We, the authors, now needed to understand what lay on the other side of that door and what it represented in the story line. And this is what we will build on, scene by scene, chapter by chapter.

A Long Shadow opens on New Year’s Eve as Rutledge and his sister Frances arrive at a friend’s house for dinner. Their hostess, Maryanne Browning, has invited as a special guest one Meredith Channing, to conduct a “séance” for the evening’s amusement. She makes Rutledge uneasy from the start—she seems to know him, although he doesn’t recall ever meeting her. And by the time the séance is to begin, he’s sure she will see Hamish in his mind and reveal his secret to the others. It’s almost a relief when the telephone rings—the Yard calling to verify information—and Rutledge seizes the opportunity to excuse himself and leave. But as he steps out the front door into the cold evening, a cartridge shell from the war years rolls away from his foot and bounces into the gutter. Already tense, he’s not prepared for what appears to be a warning of some sort, the first of several more to come. That gave us the second focus of the story that began in an empty village, for even as he stalks a killer, he himself is being stalked by some- one with a deadly purpose. How will Rutledge handle finding himself in danger again? That was interesting to explore.

A Pale Horse opens with a man standing in the darkness looking up at the chalk cut figure of the Uffington White Horse. He’s unable to sleep, and he’s drawn again and again to come and stare at the horse, because in some way it reminds him of the horses gassed along with soldiers on the battlefield. It’s a vision he can’t put aside, even though he was never in the trenches, never gassed. Our next question has to be, who is this man, and why does the White Horse represent horror to him? And why when the young smith walks by, oblivious, on his way to a Stone Age tomb called Wayland Smithy, does the man in the shadows think that he himself ought to walk to the tomb, crawl in, and let himself die there. That he and the world would be better off if he did.

Now the question becomes, who is he? And why is he haunted by something he’s never been a part of? And what happens to him?

There’s also a broader concept at work in the overall plot—in this case we were curious about what happens when a body is unidentified and others see a chance to make it serve their own ends. That led us from Uffington, which was then in Berkshire, to Yorkshire and Wales, before Rutledge had untangled the truth from the fabric of lies that were told him by a good many people who were intent on their own agenda.

In A False Mirror, the overall concept was what happens when Rutledge must defend a man he despises, someone who let the side down in the trenches and who now calls on Rutledge to help him clear his name in a case of murder and hostage taking.