Blevins’s shoulders were stiff, angry.

Rutledge said, coming up to the other man, “What’s happened?”

The Inspector turned, looking around to see if they could be overheard.

“I hear you’ve been hobnobbing with the gentry.” There was cold fury behind the words.

“Lord Sedgwick? He invited me to lunch. I was interested in knowing why.”

“Did you find out?”

“No. At least—I’m not sure,” Rutledge answered truthfully.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Rutledge held on to his temper. “Look, I don’t know these people the way you do. I couldn’t. I haven’t lived here all my life. I have to depend on instinct to hear what lies behind their words. You never warned me off Sedgwick. Or anyone else.”

“Sedgwick put up the reward for Father James’s killer. Did he tell you?”

“Yes. He did. What difference does that make? Does it remove him from suspicion?”

Blevins turned back to look at the marshes. His profile was set, hard. “I had asked the Chief Constable to speak to the Yard about keeping you on here, and a Chief Superintendent by the name of Bowles agreed to it. Now I’m not sure I did the right thing.”

Suddenly Rutledge could see through Blevins’s fury. He resented the fact that the man from London, with his polished airs, had been treated with noticeable favoritism by the local gentry when he himself never had. . . .

“Sedgwick won’t make any friends for you. I can tell you that,” Blevins went on. “And if you have ambitions in London, he won’t do you any good. He’s not old money.”

“I never believed he was,” Rutledge answered coldly. “And as for any favors he might do me, I choose my own friends and pick my own enemies.” He let the words lie there, a challenge.

Blevins looked at him again. “There was a rumor. The Chief Constable had heard that you came back from the War a broken man. Half the policeman you were. If that.”

Unspoken was the rest of what Blevins wanted to say. “You might be in need of patronage . . .” But the words hung in the very air between the two men, accusatory and damning.

Hamish was saying something, but Rutledge was intent on fighting his own battle.