Rutledge was surprised that Trevor had remembered his brief absence going back to find Meredith Channing. “Yes, I have every reason to think so.” He paused, then said, “I need to bring up a painful subject. How you felt about having a son. When he was born—his first few years as a child?”

“Is this to do with a case?”

“Sadly, yes.”

“I don’t mind talking about those years. It was a miracle, finding myself a father. I can’t tell you. He was so small, and yet so real. He moved, he made sounds, he opened his eyes and stared into my face. His hands clutched at my fingers. It was unexpected, the depth of my feelings for him even then. I’d have done anything for him. Died for him if need be. Nothing I’d ever done to that point in my life seemed half so important.” He smiled wryly, the late sun just touching his face and lighting his eyes. “It seems absurd, doesn’t it? I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone that before. I was embarrassed, you see, I didn’t know for the longest time that what I felt was natural.”

His words touched Rutledge, and he said quietly, “Thank you.”

“I hope one day you’ll know for yourself what having a child means.”

Frances came out just then, bringing a pitcher of cold water, and Rutledge stayed a little while longer before rising to take his leave.

He spent a restless night. Hamish, ever ready to bring up memories that Rutledge could sometimes bury during the daylight hours, pressed him hard, and it was nearly four in the morning when he finally fell into a deep sleep, only to wake up an hour later, calling out to the men under his command, warning them to take cover.

He rose and dressed, grateful to be alone in the flat, and was in his office at the Yard long before anyone else had come in.

None of the reports from the night staff dealt with Walter Teller, although there was information on Bynum’s murderer.

The knife used in the attack on Rutledge was too ordinary to be traced. But postmortem evidence indicated it was very likely the same kind of knife that killed Bynum. The coat button was of doubtful provenance. The address on the scrap of paper proved to be a lodging house. The woman who ran it reported that a male who appeared to be around nineteen years old, fair and with freckles, had come to ask if there was a room available in the house.

The woman told the police that although he had claimed he could pay for the room, she had her doubts that he would fit in with her other lodgers, two older men and an elderly woman.

“Restless, he was,” the constable quoted from his notebook, “couldn’t sit still a minute.”