“I’m looking into the past, to see what’s hidden there that frightens so many people.” And yet he realized now that he’d spent his time at The Reivers trying to find a measure of Fiona MacDonald. Looking not for evidence but for the character of a woman who was as elusive as a wraith with no substance . . .

Why, then, hadn’t she sold up and left? If she had not been happy.

Eleanor Gray’s words came back to him. “I could die—”

“Hummph.” Drummond was regarding him with dislike. “You’re a stupid man, then. It’s not in the fiber of this building. The past. It never was.”

“Why are you so certain of that?”

“Do I have to tell the police their business, then? Because the child wasn’t born here, was he! That’s where a sensible man would look, wouldn’t he? Where the child was born. If he can discover it.” There was a glint of challenge in his eye. As if he’d offered Rutledge an enigma.

“I’ve already been there. Where he was born. It’s a very ordinary clinic with a doctor too busy with his patients to care who they are. I’m told it was a normal birth, but the mother was very ill afterward.”

Appalled, Drummond stared at him. “And how, by God, did you discover any such thing? It’s more than Oliver ever did—or wanted to do!”

“I’m a policeman. It’s my job.”

Digesting the news, Drummond asked suspiciously, “Where might this clinic be found?”

Rutledge smiled. Interested, are you? “London. Carlisle. York. Your choice.”

Angry, Drummond said, “I won’t be taunted, policeman. Or made fun of. If you found the clinic, you found a name to put to that child. And to the child’s mother. Is that true?”

“Yes. I was given a name. It isn’t one I know.”

“And where might she be found now? On a hillside in the Highlands, bare bones with the corbies for company?” Something had changed in Drummond’s face. A tightness of the muscles under the eyes. A tension along the jaw.

“In her grave,” Rutledge answered, suddenly wary. He could feel the powerful emotion building in Drummond’s bulk. Why did Drummond care so much? Or if it wasn’t that—if he wanted the information for another reason— why the intensity? He added carefully, “If you know what’s best, you’ll leave her there. In her grave.”

“Why?” It was a growl.

“Because she’s safer there. And the child as well.”

“Which still leaves Fiona MacDonald in the hands of the hangman!”

“Not yet. Why should it matter to you?” Rutledge asked.

Drummond glared at him in hot, fierce silence.

“I’ve met no one else in Duncarrick save Constable McKinstry who gives a tinker’s curse for what becomes of her,” Rutledge repeated. “Why should you?”

Silence still.