The Red Door

“Satterthwaite says, look for the turning after the crossroads. It’s not very well marked from this direction, but it’s off the road to Thielwald.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

Rutledge stopped at his sister’s house and left a note for her explaining his absence, and another of farewell to his godfather. He would have liked to see Trevor and the boy, to say good-bye and wish them a safe journey, but they weren’t planning to return until late that evening, hoping to dine near Hampton Court. And he had a long drive ahead with no time to lose.

Half an hour later he was on the road north, facing little traffic, with Hamish unsettled in the seat just behind him, the voice close enough that sometimes over the soft purr of the motor, he could almost swear he heard Hamish breathing. He was always careful not to look in the rear seat, and he kept the small mirror turned in such a way that he couldn’t see any reflection but his own. He’d made a bargain with himself four years before when he realized that he couldn’t shut the voice out of his head: the day he saw Hamish MacLeod would be the day he sent both of them to the grave.

Even when he stopped for a late dinner this side of Derby, the voice followed him, a counterpoint to his own thoughts.

He had traveled this road before, coming down from Westmorland, although instead of warm breezes sweeping through the motorcar there had been a harsh wind off the winter snow, the aftermath of a blizzard that had shut down roads and cut off families from one another but not from a murderer.

And then the turning he was after appeared around a bend in the road, and he was heading in a different direction, the shadows in his mind receding with distance.

After one last turn, he found crossroads and the fingerboard pointing toward Thielwald. Some three miles beyond that, he saw the side road that bore to the left toward Hobson. He followed that through grassy pastures and a thin stand of trees, before cresting a slight hill and coming down to the first of Hobson’s houses, sturdy and uncompromisingly independent, like the people who lived in them. A milking barn in the distance to his left caught the last long rays of sunlight, and ahead of him, just leaving the muddy lane that led to it, a line of cows made their way down the High Street, heading for their night’s grazing on the other side of the village, their udders flaccid after milking. The bell on the leather strap around the neck of their leader clanked rhythmically as she swayed from side to side, paying no attention to the motorcar in her wake.

Rutledge could see the police station just beyond the herd and waited patiently for the last of the cows to pass. Constable Satterthwaite had just come out the door and was standing there on the point of filling his pipe.

He was a heavyset man of middle years, with an air of knowing his patch well. As Rutledge pulled up, he greeted him. “Inspector Rutledge? You’ve made good time, sir. The light’s still good. Would you like to go on out to the Teller house, or wait until morning?”

Rutledge considered the sky. “Now is best. I’ll drive.”

Constable Satterthwaite shoved his pipe back into his pocket and got in, giving directions to the scene of the crime. Then he settled back and said, “I’m that happy to see you, sir. This is a puzzle I can’t fathom. Florence Teller is the last person I’d have expected to find murdered. We’re a quiet village, not a place where there’s been much in the way of violence over the years. We know one another fairly well, and for the most part, that’s a good thing. If someone is in need, we try to help. No one needs to go stealing from his neighbor.”

“Murder isn’t always to do with need,” Rutledge told him. “There’s passion and greed and anger and jealousy—and sometimes just sheer cruelty.”

“I understand, sir. But I don’t know how any of those things might touch Florence Teller. Why someone would come to her door, and then strike her down and leave her for dead where she fell is beyond me. The doctor says it would have done no good if she’d got help straightaway. The damage was done. But how was her killer to know that? She might have lain there suffering for hours. And no one to help her. That was a cruelty.”

“She lived alone?”

“Yes, sir. The aunt who brought her up when she lost her parents died about fifteen years ago. Maybe more. And her son died some twelve years back. Then her husband didn’t come home from France. That took the heart out of her, though I never heard her complain. And she more or less kept to herself afterward. Gardening was always her joy, you might say, and even that couldn’t make a difference.”

Rutledge glanced his way. “You seem to know her well.”

“I know all my people well,” Satterthwaite said with dignity. “But yes, I kept an eye on her. To be sure she didn’t fall ill or lack for anything.”

He could hear the pain in the other man’s voice as he tried to keep his feelings in check. Not love, precisely, but a protective fondness all the same.