“If the jury listens,” McKinstry argued. “Then it works. But what if the jury doesn’t want to hear anything to the contrary because they’ve made up their minds? That’s what I fear, sir, because I do know my people. And I’m ashamed to say I have no faith in a jury when the mind’s shut.” He took a deep breath. “And what’s to become of the child? There’s the other worry. As far as I know, it has no father.” He looked out the window, not at Rutledge. “She’s a good woman. She’s a good mother. If she says the babe is hers, I want to believe it. But the police have said the contrary, that she killed the mother and took it, then told her aunt and the rest of the world that it was hers.”

“The child isn’t the law’s responsibility,” Rutledge replied, thinking of Lady Maude Gray. Would she claim it if there was any possibility that the child was her daughter’s? Even though she refused to believe her daughter was dead? Stranger things had happened. He felt Morag’s eyes on him and turned. The old woman shook her head, as if denying that she hadn’t cared for his answer, but he knew she had been disappointed in it. So had Hamish.

His mind busy with Lady Maude, Rutledge said, “How did Oliver connect this young woman living in Duncarrick with a corpse found up in Glencoe? There’s the problem of distance, if nothing else!”