Robin chose the cheapest salad and a water. Tempest ordered a starter as well as a main course, urged Jason to imitate her, then collected in the menus to return them to the waiter with the air of a gracious hostess.

“So, Jason,” Robin began.

Tempest at once talked over Robin, addressing Strike.

“Jason’s nervous. He hadn’t really thought through what the repercussions of meeting you might be. I had to point them out to him; we’ve been on the phone day and night, you should see the bills—I should charge you, ha, ha! But seriously—”

Her expression became suddenly grave.

“—we’d really like your assurance up front that we’re not going to be in trouble for not telling the police everything. Because it wasn’t as though we had any useful information. She was just a poor kid with problems. We don’t know anything. We only met up with her once, and we haven’t got a clue who killed her. I’m sure you know much more about it than we do. I was pretty worried when I heard Jason had been talking to your partner, to be honest, because I don’t think anyone really appreciates how much we’re persecuted as a community. I’ve had death threats myself—I should hire you to investigate them, ha ha.”

“Who’s made death threats against you?” asked Robin in polite surprise.

“It’s my website, you see,” said Tempest, ignoring Robin and addressing Strike. “I run it. It’s like I’m den mother—or Mother Superior, ha ha… anyway, I’m the one everyone confides in and comes to for advice, so obviously, I’m the one who gets attacked when ignorant people target us. I suppose I don’t help myself. I fight other people’s battles a lot, don’t I, Jason? Anyway,” she said, pausing only to take a greedy sip of wine, “I can’t advise Jason to talk to you without a guarantee he’s not going to get in any trouble.”

Strike wondered what possible authority she thought he had in the matter. The reality was that both Jason and Tempest had concealed information from the police and, whatever their reasons for doing so, and whether or not the information turned out to be valuable, their behavior had been foolish and potentially harmful.

“I don’t think either of you will be in trouble,” he lied easily.

“Well, OK, that’s good to hear,” said Tempest with some complacency, “because we do want to help, obviously. I mean, I said to Jason, if this man’s preying on the BIID community, which is possible—I mean, bloody hell, it’s our duty to help. It wouldn’t surprise me, either, the abuse we get on the website, the hatred. It’s unbelievable. I mean, obviously it stems from ignorance, but we get abuse from people you’d expect to be on our side, who know exactly what it’s like to be discriminated against.”

Drinks arrived. To Strike’s horror, the Eastern European waiter upended his bottle of Spitfire beer into a glass containing ice.

“Hey!” said Strike sharply.