She dragged the dustbin over to the window, thinking that she had an advantage over normal burglars. She didn’t mind getting caught; in fact, if the owner of the house was disturbed that would be a good thing. And if a passer-by spotted her, she could ask them for help, even if she came across as a rabid fan – or possibly a particularly blatant stalker.

The dustbin was a bit wobbly but she managed to wedge it steady with a couple of big stones she excavated from the edge of the flowerbed. Dermot had obviously not been much of a gardener even before he became a recluse so she didn’t think he’d notice or even care what she did.

There was a wooden garden chair and she dragged it over to add stability to the dustbin. Once she was sure it wouldn’t fall over, she stood on the chair, and then, gingerly, stepped on to the dustbin.

From there she could see the catch of the main part of the window but she couldn’t quite reach it, even when she leant right over. But a stick might do it.

It took her a lot of wiggling but eventually she got the handle to unlatch. A lot of scrabbling later she got it open enough to get the stick in the gap. The window opened.

She was almost disappointed that no one had seen her, she felt so proud of herself as she fought through the curtain, got her leg up over the sill and landed in the sitting room.

Once there, she listened, in case her housebreaking had disturbed Dermot. As there was no other sound in the house a sudden panic took hold of Laura. Supposing he was dead! Supposing she was about to find a rotting corpse!

Her thoughts were so confused that for a few moments she didn’t know if the thought of Dermot being dead was more terrible than the thought of finding his body. She broke into a sweat while she talked herself into a more reasonable frame of mind. Marion at the b. and b. hadn’t indicated that anyone was worried that he was dead, and they would be if his death were at all likely. They just hadn’t seen him since he’d been besieged by the press. She decided to hunt him out.

Although she knew, really, that he wouldn’t be downstairs, she thought she’d take a look around, to give her an idea of how he’d been living.