Strike’s eyes followed her hand, but what caught his attention was not the small stack of neatly written papers she was showing him, but the sapphire engagement ring.

There was a pause. Robin wondered why her heart was pummeling her ribs. How ridiculous to feel defensive… it was up to her whether she married Matthew… ludicrous even to feel she had to state that to herself…

“Back on, is it?” Strike said, turning his back on her as he hung up his jacket and backpack.

“Yes,” said Robin.

There was a short pause. Strike turned back to face her.

“I haven’t got enough work for you. We’re down to one job. I can cover Mad Dad on my own.”

She narrowed her gray-blue eyes.

“What about Brockbank and Laing and Whittaker?”

“What about them?”

“Aren’t you still trying to find them?”

“Yes, but that’s not the—”

“So how are you going to cover four cases?”

“They’re not cases. No one’s paying—”

“So they’re a kind of hobby, are they?” said Robin. “That’s why I’ve been looking for numbers all weekend?”

“Look—I want to trace them, yes,” said Strike, trying to marshal his arguments through heavy fatigue and other, less easily definable emotions (the engagement was back on… he had suspected all along that it might happen… sending her home, giving her time with Matthew would have helped, of course), “but I don’t—”

“You were happy enough to let me drive you to Barrow,” said Robin, who had come prepared for argument. She had known perfectly well he didn’t want her back in the office. “You didn’t mind me questioning Holly Brockbank and Lorraine MacNaughton, did you? So what’s changed?”

“You got sent another fucking body part, that’s what’s fucking changed, Robin!”

He had not intended to shout, but his voice echoed off the filing cabinets.

Robin remained impassive. She had seen Strike angry before, heard him swear, seen him punch those very metal drawers. It didn’t bother her.

“Yes,” she said calmly, “and it shook me up. I think most people would have been shaken up by getting a toe stuck inside a card. You looked pretty sick about it yourself.”

“Yeah, which is why—”

“—you’re trying to cover four cases single-handedly and you sent me home. I didn’t ask for time off.”

In the euphoric aftermath of replacing her ring, Matthew had actually helped her rehearse her case for returning to work. It had been quite extraordinary, looking back on it, he pretending to be Strike and she putting her arguments, but Matthew had been ready to help her do anything at all, so long as she agreed to marry him on the second of July.

“I wanted to get straight back to—”

“Just because you wanted to get back to work,” said Strike, “doesn’t mean it was in your best interests to do so.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize you’re a qualified occupational therapist,” said Robin, delicately sarcastic.

“Look,” said Strike, more infuriated by her aloof rationality than he would have been with rage and tears (the sapphire sparkling coolly from her finger again), “I’m your employer and it’s down to me if—”