The mud at the byre door had been walked on since the rain, and Orla saw it before she had set the case down.
She had come up the yard at Cauldkeld with the last of the lower valley in the field book, Nethergill chained to within half a mile of Sellick’s gate while a trooper on the fort wall watched her through a glass. The rain had come through at noon and gone east. It had left the ground at the byre door soft and grey, and in the grey there were prints, and their edges stood up sharp. The rain had not had them.
She crouched. She did it the way he had shown her at Hatch, hands on her knees and her weight back, so as not to put down a print of her own.
Three men. Boots with nails in a double row round the heel;…
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