“He’s dead, Teller. Your wife is very much alive. Do it for her.”

“I’ll consider it. I can at least do that.”

Rutledge nodded and went out.

Rutledge could hear Hamish before he reached his motorcar. He could feel the sunlight fading, replaced by the raw gray light of the trenches just before dawn. And then the guns picked up, their shells dropping with precision, without a break between them. It had driven more than one man mad, the shelling, and he had lived with the sound until it was almost a part of his very bones.

Somehow he managed to start the motorcar, but how he reached the Yard, he didn’t know. And then the trenches faded as quickly as they had come.

Rutledge sat in his motorcar, staring through the windscreen, trying to shake off the aftermath. And then the motorcar began moving again, and almost without thinking, he found himself driving toward Chelsea.

A reasonable time had passed. It would be proper to call and see how Meredith Channing was faring. It would be expected.

But when he got there and knocked at the door, no one came to answer it.

Hamish said, “She’s no’ in London.”

Rutledge stood there on the steps, accepting the silence beyond the closed door. And then he turned and walked back to his motorcar.

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

It was necessary to report to Bowles how the inquiry into the disappearance of Walter Teller had ended.

Rutledge braced himself and knocked at the man’s door. “Come.”

It was difficult to judge his mood from the one word.

But as Rutledge walked into the office, he could see that for once Bowles was not scowling.

Rutledge said, “The Teller inquiry is closed. Teller returned to the clinic on his own, and from what the doctors have said, he’s recovered and free to return to Essex.”

Bowles raised his eyebrows in an expression of surprise. “Did he now? And where has he been all this time, pray?”

“Sleeping in churches. Walking the streets. Thinking. Who knows? I wasn’t sure how much I could believe. He’s a very private man, and I don’t expect anyone will ever know the truth about what happened. Not even his wife.”

“You’re the policeman. What’s your opinion?”