Fighting her way through the rubble on Tottenham Court Road on Monday morning, Robin mentally relived the argument of the previous day. The seeds had been sown before they had even left the house for the rugby. Every time they met up with Sarah Shadlock and her boyfriend Tom, Robin and Matthew seemed to row, something that Robin had pointed out as the argument, which had been brewing since the match, dragged on into the small hours of the morning.

“Sarah was shit-stirring, for God’s sake—can’t you see it? She was the one asking all about him, going on and on, I didn’t start it…”

The everlasting roadworks around Tottenham Court Road station had obstructed Robin’s walk to work ever since she had started at the private detective agency in Denmark Street. Her mood was not improved by tripping on a large chunk of rubble; she staggered a few steps before recovering her balance. A barrage of wolf-whistles and lewd remarks issued from a deep chasm in the road full of men in hard hats and fluorescent jackets. Shaking long strawberry-blonde hair out of her eyes, red in the face, she ignored them, her thoughts returning irresistibly to Sarah Shadlock and her sly, persistent questions about Robin’s boss.

“He is strangely attractive, isn’t he? Bit beaten-up-looking, but I’ve never minded that. Is he sexy in the flesh? He’s a big guy, isn’t he?”

Robin had seen Matthew’s jaw tightening as she tried to return cool, indifferent answers.

“Is it just the two of you in the office? Is it really? Nobody else at all?”

Bitch, thought Robin, whose habitual good nature had never stretched to Sarah Shadlock. She knew exactly what she was doing.

“Is it true he was decorated in Afghanistan? Is it? Wow, so we’re talking a war hero too?”

Robin had tried her hardest to shut down Sarah’s one-woman chorus of appreciation for Cormoran Strike, but to no avail: a coolness had crept into Matthew’s manner towards his fiancée by the end of the match. His displeasure had not prevented him bantering and laughing with Sarah on the journey back from Vicarage Road, though, and Tom, whom Robin found boring and obtuse, had chortled away, oblivious to any undercurrents.

Jostled by passersby also navigating the open trenches in the road, Robin finally reached the opposite pavement, passing beneath the shadow of the concrete grid-like monolith that was Centre Point and becoming angry all over again as she remembered what Matthew had told her at midnight, when the argument had burst back into flame.

“You can’t stop bloody talking about him, can you? I heard you, to Sarah—”

“I did not start talking about him again, it was her, you weren’t listening—”

But Matthew had imitated her, using the generic voice that stood for all women, high-pitched and imbecilic: “Oh, his hair’s so lovely—”

“For God’s sake, you’re completely bloody paranoid!” Robin had shouted. “Sarah was banging on about Jacques Burger’s bloody hair, not Cormoran’s, and all I said—”