‘Oh yeah. She wasn’t nearly excited enough. I kept saying to her, babes, if he’d written three tracks about me I’d be waiting behind the front door naked when he got in.’ Somé blew smoke in two long streams from his nostrils, looking sideways at Strike. ‘I like ’em big and rough,’ he said. ‘But Cuckoo didn’t. Well, look what she hooked up with. I kept telling her, you’re the one making all this fucking song-and-dance about your roots; find yourself a nice black boy and settle down. Deeby would’ve been fucking perfect; why not?

‘Last season’s show, I had her walking down the catwalk to Deeby’s “Butterface Girl”. “Bitch you ain’t all that, get a mirror that don’ fool ya, Give it up an’ tone it down, girl, ’cause you ain’t no fuckin’ Lula.” Duffield hated it.’

Somé smoked for a moment in silence, his eyes on the wall of photographs. Strike asked:

‘Where do you live? Around here?’ though he knew the answer.

‘No, I’m in Charles Street, in Kensington,’ said Somé. ‘Moved there last year. It’s a long fucking way from Hackney, I can tell you, but it was getting silly, I had to leave. Too much hassle. I grew up in Hackney,’ he explained, ‘back when I was plain old Kevin Owusu. I changed my name when I left home. Like you.’

‘I was never Rokeby,’ said Strike, flicking over a page in his notebook. ‘My parents weren’t married.’

‘We all know that, dear,’ said Somé, with another flash of malice. ‘I dressed your old man for a Rolling Stone shoot last year: skinny suit and broken bowler. D’you see him much?’

‘No,’ said Strike.

‘No, well, you’d make him look fucking old, wouldn’t you?’ said Somé, with a cackle. He fidgeted in his seat, lit yet another cigarette, clamped it between his lips and squinted at Strike through billows of menthol smoke.

‘Why are we talking about me, anyway? Do people usually start telling you their life stories when you get out that notebook?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Don’t you want your tea? I don’t blame you. I don’t know why I drink this shit. My old dad would have a coronary if he asked for a cup of tea and got this.’

‘Is your family still in Hackney?’

‘I haven’t checked,’ said Somé. ‘We don’t talk. I practise what I preach, see?’

‘Why do you think Lula changed her name?’

‘Because she hated her fucking family, same as me. She didn’t want to be associated with them any more.’

‘Why choose the same name as her Uncle Tony, then?’

‘He’s not famous. It made a good name. Deeby couldn’t have written “Double L U B Mine” if she’d been Lula Bristow, could he?’

‘Charles Street isn’t too far from Kentigern Gardens, is it?’