“Any news about the leg?” asked Ilsa, once Strike had demolished a considerable amount of curry and was halfway down the can of lager. “Have the police got anything?”

“I’m meeting Wardle tomorrow night to catch up, but it doesn’t sound like they’ve got much. He’s been concentrating on the gangster.”

He had not given Nick and Ilsa details about three of the men he thought might be dangerous and vengeful enough to have sent him the leg, but he had mentioned that he had once run across a career criminal who had previously cut off and mailed a body part. Understandably, they had immediately taken Wardle’s view that he was the likely culprit.

For the first time in years, sitting on their comfortable green sofa, Strike remembered that Nick and Ilsa had met Jeff Whittaker. Strike’s eighteenth birthday party had taken place at the Bell pub in Whitechapel; his mother was by this time six months pregnant. His aunt’s face had been a mask of mingled disapproval and forced jollity and his Uncle Ted, usually the peacemaker, had been unable to disguise his anger and disgust as a patently high Whittaker had interrupted the disco to sing one of his self-penned songs. Strike remembered his own fury, his longing to be away, to be gone to Oxford, to be rid of it all, but perhaps Nick and Ilsa would not remember much about that: they had been engrossed in each other that night, dazed and amazed by their sudden, profound mutual attraction.

“You’re worried about Robin,” said Ilsa, more statement than question.

Strike grunted agreement, his mouth full of naan bread. He had had time to reflect on it over the last four days. In this extremity, and through no fault of her own, she had become a vulnerability, a weak spot, and he suspected that whoever had decided to re-address the leg to her had known it. If his employee had been male, he would not currently feel so worried.

Strike had not forgotten that Robin had hitherto been an almost unqualified asset. She was able to persuade recalcitrant witnesses to speak when his own size and naturally intimidating features inclined them to refuse. Her charm and ease of manner had allayed suspicion, opened doors, smoothed Strike’s path a hundred times. He knew he owed her; he simply wished that, right now, she would bow out of the way, stay hidden until they had caught the sender of the severed leg.

“I like Robin,” said Ilsa.

“Everyone likes Robin,” said Strike thickly, through a second mouthful of naan. It was the truth: his sister Lucy, the friends who called in at the office, his clients—all made a point of telling Strike how much they liked the woman who worked with him. Nevertheless, he detected a note of faint inquiry in Ilsa’s voice that made him keen to make any discussion of Robin impersonal, and he felt vindicated when Ilsa’s next question was:

“How’s it going with Elin?”

“All right,” said Strike.