“But you found it straightaway,” Pitt pointed out.

“Could hardly miss it,” Talbot said ruefully. “She was standing there in a long white dress, with the dead man draped over a wheelbarrow in front of her, like she’d just dropped the handles when she heard the constable coming.”

Pitt tried to picture it in his imagination, the dense blackness of the garden in the middle of the night, the crowding leaves, the damp earth, a woman in an evening gown with a corpse in a wheelbarrow.

“There’s nothing for you to do,” Talbot interrupted.

“Possibly.” Pitt refused to be dismissed. “You said there was a gun?”

“Yes. She admitted it was her gun. Had more sense than to try and deny it. Handsome thing, engraved handle. Still warm, and smelled of powder. There’s no doubt it was what killed him.”

“Could it have been an accident?” Pitt asked without any real hope.

Talbot gave a little grunt. “At twenty yards, possibly, but he was shot within a few feet. And what would a woman like that be doing out in the garden with a gun at three in the morning, except on purpose?”

“Was he shot outside?” Pitt asked quickly. Was Talbot making assumptions, possibly wrong?

Talbot smiled very slightly, only a twitch of the lips. “Either that or he was left lying outside for some time afterwards; there was blood on the ground. And none inside, by the way.” His expression tightened, his eyes bright and pale. “Takes a lot of explaining, doesn’t it?”

Pitt said nothing. What on earth did Narraway expect him to do? If Ryerson’s mistress had shot this man, there was no reason why Special Branch should even think of protecting her, much less lie to do it.

“Who was he?” he said aloud.

Talbot leaned back against the wall. “I was wondering when you’d ask that. Edwin Lovat, ex-army officer and minor diplomat with an apparently good record behind him, and until last night, a promising future ahead. Good family, no enemies that we’ve found so far, no debts that we know of yet.” He stopped, waiting for Pitt to ask the next question.