A Lonely Death by Charles Todd Page A

the wall he was trying to ascend, and one of the men on the ropes cried, “Are you all right, Ben?”
    If he answered, Rutledge couldn’t hear him. Others, aware now that someone else had come out here, looked up to stare briefly at Rutledge, but Norman waited without turning as more and more rope was hauled up. And still the climber hadn’t crested the top.
    Looking out to sea, Rutledge was hard-pressed to tell where the horizon ended and the water began, and he could see heavier clouds forming a line that darkened the sea and sky as it headed his way. He knew without being told that the men here were racing that line.
    All at once the men stretched out on the ground scrambled back, and the teams heaved on the ropes with all the strength they could muster. Then, like a jack-in-the-box, a man’s head and shoulders popped up, followed by his torso and legs, and he made it to the bruised grass at the edge.
    The climber flopped down where he was, flat out, exhausted. His hair was dripping rainwater, his clothes wet through. Someone came forward and draped a tarpaulin over him, but he was sweating from exertion and asked them to pull it away again.
    Only then did Inspector Norman turn, as if he’d known Rutledge was there all along. His hair was also plastered to his skull, his face red and raw from the rain and the wind. He shouted to Rutledge, pointing down the cliff face, “One of yours?”
    Rutledge made his way to the brink, gripping the shoulder of one of the men who had been pulling in the climber, to keep himself from being blown over.
    Below, crumpled on the rocks that were being lashed by the sea, was a body.
    The climber had been down there, attaching a sling of sorts to it, with ropes he brought back to the top tied to his belt.
    It had been one hell of a climb down there, and even worse conditions trying to work with the body on such a narrow ledge, barely big enough for one man. And then the climb back had been even more hazardous.
    Norman, somewhere behind Rutledge, called, “Look out,” and he turned to see four men pulling hard on ropes.
    He stepped back from the edge and watched as the men—he learned later that they were from the lifeboat station below—began to haul the dead man to the top.
    “What makes you think he’s one of mine?” Rutledge shouted.
    Norman grinned at him, his long thin face seeming to split in two, but there was no humor in it. “When the climber got down there, he said the man’s throat had been cut. Took him forever to get those ropes down and attached properly. We didn’t want to drag the body against the rocky face. The sling should offer a little protection. But I have a feeling his throat wasn’t cut. I have a feeling he’s been garroted. That’s when I sent for you.”
    “Why?” Rutledge demanded, feeling a surge of anger at the man’s gloating. “Why should it be one of ours? If the killer has moved on, that’s a Hastings man lying down there.”
    “Call it instinct,” Norman told him and then turned back to watch the men straining against the dead weight on their ropes. “And these.” He drew a pair of field glasses from his pocket. “We had to know if he was dead or alive. I can tell you, the doctor didn’t relish going down after him. You could almost see him praying it was a corpse.”
    He gestured to a middle-aged, balding man with a growing paunch, standing to one side, waiting.
    Someone crawled to the end of the cliff and then called over his shoulder, “Easy, lads, easy.” The men on the ropes slacked off, caught their breath, and when the signal was given, this time they brought the body up to the top of the cliff and then with a last effort, pulled it over the edge onto the grassy slope. For an instant, it appeared to be on the point of sliding into the abyss again, teetering there until it was finally pulled to safety. Rutledge heard Norman swear.
    Two other men ran forward, caught the rope handles on the sling, and gently urged it back to