“Like the rest of them. I told him. I said, you mustn’t leave so early.” She pressed her knuckles against her mouth, as if to stifle the scream rising in her throat. A low moan escaped, and she sat down suddenly. And then with an effort of will, she raised her head and said, “Where is he now? My son?”

“At Dr. Gooding’s surgery,” Constable Walker answered her.

“He lived through that awful war. And now this.” It was an echo of what Mrs. Winslow had said. “I want to see him.”

“I think—” Constable Walker began,

But she cut him short. “I brought him into the world. I’ll see him out of it.” Again she looked upward, as if she could see through the ceiling to the room above. “How am I going to tell her?”

In the silence that followed, Rutledge could hear the faint, rhythmic sound of a rocking chair moving back and forth, and a low hum, as if someone was singing softly.

Mrs. Marshall stood up. “I’ll just call up to her, and then we’ll go. The rest can wait. I want to see my son now.”

They couldn’t dissuade her. In the end, she did as she’d said she would. She called to her daughter-in-law, “I’m just stepping out, Rosie, I’ll be back shortly. Mind the soup on the fire.”

Then she led Rutledge and Constable Walker to the motorcar and sat beside Rutledge as Walker turned the crank. Rutledge had a moment’s panic as the constable turned and opened the rear door, but he couldn’t look to see where Hamish was. He felt the motorcar shift as the man settled in his seat. And then he had no choice but to drive on, pointing the bonnet back to Eastfield.

Mrs. Marshall sat in stoic silence, her eyes straight ahead. Neither Rutledge nor Walker could find words of comfort. None seemed adequate.

People on the street turned to stare as they passed. Rumor had already run ahead of them, and villagers knew who was in the motorcar as well as where they were going.

Rutledge pulled into the drive in front of Dr. Gooding’s house, and before he could step out and open her door, Mrs. Marhsall was already out of the motorcar and striding toward the surgery.

She was a tall, rawboned woman in a faded apron over a blue dress patterned with small white sprigs of flowers, her graying hair drawn back into a bun. But she moved with the dignity of a Spartan woman preparing to receive and bury her dead. Rutledge watched her and was moved.

Dr. Gooding was surprised to see her, looking over her head at Rutledge and the constable.

“She wished to see her son,” Rutledge said, and Gooding said, “Er—give me a moment, and I’ll take you back.”