“I want a drink,” said Strike. “Let’s go to the Tottenham.”

There was no possibility of talking on the way, not with the racket of pneumatic drills still issuing from the trenches in the road, but the fluorescent-jacketed workmen neither wolf-whistled nor cat-called with Strike walking at Robin’s side. At last they reached Strike’s favorite local pub, with its ornate gilded mirrors, its panels of dark wood, its shining brass pumps, the colored glass cupola and the paintings of gamboling beauties by Felix de Jong.

Strike ordered a pint of Doom Bar. Robin, who could not face alcohol, asked for a coffee.

“So?” said Robin, once the detective had returned to the high table beneath the cupola. “Who are the three men?”

“I could be barking up a forest of wrong trees, don’t forget,” said Strike, sipping his pint.

“All right,” said Robin. “Who are they?”

“Twisted individuals who’ve all got good reason to hate my guts.”

Inside Strike’s head, a frightened, skinny twelve-year-old girl with scarring around her leg surveyed him through lopsided glasses. Had it been her right leg? He couldn’t remember. Jesus, don’t let it be her…

“Who?” Robin said again, losing patience.

“There are two army guys,” said Strike, rubbing his stubbly chin. “They’re both crazy enough and violent enough to—to—”

A gigantic, involuntary yawn interrupted him. Robin waited for cogent speech to resume, wondering whether he had been out with his new girlfriend the previous evening. Elin was an ex-professional violinist, now a presenter on Radio Three, a stunning Nordic-looking blonde who reminded Robin of a more beautiful Sarah Shadlock. She supposed that this was one reason why she had taken an almost immediate dislike to Elin. The other was that she had, in Robin’s hearing, referred to her as Strike’s secretary.

“Sorry,” Strike said. “I was up late writing up notes for the Khan job. Knackered.”

He checked his watch.

“Shall we go downstairs and eat? I’m starving.”

“In a minute. It’s not even twelve. I want to know about these men.”

Strike sighed.

“All right,” he said, dropping his voice as a man passed their table on the way to the bathroom. “Donald Laing, King’s Own Royal Borderers.” He remembered again eyes like a ferret’s, concentrated hatred, the rose tattoo. “I got him life.”

“But then—”

“Out in ten,” said Strike. “He’s been on the loose since 2007. Laing wasn’t your run-of-the-mill nutter, he was an animal, a clever, devious animal; a sociopath—the real deal, if you ask me. I got him life for something I shouldn’t have been investigating. He was about to get off on the original charge. Laing’s got bloody good reason to hate my guts.”

But he did not say what Laing had done or why he, Strike, had been investigating it. Sometimes, and frequently when talking about his career in the Special Investigation Branch, Robin could tell by Strike’s tone when he had come to the point beyond which he did not wish to speak. She had never yet pushed him past it. Reluctantly, she abandoned the subject of Donald Laing.