But Rutledge was wide awake now, well aware that where he himself went, Hamish would follow. Yet in that wild half-world between waking and sleeping, he had responded out of habit—Hamish always occupied the rear seat. . . .

As Blevins took over the wheel, Rutledge turned his own motorcar over to the grinning constable. Coming around the boot, he noted the bicycle lashed to the back of the motorcar Blevins was driving. The Inspector snapped, “Hurry, man!” and barely waited for Rutledge to close his door before the car was off down the road at speed.

“That’s Jeffers, from Hurley. It’s a town southeast of the Sherhams. He was sent to bring me back to where they’ve found a body. Some fool thinks it could be Walsh, but I can’t for the life of me see how he came to be there.”

Rutledge felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. “Body, you said?”

“That’s right. A body. Constable Jeffers doesn’t have any information. The other constable, Tanner, who was out on foot searching the area, stopped a woman on her way in to the Hurley shops, and asked her to send Jeffers on to Osterley. Jeffers couldn’t find a motorcar and had to bicycle in. Took the devil’s own time doing it, too!”

“And the horse?”

“They didn’t say anything about a horse. That’s why I’m willing to wager this is a wild-goose chase. If Walsh has already run the mare into the ground, he wouldn’t be shy about finding himself another mount. Why would he be on foot?”

Because he had started on foot—

Hamish’s voice rang through Rutledge’s head.

They were silent the rest of the way. Carts were on the road at this early hour, and people walking to their fields or leading out the cows. Small boys on their way to school were trotting behind a pair of squawking geese, laughing as the geese darted at first one boy and then another and they dodged the attack. Blevins shouted at them to mind what they were about, and they dropped back sullenly.

“You wouldn’t have seen that sort of behavior before the War,” he told Rutledge. “There’s a generation growing up wild. Mark my words.”

It was a frequent refrain in rural England these days.

When they reached the outskirts of Hurley, there was a farmer in boots and brown corduroy trousers standing by the road. An old hat was jammed on his head and he wore a heavy green sweater with a ragged hem straggling down one hip.

“Inspector Blevins?” he called as the motorcar slowed. “The doctor’s been and gone. Take the road just there, to your left, before you get into the village proper. Follow it near half a mile, and you’ll see the farm gate.”