Playing for time while he took another sip of wine, Strike came to the decision that the affair had to end. He would make an excuse not to go back to Clarence Terrace with her tonight, which ought to give her early warning of his intentions; the sex had been the best part of the relationship all along. Then, next time they met, he’d tell her it was over. Not only did he feel it would be churlish to end things over a meal for which she was paying, there was a remote chance that she would walk out, leaving him with a bill that his credit card company would undoubtedly refuse to process.

“I haven’t been up to much, to be honest,” he lied.

“What about the Shackle—”

Strike’s mobile rang. He pulled it out of his jacket pocket and saw that the number had been withheld. Some sixth sense told him to answer it.

“Sorry,” he said to Elin, “I think I need to—”

“Strike,” said Carver’s unmistakable South London voice. “Did you send her to do it?”

“What?” said Strike.

“Your fucking partner. Did you send her to Brockbank?”

Strike stood up so suddenly that he hit the edge of the table. A spray of bloodied brown liquid spattered across the heavy white tablecloth, his fillet of beef slid over the edge of the plate and his wineglass toppled, splashing Elin’s pale blue dress. The waiter gaped, as did the refined couple at the next table.

“Where is she? What’s happened?” asked Strike loudly, oblivious to everything except the voice on the end of the line.

“I warned you, Strike,” said Carver, his voice crackling with rage. “I fucking warned you to stay away. You have fucked up royally this time—”

Strike lowered the mobile. A disembodied Carver bellowed into the restaurant, the “cunts” and “fucks” clearly audible to anybody standing nearby. He turned to Elin in her purple-stained dress, with her beautiful face screwed up in mingled perplexity and anger.

“I’ve got to go. I’m sorry. I’ll call you later.”

He did not stay to see how she took it; he did not care.

Limping slightly, because he had twisted his knee in his haste to get up, Strike hurried out of the restaurant, phone to his ear again. Carver was now virtually incoherent, shouting Strike down whenever he attempted to speak.

“Carver, listen,” Strike shouted as he regained Upper Brook Street, “there’s something I want to—fucking listen, will you!”

But the policeman’s obscenity-strewn soliloquy merely became louder and filthier.

“You fucking stupid fucking cunt, he’s gone to ground—I know what you were fucking up to—we’ve found it, you bastard, we found the church connection! If you ever—shut your fucking mouth, I’m talking!—if you ever come near one of my fucking investigations again…”

Strike slogged on through the warm night, his knee protesting, frustration and fury mounting with every step he took.

It took him nearly an hour to reach Robin’s flat in Hastings Road, by which time he was in full possession of the facts. Thanks to Carver, he knew that the police had been with Robin this evening and were perhaps still there, interrogating her about the intrusion into Brockbank’s house that had led to a report of child rape and the flight of their suspect. Brockbank’s photograph had been widely disseminated across the force, but he had not, as yet, been apprehended.