Swearing, he got out to crank it again, but nothing happened. Taking a look at the engine—and attracting two young farm lads who came to peer over his shoulder at the mysteries under the bonnet—he could see nothing wrong. He asked one of the young men to hold the wire while he turned the crank and checked the spark. It was clearly not that. There was fresh petrol in the tank, filled in Jedburgh just the day before. And he could see no indication that anyone had meddled with the car.

In the end, Rutledge commandeered a horse and cart to tow the vehicle (with accompanying humor from the old farmer who didn’t hold with infernal combustion) back into Duncarrick, where it was left to the mercy of the mechanic at the smithy.

He wouldn’t be traveling anywhere with Fiona MacDonald this day. Or tomorrow—

“And who will be pleased to hear that?” Hamish asked, irony heavy in his voice. “The fiscal?”

“Burns gave permission. But grudgingly.”

Rutledge went back to the hotel and searched the space by the shed where he usually parked the motorcar. A precaution.

He walked around the space, examining the ground. The dust had been scuffed, but no clear footprints were visible except for his own. The rear of the car had been in the shadows cast by the shed standing no more than ten feet away. Easy to crouch unseen there in the darkness late at night and take an ax to a tire, if someone wanted to disable the car. But the tires hadn’t been touched. And as far as Rutledge could tell, the engine hadn’t been damaged either.

He’d just driven the car hard for four days—

Everyone in Duncarrick knew whose car sat in the hotel yard day after day. No one in his right mind would touch it.

“Unless,” Hamish pointed out, “you’ve tread on toes.”

RUTLEDGE WALKED TO the police station and from Constable Pringle borrowed the key to The Reivers again. The inn wasn’t likely to yield more information than it had, but he wanted to go there on his own and be sure.

Clarence, the cat, followed Rutledge soft-footed from room to room, a silent white ghost at his heels as he took his time in each. He couldn’t have said when he started what it was he wanted here.

Such a place as The Reivers, he thought, was not made for the morning. The echoes of the night would linger still in the air—laughter and voices—someone singing off-key—and the smell of spilled beer and ale, the reek of smoke would drift down the passages. There would be an emptiness, a loneliness, as if the inn stood waiting for the doors to swing open again and new patrons to stride through them, thirsty for a pint and the companionship that went with it.