The roses on her desk shriveled slowly. Nobody had bothered to put them in fresh water, so they died quietly in the wrappings in which they had arrived, but Robin was not there to throw them out and Strike, who visited the office infrequently to fetch things, felt it would be out of place for him to dispose of them, or of the still-unopened card.

After the previous week of regular contact Robin and Strike had resumed a work pattern that meant they rarely saw each other, taking it in turns to follow Platinum and Mad Dad, who had returned from America and immediately resumed the stalking of his young sons. On Thursday afternoon they discussed by phone the question of whether Robin should try Noel Brockbank again, because he had still not called her back. After consideration, Strike told her that Venetia Hall, busy lawyer, would have other fish to fry.

“If he hasn’t contacted you by tomorrow you can try again. That’ll be a full working week. Course, his lady friend might have lost the number.”

When Strike had hung up, Robin resumed her wanderings in Edge Street in Kensington, which was where Mad Dad’s family lived. The location did nothing to lift Robin’s spirits. She had begun looking online for somewhere else to live, but the places she would be able to afford on the salary Strike paid her were even worse than she had feared, single rooms in shared houses the best she could expect.

The beautiful Victorian mews houses that surrounded her, with glossy front doors, leafy climbing plants, window boxes and bright sash windows, spoke of the comfortable, prosperous existence to which Matthew had aspired back in the days that Robin seemed ready to embrace a more lucrative career. She had told him all along that she did not care about money, or at least not as much as he did, and that remained true, but it would be a strange human being, she thought, who could linger among these pretty, quiet houses and not compare them, to the others’ detriment, with “small room in strictly vegan household, mobile phone tolerated if used in bedroom” that was just within her price range, or the cupboard-sized room in Hackney in “friendly and respectful household ready to TAKE YOU ON BOARD!”

Her mobile rang again. She tugged the phone out of her jacket pocket, expecting Strike, and her stomach turned over: Brockbank. Taking a deep breath, she answered.

“Venetia Hall.”

“You th’lawyer?”

She did not know what she had expected him to sound like. He had taken monstrous form in her mind, this rapist of children, the long-jawed thug with his broken bottle and what Strike believed to be fake amnesia. His voice was deep and his accent, though by no means as thick as his twin’s, remained distinctly Barrovian.

“Yes,” said Robin. “Is that Mr. Brockbank?”

“Aye, tha’s righ’.”

The quality of his silence was somehow threatening. Robin hastened to tell her fictitious story of the compensation that might await him if he were happy to meet her. When she had finished, he said nothing. Robin held her nerve, because Venetia Hall had the self-confidence not to rush to fill a silence, but the crackling of the slack line between them unnerved her.