“You could go back to London and leave us in peace! Half those men out there in the rain will be sick before the week’s out, and they’ll still have to work the nets or tend their sheep or dig in their fields. The boy’s long dead, and God alone knows where he could be. Murdered by gypsies, down one of the mine shafts—”

“I thought those had been searched.”

“Yes, of course they have. But a boy that age is small. He could crawl where a man can’t go. You could walk by him a thousand times over and never realize it. Predators carry off small bones—birds and animals could have taken his remains anywhere. Dawlish should have explained all that.”

“Nevertheless, I’m going to continue. Until I find him.”

Silence ruled until they were nearly back in the village again. Rutledge, remembering a case he’d handled before the war, asked, “How long before the flesh rotted off a child’s body and you could move the bones? Or crush them beyond recognition, before scattering them?” It was worth considering—a husband had nearly gotten away with murdering his wife, experimenting with temporary burial and a very permanent exhumation.

Turning to look at him, Hawkins nearly skidded in a puddle, then swore again and straightened the wheel in time. “You’re mad, d’you know that? Stark, staring mad!”

He turned in at his gate without another word.

Morning dawned fair, though cooler after the rains, as if summer’s heat had been washed away. The first task Rutledge set himself was to search the churchyard for flowers growing there.

In his experience, English churchyards, unlike those he’d seen in Europe, were seldom planted with flowers. Along the walls, sometimes, or by the path to the front door of the church. Occasionally by the gates. But not on or around the graves themselves or close to the headstones. The English still preferred their yews as funereal offerings. These had first been set out in churchyards in the days of the long bow, as a source of raw materials, and become a habit. Their shape and somber dark green seemed to suit the mood and the gravity of the place better than a riot of color.