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“But I’ll have it down here. Got to go and see more about the injured men again.” He knew he must look into whatever they had in common. Was the bomber aiming at them in particular? Or police in general? At anybody to pay for the one he thought was corrupt? He sat down at the kitchen table. He could see by the clock on the dresser that he was late already, but he could afford ten or fifteen minutes more. Perhaps the rain would ease.
    Gracie opened the door to the hot coals and put a slice of bread on the toasting fork. While he waited he poured himself a large mug of tea.
    She brought him the toast, crisp and perfect. He thanked her for it, and reached for the butter. Then he spread the marmalade on and bit into the slice. It was delicious and piquant enough to taste, even thickheaded as he was and totally robbed of the sense of smell.
    “What are you looking for?” she persisted. She never gave up.
    “Lots of things, maybe,” he answered, swallowing the first mouthful.
    “Like what?”
    “Why those particular men,” he said to begin with. “Do they usually work together, or was it for a special case?”
    “Why does that matter?”
    “So we know if it was the case they were attacked for, or if it was them the bomber wanted,” he explained.
    “Would an anarchist care who it was?” she asked, taking a second piece of toast off the fork and putting it back on so the other side faced the coals.
    “They wouldn’t,” he answered with his mouth full.
    “So yer think they was after them police in particular?” she concluded.
    “I have to make sure that isn’t the case.” He evaded the question.
    “So what’ll you do? Give it back to Mr. Pitt, then?” She was not going to leave it alone.
    “If it was anarchists, I suppose so. That’s his job.” He realized he was not sure if that was what he wanted to do. There was a discomfort at the back of his mind, a need to defend his own men from the smear of corruption that had been suggested. And more than that, the victims were police. They deserved justice.
    “Except I don’t want to,” he said instead. “I want to follow it all the way, and see the end of it.” He looked up at her and saw the anxiety in her sharp, bright little face. Although she was married and expecting her second child, there was so much in her that was still like the quick, brave, confrontational girl he had first met years ago, when he was Pitt’s sergeant and she was his opinionated little housemaid. She had challenged Tellman, contradicted him, and far too often been right. He had tried very hard not to fall in love with her, and failed utterly. It had taken him years even to catch her attention, let alone her respect. At least that was how it seemed.
    Now she looked at him tenderly, the same way she looked at their child.
    He felt a wave of emotion wash over him completely, and he concentrated on his toast as if it was a complicated masterwork.
    “They’re police, and they’re dead, or worse,” he said finally. “I’m alive. They’re my own people, Gracie. I’ve got to find out what happened to them, and who did it. I’ve got to show people that police are good men doing a job that shouldn’t get them killed. I owe them that…them that are gone, and all them that are still here and still out on the streets.”
    “Be careful,” she warned. “Somebody did it. They in’t going ter want you finding them. Don’t let ’em kill you too, Samuel.”
    She was doing everything she could to hide her fear, but he saw it. He did not want her frightened, hurt in any way; but if she had not been afraid for him, that would have settled over him like a darkness, a loneliness he had not felt since the day she had said she would marry him. If anything did happen to him, could she possibly miss him as much as he would miss her?
    Perhaps losing an arm, a leg, not being able to look after her, would be worse than being dead.
    “I’ll take care,” he said firmly, and then before she