him enough.

My darling Aaron,

Is it over yet? Please tell me Taffy is dead and that other man as well. And that you are safe, and will come home to me soon. I beg you to take care of yourself and let nothing happen to you. I couldn’t bear it . . .

Rutledge folded the letter and returned it to the envelope. He’d been right about Aaron Lloyd. But it gave him no satisfaction. Still, the letter could be entered into evidence when Jones was tried as an accomplice to attempted murder.

Williams, shaking his head as the second orderly tried to help him back to the same ambulance, said, “No. I won’t ride with that bloody man, Jones. Not after what he did.” And then to Rutledge he said, “Private Lloyd intended to kill me as soon as we were clear of the hospital. ‘Boyo,’ he said, ‘it’s a bit of bad luck for you, but the only way out for me.’ Cold comfort, that.”

Read on for a sneak peek at the next Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery from Charles Todd.

HUNTING SHADOWS

Chapter 1

The Fen Country, Cambridgeshire, August 1920

HE READ THE telegram with dismay, and a second time with a heavy sense of loss.

Major Clayton was dead. He’d been in hospital outside London since the closing days of the war, fighting a different battle. Sometimes winning. More often than not losing. They had kept in touch until three months before, when Clayton had been too ill to write, and his sister had been too distressed to write for him.

Dropping the telegram on the table, he gazed out his window. Clayton would be brought back to the Fen country for burial. Services would be held at two o’clock Friday next in the Church of St. Mary’s, Burwell. Only a few miles away.

He intended to be there.

He’d tried hard to put the war behind him. Avoiding weddings and funerals alike, refusing even to deliver the eulogy for men he’d known well. It would bring back too many memories, and he wanted them to stay buried, along with the dead left behind in the torn earth of Flanders Fields. Unable to explain, he’d simply cited ill health as his reason for declining. Burying himself here, he had shut out as much of the rest of the world as he could. He had even stopped reading obituaries. They were too sharp a reminder of the fact that he had survived when so many had not. For the dying had not stopped with the Armistice.

The service for Major Clayton was different. Clayton had saved his life, and in doing so nearly lost his own. The leg had never healed correctly, and in the end it had become the source of the gangrene that overtook first his foot, then his knee, his leg, and finally his body. Dying by inches, he’d called it.

For Major Clayton, he would have to make an exception. He hadn’t been asked by Clayton’s sister to deliver the eulogy, even though he knew the man better than anyone living. And he was just as glad.

Instead the sister had invited a Colonel from London to do that honor. He wondered what Clayton would have made of that, given his feelings for HQ and the generals who had given orders they themselves would never have to carry out. Decisions that sent men to their deaths, maimed them, made them numbers on interminable lists, names and ranks and dates but never the faces or shortened lives that should have reminded the generals that they were dealing in flesh and blood.

Of course St. Mary’s would be full for the service. He reminded himself that he would have to stay well back, where he wouldn’t be noticed.

Only for Clayton, he thought on the Friday as he shaved and then dressed himself with more than his usual care. The Major had been a stickler for appearances; he’d said often enough that if a man respected his uniform, he would respect himself. It would not do to be less than parade perfect even in civilian clothes.

At half past one, he set out for Burwell, planning his journey to arrive shortly before the mourners went inside to take their places. He had no desire to greet anyone, exchange pleasantries or memories. Or to offer condolences to the sister. He barely knew her, and his brief words of sympathy would not lessen her grief.

As it was, by the time he’d reached Burwell and walked on to St. Mary’s by a roundabout way, ending up on the street just above it, the hearse had arrived and only a handful of people were still standing by the west door. He slowed his place, waiting until everyone else had gone inside ahead of him, and listened to the heavy bell above his head toll the brief years of Clayton’s life. Thirty-five. It was a hell of a thing to die at thirty-five with so much to live for, leg or no leg.

He glanced up at the bell and then back at the church doorway. And there, to his utter astonishment, he saw a face he had never wanted to see again. Much less find one day here in this isolated corner of Cambridgeshire.

He brushed a hand across his eyes, certain that in the bright sunlight he’d been mistaken. That in his distress over the Major’s death, other memories had forced themselves to the forefront of his mind. It would be too cruel—

But no. There he was, bold as brass, smiling and chatting with one of the men in uniform next to him. There could be no mistake.

Captain Hutchinson. What the hell was he doing here? He hadn’t known Clayton, had he? Why was he among the mourners?

Quickly stepping back into the shadows cast by a large tree overhanging the street, he tried to think.

Hutchinson must have traveled up from London with the Colonel. That would explain his being here. Hutchinson was always quick to see an advantage. Or had he somehow discovered that Clayton’s sister was inheriting everything and fixed his eye on her? There was a well-set-up estate in Gloucestershire, and the older property here in Burwell, presently occupied by a tenant. Both would bring in a tidy income.

It would be like Hutchinson, to curry favor before the will had been read, to prove he was no fortune hunter. But he was.

He felt ill, perspiring in the late summer heat like someone with a fever, his legs trembling.

The last of the mourners had stepped inside the church, the coffin had been lifted out of the hearse and shouldered to follow the Rector down the aisle of the nave. And still he stood where he was.

He couldn’t—in God’s name he could not now walk inside. He couldn’t share a roof with Hutchinson. Not even for Major Clayton’s sake. Not with the man who’d killed Mary.

He closed his eyes, trying to steady himself.

A woman’s voice came from just behind him.

“Are you all right, sir?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine. Thank you,” he said hoarsely, and in spite of himself, in spite of everything, he started moving toward the church door.

But that was as far as he could go.

Turning on his heel, he walked quickly back toward the shelter of the shadows under the tree. It was as good a vantage point as any from which to keep watch.

Standing there during the service only hardened his resolve. He would be absolutely certain before he left Burwell. It was imperative that he be sure his own emotional state hadn’t made him mistake someone else for Hutchinson. But when the service was over and the mourners began to file out, preceded by the coffin, he saw Hutchinson quite clearly. He was there, a few feet from the Colonel, his hand on Miss Clayton’s elbow as she walked with head bowed, her shoulders shaking with her sobs.

If he had had a weapon of any sort, he’d have used it then, and killed the bastard. He could feel the rifle in his hands, the familiar smoothness of the wood, the heat of the barrel from long hours of use, the weight of it, so real to him that for an instant he could almost believe it was there. And with all his heart he wished it was true.

The procession was moving on toward the churchyard.

But just before the procession turned into it, something happened that held him pinned where he was.

Hutchinson lifted his head, like prey scenting the air, and for an instant he was sure that the Captain had stared directly at him.

It was impossible, of course. It was his imagination.

The moment passed, Hutchinson’s back was to him now, and he almost went down on his knees, to vomit.

He stumbled away like a drunkard, away from the church and the churchyard, and somehow, he was never sure afterward just how, he made it to the sanctuary of his house. The first thing he did was to pour himself the stiffest whisky he’d had in five years. The second was to open the wardrobe door and reach far into the back where he knew the Lee-Enfield was hidden.

Drawing it out, he felt on top of the wardrobe for the cartridges. They were still there behind the carved pediment. He wasn’t supposed to have brought either the weapon or the ammunition back. But he had, because the rifle had become a part of him. And no one searched his kit.

Thank God he had.

He was already loading the rifle, hurrying to reach Burwell and the churchyard in time.

And then he stopped, reason finally overcoming the strain and emotion that were driving him.

Foolish to do such a thing. First of all, it would mar Major Clayton’s last rites. And that would never do. Secondly, he’d be taken up at once and tried and hanged. He would be damned if he’d hang for the likes of Hutchinson.

The man deserved to die. But not this way. Not sacrificing himself.

He removed the cartridges and put the rifle back into the wardrobe, shutting the door firmly.

There had to be a better way.

Look at it from a different perspective. God had brought this man to him once. He would do it again. All he had to do was wait. However long it took.

HE BEGAN TO read the newspapers, as many as he could find. Cambridge, Ely, Burwell, the Times from London. Even the racing news in nearby Newmarket. And he burned them in the grate as soon as he’d finished them, to be certain that once the deed was done, there was nothing lying about that would cause talk or arouse anyone’s suspicion. He traveled as well, to Boston and King’s Lynn, to Bury and Colchester, as far south as St. Albans, looking for anything that might be useful in carrying out his task. He studied people, the way they moved and talked and behaved. It became something of an obsession, the need to survive what he was about to do. There was no satisfaction in it otherwise.

His patience paid off.

Captain Hutchinson was to be a guest at a fashionable wedding to be held in Ely Cathedral in three weeks’ time. His name was there, leaping off the page of the Ely newspaper, even though his was only one of a great many other names. Hutchinson was, it appeared, a cousin to the bridegroom.

The middle of September.

He was ready. He’d already laid the groundwork. Now it was just a matter of fitting the plan to the place. Thinking through each step, finding flaws, looking for opportunities on the ground, and looking as well at possible escape routes. He covered the Fen country on his bicycle until he knew every lane and track, until he felt he could reach any point in the dark of night. And then he walked the length and breadth of it.

The Fens were dangerous for the unwary. Narrow flat fields stretched for miles, where a boot in the rich black soil would leave its mark for the hunter to find. Irrigation ditches, sometimes crossed by a road or a bridge over a pump, where a false step could mean falling in and drowning. And the roads themselves, running arrow straight, so that any movement could be seen, even at a great distance. No trees, no buildings to hide behind until the chase had passed. Indeed, nothing to offer cover at all, unless one had learned beforehand where to find it.

He’d thought he’d known the countryside well all his life. Now he knew it intimately.

He was ready.

And Hutchinson would come to him for the killing.

Chapter 2

THE DAY OF the wedding in Ely, a small crowd had gathered to watch the arrival of the wedding party.

A barricade had been set up so that only the bride, her father, and her attendants could drive directly to the Cathedral door. The bridegroom and the wedding guests would walk across the grassy Palace Green to the church, a parade of handsomely dressed gentlemen and their ladies, a sprinkling of men in uniform, and a dash of clergymen, for the bride’s family included several deacons and a Bishop.

By the Cathedral clock, it was two hours before the ceremony. Last-minute preparations were under way, flowers and candles being carried in, a carpet being laid down the long aisle, the organist practicing for the following Sunday’s service. But for the most part, the afternoon was quiet, an island of serenity before the excitement of the ceremony.

No one noticed the elderly man on an equally elderly bicycle who came up the street from the direction of the school and the Cathedral offices, his thin white hair blowing in the light wind as he pedaled. It wasn’t unusual for pedestrians coming up the road to pass in front of the West Door on their way to the busy streets on the far side of the church.

He paused by the wall enclosing the Cathedral precincts and wiped his brow, looking tired and thirsty. But he mounted the bicycle once more and got as far as the abutments that reached up to the tower. There was a narrow recess there where he could leave his bicycle out of sight.

The old man appeared to be a knife and scissors sharpener, his clothes threadbare and his canvas carryall dusty from the roads. He started to leave the carryall on his handlebars, walking away before thinking better of it. He went back, picked it up, and put it firmly under his arm, then stepped into the shadow of the Galilee Porch that led to the west doorway, leaning there, as if the shade was welcome, this warm afternoon.

No one challenged him. No one paid him any attention. Behind his back, the enormous Cathedral seemed to crouch, waiting.

After a while he turned and went inside, into the wide space beneath the towers. Beyond, in the nave, the choir was just finishing a last rehearsal, and someone was putting a final touch to the flowers, pinching off any wilted blossoms. No one turned to look up the long handsome aisle to see who had entered. The sound hardly reached the nave.

He stood there for a moment, then turned and made his way to the right, where there was a door to the tower. It was a long walk, fifteen feet or more, and he was at his most exposed.

No one came out of the nave to call to him, to ask his business or demand that he clear off.

The tower door was unlocked, as it had been the last three times he’d tested it. He looked back over his shoulder. No one was in sight.

The old man slipped inside the tower door, closing it quietly behind him, then began to make his way up the long flights of stairs, taking his time. It was dim and musty in the shaft, the bell ropes swaying a little, making him feel light-headed, and he dared not look down. The canvas carryall seemed to grow heavier with every step. He was winded when at last he reached the stone parapet just above the chamber where the bells were hung.

They wouldn’t ring until the wedding party was leaving the sanctuary. He would be gone by then. One way or another.

Sitting down on the warm, sloping cone of the roof, he waited for a quarter of an hour, letting his heart rate settle again. Then he opened his carryall and began to assemble the rifle. It had served men like him well in France. It would serve him now. Better than the older versions.

A pigeon landed on the parapet, staring unwinking at him, and he stayed where he was. Finally satisfied that the carryall held nothing edible, the pigeon took off again.

He waited with infinite patience, as he’d been taught to do. There was no hurry. His quarry would come to him. Finally he heard the great organ begin to play once more, this time the first of the set pieces selected by the bride’s family. There was a stir below as onlookers who had gathered behind the barricades to watch the guests arrive saw the first motorcar pull up. A ripple of applause quickly followed.

It was time.

Getting carefully to his feet, keeping low, he made his way to the outer wall, peering between the battlements. A motorcar moved away as several more behind it took its place. As the guests alighted, others moved up in line. Unseen from below, he took out the German scope and attached it to the rifle. They hadn’t used scopes during his training. And the Germans in France had taken great care to prevent theirs from being captured and turned against them. The first time he’d looked through this one, he’d been surprised by the clarity it had added to his own keen eyesight.

He scanned the guests as they crossed the Palace Green toward the west door, but he didn’t recognize any of them. Earlier in the week he’d paced the distance from where the motorcars stopped and where he himself would be waiting. He knew he was well within range of his target. He could take his time and wait for the perfect angle.

Not too soon. Not too late. He knew, almost to the blade of grass, where he wanted his victim to be. He could see the Russian gun clearly, at the opposite end of the Green from the West Tower, the long muzzle of the cannon pointing outward, as if its intent was to protect the Cathedral from the townspeople.

Kneeling there, his weapon beside him, he was fairly sure he was invisible from the ground, but to be safe, he pulled an old dark gray hood out of the scissor sharpener’s blouse and draped it over his head and shoulders. It was, he knew, almost exactly the same color as the stone around him.

Once more, he settled down to wait.

It was ten minutes to the hour when he saw his quarry alight from a motorcar that had just pulled up. Another man and a woman arrived with Hutchinson, chatting quietly as they turned toward the Cathedral. He could see the man’s face clearly now, smug and satisfied with himself, a slight smile lifting his lips as he spoke to the woman beside him.

The angle was excellent. The target unsuspecting. He let the Captain come a little closer across the greensward, just clear of where the motorcars were stopping, steadied his breathing and emptied his mind of any emotion. Then he took careful aim, almost without thinking adjusting to the man’s measured pace and the light wind. Old habits die hard.

And calmly, slowly, he squeezed the trigger.

The echoes against the stone were deafening, but he took no notice, his scope still trained on the quarry as Hutchinson’s body reacted to the hit before he could even flinch from the sound of the shot. Without a word, he crumpled to the ground and did not move. Only the red stain spreading across his stiff white shirtfront showed that he had been struck.

The woman, her hands to her face, was screaming, and everyone at the barricade turned to stare in her direction, then looked wildly around for the source of the shot. The other man was kneeling, frantically trying to loosen Hutchinson’s cravat and open his shirt. But it was useless. That had been a heart shot, there was nothing to be done. Still the man kept working, unable to believe that it was hopeless.

Satisfied, the scissor sharpener ejected the single cartridge casing and began to disassemble his rifle, taking his time, ignoring the screams and cries below. He knew what was happening, he didn’t need to look. Some were running to the assistance of the fallen man, others fleeing toward the street behind them, toward The Lamb Inn, out of range for fear there would be a second shot. A few would be scanning the rooftops and windows of buildings on either side of the grass, looking in vain for the shooter. The greeters at the door had rushed into the sanctuary, crying havoc. He could hear the unnerved guests as they hurried out to see, and all the while, the organ music went on, as if in the loft, the organist was unaware of what was happening below in the nave. Then the last notes trailed off as he must have realized something was wrong.

The scissors grinder made his way to the stairs and started down them, taking his time, careful not to lose his footing. When he reached the bottom step, he peered out a crack in the door, then opened it wider. No one. Either they were cowering in the nave or already outside. The bride’s motorcar was just arriving, adding to the chaos.

He began that long walk again, taking his time, reaching the Galilee Porch and the open doorway. Appearing bewildered and afraid, he stared vacantly around. No one paid him any heed. He inched sideways, making his way to his left. His bicycle was where he’d put it, but he didn’t mount it. Instead he walked it down the quiet street, back the way he’d come, toward the school. Several people from there were running toward the Cathedral, and one or two called out to him, asking what had happened.

He shook his head. “Terrible,” he said, “terrible.” His voice was shaking, he looked as if he might fall down from the shock, and they ran on. He continued his slow, painful way to the arch by the school. There just as the police were passing, he mounted his bicycle and pedaled sedately off, a graying scarecrow with a lined face and bony knees.

THE POLICE SPENT five hours searching the streets around the Cathedral, searching inside it despite the anxious wedding guests waiting to have their statements taken.

A constable reached the church tower, walking out into the narrow space around the battlements. He was an older man, staying on because the men who should have replaced him had long since rotted in the graveyards of Flanders or had come home without a limb or with other injuries. He looked down from this height at the target area and felt his stomach lurch as a wave of dizziness overcame him. Swiftly concluding that it was impossible to make such a shot from this position without being seen, he hurried back to the stairs, staring anxiously into the dim abyss, and nearly lost his dinner. By the time he’d reached the last step his heart was jumping in his chest.

“Nothing up there but the bats,” he told another constable on his way to climb to the Lantern tower over the crossing where the transepts met.

When it came time to take statements from those by the barricade, everyone’s attention had been focused on the arriving guests. They had seen nothing. As one constable put it, “A herd of green pigs could have come by, and if they were dressed to the nines, no one would have taken a bit of notice.”

In the end, the wedding went off at six o’clock, the bride red-eyed from hysterics, the bridegroom grim-faced. Captain Hutchinson had been in his family’s party. It was generally accepted that only a madman could have done such a thing, with so many people to witness it.

Wherever the madman was, he had cast a pall over the day, and more than one guest leaving after the ceremony had felt his hackles rise as he skirted the place where Hutchinson had fallen, expecting to hear the report of a rifle once more.

Two weeks after the murder, the police had made no progress at all. It was then that they called in Scotland Yard.

But not before the killer had struck again.

About the Author

CHARLES TODD is the author of the Inspector Ian Rutledge series, the Bess Crawford mysteries, and two stand-alone novels. A mother-and-son writing team, they live in Delaware and North Carolina, respectively.

www.charlestodd.com

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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

The Bess Crawford Mysteries

A Duty to the Dead

An Impartial Witness

A Bitter Truth

An Unmarked Grave

A Question of Honor

Other Mysteries

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 Hunting Shadows copyright © 2014 by Charles Todd.

COLD COMFORT. Copyright © 2013 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 hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition NOVEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780062315724

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Canada

HarperCollins Canada

2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor

Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada

http://www.harpercollins.ca

New Zealand

HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited

P.O. Box 1

Auckland, New Zealand

http://www.harpercollins.co.nz

United Kingdom

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

77-85 Fulham Palace Road

London, W6 8JB, UK

http://www.harpercollins.co.uk

United States

HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

10 East 53rd Street

New York, NY 10022

http://www.harpercollins.com