“She would have protected him. She might well have forced him into killing himself to keep the truth hidden. When she was afraid she couldn’t go on controlling him.”

“Yes, that’s a very fine idea. The only problem is, it doesn’t work!”

“Then why didn’t Nicholas love Rachel?”

“At first I thought it was because she was there so much of his childhood. Like another half sister, familiar and unexciting. Rosamund was very fond of Rachel, treated her like one of her own children, and that’s hardly the stuff great romance is made of. Then—later—when Rachel married Peter, I realized that Nicholas was probably protecting her, forcing her by his very indifference to find someone else to love. If he hadn’t, I think Olivia might have killed her too.”

The voice in the darkness was oddly strained.

“Are you telling me that what Olivia held over Nicholas most of his life—the way she bound him to her—was the threat of harm to Rachel?”

“It was the only way I can think of for Olivia to make Nicholas swallow that laudanum. Unless of course she tricked him. I don’t want Rachel to know what I think, I don’t want her to carry unnecessary guilt around for the rest of her life. But if you keep digging, that’s what’s going to happen. You’ll solve your case quite neatly, and she’ll never have a chance of finding love again. If you’ve got any compassion at all, send her back to London. Or better still, take her back.”

“No.”

“It’s quite true, what I told Rachel. I’ve considered going over your head, pulling strings to have the Yard close this case officially. I know enough people in high places, to get it done. And it’s what Daniel wants. But even that can cause more grief than good. That’s the trouble with this wretched affair, there’s no damned solution any way I turn!”

When Rutledge didn’t respond, Cormac was goaded into saying more than he’d intended. “I’ve half a notion to find out why you aren’t in London working on this new Ripper— why you’ve spent a week in Cornwall with nothing but speculation and a good deal of vexatious prying to show for it. I thought we’d been sent a proper investigator, someone who knew his business and was just taking precautions, because of Olivia’s sudden fame.”

“If you were expecting a rubber stamp,” Rutledge said, “you don’t have much experience of the Yard.”

“No, I wasn’t expecting a rubber stamp. Just a man who knew his job. I can’t quite understand what makes you tick, Inspector. And why the odd persistence in a case that’s finished, even if Nicholas and Olivia between them slaughtered half the village!”