‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like a coffee, Alison?’ she asked.

The girl looked around as though surprised at being spoken to, as though she had forgotten that Robin was there.

‘No thanks,’ she said, in a deep voice that was surprisingly melodious. ‘I knew he’d get upset,’ she added, with an odd kind of satisfaction. ‘I’ve tried to talk him out of doing this, but he wouldn’t listen. Sounds like this so-called detective is turning him down. Good for him.’

Robin’s surprise must have shown, because Alison went on, with a trace of impatience:

‘It’d be better for John if he’d just accept the facts. She killed herself. The rest of the family have come to terms with it, I don’t know why he can’t.’

There was no point pretending that she did not know what the woman was talking about. Everyone knew what had happened to Lula Landry. Robin could remember exactly where she had been when she had heard that the model had dived to her death on a sub-zero night in January: standing at the sink in the kitchen of her parents’ house. The news had come over the radio, and she had emitted a little cry of surprise, and run out of the kitchen in her nightshirt to tell Matthew, who was staying for the weekend. How could the death of someone you had never met affect you so? Robin had greatly admired Lula Landry’s looks. She did not much like her own milkmaid’s colouring: the model had been dark, luminous, fine-boned and fierce.

‘It hasn’t been very long since she died.’

‘Three months,’ said Alison, shaking out her Daily Express. ‘Is he any good, this man?’

Robin had noticed Alison’s contemptuous expression as she took in the dilapidated condition, and undeniable grubbiness, of the little waiting room, and she had just seen, online, the pristine, palatial office where the other woman worked. Her answer was therefore prompted by self-respect rather than any desire to protect Strike.

‘Oh yes,’ she replied coolly. ‘He’s one of the best.’

She slit open a pink, kitten-embellished envelope with the air of a woman who daily dealt with exigencies much more complex and intriguing than Alison could possibly imagine.

Meanwhile, Strike and Bristow were facing each other across the inner room, the one furious, the other trying to find a way to reverse his position without jettisoning his self-respect.

‘All I want, Strike,’ said Bristow hoarsely, the colour high in his thin face, ‘is justice.’

He might have struck a divine tuning fork; the word rang through the shabby office, calling forth an inaudible but plangent note in Strike’s breast. Bristow had located the pilot light Strike shielded when everything else had been blown to ashes. He stood in desperate need of money, but Bristow had given him another, better reason to jettison his scruples.

‘OK. I understand. I mean it, John; I understand. Come back and sit down. If you still want my help, I’d like to give it.’