His mouth tightened in anger at himself for disturbing her, giving her a fright. It had been the last thing he’d wanted.

“But she has a sixth sense,” Hamish reminded him.

“I’m going to bed,” she said, when Rutledge didn’t answer her. “Come again in the light, if you have honest business here.”

He was very close to standing up and identifying himself. But she shut the door again, and in a minute or two more, the lamp was snuffed out.

His legs were stiff from squatting, but he waited for a little longer, then turned his attention back to the garden.

If the body had been hidden here, how much would be found now? The long bones, perhaps, the jaw. Kneeling, feeling the night’s damp soaking into his trousers, he lifted a few of the stones very carefully from their bed and touched the soil beneath. His fingers worked down into it, among the plant roots and the friable earth, spreading and probing. There were no tree roots here, on the hillside. If there had been a body in this ground, some trace would remain to a trained eye. He mustn’t disturb it too much.

It was useless to dig. In the dark. Leaving behind signs of his presence. Wait until later, and let the experts—

His fingers struck something rough and hard. In spite of himself, a coldness swept over him even though common sense told him he couldn’t have found bone at this shallow depth. And not the boy’s bones.

Someone had been here before him, lifting the rocks in the center just as he’d done, loosening the soil. He should have realized that as soon as he touched the earth—it would have made sense if he’d had his wits about him.

Working carefully, winkling it and using his other hand to clear a little space here, a little there, he very soon had the long slender length of wood out of its hiding place.

A carving. No, something else, the sides were too smooth.