“They haven’t formally ID’d her yet, but they think she’s a twenty-four-year-old Ukrainian woman.”

“Ukrainian?” said Robin, startled.

“Yeah.” He hesitated, then said, “Her landlady found her dismembered in a fridge-freezer in what looks like her own flat. The right leg’s missing. It’s definitely her.”

The taste of Robin’s toothpaste in her mouth turned chemical; croissant and coffee churned in her stomach.

“Where’s the flat?”

“Coningham Road, Shepherd’s Bush. Ring any bells?”

“No, I—oh God. Oh God. The girl who wanted to cut off her leg?”

“Apparently.”

“But she didn’t have a Ukrainian name, did she?”

“Wardle thinks she might’ve been using a fake one. You know—hooker name.”

The taxi bore them down Pall Mall towards New Scotland Yard. White neoclassical buildings slid past the windows on both sides: august, haughty and impervious to the shocks of frail humanity.

“It’s what Wardle expected,” said Strike after a long pause. “His theory was that the leg belonged to a Ukrainian prostitute last seen with Digger Malley.”

Robin could tell that there was more. She looked at him anxiously.

“There were letters from me in her flat,” said Strike. “Two letters, signed with my name.”

“But you didn’t write back!”

“Wardle knows they’re fake. Apparently they’ve spelled my name wrong—Cameron—but he’s still got to get me in.”

“What do the letters say?”

“He wouldn’t tell me over the phone. He’s being pretty decent,” said Strike. “Not being a dick about it.”

Buckingham Palace rose up ahead of them. The gigantic marble statue of Queen Victoria frowned down on Robin’s confusion and her hangover, then slid out of view.

“They’re probably going to ask us to look at pictures of the body to see whether we can ID her.”

“OK,” said Robin, more stoutly than she felt.

“How are you?” Strike asked.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Don’t worry about me.”

“I was going to call Wardle this morning anyway.”

“Why?”

“Last night, walking away from Hazlitt’s, I saw a big guy in a black beanie hat lurking down a side street. There was something about his body language I didn’t like. I called out to him—I was going to ask him for a light—and he scarpered. Don’t,” said Strike, though Robin had not made a sound, “tell me I’m jumpy or imagining things. I think he followed us, and I’ll tell you something else—I think he was in the pub when I arrived. I didn’t see his face, just the back of his head as he left.”

To his surprise, Robin did not dismiss him. Instead she frowned in concentration, trying to recall a vague impression.

“You know… I saw a big bloke in a beanie hat somewhere yesterday, too… yeah, he was in a doorway on Tottenham Court Road. His face was in shadow, though.”

Strike muttered another oath under his breath.

“Please don’t tell me to stop working,” said Robin in a more high-pitched voice than usual. “Please. I love this job.”

“And if the fucker’s stalking you?”

She could not repress a frisson of fear, but determination overrode it. To help catch this animal, whoever he was, would be worth almost anything…