The Red Door Read Free

planes had disappeared down the line. He hadn’t known it was Turner at the time, only that the English pilot had shown amazing skill.
    Their orders were given to the waiter, and the conversation moved on.
    Hamish, ever present at the back of his mind, said to Rutledge now, “Inverness is a verra’ long way.” The voice was deep, Scots, and inaudible to the other diners—a vestige of shell shock, guilt, and nightmares that had begun during the fierce battle of the Somme in July 1916. In the clinic, Dr. Fleming had called that voice the price of survival, but for Rutledge it had been a torment nearly beyond enduring.
    Inverness might as well be on the other side of the world. Rutledge had made it a point since the war to avoid going into Scotland. And Hamish knew why. Even his one foray there, on official business, had not ended well. In truth, he’d nearly died, taking Hamish into the darkness with him.
    At that same moment Frances turned to her brother with a question, and he had to bring his attention back to the present.
    But after he’d dropped her at the house that had belonged to their parents, and driven on to his flat, he couldn’t shut the words out of his mind: Doesn’t she visit her brother-in-law around this time of year? I’m surprised she hasn’t married him. He’s been in love with her for ages.
    Meredith Channing had never spoken—to him—of her family or her past. And he had been careful not to ask questions of others that might draw attention to either his ignorance or his interest. She was reserved, a poise almost unnatural in one so young. Rutledge suspected it had been the result of what she had seen and done in the war. Nor would she have cared to be discussed as she was tonight.
    Hamish said, “She refuses to let hersel’ feel anything.”
    Was that it? Something must have hurt her very badly. Or someone. The loss of her husband?
    I’m surprised she hasn’t married him . . . He’s been in love with her for ages.

Chapter 4
    W hen the weekend was over, Walter Teller had dropped Peter and his wife, Susannah, at their house in Bolingbroke Street, and driven on to call on his banker. He conducted his business there, arranging for his son’s school fees to be paid as they came due, and strode purposefully out the door of the bank and back to his motorcar, his thoughts moving ahead to the rest of the day’s errands.
    Those accomplished, he had only just reached the outskirts of London on his way home when his body failed him. Sweating profusely, he fought to see the road ahead through what seemed to be narrowing vision, and his limbs felt like lead, moving slowly, clumsily.
    What the hell is wrong—?
    He’d never felt this way before.
    Am I dying?
    He started to pull to the side of the road, out of the light traffic, and then thought better of it.
    If I’m to die, I’d rather die at home. Not here, not in the middle of the street. I’ve survived everything else—malaria, dysentery, parasites. I can make it to Essex.
    He drove with utmost concentration, his hands clenched on the wheel, forcing muscles that had no will of their own to respond to his. Counting the miles now. Why wasn’t Jenny here, as she ought to be? She should be driving, damn it. But there had been words last night over Harry leaving for school. She had been unapproachable this morning, and he’d known better than to press for her to come to London with him.
    There was the sign for Repton. The farm was beyond the next turning.
    “I haven’t died,” he told himself, his voice overly loud in his ears. “I’ve come this far.” But he couldn’t have said how he got here from London.
    Harry. It isn’t you, it’s Harry. Something has happened to Harry—
    The motorcar turned into the drive seemingly of its own accord, and as he came into sight of the house, he blew the horn over and over again. “Jenny,” he shouted, “Jenny, for God’s sake, come and help me.”
    It was all he could do to pull on the brake