Robin did not know where the invention was coming from; she felt inspired. Stepping out of her jumper and skirt, she began to wriggle into a clinging poison-green dress. Sandra was becoming real to her as she talked: a little spoiled, somewhat bored, confiding in her sister-in-law over wine that her brother (a banker, Robin thought, though Strike did not really look like her idea of a banker) had no taste at all.

‘So she said to me, take him to Vashti and get him to crack open his wallet. Oh yes, this is nice.’

It was more than nice. Robin stared at her own reflection; she had never worn anything so beautiful in her life. The green dress was magically constructed to shrink her waist to nothingness, to carve her figure into flowing curves, to elongate her pale neck. She was a serpentine goddess in glittering viridian, and the assistants were all murmuring and gasping their appreciation.

‘How much?’ Robin asked the redhead.

‘Two thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine,’ said the girl.

‘Nothing to him,’ said Robin airily, striding out through the curtains to show Strike, whom they found examining a pile of gloves on a circular table.

His only comment on the green dress was ‘Yeah.’ He had barely looked at her.

‘Well, maybe it’s not Sandra’s colour,’ said Robin, with a sudden feeling of embarrassment; Strike was not, after all, her brother or her boyfriend; she had perhaps taken invention too far, parading in front of him in a skintight dress. She retreated into the changing room.

Stripped again to bra and pants she said:

‘The last time Sandra was here, Lula Landry was in your café. Sandra said she was gorgeous in the flesh. Even better than in pictures.’

‘Oh yeah, she was,’ agreed the pink-haired girl, who was clutching to her chest the gold jacket she had fetched. ‘She used to be in here all the time, we used to see her every week. Do you want to try this?’

‘She was in here the day before she died,’ said the candy-floss-haired girl, helping Robin to wriggle into the gold jacket. ‘In this changing room, actually in this one.’

‘Really?’ said Robin.

‘It’s not going to close over the bust, but it looks great open,’ said the redhead.

‘No, that’s no good, Sandra’s a bit bigger than me, if anything,’ said Robin, ruthlessly sacrificing her fictional sister-in-law’s figure. ‘I’ll try that black dress. Did you say Lula Landry was here actually the day before she died?’

‘Oh yeah,’ said the girl with pink hair. ‘It was so sad, really so sad. You heard her, didn’t you, Mel?’

The tattooed redhead, who was holding up a black dress with lace inserts, made an indeterminate noise. Watching her in the mirror, Robin saw no eagerness to talk about what she had, whether deliberately or accidentally, overheard.