The marshes on Rutledge’s right were dark expanses of grass and shadow now, caught for an instant in his headlamps and then gone. A badger ambled along the road, picked out by the light, and scuttled into the underbrush around a small clump of trees. A night bird swooped across his path, and eyes followed his passage, gleaming for the space of a heartbeat, and then vanishing in the grasses. This was no place for a man . . . and Walsh hadn’t been bred to the marshes. They would be a barrier.

He would avoid them.

Another seaside town ghosted into view, straggling along the main road, rising out of the marshes before turning toward the vanished sea.

A uniformed constable stood at the turning, watchful and alert. The message from Blevins, then, had traveled this far west. Rutledge raised a hand, slowing so that the man could see he had no one else in the vehicle. Except Hamish . . .

The constable saluted as Rutledge passed.

The early morning was cool, but he was grateful for the freshness of it, keeping him awake. The tires bumped on the uneven surface of the roadbed and clattered over a small bridge. Buildings loomed and then were gone, trees spread heavy branches over the road, casting deep shadow. From time to time he saw other constables walking the streets or, a straggle of men with them, cutting across country toward outlying farms, poking into hay bales, searching outbuildings, scanning the ground with torches for tracks.

Ahead was the turning Rutledge was watching for. A church marked it, stark against the sky, malevolent and dark and secretive, huddled beside the road.

Hamish said, “Yon church is no’ a comfort in this light. Small wonder that half the world is superstitious! The night changes shapes and conjures specters in the shadows.”

Rutledge thought, Better them than you . . . He could drive past the rest of them, secure in the knowledge that they wouldn’t follow—

He headed south now, then turned a little east, passing through village after village, his eyes scanning the fields and peering into the light mist that was rising in the shallow valleys.

A horseman could pass unseen in its folds. He stopped and scanned the white sea. Later, wishing for his field glasses, he studied one valley with care, but there was only a cluster of thornbushes along a stream, in the haze bent like the backs of hiding men. From time to time there were other constables stationed at crossroads, or climbing through the sheep toward an outbuilding on the side of a hill.

Wending his way from road to road, still following his instincts, Rutledge traveled in a zigzag back in the direction of Osterley. Down this road—turning here—only to turn back again—all the while searching, making the connection and deciding as he ran through sleeping villages where that war-honed intuition might carry him next.