“I don’t—-he was already in the passage when Cormac wanted to know what the noise was he’d heard, and Nicholas said it was a shot, and he’d already knocked, and then Cormac and one of the servants broke down the door. But I don’t think it was locked after all. I saw Nicholas pushing the bolt back and forth, standing there like a stone. Olivia came then and made him stop, but wouldn’t let him into the room, wouldn’t let him go to his father. Then Rosamund heard the commotion and ran to see what was wrong, and Cormac went racing to the village for Dr. Penrith, and she stood in the door, white as I’d ever seen anyone’s face, but not crying, just shaking as if she’d never stop, and I remember Brian FitzHugh putting his arm around her shoulders, and she shoved him from her, and went on standing there, and Nicholas kept saying, over and over again, ‘It was an accident, I know it was an accident!’ as if it was dreadfully important to hear the words.”

He waited again, letting her take her time, but she said nothing more.

Over the years Rutledge had questioned many witnesses to a crime. Even during the war he’d had to debrief returned prisoners, night scouts, men in the forefront of an assault or an attack. What weapons did you see, what collar tabs? What’s the strength in reserve? Where are the big guns? It was an art, getting at the truth rather than miring down in the tricks of a man’s memory.

The first person on the scene of a gruesome killing in London had told him that she didn’t recall much blood, and yet the room to him, hardened as he was, had seemed to be bathed in it. But she had blocked it out, controlling her memory to exclude what had shocked her the most.

Rachel wasn’t afraid of blood, she was frightened of betrayal, of the possibility that someone she knew and loved was a stranger.

And yet she’d sent for Scotland Yard, irrevocably calling public attention to her doubts and suspicions.

It was an odd decision for someone like Rachel to make. A washing of hands. A refusal to be a party to accusation, and at the same time, feeling a desperate need for closure.

What had she wanted from him, the objective Inspector from London? What sort of proof was she after? What did she know, and how was he going to find it under the layers of protective emotional armor?

And what did it have to do with Nicholas? Nicholas, the quiet one. Always there, always in the background. Had he played an objective role? Or a subjective one? Had he protected Olivia? Or had she protected him?

Was it knowledge that Nicholas had carried to the grave? Or guilt?