Rutledge said, “Several differing possibilities are emerging in this case. I had thought initially that the war was at the bottom of these murders. The identity discs most certainly pointed in that direction. But the more I learn, the more questionable that assumption may be. Which brings me to another line of inquiry. Your son Daniel.”

For an instant Rutledge thought Pierce was going to come across the desk after him. The man’s face suffused with blood and there was such a deep anger in his eyes that Rutledge wondered if he’d taken Hamish’s suggestion too lightly.

And then Pierce got control of himself and said tightly, “Are you like all the rest? At a loss to find the truth, and eager to lay these crimes at the door of a man who hasn’t lived in Eastfield—really lived here—since well before the war?”

“I’m not interested in crucifying your son, Mr. Pierce. The best way to clear his name is to confront reality, not hide from it. Did your sons get on well together?”

“Of course they did,” Pierce snapped.

“Were they both in love with the same girl?”

That caught the older man by surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“I spoke to a sapper in Wales. A man by the name of Jones. He told me that Daniel Pierce had quite a reputation during the war. Tales of his exploits were popular fare amongst sappers. There was even the story that he’d dug his way to hell and supped with the devil.”

Pierce forced a laugh. “Hardly surprising. Daniel was nothing if not brave. And he had a cool head. Always did. He said it made him an ideal sapper.”

And the murderer of four men also had a cool head, Hamish was reminding Rutledge, but he said only, “Your son was a man who preferred to work alone in the tunnels, when he was setting the charges. I imagine he must have had trouble with authority. He wanted to do things his way, including how to mine tunnels properly.”

“All right, yes,” Pierce said, goaded. “He wrote something in a letter. Something about the fact that if he was going to die, it would be his own mistake, not that of anyone else.”

“They also said he appeared to live a charmed life. But that he was unlucky in love. The girl he wanted to marry died. If memory serves, before Anthony took an interest in Mrs. Farrell-Smith, he was engaged to a girl who died young.”

“That’s true. As far as it goes—”

“Is it possible that his brother Daniel was in love with the same woman?”

“I’ve never heard anyone even suggest that he might have been.”

“Was there another girl, then?”