Gavin knew there was something different about the flat as soon as he unlocked the door. After his interview with the super, he had collected the assortment of newspapers from his desk, and then, having no further excuse to tarry, had gone home.

He stood in the hall, listening, hearing nothing but the faint ticking of the clock in the sitting room. The clock had been a wedding gift from his in-laws, a carved Bavarian piece with little male and female figures that toddled out on the hour, and he hated it.

"Linda?" he called out tentatively, but his own voice sounded unnaturally loud and echoed back to him. The flat, he realized, was dark as well as quiet. Linda was frugal in saving on the electricity, but usually she left a small lamp burning, even if she was out.

He set his bundle of newspapers on the shelf in the hall and walked slowly towards the sitting room, chiding himself when he realized he was tiptoeing. It was his house, for God's sake-what reason had he to be afraid?

But when he reached the sitting room, he found it dark as well, and when he switched on the lamp, it took him a moment to work out what was wrong.

The children's photos were missing from the side table. As was Linda's basket of darning, and the stack of women's magazines in the rack beside the sofa. Nor were there any children's shoes or scattered schoolbooks.

The clock, however, remained, and it struck the hour, making him jump. The little painted husband and wife trundled out in their ritual parade, and it seemed to Gavin that they were mocking him.

"Linda?" he called again. "Susie? Stuart?" But this time he didn't really expect an answer.

He found the note in the kitchen, beside a slab of cheese and the heel end of a loaf of bread left on a plate.

She said she had taken the children to her mother's. She didn't say if she meant for a visit or for good, but when he went into the bedroom, he found her clothes missing from the cupboard and the dressing table empty of hairbrush and cosmetics. The bed was neatly covered with the candlewick spread, and the faint scent of Linda's perfume lingered, like a ghost of all the things his marriage might have been.

Gavin sat down on the bed, the springs creaking beneath his weight, and wondered how long it had been since they had had to be careful not to wake the children. He closed his eyes against a sudden vertigo. Had she really left him?

He wavered between relief and terror, then laughed aloud, hearing the edge of hysteria and not caring.

His wife and children were gone, his job at risk. What had he left to lose?

"Bloody hell," Cullen heard Kincaid mutter. Then Kincaid snapped at the constable. "Who's in charge here?"

The PC looked at him blankly.

"Your SIO, man. Senior investigating officer. Don't they teach you anything these days?"

"Sir, they just told me not to let anyone through the barricade." He gestured at the accident investigators. "I don't think CID's been called in. An accident-"

"It wasn't an accident. And I'll be taking over this case. Now go tell the lads this is a crime scene while I get things organized." He was already pulling out his phone as the constable gave him a harried-rabbit look and sprinted for the investigators.

"You're sure?" asked Cullen, before Kincaid could dial.

"Of course I'm bloody sure." Kincaid turned on him, and Cullen realized he was in a blazing fury. He didn't blame the constable for hightailing it out of range. "Someone is a step ahead of us, and this poor bastard-Harry Pevensey-is dead because of it. I don't intend to let this happen again, and heads are going to roll for no one having had the sense to call in CID before now. We should have seen the body in situ. The pathologist should have seen the body. And I want the uniform who interviewed the neighbor who found him."

He punched in numbers as if the phone were complicit in the cock-up.

As Cullen listened to his boss working his way up the food chain, first at the local station, then at the Yard, with increasing ire, he was glad not to be on the receiving end. Kincaid usually managed through diplomacy, and Cullen guessed that some of his uncharacteristic burst of anger was directed towards himself.

But how could they have prevented this chap's death when they hadn't known who he was until that morning? If Kincaid thought they could have talked the information out of Amir Khan without a warrant, he was overestimating their powers of persuasion.

Could Khan, who had known the warrant was imminent, have decided to silence Harry Pevensey? Cullen's friend in Fraud had not got back to him-he would give him another call at the first opportunity.

Now he studied the accident scene, and when Kincaid had ended his calls, said, "Guv, how the hell did someone manage to run this bloke over here? It's a bottleneck, and difficult enough to get a car round the bend at a crawl."

Kincaid followed his gaze, frowning. "They didn't come round the bend. See that?" He pointed to a refurbished block of flats that faced Hanway Place's sharp right-hand jog. "They could have reversed into that little alcove, and waited. That way they had a straight shot down this section of the street."

"Still," argued Cullen, "they wouldn't have been able to get up much speed."

"Enough to knock him down," Kincaid said grimly. "And if it was the same car that hit Kristin, it was an SUV, and it might have been possible to reverse over him."

"Ugh. Risky as hell."

"So was Kristin Cahill's murder, which was one reason I thought it might not have been premeditated. But perhaps getting away with that one made him cocky."

"Whoever it was knew Kristin Cahill's patterns, and this bloke's-Pevensey," Cullen speculated.

"Or made a damned good guess," Kincaid said. "While we're waiting for uniform to get here with the witness's name and statement, let's see if the accident lads confirm our theory. And then we need to get into Harry Pevensey's flat."

"Good God, the guy was an old maid," said Cullen, surveying Harry Pevensey's flat from the door. "This stuff looks like something out of my gran's."

They had not waited for uniform to bring them a key from the victim's effects, but had got the flat number and rung a mobile locksmith.

The flat, in a housing-authority block that had seen better days, was little more than a bedsit, one room, with a small kitchen alcove and a doorway leading to what he assumed was the bath. The furnishings, like the building, were well worn, but what Kincaid saw was quality, carefully, perhaps even desperately, preserved.

The bed was neatly made, the kitchen tidy. One wall held a collection of signed photographs of actors Kincaid vaguely recognized, while on the other a false mantel framed an electric fire. Propped on the mantel were postcards and invitations, some yellowing with age. A small painted secretary looked like the only possible receptacle for papers.

"He liked his gin," said Cullen, who had gone straight for the rubbish bin in the kitchen. "Cheap stuff, for the most part."

Kincaid had gone to examine the little gallery more closely. Several of the obviously dated photos showed a handsome, dark-haired man with more well-known stage actors, and were signed, "To Harry."

Cullen had moved on from the kitchen and was riffling through the bills tucked into one of the secretary's compartments. "Electricity overdue. Overdue account with a local off-license-that's no surprise-and it looks like he owed his"-he held the paper up and squinted at it-"his tailor. This guy had a tailor?" He gave a dismissive glance round the flat. "Money could have been better spent, if you ask-"