“Frances. Shut up!”

“Yes, I know, it isn’t a pleasant reminder, is it? I’m sorry. But I do think you may be acting prematurely.”

He put down his razor, splashed water on his face, and groped for a towel. The razor went sailing across the room. This time he swore silently.

Hamish, reflecting his anger, said, “Aye, it isna’ a brave thing you do, merely foolhardy.”

Rutledge said, “I am going mad cooped up in these rooms.” The words served to answer both of them.

Frances said, deliberately misunderstanding him, “Yes, you must be. I did ask you to stay longer at the house. It’s still warm enough to sit in the gardens in the afternoon, or walk across the street into the square. You can come back again, if you like.” She had brought him there from hospital, and found a nurse to care for him until he could fend for himself, then taken over the chore of getting him dressed and undressed each day while he impatiently healed. Wounded tigers, she had thought more than once, would have been less of a handful.

But in the beginning, when she’d been summoned north, she had been terrified that he’d die before she got there. She’d only just got used to him being home and safe, with War’s end. After four bitter years of killing, her brother had come back to her alive and so she had let her guard down at last. Policemen weren’t supposed to be shot in the line of duty. The shock had left her breathless. Still, she’d done her best not to fuss over him…

Rutledge, who understood the unspoken concern that lay behind his sister’s efforts to keep him under her eye, had found it impossible to explain to her that he preferred his own flat, where he could swear at the pain or pace the floor at night or simply sit with his eyes closed until the worst had passed. Instead he’d merely said that he needed to learn to do for himself again.