A Cold Treachery by Charles Todd

last year. I had forgotten—”
    Rutledge said, “How did you get here?”
    “By rail, as I always do. And then I borrowed a mount from the smith to ride the rest of the way. Dr. Jarvis overtook me outside Urskdale. He wanted me to come to his house—but I couldn't wait—and he gave me the loan of his carriage. My horse was not as fresh as his.” He straightened. “Where's Josh? Why haven't you found my son?”
    “We've done all we can—all that's humanly possible. I'm afraid prospects aren't . . . the best.” Greeley dug the toe of his heavy boot into the trampled snow by the back door. “The searchers haven't given up.”
    Robinson began to pace in his agitation. “I want to know who did this. I want to know
now
. Do you understand me?”
    “We're no less eager than you are to apprehend the bastard,” Greeley told him, stung.
    “Inspector,” Rutledge intervened, “if you'll take the doctor's carriage back to him, I'll drive Mr. Robinson to the hotel—”
    “I want to see them,” Robinson said steadfastly. “I want to see Grace and my daughter.”
    And in the end, there was nothing to be done but to let him have his way.
     
    W hile Inspector Greeley took Robinson to the makeshift mortuary to inspect the bodies of his dead, Rutledge drove back to Urskdale with only Hamish for company.
    Hamish was saying, “It's no' very wise to view the corpses.”
    “No. But then I don't know him well enough to judge what's best. For some men—”
    For some men it could harden their resolve to mete out their own justice. . . .
     
    W hen he reached the inn, Rutledge reported to Miss Fraser that there would be another guest.
    “I don't know how he can bear such a loss,” she said with compassion. “I wish we had better news for him, but the search parties, I'm to tell you, have found no one. They're to try again tomorrow at first light, but they need to rest. Mr. Cummins is so weary, he's staying with his men over at the Ederby farm.”
    That was far down the valley, just before the lake turned.
    “And you,” Hamish reminded Rutledge as Miss Fraser wheeled herself down the passage, “havena' wet your shoes out on the fells.”
    Rutledge went into the kitchen to stand by the window, watching the early darkness rise up the face of the ridge like a curtain.
    It would be a miracle to find a lone child in such an expanse of empty landscape. The valley, small as it was, was still a vast area to comb. And time had surely run out for Josh Robinson. Even if every farmer scoured his own acres, it would take days to cover them properly. There wasn't even a certainty that the boy would turn up in the spring. His small bones would be carried off by ravens and foxes, leaving nothing to mark how or where he died.
    Yet it was not something any man found easy to do: to walk away from a child in need. Greeley would have to make the decision to halt the search, and Rutledge didn't envy him.
    Hamish said, “It doesna' sit well.”
    In the aftermath of a shelling or in the carnage of an attack, men went missing: dead, lying wounded in No Man's Land, or captured. Rutledge had always done his best to bring back his wounded, young Scots not so many years older than the missing boy, and yet already men. It had felt like a betrayal to post them as lost. As if he could have done more . . . should have . . .
    He shook off the darkness that came creeping out of the past to waylay him. This was not his battle, it was Hugh Robinson's.
    Elizabeth Fraser had wheeled into the room behind him, and as he looked up, he realized from the odors wafting to him from the cooker that dinner was already well under way. Turning to her, he smiled ruefully.
    “I'm sorry. I promised to bring in coal.”
    “You still may, if you will. One of the searchers helped me earlier.”
    And he followed her directions as to where to find the scuttles needing filling, and then took them out into the yard where the cellar door led down into the bowels of the house.