“Keys?” he echoed.

“Yeah, for the flat.” When in doubt, gabble. It was a lesson Lindsay had learned from Helen years ago, and she’d just had the refresher course. “The thing is, Penny’s girlfriend, Meredith, is in a bit of a state, as you can imagine, and I’m over here in England with her trying to get things sorted out. You know what it’s like, all the bureaucracy. Anyway, I’m just trying to sort out the practical stuff, and Penny’s agent is desperate to get hold of the manuscript of Penny’s last book, and it’s stuck on the hard disk of her computer, which of course is in the flat, and the police are being really difficult about letting anyone in, so I thought if I could get the keys and just nip in and out . . . I mean, you know me, you know I wouldn’t be doing anything I shouldn’t be doing . . .”

“I don’t know,” he said hesitantly. “If the police don’t want you to go in . . .”

“There’s no reason for us not to go into the flat. It’s not as if the police have any objections, it’s just that they’re being really awkward about fixing up a time when we can go and sort it out. I don’t have to tell you about bureaucracy, you’re dealing with American academia.”

“Yeah,” he said, with feeling. “Oh, I suppose it’ll be okay. I can’t see any real problem, and the police have had days now to do whatever it is they have to do. I left a spare set with Miriam’s sister. She lives up in Hampstead.” Brian gave Lindsay the address and promised to phone his sister-in-law right away to warn her Lindsay was on her way.

What felt like a lifetime later, Lindsay emerged from the rancid stuffiness of the tube into sunlight at Highbury Corner. Even though it was laden with traffic fumes, the air was still fresh enough to rouse her from the virtually catatonic state she’d reached underground thanks to the combination of heat, jet lag, lack of oxygen and lack of proper sleep. She hoped her exhaustion wouldn’t make her miss anything in the flat. Probably it could have waited till the following day, but Lindsay had never liked leaving till tomorrow what could be thrashed out today. Besides, this was a good time to make an unauthorized entry. At the end of the working day, all sorts of people were going in and out of buildings where they didn’t necessarily live.

To guard against her potential for carelessness, she stopped at a chain-store chemist for a pack of disposable latex gloves. A few minutes later, she turned into the street where Brian and Miriam occupied the middle flat in a converted Georgian terraced house. Even though she was pretty certain the police would have finished by now with the scene of crime, that was no reason to take chances. She walked right to the end of the street, then kept turning right till she’d done a circuit of the block and was back where she’d started. She’d seen no sign of any police officers, nor did there seem to be any twitching curtains or faces at windows as she strolled down the street for the second time.