on your part, you know. See that we’re not embarrassed a second time. Do I make myself clear?”

“I understand,” Rutledge replied as Bowles searched his cluttered desk for his pen. And he did understand. Political repercussions were always uppermost in Bowles’s mind. Using them or avoiding them, he had become quite adept at sensing the way the wind would blow. But to clear the record, Rutledge added, “Teller slept in different churches. Not just one. That’s to say, if he was telling the truth. There are dozens of churches in London.”

“He’s a cleric, is he not? Someone should have taken that into account.” He found his pen and uncapped it. “You’re to leave for Hobson straightaway.” He made a final note on the file and passed it to Rutledge.

Rutledge crossed to the door. Bowles said, “And, Rutledge . . .”

He turned.

“I shouldn’t think the family would like seeing this bruited in the newspapers. For all we know, this Teller could be on the wrong side of the blanket. Might explain Hobson, if you take my meaning. The family has had a very trying time of it already.”

As Rutledge walked back to his office to set his desk in order, Hamish said, “Ye willna’ be here to take yon godfather to the station.”

“I’ll leave a note.”

Sergeant Gibson, standing in the doorway, asked, “Sir?”

Rutledge had answered the voice in his head aloud, without thinking. He turned to face Gibson and forced a smile. “A commentary on what’s ahead,” he answered lightly. “Do you know anything about the police in this village of Hobson?”

“The constable—Satterthwaite is his name—gives the impression he’s a sound man, sir. He’ll steer you right.”

“Let us hope. All right, anything else I should know?”

“No witnesses. No sign of robbery. No physical assault. Nothing to go on but the woman’s body found in the front passage of her house.”

“What did the husband have to say about it?”

“It appears he’s dead, sir.”

“Indeed?”

“So the constable informed me, sir. Didn’t come home from the war.”

“I don’t remember Hobson. Is it hard to find?”

“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