Now to prepare to investigate the rape of Miss Marianne Gillespie, a delicate and challenging matter, far more worthy of his mettle than petty theft or the reputation of an employee or suitor.

It was a beautiful day when he set out: a hot, high summer sun beating on the pavements, making the leafier squares pleasant refuges from the shimmering light hazy with the rising smoke of distant factory chimneys. Carriages clattered along the street past him, harnesses jingling, as people rode out to take the air or to pay early afternoon calls, drivers and footmen in livery, brasses gleaming. The smell of fresh horse droppings was pungent in the warmth and a twelve-year-old crossing sweeper mopped his brow under a floppy cap.

Monk walked to Hastings Street. It was little over a mile and the additional time would give him further opportunity to think. He welcomed the challenge of a more difficult case, one which would test his skills. Since the trial of Alexandra Carlyon he had had nothing but trivial matters, things that as a policeman he would have delegated to the most junior constable.

Of course the Carlyon case had been different. That had tested him to the utmost. He remembered it with a complexity of feelings, at once triumphant and painful. And with thought of it came memory of Hermione, and unconsciously he lengthened his pace on the hot pavement, his body tightened and his mouth clenched shut in a hard line. He had been afraid when her face first came fleetingly into his mind; a shred of the past returned, uncertain, haunting him with echoes of love, tenderness, and terrible anxiety. He knew he had cared for her, but not when or how, if she had loved him, what had happened between them that he had nothing left, no letters, no pictures, no reference to her in his possessions.