Many had been hastily buried where they fell, others in mass graves. Sorting the dead for proper burial had been gruesome at best. Many had never been identified. Walking down the rows now, looking at names, remembering burial details, broken bodies, bits of them, endless lines of them, he wondered if he was changed by them.

No, on the whole, he thought not. The war had been a part of the fabric of his life, and he had endured it, survived it, and was still steadfast in his purpose.

He stopped, his gaze sweeping the crosses. It was the living who concerned him now. A few had escaped him, but there were still eight left. And he was ready.

Were they?

Not that the state of their souls troubled him overmuch.

He turned his back on the cemetery, striding toward the Paris taxi that had brought him out here. And as he did, the slanting June sun warmed his shoulders.

Listening to the sound of his footfalls, he realized that he hadn’t bargained for the silence here. He wondered if those lying beneath the crosses savored it after the noise of battle. Or was it unnerving?

There was a train to Calais tonight. Another from Dover to London. But he was in no hurry.

A good dinner first, if he could find one, a bottle of wine, and then a sound night’s sleep.

As the taxi turned and drove back the way it had come, he leaned his head against the cracked leather of the seat and closed his eyes.

2

London, July 1920

Chief Inspector Cummins walked into Scotland Yard at half past nine, went directly to his office, and set about finishing packing his books. It was his last day, and he wanted no fanfare. An injury sustained in the line of duty had put an end to his career.

“And not a day too soon,” he said to Inspector Ian Rutledge who had stepped in to wish him well. “I should have left at the end of the war. But I found one excuse after another to stay on. This case pending, that case passing through the courts. And here I still am, well past my time.” He looked up, another stack of books in his hand. “No regrets.”

“I feel responsible—” Rutledge began, but Cummins cut him short.

“Nonsense. I knew what I was doing. I hadn’t reckoned on the toll the years had taken, that’s all. I wasn’t quite fast enough. At fifty-five, one still believes one is thirty until he looks in his mirror as he shaves.”

“Will you be content in Scotland, after the bustle of London?”

“My God, yes. And if I’m not, my wife will tell me that I am.” Cummins reached for the roll of tape to seal that box and then turned to fill another. “When do you intend to marry? Don’t leave it too long. I’ll be a grandfather, next month.”

Rutledge laughed, as he was meant to do. “You’ve left behind a splendid record. We’ll be living up to it for decades to come.”