“At first it was vengeance. I’d thought about it long enough. I decided it was time to show I had the backbone to do it. When they died, they were as alone as I was all my childhood. A lonely death in return for a lonely life.” Summers’s face changed, something in it that gave Rutledge pause. At length he said, as if it was unfathomable to him, “Then I found I liked planning and stalking and killing my victims. It brought the war back again. I hadn’t realized it then, but it was probably the happiest time of my life. I felt so alive.” He considered Rutledge. “You were in the war, at a guess. Do you know what I’m talking about? Did you feel it?”

There was an eagerness in his voice, a need to hear that others had been caught up as well.

Rutledge remembered the trenches, the stench of war, the broken bodies of the living, the torn, bloated corpses of the dead. The nightmare of trying to survive against all odds, and watching those under his command decimated day after day.

“No,” he said. “I never did. And I thank God.”

Turning on his heel, he left the room, telling Norman that the suspect was all his.

“What did you talk about?” Norman demanded. “I want to know.”

“About the war,” Rutledge said, and walked out of Dr. Gooding’s surgery.

Chapter 25

25

They brought the little dog into Inspector Norman’s office the next morning. He had already sent for Summers, who was sitting in a chair, stubbornly silent now.

Bell dropped the lead as Rutledge opened the door, and Muffin ran in, stopped short, cast a glance at Summers, and then rapidly swung around the room, frantically searching for the one person who wasn’t there. Summers stared at him as if he’d seen a ghost, but as the dog came full circle, he stopped in front of the man’s chair and began barking, surging forward and then back again, head down, neck outstretched and taut.

Bell, watching, said, “My God.”

“Get him away from me!” Summers demanded, drawing his feet under the chair, out of reach. “The bloody dog bites.”

Rutledge spoke over the ferocious display of anger as Muffin all but attacked Summers, teeth bared, ears back.

“Where is she? Or I’ll lock him in the cell with you.”

“Damn it, call him off.”

But Rutledge stood there, grimly watching as Muffin leapt closer, challenging the man in the chair.

Desperate, Summers kicked out, and Muffin got his ankle, holding on with the tenacity of his terrier ancestors. Summers screamed, stood up and tried to shake the dog off, but it was impossible. Bell, just behind Rutledge, started to step forward, but Rutledge put out an arm to stop him.