He found no one on duty at the door of Katrina’s building, but there was a beat constable twenty yards away. He hesitated. Should he wait until the man moved on, then try to sneak in, and if he was caught think of some excuse for not being honest? Or would it be better to go up to him boldly, lie about having thought of something useful and having Runcorn’s permission to search? Implicitly he did have. Runcorn wanted him to prove Dalgarno’s guilt.

There were only two choices; the latter had dangers, but it was the better of the two. He forced the consequences out of his mind. Fear would show in his face, and if the constable was very good he would see it. He walked firmly up to the constable and stopped in front of him.

“Good morning, Constable,” he said with a very faint smile, no more than a gesture of civility. “My name is Monk. You may remember me from the night Miss Harcus was killed.” He saw recognition in the man’s face with a wave of relief. “Mr. Runcorn has asked for my assistance, since I knew Miss Harcus and was working on a case for her. I need to go into the house again and make a further search. I do not require your assistance. I am simply informing you so that you are not concerned if you see me there.”

“Right, sir. Thank you,” the constable said with a nod. “If you need me, sir, I’ll be ’ere.”

“Good. I’ll send for you if there’s anything. Good day.” And before the man could sense his tension, he turned and left, going as rapidly as he dared toward the house. He had no keys. He was going to have to fiddle with the lock and pick his way in, but that was an art he had learned from a master in the days before the accident, and the skill had not left him.

He was inside the house within seconds, and retraced his steps up to Katrina’s rooms. It took him even less time to pick the lock on her door, and then he was in the room. The sense of tragedy closed around him, the silence, the very faint film of dust showing on the wooden surfaces in the sunlight through the bay windows. Perhaps to someone else it would simply have looked like the room of someone on holiday; to him the presence of death was as tangible as another person watching him, waiting.

He jerked his attention back to the moment. There was no time to think about what had happened here, to try to picture Dalgarno, if it had been him, standing probably where Monk was now, charming her, quarreling, whatever it had been, then going out onto the balcony with her, the last furious words, the struggle, and her falling . . .