The cameras returned to the outside of the Goring Hotel, where they were keeping vigil for the first glimpse of Kate Middleton in her wedding dress. Robin took covert glimpses over the top of her laptop while scrolling slowly down a series of barely literate comments about a brothel near Commercial Road.

An outburst of excitable comment and cheering made Robin look up in time to see Kate Middleton climbing into a limousine. Long lace sleeves, just like the ones she had removed from her own wedding dress…

The limousine moved slowly away. Kate Middleton was just visible beside her father in the car. So she had chosen to wear her hair down. Robin had planned to keep her hair down too. Matthew liked it that way. Not that that mattered anymore…

The crowds were cheering all the way down the Mall, Union Jacks as far as the eye could see.

As Matthew turned towards her, Robin pretended to be immersed in her laptop again.

“D’you want tea?”

“No,” she said. “Thanks,” she added grudgingly, aware how aggressive she had sounded.

Her mobile beeped beside her. Matthew often scowled or sulked when this happened on her days off: he expected it to be Strike, which it sometimes was. Today he merely turned back to watch the television.

Robin picked up her mobile and read the text that had just arrived:

How do I know you’re not press?

It was the lead she was pursuing without Strike’s knowledge and she had her answer ready. While the crowds cheered the limousine’s slow progress on screen, she typed in:

If the press knew about you, they’d already be outside your house. I told you to look me up online. There’s a picture of me going into court to give evidence in Owen Quine’s murder case.

Have you found it?

She put the mobile down again, her heart beating faster.

Kate Middleton was getting out of her limousine at the Abbey. Her waist looked tiny in the lace dress. She looked so happy… genuinely happy… Robin’s heart hammered as she watched the beautiful woman in a tiara proceed towards the Abbey entrance.

Her mobile beeped again.

Yes I’ve seen the picture. So?

Matthew made a peculiar noise into his mug of tea. Robin ignored him. He probably thought that she was texting Strike, usually the cause of his little grimaces and noises of exasperation. Switching her mobile to camera mode, Robin held it up in front of her face and took a photo.

The flash startled Matthew, who looked around. He was crying.

Robin’s fingers trembled as she sent the photograph of herself off in a text. After that, not wanting to look at Matthew, she watched the television again.

Kate Middleton and her father were now walking slowly up the scarlet-carpeted aisle that divided a sea of hatted guests. The culmination of a million fairy tales and fables was being played out in front of her: the commoner walking slowly towards her prince, beauty moving inexorably towards high rank…