But even as he tried to make light of Bryony’s forceful plea and Monsignor Holston’s fears, Rutledge couldn’t escape the fact that their intensity had touched him.

Hamish said, “Aye, but it will pass, with the mood.”

Which was probably true. The thing was, Bryony had made it very hard for him to walk away.

Instead, he put the motorcar in gear and turned the bonnet north instead of south toward London, driving on to Osterley.

As a schoolboy, learning to draw the map of Great Britain, Rutledge had been taught that the island resembled a man in a top hat riding a running pig. The top hat was the northern part of Scotland—the Highlands. The man’s head and body were the Lowlands and the Midlands of England. The pig’s head was Wales, its front feet the Cornish peninsula, its hind feet the downs of Kent. And its rump was East Anglia, the great bulge of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk jutting out into the North Sea toward the Low Countries.

It was a picture he and his schoolmates had found diverting, endlessly practicing their drawing of the pig and its rider, unaware that the effort sealed forever in their minds the geography of their country.

Now, as he covered the miles between Norwich and Osterley, Rutledge watched the raindrops collect on his windscreen and resisted Hamish’s efforts to draw him into a debate over the interview with Monsignor Holston. He didn’t want to delve into the priest’s motivations or Bryony’s. The earlier mood (as Hamish had predicted) was wearing off, and in its place was a rising doubt about his own judgment. He hadn’t been cleared for a return to full duty—and his instructions had been to travel to Norwich. Nothing had been said about continuing north.

Old Bowels would have his liver if he upset the local man on a whim and brought the wrath of the Chief Constable down on both their heads. On the other hand, Rutledge could say with some certainty that he had made precious little progress in “reassuring” the Bishop’s representative. The Monsignor wouldn’t have settled for less than a full-blown investigation by the Yard, given any choice in the matter. If a visit to Osterley was what it took to satisfy him of the Yard’s faith in Inspector Blevins, there would be no official objections to that.

But Hamish wouldn’t be put off. “It’s no’ the body that’s standing in your way! Ye havena’ put Scotland out of your mind. Ye werena’ ready to return to work because you werena’ ready to face living!”

“The bandages are off,” Rutledge answered flatly. “By the time I’m back in London, the police surgeon will be satisfied that the medical leave can be rescinded.”

“Aye, but watching yon fine doctor cut away bits of bandage is no’ the same as coming to grips with yoursel’.”