Nor was he the sort of man who could quietly bury truth under a layer of lies. Rutledge faced himself now, and with that a possibility that appalled him. Like it or not, he must get to the bottom of this question of Ben Shaw’s guilt.

Like it or not, he must find the answer, for his own soul’s comfort.

Hamish growled, “It isna’ a matter of comfort, it’s a sair question for the conscience.” His Covenanter heritage had always projected his world in severe black and white. It was what had brought him to defy the Army and face execution rather than compromise. His strength-and his destruction.

Ignoring the voice in his head, Rutledge considered the next step. How did one go about dredging up the past, without destroying what had been built upon it?

This was not the first time he’d dealt with families whose anger was as destructive as it was futile, when not even a jury’s verdict could persuade them of a loved one’s guilt. But few of these families had ever brought forward what was in their eyes fresh proof of innocence.

And on that slim balance, he was forced to confront his actions of more than six years ago.

Hamish said, “I saw a magician once. When the troop train was held up in London, he came to entertain us. I couldna’ be certain what was real and what was false.”

Rutledge suddenly found a memory of Ben Shaw’s defeated, exhausted face, when the prison warders brought him to the gallows. Even if he could clear the man’s name, there was no way he could restore the man’s life. Shaw was dead…

Like so many others. The world seemed filled with phantoms, his mind shattered by them.

Suddenly he could feel himself slipping back in the trenches, the Battle of the Somme in July 1916-the watershed of his madness.

Hamish’s voice brought him sharply back to the dingy confines of his office at Scotland Yard, with its low shelves, its grimy windows, the smell of old paint and dusty corners heavy in the passages. With the sound of footsteps harsh on the wooden floors outside his door, and brief snatches of conversations that seemed to have no beginning and no end.