‘I saw in the file that she was supposed to attend an outpatient clinic at St Thomas’s,’ said Robin excitedly, flushed and talking fast, ‘so I rang up the hospital yesterday evening, pretending to be her, and I said I’d forgotten the time of my appointment, and they told me it’s at ten thirty on Thursday morning. You’ve got,’ she glanced at her computer monitor, ‘fifty-five minutes.’

Why had he not thought to tell her to do this?

‘You genius, you bloody genius…’

He had slopped hot tea over his hand, and put the mug down on her desk.

‘D’you know exactly…?’

‘It’s in the psychiatric unit round the back of the main building,’ said Robin, exhilarated. ‘See, you go in off Grantley Road, there’s a second car park…’

She had turned the monitor towards him to show him the map of St Thomas’s. He checked his wrist, but his watch was still in the inner room.

‘You’ll have time if you leave now,’ Robin urged him.

‘Yeah – I’ll get my stuff.’

Strike hurried to fetch his watch, wallet, cigarettes and phone. He was almost through the glass door, cramming his wallet into his back pocket, when Robin said:

‘Er – Cormoran…’

She had never called him by his first name before. Strike assumed that this accounted for her slight air of bashfulness; then he realised that she was pointing meaningfully at his navel. Looking down, he saw that he had done up the buttons on his shirt wrongly, and was exposing a patch of belly so hairy that it resembled black coconut matting.

‘Oh – right – cheers…’

Robin turned her attention politely to her monitor while he undid and refastened the buttons.

‘See you later.’

‘Yeah, ’bye,’ she said, smiling at him as he departed at speed; but within seconds he was back, panting slightly.

‘Robin, I need you to check something.’

She already had the pen in her hand, waiting.

‘There was a legal conference in Oxford on the seventh of January. Lula Landry’s uncle Tony attended it. International family law. Anything you can find out. Specifically about him being there.’

‘Right,’ said Robin, scribbling.

‘Cheers. You’re a genius.’

And he was gone, with uneven steps, down the metal stairs.

Though she hummed to herself as she settled down at her desk, a little of Robin’s cheerfulness drained away as she drank her tea. She had half hoped that Strike would invite her along to meet Rochelle Onifade, whose shadow she had hunted for two weeks.