Rutledge went to find Constable Walker. Wearing shirt and trousers, his mouth wide in a yawn, he came to the stairs in the police station as Rutledge called his name. “I’m up here. What’s happened? I was just dozing off.”

“Someone was in the churchyard.” Rutledge gave him a swift account of what he’d seen, and by that time, Walker was wide awake.

“I’ll just fetch my tunic,” he said, and disappeared. A lamp was turned up, and when Walker came back to the stairs and started down them, he had his torch in his hand. Rutledge was already out the station door, ahead of him.

They searched the churchyard carefully, and even went into the church. There their torch beams were lost in the high ceiling arching over head, and the pews were dark shapes that cast long shadows, the spaces between them stretches of pitch blackness. Their footsteps echoed on the bare paving stones as they moved forward in concert. The pulpit looked like the prow of a ghost ship, and the choir stalls could have concealed half a dozen bodies. But there was no sign the intruder had ever been inside. Even the choir loft was empty.

What’s more, there was no body tumbled into the high grass or hidden behind a buttress or a gravestone.

It took them a good forty-five minutes to be sure. As they were on their way back to the High Street, Walker said, “He saw you. That probably saved someone’s life. But what’s this, if Carl Hopkins is in gaol in Hastings?”

“We don’t know why he was here.” He looked up at the rectory as they passed. “That light in the rectory stairwell. It’s been burning for some time. Is that usual?”

“No, it’s not.” Walker turned to Rutledge, alarm on the pale oval that was all Rutledge could see of his face. “You don’t suppose it’s Rector he’s after? My God!”

They reached the gate between the churchyard and the rectory in long strides, going through it to the house door.

Walker was there first, his fist pounding on the wood panels.

Rutledge, staring up at the long window, watched the stairs, but no one came. He said, “Try the latch.”

The door was unlocked. Rutledge swore. Mr. Ottley had far too much trust in the sanctity of his office—or too much faith in the goodness in human beings.

They went in. Rutledge took the stairs two at a time, calling Ottley’s name while Walker went through the ground floor, searching each room. He was soon at the bottom of the staircase calling, “Any luck? He’s not down here.”

“Nor in his bedroom. Or in the other rooms. I’m going to the attics.”