At Rutledge's sister's insistence, Dr. Fleming had taken him out of the military hospital, settled him in a private clinic-and forced him to speak. Reliving the trenches had nearly destroyed him, but out of the ruin of the barriers he had erected in his mind, he had found a way to return to Scotland Yard, slowly and painfully reclaiming himself. A long road, with no end in sight. It had been a hard eight months. And very lonely.

Fleming had added cryptically, as Rutledge stood at the window, staring out at traffic in the street, “It really depends on you, Ian. I don't have an answer. I expect no one does. Time? Learning to forgive? To forgive yourself most of all? I can't cure you. But you may be able to cure yourself…”

Rutledge had had to be satisfied with that.

And now as he drove through the darkness, Hamish kept him company in the lonely silence.

T his part of the Lake District was bounded on the east by the Pennines and on the west by the sea where the high country fell away to coastal plains. It was a land of farming and sheep, where damsons ripened in August but apples were gnarled and sour, where a man's nearest neighbor might live out of sight in a fold of the great fells, and such roads as there were often became impassable in winter.

Urskdale was not one of the famous valleys of the lake country. It possessed no poetic views or famous prospects. It was, simply, a rough, lonely, and wildly beautiful place where ordinary men and their families eked an existence in hard soil and harsh conditions, and felt at home. Safe. Until now…

What had turned a killer loose in their midst?

H e'd had the forethought to add a Thermos of tea to the sandwiches the hotel had put up for him, and stopped only to refuel the motorcar or walk for five minutes in the snow while the wind brought him back from the edge of sleep. In the cold night air, there was only the warmth of the engine to keep his feet from numbness. There was no such help for his gloved hands or the back of his neck.