“Yes. We’ll get nothing for it, obviously. Scrap, maybe… unless,” said Linda, struck by a sudden thought, “you and Matthew want it? It’s got a year’s tax left on it and it always scrapes through its MOT somehow.”

Robin chewed her scone, thinking. Matthew moaned constantly about their lack of car, a deficiency he attributed to her low salary. His sister’s husband’s A3 Cabriolet caused him almost physical pangs of envy. Robin knew he would feel very differently about a battered old Land Rover with its permanent smell of wet dog and wellington boots, but at one o’clock that morning in the family sitting room, Matthew had listed his estimates of the salary of all their contemporaries, concluding with a flourish that Robin’s pay lay right at the bottom of the league table. With a sudden spurt of malice, she imagined herself telling her fiancé, “But we’ve got the Land Rover, Matt, there’s no point trying to save for an Audi now!”

“It could be really useful for work,” she said aloud, “if we need to go outside London. Strike won’t need to hire a car.”

“Mm,” said Linda, apparently absently, but with her eyes fixed on Robin’s face.

They drove home to find Matthew laying the table with his future father-in-law. He was usually more helpful in the kitchen at her parents’ house than at home with Robin.

“How’s the dress looking?” he asked in what Robin supposed was an attempt at conciliation.

“All right,” said Robin.

“Is it bad luck to tell me about it?” he said and then, when she did not smile, “I bet you look beautiful, anyway.”

Softening, she reached out a hand and he winked, squeezing her fingers. Then Linda plonked a dish of mashed potato on the table between them and told him that she had given them the old Land Rover.

“What?” said Matthew, his face a study in dismay.

“You’re always saying you want a car,” said Robin, defensive on her mother’s behalf.

“Yeah, but—the Land Rover, in London?”

“Why not?”

“It’ll ruin his image,” said her brother Martin, who had just entered the room with the newspaper in his hand; he had been examining the runners for that afternoon’s Grand National. “Suit you down to the ground, though, Rob. I can just see you and Hopalong, off-roading to murder scenes.”

Matthew’s square jaw tightened.

“Shut up, Martin,” snapped Robin, glaring at her younger brother as she sat down at the table. “And I’d love to see you call Strike Hopalong to his face,” she added.

“He’d probably laugh,” said Martin airily.

“Because you’re peers?” said Robin, her tone brittle. “Both of you with your stunning war records, risking life and limb?”

Martin was the only one of the four Ellacott siblings who had not attended university, and the only one who still lived with their parents. He was always touchy at the slightest hint that he underachieved.

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean—I should be in the army?” he demanded, firing up.