“You’re a bloody stubborn man, did you know that? Eleanor Gray spent the night in Rob’s bed, which I thought rather macabre, but I couldn’t have cared less. I was so tired from driving that I fell asleep in the guest room almost at once. Heavily asleep. I don’t even remember closing my eyes. I must have been snoring. Or she might have felt ill, I don’t know. I woke with a start, and in the darkness sensed rather than saw someone bending over me.” He turned away again, the shadows on his face shifting and changing. “The Army had taught me how to kill. Fast and silently. My hands had found her neck before I’d even realized where I was or who was in the house with me. By the time I was awake enough to find a light, she was dead. I had to clean the carpet, and I was all for burying her in the garden. I even moved the bench so it would cover the grave. But the rain was coming down in buckets, I was afraid it would wash her out before the morning. So I got her into the back of the car, pulled a blanket and some of my clothes over her, and went through the house to find anything she might have left. The next morning as soon as the neighbor was up and about, I returned the key and drove off.”

“Where is Eleanor Gray now?”

“On that damned mountain in Glencoe! Where else? Or she was. I never dreamed— It was damned bad luck that Oliver was so good at his job, wasn’t it?”

Hamish growled a warning as Holden lifted a hand, but it was only to wipe his face again.

Rutledge said, “If her death was an accident, why didn’t you call the police straightaway, or a doctor?”

“She was professionally killed, man. Not a mark on her, except where my fingers found the spot on the back of her neck! Her mother is one of the richest women in England. Do you think Lady Maude would have believed me? She’d have seen to it that I hanged! I’d had a violent history at Saxwold, and the next hospital as well, and the Army was glad to send me off to France for cannon fodder. Look, I nearly killed a nurse once when she came up behind me unexpectedly. I had my hands on her throat before she could even scream. They thought I was out of my head. But I wasn’t. I’d lived too long with danger, and it was a reflex to strike first. Like a snake. They were ready to pack me off to an asylum with the shell-shocked men and leave me to rot!”

Rutledge involuntarily shuddered. With men like him— “How did you know the rocks were there—on the mountainside? They aren’t easily seen from the road.”