There was a gleam of triumph in Oliver’s eye. “I’ll have that brooch now, Mr. Armstrong, if you please!”

Armstrong passed it over to him, then rubbed his palms together as if to rid them of the feel of it.

Fiona opened her mouth, was on the verge of speaking, and caught instead the swift but barely perceptible shake of Rutledge’s head. She closed her mouth and looked down at her hands clenched together now at her waist.

As if he’d heard the unvoiced question, Oliver answered it. “This is evidence now. Thank you, Miss MacDonald!”

Oliver turned on his heel and went out of the cell, followed by Armstrong. Fiona looked quickly at Rutledge, but he said nothing, turning his back with the other men and leaving her alone. But before the door closed finally, she saw him look over his shoulder and smile reassuringly.

It was a reassurance he did not feel.

AFTER ARMSTRONG HAD taken his leave, Oliver waited until he had heard the outer door close behind the lawyer and then said to Rutledge, “Sit down.”

Rutledge went back to the chair he had vacated to shake hands with the departing Armstrong. He knew what was coming.

Oliver was saying, “Look, in my view, we have all we need to proceed to trial. This brooch is the connection we didn’t have before—it provides a link between the woman MacDougal had found up the glen last year and the accused. And it will see her hang. There’s no reason I can think of for going back to Glencoe with her. I think you’ll agree to that.”

The thought of facing the ghosts of Glencoe again, even with Fiona, turned Rutledge’s blood cold. But he said neutrally, “We can’t be sure we’ve identified the corpse. There’s no proof yet that she ever bore a child.”

“But there’s proof that the accused never bore one. If the accused didn’t conceal the body there, who did? Why was her brooch found so close to the makeshift grave? Not a stranger’s brooch, mind you, but one with her family’s name on it!”

Rutledge said with infinite care, “Still, it’s circumstantial—Armstrong could make the point that she had lived hard by the glen.”

Hamish said, “But he won’t. He doesna’ care enough.”

In the silence Oliver stood up and went to the single window. Its glass was dingy—no one had washed it in years. But he stood there with his back to Rutledge, apparently looking out on the street, and went on. “What you do to satisfy Lady Maude is your business.”

“Fiona MacDonald is the only person who can tell me if the woman she’s accused of killing is Eleanor Gray.”

“I doubt she ever will. She’s likely to go to her grave with that secret!”

It was the one point they saw eye to eye on.