She bent her head over the drawing, and Rutledge, looking down at the nape of her neck and the dark sheen of her hair, decided that this was not the time to press her.

“If you change your mind, Mrs. Barnett will see that any message reaches me.”

“Yes. Of course.” It was said with grave politeness, but he knew she had no intention of doing any such thing.

He waited for a count of ten, but she seemed to be absorbed in her work, as if unaware that he was still there.

Hamish scolded, “You canna’ leave it!”

But Rutledge was already walking through the nave, listening to the silences of the shadowy church around him. He was thinking that Mrs. Barnett would give him the name and the direction of this woman, and he could put Sergeant Gibson on to searching for her background, with emphasis on what connection she might have to Osterley or East Anglia. . . .

He had learned early on in his career at the Yard that people who did not want to talk to the police could not be made to do so. But he wanted very much to know what it was that Father James had asked of a comparative stranger that had left behind it such unease.

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 11

THE FIRM OF GIFFORD AND SONS, Solicitors, was a small country practice that had been in business for some time, judging by the brass nameplate by the door. The letters on it were worn almost to smoothness from years of polishing away the sea damp that etched it like freckles.

Rutledge had noticed the location of the firm during his walk the night before. Now as he crossed from Trinity Lane along the Hunstanton Road, he decided to speak to whichever Gifford was available this morning.

The two unusual events in Father James’s life shortly before his death had been the bazaar, with its connection to Walsh, and the summons to the bedside of a dying man. Odd though the circumstances had been, there was no indication that out of that deathbed had come, like a phoenix rising, the shadow that had dogged Father James until it killed him.

All the same, it had to be considered. The policeman in Rutledge was too experienced to leave the matter. Nor could he ignore Priscilla Connaught or the woman he had quite literally stumbled over in the church. They, too, had some sort of personal link with the victim.

“You canna’ face London!” Hamish reminded him, with some force. “It’s no’ experience, it’s cowardice. You willna’ face your own life. Better to delve into another’s, and not think about yoursel’ and dying and Scotland.”

But Rutledge knew he was wrong, that Father James was slowly becoming a puzzle he could not walk away from. Not the priest, but the man . . .