She was serious. He remembered something she’d said before, that she had learned that life was too precious to waste it worrying about small things.
“It’s dangerous work, Kate.” He felt uneasy, not certain that she fully understood the risks. “I’d be quite sure if I were you.”
She grinned suddenly, looking very young. “I shall have to learn several new languages. Do you know anyone who speaks Russian?”
“I don’t believe I do.”
“Nor do I.”
And they laughed together. But his uneasiness didn’t leave him.
He saw her home, although she warned him that he might encounter the cousins.
At her door, she thanked him again for rescuing her, then said, “I’m rather glad it was you who took me to lunch, and not Josh.”
“As glad as I am that he had to leave for St. Albans.”
And he meant it.
Rutledge was in a cab, halfway back to his flat, when he glimpsed Chief Inspector Leslie walking along the street, head down.
They’d moved on soon enough, and Rutledge didn’t think Leslie had seen him. He appeared to be deep in thought. But his face was grim, as if his thoughts weren’t pleasant ones.
Was it absurd to believe that a colleague had committed murder? Surely it wasn’t the first time in the history of the Yard, but he couldn’t think of anyone else.
He’d known Leslie for years. That made it worse. He wasn’t a new recruit, or someone whose career was checkered. He’d been seen as a good policeman by everyone who knew him. Steady and reliable.
But what about Radleigh? Had he been a good man at whatever he’d done before the war? Or had his past led inexorably to murder?
“Ye canna’ be certain.”
Hamish was right, he shouldn’t judge Radleigh until he had gone to Manchester. Killer or victim, he deserved the benefit of the doubt. But what if he was also misjudging Leslie?
An hour later he was in his motorcar, driving out of the city.
Manchester was a gray town taken over by industry in the last century. Many of the workers lived in tenements put up for them, while others lived in lines of row houses, with almost no yard in front, street after street.
It took Rutledge half an hour or more to find the shabby back street where Radleigh had lived on the outskirts.
He went up the short walk and knocked at the door. Like its neighbors, 704 needed paint, but the brass knocker was well polished.
After a moment a woman came to the door. Her dark hair was put up in a kerchief, and she had a small child by the hand. A little boy of about three, he thought.
Her face changed as she looked him up and down. “You aren’t here about the rates—” She stopped, her shoulders braced for the worst. Only she had no way of knowing what the worst was about to be.
“I’m sorry. No. I’m looking for the home of a Corporal Andrew H. Radleigh. I’m told he gave this address to the Army when he enlisted.”
Hesitating still, she asked, “Who are you, then?”
“I’m a policeman from London. My name is Rutledge. May I come in? The street is not the best place to hold this conversation.”
“He’s not in any trouble, is he?” When Rutledge didn’t answer immediately, she added, “His mother—she’s upstairs resting. You’ll keep your voice down?”
“Yes.”
She opened the door wider, then pointed to an inner door just beside it.
He followed her in there. The room was cold, no fire on the hearth, but someone slept here, there was a comforter and pillows on the worn couch. She swept them away and asked him to sit, courtesy postponing the unavoidable.
“May I ask who you are?” He was afraid this might be Radleigh’s wife and child. “I’m afraid I don’t know who else lives here.”
“I’m Andy’s sister,” she replied. “Patience Underwood. We live here. Andy, of course—our younger brother George—our mother. It was the only way to make ends meet.” She took the chair by the cold hearth, her child at her knee, leaning toward her, staring at Rutledge from the safety of his mother’s side.
Rutledge realized she was apologizing for his having seen a bed in the front room. As if crowding a family into one dwelling was something to be ashamed of. He wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that half the houses on this street had more than one generation living together in the narrow three-story space.
She kept talking, her words tumbling out now. “My husband—Herbert—was killed in the war, and Andy’s wife and our father died of the influenza.”
“Your brother isn’t here now?” He had to ask, to be sure, before giving her such news.
“He went south—to London. To look for work.” Her gaze was riveted to his face, now, as if she’d read something there and was waiting for the bad news she was sure to come. “Why are you looking for him?”
“I should have thought there was work here. In Manchester.”
“Nobody wanted to hire him. He’s had seizures since the war. He was told that wasn’t safe, around machinery. It was just an excuse. He’s not well liked.”
“Why not?”
“It was before the war, before he enlisted. But people have long memories. He went to the police about something he saw in the factory. Well, it was his future wife who told him, but she was afraid to go to the police herself. Some of the women workers were being asked for more than a day’s work, if they wanted to keep their positions.” Patience glanced down at the small child at her side. “If you take my meaning?”
He did.
“After that, they looked for a reason to be rid of him. It was the war that saved him, he enlisted straightaway. When he came home, there’s only his pension and George’s, and mine for Herbert. But they aren’t enough to keep a roof over our heads. Ma talked to him about leaving to look for work, but he was worried about George. He was invalided out in the summer of 1918, he lost an arm and a leg in France, and he’s taken it hard. Andy finally left just after the new year. For London. He was sure he’d find something there, promising to send us a little as soon as he could. But we’ve not heard from him, except the one message that he’d got there safely.”
Rutledge remembered the thin body. No work, only enough food to get by, walking the roads looking for someone to hire him, and not finding anyone. He hadn’t come home because he had nothing to offer a widowed sister, an aging mother, a disabled brother. And he was too proud to tell them he’d had no luck.
“Was Andy much of a drinker?” he asked.
“No. Ma doesn’t hold with wasting money on drink or cigarettes. That was something else that made him unpopular. He never bought drinks for the lads.” Smoothing the child’s light brown hair, she said, “You never said why the police have come all the way from London.”
“Do you have a photograph of him?”
She got up and went to the mantelpiece. “This is his photograph in his uniform. He looks so much older now.” Taking down a framed photo, she brought it to him. “He was a Corporal at the end. I don’t have a picture of him then.”
He took the frame from her. It was hard to be sure, given the state of the dead man’s face, but he was nearly certain that he’d found A. H. Radleigh. The way his hair grew, the line of his eyebrows, the shape of the jaw, the placement of the ears—these matched the dead man’s exactly.