At that point, an assistant swept forward to do the cleanup and Willeford stripped off his scrubs, tossed them in a bin in the corner, and invited Isabelle to “‘step into my parlour said the spider,’ et cetera. I’ve a bit more for you in here.”

A bit more turned out to be the information that two hairs had been caught up in the victim’s hands, and he had little doubt that SOCO would soon inform her that fibres aplenty had been taken from her clothing. “Got rather close to her killer, if you know what I mean,” Willeford said with a wink.

Isabelle wondered if this counted as sexual harassment, as she asked blandly, “Intercourse? Rape? A struggle?”

Nothing, he said. Absolutely no evidence. She was, if he might put it this way, a willing participant in whatever went on between herself and the owner of the fibres. Likely that was why she’d been found where she’d been found, as there was no evidence she’d been dragged anywhere against her will, no bruises, no skin under the fingernails, that sort of thing, he said.

Did he have an opinion on what position she was in when she was attacked? Isabelle asked the pathologist. What about time of death? How long had she likely lived after the assault upon her? From what direction did the injury occur? Was the killer left-or right-handed?

Willeford fished in the pocket of his windcheater at this point-he’d left it behind a door and he fetched it over to where they were sitting-and brought out a nutrition bar. Had to keep his blood sugar up, he confessed. His metabolism was the curse of his life.

Isabelle could see this was the case. Out of his scrubs, he was thin as a garden hoe. At a height of at least six feet six inches, he likely needed to keep eating all day, which had to be difficult in his line of work.

He told her that the presence of the maggots put time of death at twenty-four to thirty-six hours before the body was found, although considering the heat, the closer call would be twenty-four. She’d have been upright when she was attacked, and her assailant was right-handed. Toxicology would show if drugs or alcohol was involved, but that would take some time, as would the DNA from the hair, as there were “follicles attached and isn’t that lovely?”

Isabelle asked if he reckoned the killer had been in front of or behind the young woman.

Definitely standing in front of her, the pathologist said.

Which meant, Isabelle concluded, that she may have known her killer.

ISABELLE ALSO WENT alone on her next call that day. In advance she studied the route, and she was relieved to see that the direction she needed to follow to Eaton Terrace was not a complicated matter. The important bit was not to bollocks things up in the vicinity of Victoria Station. If she kept her wits about her and did not become unnerved by the traffic, she knew she should be able to work her way through the skein of streets without ending up either at the river or-in the other direction-at Buckingham Palace.

As it happened, she did make one wrong turn when she got to Eaton Terrace, choosing left over right, but she saw the error of her ways when she began reading the house numbers on the stately front doors. After turning round, things were simple although she sat in her car for a full two minutes when she arrived at her destination, considering what approach she wished to use.

She finally decided that the truth was best, which, she admitted, was generally the case. Still, in order to speak it, she found that she wanted something to assist, and that something was tucked into the bottom of her bag. She was glad she’d thought to bring more than one airline bottle along for her workday.

She drained the vodka. She rested the last of it on her tongue for a good long while till it heated up. She swallowed and then fished for a piece of Juicy Fruit. She chewed this on her walk to the front steps of the house, and on the marble draughtsboard that marked what went for the porch, she removed the gum, ran some gloss over her lips, and touched the lapels of her jacket to smooth them. Then she rang the bell.

She knew he had a man-what an odd term, she thought-and it was this individual who answered the door, youngish, owlish, and dressed in tennis gear, which seemed an odd enough getup for a servant, personal assistant, butler, or whatever an earl-in-hiding would have. For that was how Isabelle thought of DI Thomas Lynley, as an earl-in-hiding, because it was frankly inconceivable to her why someone in his social position would choose to spend his life as a cop unless it was an incognito sort of thing in which he hid himself away from the rest of his kind. And his kind were the sort of people whose pictures one saw on the cover of tabloids when they got themselves into trouble, or inside the pages of Hello!, OK!, Tatler and the like, hoisting champagne flutes at the photographer. They went into nightclubs and stayed till dawn, they skied in the Alps-French, Italian, or Swiss, what did it matter?-and they traveled to places like Portofino or Santorini or other multisyllabic Mediterranean, Ionian, or Aegean locations ending in vowels. But they didn’t work at ordinary jobs, and if they did because they needed the money, they certainly didn’t choose to be coppers.

“Afternoon,” the tennis-clad man said. He was Charlie Denton. Isabelle had done her homework.

She showed her ID and introduced herself. “Mr. Denton, I’m trying to locate the inspector. Is he at home by any chance?”

If he was surprised that she knew his identity, Charlie Denton was too careful to let it show. He said, “As it happens…,” and he admitted her into the house. He indicated a doorway to her right, which led into a reception room done up in a quite pleasant shade of green. He said, “I expect he’s in the library.” He gestured to a simple arrangement of furniture round a fireplace and said he could fetch her a drink if she’d like one. She thought about accepting the offer and tossing back a vodka martini straight up, but she declined as she reckoned he was referring to something more in line with the fact that she was still on duty.

While he went to find his…Isabelle wondered what the term was: his master? his employer? his what?…she took in the room. The building was a town house and it likely had been in Lynley’s family for quite some time, as no one had got inside to destroy the features that had gone into its making in the nineteenth century. Thus it still possessed its plaster ceiling decorations along with its mouldings above, below, and around. Isabelle reckoned there were endless architectural terms for it all, but she didn’t know any of them although she was perfectly capable of admiring them.

She didn’t sit but rather walked to the window overlooking the street. A table sat beneath its sill and this held several framed photographs, among them a wedding picture of Lynley and his wife. Isabelle picked this up and studied it. It was casual and spontaneous, the bride and groom laughing and glowing amid a crowd of well-wishers.

She’d been very attractive, Isabelle saw. Not beautiful, porcelain, classic, doll-like, or whatever else one wished to call a woman on her wedding day. She was no English rose either. She’d been dark haired and dark eyed, with an oval face and an appealing smile. She’d been fashionably slender as well. But weren’t they always? Isabelle thought.

“Superintendent Ardery?”

She turned, the picture still in her hands. She’d expected grey-faced grief-perhaps a smoking jacket, a pipe in hand, and slippers on his feet or something equally and ludicrously Edwardian-but Thomas Lynley was quite tanned, his hair was lightened to blond by exposure to the sun, and he wore blue jeans and a polo shirt with three buttons and a collar.

She’d forgotten his eyes were brown. They were watching her without speculation. He’d sounded surprised when he’d said her name, but whatever else he might be feeling, he didn’t reveal it.