"I'm sure!" Evan nodded, aware of other eyes staring at them, and of the supervisor's grim face a dozen yards away. "What made you realise he was dead?”

"Blood!" she said with contempt, but her voice was hoarse. "All that blood. I 'ad a lantern, an' I saw 'is eyes, starin' up at me. That were well I yelled. Couldn't 'elp it.”

"Of course. Anyone would. What then?”

"I dunno. Me 'eart were goin' like the clappers an' I felt sick. I fink as I jus' stood there and yelled.”

"Who heard you?”

"Wot?”

"Who heard you?" he repeated. "Someone must have come.”

She hesitated, afraid again. She did not dare implicate someone else. He could see it in her eyes. Monk would have known what to do to make her speak. He had a sense of people's weaknesses and how to use them without breaking them. He did not lose sight of the main purpose the way Evan too often did. He was not sidetracked by irrelevant pity, imagining himself in their place, which was false. He did not know how they felt. He would have said Evan was sentimental.

Evan could hear Monk's voice in his mind even as he thought it. It was true. And people did not want pity. They would have hated him for it.

It was the ultimate indignity.

"Who came?" he said more sharply. "Do you want me to go around every door, pulling people out and asking them? Would you like to be arrested for lying to the police? Get you noticed! Get you a bad name." He meant it would make people think she was a police informer, and she knew that.

"Jimmy Elders," she said, looking at him with dislike. "An' 'is woman.

They both come. "E lives 'alfway along the alley, be' and the wood door wif the lock on it. But 'e don' know wot 'appened any more'n I do. Then ol' Briggs. "E went for the rozzer.”

"Thank you." He knew it was a waste of time asking, but he had to go through the motions. "Had you ever seen either of the two men before, when they were alive?”