The room they entered was long and narrow, with a second, wider area visible through arched openings to their left. White tablecloths, suited waiters, high-vaulted ceilings and contemporary art all over the walls increased Strike’s dread of how much this was going to cost him as they followed the maître d’ into the inner portion of the room.

The pair they sought was easy to spot among the tastefully dressed, mostly female clientele. Jason was a stringy youth with a long nose who wore a maroon hoodie and jeans and looked as though he might take flight at the slightest provocation. Staring down at his napkin, he resembled a scruffy heron. Tempest, whose black bob had certainly been dyed and who wore thick, square black-rimmed spectacles, was his physical opposite: pale, dumpy and doughy, her small, deep-set eyes like raisins in a bun. Wearing a black T-shirt with a multicolored cartoon pony stretched across an ample chest, she was sitting in a wheelchair adjacent to the table. Both had menus open in front of them. Tempest had already ordered herself a glass of wine.

When she spotted Strike and Robin approaching, Tempest beamed, stretched out a stubby forefinger and poked Jason on the shoulder. The boy looked around apprehensively; Strike registered the pronounced asymmetry of his pale blue eyes, one of which was a good centimeter higher than the other. It gave him an oddly vulnerable look, as though he had been finished in a hurry.

“Hi,” said Robin, smiling and reaching out a hand to Jason first. “It’s nice to meet you at last.”

“Hi,” he muttered, proffering limp fingers. After one quick glance at Strike he looked away, turning red.

“Well, hello!” said Tempest, sticking her own hand out to Strike, still beaming. Deftly she reversed her wheelchair a few inches and suggested that he pull up a chair from a neighboring table. “This place is great. It’s so easy to get around in, and the staff are really helpful. Excuse me!” she said loudly to a passing waiter, “Could we have two more menus, please?”

Strike sat down beside her, while Jason shunted up to make room for Robin beside him.

“Lovely space, isn’t it?” said Tempest, sipping her wine. “And the staff are wonderful about the wheelchair. Can’t help you enough. I’m going to be recommending it on my site; I do a list of disability-friendly venues.”

Jason drooped over his menu, apparently afraid to make eye contact with anyone.

“I’ve told him not to mind what he orders.” Tempest told Strike comfortably. “He didn’t realize how much you’ll have made from solving those cases. I’ve told him: the press will have paid you loads just for your story. I suppose that’s what you do now, try and solve the really high-profile ones?”

Strike thought of his plummeting bank balance, his glorified bedsit over the office and the shattering effect the severed leg had had on his business.

“We try,” he said, avoiding looking at Robin.