McKinstry, much more comfortable with a straightforward report than his own feelings, lost some of his intensity. “Once it was clear the boy couldn’t be hers, we went looking for the child’s mother. We sent queries as far as Glasgow and Edinburgh, and across the border into England. The lad’s going on three, we didn’t expect it to be easy. It was Inspector Oliver’s belief that we ought to search where the accused had come from, before coming to live in Duncarrick. That eventually led us to the glen. Human remains had been found there just last year, a woman’s bones. And they hadn’t been identified.” He stopped, looked at his teacup, then met Rutledge’s eyes. “The Glencoe police were nearly certain that she hadn’t been there in March of 1916, when they’d scoured the glen searching for an old shepherd who’d gone off his head and disappeared. And the locals claim it must have been late summer or early autumn, as anybody moving sheep in the spring would have noticed the corbies collecting there. We sent around a description, adding what we suspected in Duncarrick to what little the Glencoe police had in their files. The next thing we knew, an inspector in Menton contacted us for more information. Duncarrick has eaten up the news, taking it as fact. And Inspector Oliver was not disposed to question the connection—” He stopped, suddenly uncomfortable.

Rutledge didn’t press. After a moment, McKinstry went on.

“At any rate, the three jurisdictions accepted the possibility that the missing Eleanor Gray was the mother of the boy in Duncarrick and had died in suspicious circumstances in Glencoe. There’s similarity in height, for one thing, and the timing fits. If she’d quarreled with her mother in the spring, and then carried a child to term, she’d have been delivered in late summer. And that’s when the lad was born. What’s more, none of the other inquiries Inspector Oliver received matched nearly as well.” He drew a deep breath. Even he, convinced as he was that Fiona was innocent, saw that there was a logic about the evidence that was inescapable.

Rutledge said, “Even if I’m assigned to the case, I can’t see what I could accomplish that you haven’t.” And it was clear that McKinstry himself was not objective. Rutledge found himself wondering what his relationship was—had been—with the accused.

“Show me,” McKinstry pleaded, “how to prove she’s harmed no one. How to stop the whispers before this case comes to a trial. I’d not like to think my failure has sent her to the gallows. But it’s going to happen. I’m helpless to prevent it.”

WHEN MCKINSTRY HAD gone, Rutledge turned to Morag. “He shouldn’t have come. It was wrong.”