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Robin had been asked to do several things, in the course of her brief te career, that were outside the terms of a secretarial contract, and had therefore been a little unnerved by Strike’s suggestion of a walk She was pleased, however, to acquit Strike of any flirtatious intent The long walk to this spot had been conducted in alht, and occasionally consulting his map

Upon their arrival in Alderbrook Road, however, he had said:

“If you spot anything, or you think of anything I haven’t, tell me, won’t you?”

This was rather thrilling: Robin prided herself on her observational powers; they were one reason she had secretly cherished the childhood a She looked intelligently up and down the street, and tried to visualize what soht, in sub-zero te

“This way,” said Strike, however, before any insights could occur to her, and they walked off, side by side, along Bellaently to the left and continued for solossy black doors, their short railings either side of clean white steps and their topiary-filled tubs Here and there werenalinted from upper s, and one door stood open to reveal a checkerboard floor, oil paintings in gold fraian staircase

As he walked, Strike pondered soed to find on the internet thatAs Strike had suspected, Bristow had not been honest when he asserted that the police had made no effort to trace the Runner and his sidekick Buried in volue that survived online were appeals for the men to come forward, but they seemed to have yielded no results

Unlike Bristow, Strike did not find any of this suggestive of police incoated The sudden sounding of a car alarested a good reason for their reluctance to talk to the police Moreover, Strike did not knohether Bristoas fae, but he hi blurry black-and-white ilean a true likeness

Strike had also noticed that Bristow had said not a word in person, or in his notes, about the DNA evidence gathered froly suspected, from the fact that the police had been happy to exclude the Runner and his friend fron DNA had been found there However, Strike knew that the truly deluded would happily discount such trivialities as DNA evidence, citing contamination, or conspiracy They sahat they wanted to see, blind to inconvenient, implacable truth

But the Google searches of the ested a possible explanation for Bristow’s fixation on the Runner His sister had been researching her biological roots, and had ed to trace her birth mother, who sounded, even when allowance was made for press sensationalism, an unsavory character Doubtless revelations such as those that Robin had found online would have been unpleasant not just for Landry, but for her whole adoptive family Was it part of Bristow’s instability (for Strike could not pretend to hiave the impression of a well-balanced man) that he believed Lula, so fortunate in some ways, had te to pluins; that she had woken a demon that had reached out of the distant past, and killed her? Was that why a black man in her vicinity so disturbed him?

Deeper and deeper into the enclave of the wealthy Strike and Robin walked, until they arrived at the corner of Kentigern Gardens Like Bella, self-contained prosperity The houses here were high Victorian, red brick with stone dressings and heavy pedimented s on four floors, with their own small stone balconies White marble porticos framed each entrance, and three white steps led fro was expensively well in declared that pere

No longer set apart by police tape and raceful conforhbors

“The balcony she fell from was on the top floor,” said Strike, “about forty feet up, I’d say”

He contee The balconies on the top three floors, Robin saere shalloith barely standing roo s

“The thing is,” Strike told Robin, while he squinted at the balcony high above theuarantee death”

“Oh—but surely?” protested Robin, conte the awful drop between top balcony and hard road

“You’d be surprised I spent a ot blown off a building about that height S, but he’s still with us”

Robin glanced at Strike, wondering why he had been in bed for aat the front door

“Keypad,” hethe metal square inset with buttons, “and a camera over the door Bristow didn’t mention a camera Could be new”

He stood for a fewred-brick face of these fantastically expensive fortresses Why had Lula Landry chosen to live here in the first place? Sedate, traditional, stuffy, Kentigern Gardens was surely the natural doarchs; corporate giants splitting their time between town and their country estates; wealthy spinsters, slowly decaying ae choice of abode for a girl of twenty-three, who ran, according to every story Robin had read out that , with a hip, creative crohose celebrated sense of style owed more to the street than the salon

“It looks very well protected, doesn’t it?” said Robin

“Yeah, it does And that’s without the crowd of paparazzi ere standing guard over it that night”

Strike leaned back against the black railings of nu at number 18 The s of Landry’s former residence were taller than those on the lower floors, and its balcony, unlike the other two, had not been decorated with topiary shrubs Strike slipped a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and offered Robin one; she shook her head, surprised, because she had not seen hi lit up and inhaled deeply, he said, with his eyes on the front door:

“Bristow thinks soht, undetected”

Robin, who had already decided that the building was iht that Strike was about to pour scorn on the theory, but she rong

“If they did,” said Strike, eyes still on the door, “it was planned, and planned well Nobody could’ve got past photographers, a keypad, a security guard and a closed inner door, and out again, on luck alone Thing is,” he scratched his chin, “that degree of premeditation doesn’t fit with such a slapdash murder”

Robin found the choice of adjective callous

“Pushing so,” said Strike, as though he had felt her inner wince “Hot blood Blind temper”

He found Robin’s coing off his every word, and had not troubled to break his silences, but because that little sapphire ring on her third finger was like a neat full stop: this far, and no further It suited him perfectly He was free to show off, in a veryto him

“But what if the killer was already inside?”

“That’s a lot more plausible,” said Strike, and Robin felt very pleased with herself “And if a killer was already in there, we’ve got the choice between the sec

urity guard hiuis, or so without anyone’s knowledge If it was either of the Bestiguis, or Wilson, there’s no getting-in-and-out problem; all they had to do was return to the places they were supposed to be There was still the risk she could have survived, injured, to tell the tale, but a hot-blooded, unpremeditated crime makes a lot more sense if one of them did it A row and a blind shove”

Strike sarette and continued to scrutinize the front of the building, in particular the gap between the s on the first floor and those on the third He was thinking pri to what Robin had found on the internet, Bestigui had been in bed asleep when Lula Landry toppled over the balcony two floors above The fact that it was Bestigui’s oho had sounded the alarm, and insisted that the killer was still upstairs while her husband stood beside her, iuilty Nevertheless, Freddie Bestigui had been the irl at the time of her death Laymen, in Strike’s experience, were obsessed with motive: opportunity topped the professional’s list

Unwittingly confir her civilian status, Robin said:

“But ould sou on with her neighbors, did it? And Tansy Bestigui definitely couldn’t have done it, could she? Why would she run downstairs and tell the security guard if she’d just pushed Lula over the balcony?”

Strike did not answer directly; he seeht, and after a moment or two replied:

“Bristow’s fixated on the quarter of an hour after his sister went inside, after the photographers had left and the security guard had abandoned the desk because he was ill That able—but hoas anyone outside the building supposed to know that Wilson had left his post? The front door’s not lass”