“Or any other woman. I agree. But finding Eleanor Gray alive will eliminate her from the list. If she’s dead, and Oliver does have her body, then we’re back to the problem of how she died where she did. Murder—natural causes—even suicide. Whether the answer will clear Fiona or damn her isn’t the issue. We have to look for it. By the same token, if it turns out that Eleanor Gray was murdered, then we have to prove that Fiona was the only person who might have had a reason and opportunity to kill her. Oliver may be content to jump to conclusions, but the truth is, Lady Maude won’t be as easily satisfied.”

“Who’s to say that in the end those bones are no’ their own mystery—and no’ ours?” Hamish countered stubbornly.

“Then you’d better pray that Eleanor Gray left the child with Fiona while she secretly went off to finish her studies. It’s the only way to convince Inspector Oliver that he’s got no case. Which brings me back to what I’ve been saying all along. Right now Eleanor Gray is the key to the investigation.”

“I canna’ say I like it!”

It was odd, Rutledge found himself thinking at one point, how Hamish had coped with the unexpected and sudden confrontation with Fiona MacDonald. He was vigorous in her defense, and he had never questioned her innocence. But far deeper than that ran the knowledge that her life now was separating from his. Not as Jean had left him, wanting to be free of what she feared, but in the very fact that living had drawn Fiona into new directions and new feelings and new places that Hamish would never share. He had not known about Duncarrick; he had not known about the child. The silences that followed his meeting Fiona again had been a painful reminder that time did not wait, that there was no holding on to it. That there was an emptiness in death. And yet in some sense, it was as if she was the one who had died, for Hamish mourned her loss with a heavy sorrow, with yearning and despair. And the burden Rutledge carried grew daily heavier with it.

It was Rutledge who struggled with the reality, the fact that Fiona could be found guilty of murder and hanged. He was the one who dealt with the tired face and dark-circled eyes of the woman in the cell. It was Rutledge who bore the brunt of fear and uncertainty about his own views of the evidence and the case building so tightly. Uncertainty, too, about his personal feelings.