“They’d hardly cover that up. Shooting prisoners? Shooting one of their officers in the back?”

“Then why did Anthony Pierce die? He wasn’t in their company.”

“Point taken. I’m glad you were sent back here. I won’t have to face the blame for coming up empty-handed on this one. That’s in your future, not mine.”

Would this become the case he couldn’t solve? Like Cummins and the murder at Stonehenge? He’d already considered that possibility.

“I’ll let you know. You’ll be happy to come and gloat.”

Inspector Norman laughed. “If we weren’t so much alike, we could be friends.” He turned and walked away.

Rutledge watched him for several minutes, then went back to the motorcar. The leather seats were hot from the sun, and there were holidaymakers strolling along the promenade and The Stade. The lush grassy slope of the East Hill spoke of peace and plenty. He watched three young girls flirting with a young man their own age. Carefree, pretty faces shaded by parasols. They were dressed to suit the fine weather in white or lavender or palest green. If he squinted his eyes, he thought, he could almost pretend it was 1914, and the war was only a shadow to come.

And then Hamish said something, and the image was shattered.

He went to see Mrs. Jeffers, and found her in her kitchen, bottling plums.

The child who had answered the door and conveyed him there went skipping out into the kitchen garden, chasing butterflies.

“They can forget, for a time. I wish I could,” she said, her gaze following her daughter. She had auburn hair that had been pulled back out of her way, and her hands were red from working with the boiling water and hot jars. “I have to keep at this, or they’ll spoil,” she told him. “To tell the truth, I don’t know what good talking to me will do. I wasn’t there when Will was killed. And I can’t think he had any enemies. How could he have? He hadn’t done anything to be ashamed of. He was a good man. I don’t know how we’re to get on without him.” Her eyes filled, and she wiped at them with the cloth in her hand. “I tell myself I can’t possibly cry any more, and the next thing I know, I’m crying again.”

“Did your husband know Tommy Summers well?”