But Hamish was in Rutledge’s own mind. And Hamish recognized what Rutledge had just admitted to Nicholas.

That he couldn’t be guilty, or he wouldn’t have won Rachel’s heart.

It was one of the first lessons Rutledge had learned at the Yard. That love seldom had anything to do with murder. Pity, yes. And compassion, sometimes. Even mercy, on occasion. But not love.

And the question in this case was not whether Rachel loved Nicholas, but how Nicholas loved Rachel.

Enough to protect her, as Cormac had suggested, or enough to use her to protect himself. Which had it been? Which way had Nicholas turned?

As Rutledge carefully worked with the little gold trophies, he realized all at once that Nicholas might well have included himself among the dead, before swallowing his laudanum. But not Olivia. That’s why there was no trophy for Olivia. She had escaped through her poetry. He had waited too long to kill her—if that’s what he’d done, if that was what had actually happened. She’d already found her wings of fire.

Chapter 18

18

Rutledge drove thoughtfully back to Borcombe, and didn’t realize, until he stepped around the men seated on their sun-warmed bench before the inn door, drinking their beer, that he’d missed his lunch.

Hamish pointed out that the dining room had already closed.

Which did nothing to improve Rutledge’s mood.

He felt he was ready to start taking statements from his witnesses: Mrs. Trepol and Wilkins the gardener, Rachel and Cormac, Smedley, Dr. Penrith and Dr. Hawkins. Getting it on paper where he could sort it, challenge it, or use it to move forward.

But Borcombe was a tiny place, and everyone knew everyone’s business. To speak to people, to ask them for a general picture of the family at the Hall and the events that might—or might not—impinge on matters that concerned him, stirred up talk and rumors. To ask for official statements was tantamount to providing a blueprint for exactly what he was after: old murders, not new ones. Room for Constable Dawlish and his choleric superior to raise hell with London. Bringing Bowles down on him like a cyclone, demanding to know what he meant by stirring up the county, causing problems for the Yard when it already had its hands full. Room too for Cormac to have him recalled summarily, citing harassment of a prominent family, never mind the local police.

And he’d be forced to reveal more than he could, at the moment, defend. Publicly. But he knew he was right. All his experience at the Yard, his own intuition, the facts that he could be sure of, pointed to a long, cold-blooded series of killings that had spanned years. Cunningly planned, meticulously carried out, skillfully concealed.

A few more days—

He’d have to wait, damn it! On the statements. It would be foolhardy to push on and wreck everything.