The fatigue she had been fighting all day washed over her anew as she ambled around the supermarket. It was deciding what to eat that was effortful; she would have found it quite soothing merely to shop from a list that somebody else had prepared. Like the working mothers seeking anything quick to cook, Robin gave up and chose a lot of pasta. Queuing at the checkout, she found herself right behind the young woman whose baby had at last exhausted itself and now slept as though dead, fists flung out, eyes tight shut.

“Cute,” said Robin, who felt the girl needed encouragement.

“When he’s asleep,” the mother replied with a weak smile.

By the time Robin had let herself in at home she was truly exhausted. To her surprise, Matthew was standing waiting for her in the narrow hall.

“I shopped!” he said when he saw the four bulging shopping bags in her hands and she heard his disappointment that the grand gesture had been undermined. “I sent you a text that I was going to Waitrose!”

“Must’ve missed it,” said Robin. “Sorry.”

She had probably been on the phone to Strike. They might even have been there at the same time, but of course she had spent half her visit skulking among the wine and spirits.

Matthew walked forward, arms outstretched, and pulled her into a hug with what she could not help but feel was infuriating magnanimity. Even so, she had to admit that he looked, as always, wonderfully handsome in his dark suit, his thick tawny hair swept back off his forehead.

“It must’ve been scary,” he murmured, his breath warm in her hair.

“It was,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist.

They ate pasta in peace, without a single mention of Sarah Shadlock, Strike or Jacques Burger. The furious ambition of that morning, to make Matthew acknowledge that it had been Sarah, not she, who had voiced admiration of curly hair, had burned out. Robin felt that she was being rewarded for her mature forbearance when Matthew said apologetically:

“I’m going to have to do a bit of work after dinner.”

“No problem,” said Robin. “I wanted an early night anyway.”

She took a low-calorie hot chocolate and a copy of Grazia to bed with her, but she could not concentrate. After ten minutes, she got up and fetched her laptop, took it back to bed with her and Googled Jeff Whittaker.

She had read the Wikipedia entry before, during one of her guilty trawls through Strike’s past, but now she read with greater attention. It started with a familiar disclaimer:

This article has multiple issues.

This article needs additional citations for verification.

This article possibly contains original research.

Jeff Whittaker

Jeff Whittaker (b.1969) is a musician best known for his marriage to 1970s supergroupie Leda Strike, whom he was charged with killing in 1994.^[1] Whittaker is a grandson of diplomat Sir Randolph Whittaker KCMB DSO.

Early Life

Whittaker was raised by his grandparents. His teenage mother, Patricia Whittaker, was schizophrenic.^{[citation needed]} Whittaker never knew who his father was.^{[citation needed]} He was expelled from Gordonstoun School after drawing a knife on a member of staff.^{[citation needed]} He claims that his grandfather locked him in a shed for three days following his expulsion, a charge his grandfather denies.^[2] Whittaker ran away from home and lived rough for a period during his teens. He also claims to have worked as a gravedigger.^{[citation needed]}