Trayner was pleased with himself, as if this was a small victory over his sightlessness, proving to Scotland Yard that he was a reliable witness, even if he couldn’t see as other men did.

“That’s very helpful,” Rutledge answered, thanking him and moving on to the motorcar.

Just as he was about to drive away, Hamish said, “Is he still there?”

And Rutledge looked back. Trayner was standing in the open door, as if savoring the world beyond his doorstep. His wife hovered in the background, fearful that he might take it into his head to do something that would harm him.

There was a severe thunderstorm as he crossed into Wales, and Rutledge took shelter in a small hotel that was miles short of his destination. The Welsh border had once been as turbulent as the Scottish border, but this hotel catered to day-trippers coming across from Worcester, and the dining room was crowded with those caught out by the weather on their way back to England.

He sat in the bar, looking out at the lightning, and wondered what he would learn from J. A. S. Jones, Welsh sapper. He turned as the man behind the bar asked what he’d have, and gave his order. Noting the man’s limp and a ragged scar down his arm, he asked, “In the war, were you?”

The man smiled grimly. “I was that. And you?”

Rutledge gave his regiment, but not his rank.

“At the Somme, were you? Lost my brother there, I did.”

“Bloody shambles,” Rutledge answered, agreeing with the unspoken condemnation he heard in the Welshman’s voice.

“It was, and all.”

He brought Rutledge’s ale, and said, “I’ve found it hard to settle again. I don’t know if it’s because of my brother or because I can’t see any sense in anything now. We were close.”

“What about your family?”

“That’s what my da asks, over and over again. What about my wife and children. I don’t know the answer. I think I’ve changed. And they haven’t.”

He went away to serve another storm-bound driver, and then came back to where Rutledge was still standing.

“How’ve you managed, then?”

“I was wise enough not to marry before I went away to fight. Just as well, as it happened.” He regarded the man. “What did you do with your identity discs, when you came back?”

The man gave a bark of laughter. But it was bitter. “Burned them, I did. In the grate. As if I could burn away all that went with them. Sadly, it made no difference.”

More people were coming in, and he was busy. Rutledge took his glass and went to an empty table by the window. He’d hardly finished his ale when the storm moved on almost as suddenly as it had appeared, and the rain changed from downpour to a light drizzle that barely concealed the sun.

Moving on, Rutledge discovered that J. A. S. Jones lived in a town so small it hardly took up space on the map he’d used to bring him this far. The small slate-roofed houses huddled together against a hillside, and the road seemed to help pin them there, preventing them from sliding down into the brisk little stream on the far side.