Reaching for the Teller family grouping, he studied the senior Teller. He was tall, handsome, perfectly groomed. Not the sort to be found on a Sunday afternoon with rolled-up sleeves pruning the roses or racing his sons across the lawns in an impromptu game. His face was strong, rather more like Walter’s, Rutledge thought, than Edwin’s or Peter’s, and more than a little stiff, as if smiling for a camera was an unpleasant duty to be borne with the best grace possible. His wife, her face upturned to his, was also surprisingly strong, as if she shared her husband’s views and reinforced them. He could see where Leticia got her own strength of character. Gran, standing at her husband’s shoulder, was tall and elegant, with a whimsical smile, the only one in the group who appeared to be genuine.

He had borrowed a small photograph of Walter Teller from Jenny, and he’d made a promise to return it, because it was one she cherished.

Rutledge took it from his pocket and set it among the other frames, where it belonged. He was glad he’d remembered.

What struck him about this collection of family photographs wasn’t their number, nor the stages of a small child’s life that they’d captured, but the similarity of this boy to the one in the single photograph that had stood by Florence Teller’s bedside in Lancashire. Timothy was undoubtedly his father’s son. And he belonged here.

As he set the small frame down in the midst of the family groupings, he felt an overwhelming compassion for Florence Marshall Teller.

Hamish said, as he was about to turn away to examine the contents of the desk, “Look again.”

Rutledge did, frowning. At first there seemed to be nothing to see.

He’d been comparing Timmy to his cousin Harry, but now a photograph of the Teller sons taken with their sister caught his eye. In it Walter, the youngest, was about the same age Timmy was when he died. Almost Harry’s age now. And the likeness, as Rutledge held them side by side, was so striking he wondered he hadn’t seen it before. Harry had his mother’s gentleness to soften his Teller features, but Timmy was the image of Walter at six or seven, looking into the camera with the same expression, that mixture of shyness and warmth, the same set of the eyes, the same way of tilting the head. There was a family likeness to his uncles, but anyone comparing the two photographs would think that Timmy was Walter Teller’s son.

Rutledge pulled out the chair at Jenny’s desk and sat down. It wasn’t a trick of the light. It was there, he thought, holding the frames closer to the window so that even the dreary rain-damp natural light could reach them.