as long as someone living still remembered one’s name, one was never truly dead.

Florence Marshall Teller.

Beside him Amy stirred, then settled herself again without waking. He envied her.

He thought that of all of them Inspector Rutledge had understood his need. A member of the family—even if she had no family to call her own and was only a Teller by marriage. There was a dignity in that. And something in the policeman’s face as he stood by the graveside reflected what he himself was feeling, that she had deserved better.

He didn’t want to remember that plain house on its windswept knoll. He didn’t want to think about the plain wooden coffin, and the plain little churchyard. It had made him want to lash out at all of them, and tell them the truth. But it would have hurt too many people. And so it had had to be buried with her, next to the boy she must have loved beyond bearing, alone as she was.

Edwin shook his head, trying to clear it and concentrate on the road ahead. His duty to the family.

That meant all of them. Divided though his loyalties were, the duty remained, and he would say nothing. He would go to his grave in silence if need be. But if he did, he would carry it on his conscience beyond his last breath.

God bless you.

Florence Marshall Teller . . .

Chapter 23

Rutledge reached London in the small hours of the night and went to his flat to sleep.

He was in a quandary over the cane. Peter Teller, of course, would deny any knowledge of it. But Edwin would have made the journey back to London in easy stages and would reach Marlborough Street tomorrow at the earliest.

Walter Teller, then.

Leaving London for the trunk road, he caught sight of Charlie Hood again, this time walking briskly along the pavement, head down and buried in his thoughts. Rutledge pulled over and called to him.

Hood turned around, stared at Rutledge for a moment, then placed him. Reluctantly he came toward the motorcar, saying, “You don’t have that man’s murderer in custody, do you?” There was a mixture of emotions in his voice. Fear uppermost.

“Not yet. I don’t think he’s killed again.”

“No. He’s lying low somewhere, I’ll be bound. He didn’t expect to stir up a hornet’s nest, now did he?”

“Do you know a Walter Teller?” Rutledge asked, still trying to place that vague sense of having seen Hood before.

“Teller? Should I? Is that what you’re calling the boy?”

“We still don’t have a name for him. I have a feeling the one he gave me was not his.”

“Stands to reason. He was committing a crime, wasn’t he?”

“Is your name Charlie Hood?” Rutledge countered.

“It’s as good a one as any.” Hood straightened up. Then he said, “Watch yourself, mate.”

With that he walked off, ignoring Rutledge, who called to him to come back and finish the conversation. Turning a corner, Hood was quickly out of sight.

Hood had heard something, Rutledge thought. In that secretive telegraph system that tied the poor and the wanted and the running together, and no policeman knew the key.

Hamish said, “He answered the question aboot Teller wi’ one of his ain.”

“So he did. I’ll give you odds he and Teller crossed paths.” He considered that. “When he gave his account of the Bynum killing, he was coming from the direction of the Abbey. I wonder if Teller slept there. Or if it was in another church.”

And then he swore. In his pocket was the photograph of Walter Teller that Jenny Teller had let him borrow to help the police find her husband. He had carried it with him, first to use, and then to return to her. And he had not yet kept his promise. He could have shown it to Hood. Who knew what name—if any—Teller had been using while he was invisible in London?

People behind Rutledge were sounding their horns, telling him to move on. He did, for a moment, consider returning to the Yard, but by the time he could send anyone to search for Hood the man would have been lost to sight again.

He drove on to Essex, and found Teller deadheading his roses after the night’s rain.

Teller looked up when he saw the motorcar coming up the drive and straightened, as if preparing himself for what was to come.

Rutledge left the motorcar on the drive and walked across the lawns toward the roses. “They’ve done well this year,” he said.

“You haven’t come all this way