‘Yeah, Sir Alec, of course. Oh my God,’ said Ciara, wide-eyed, ‘if he’d known her real father, Looly would’ve, like, flipped out completely! That would have been, like, the dream of her life! No, he just said he’d known Sir Alec years and years ago, and they came from, like, the same East End manor or something, so he should be considered, like, her godfather or something. I think he was trying to be be funny, but not. Anyway, everyone could tell he was just trying to work out how to get her into a film. He was a jerk about the commitment ceremony; he kept shouting “I’ll give away the bride.” He was pissed; he drank like crazy all through dinner. Dickie had to shut him up. Then after the ceremony, we all had champagne back at the house and Freddie had, like, another two bottles on top of everything he’d already put away. He kept yelling at Looly that she’d make such a great actress, but she didn’t care. She just ignored him. She was cuddled up with Evan on the sofa, just, like…’

And suddenly, tears were sparkling in Ciara’s kohled eyes, and she squashed them out of sight with the flat palms of her pretty white hands.

‘… crazy in love. She was so fucking happy, I’d never seen her happier.’

‘You met Freddie Bestigui again, didn’t you, on the evening before Lula died? Didn’t the two of you pass him in the lobby, on your way out?’

‘Yeah,’ said Ciara, still dabbing at her eyes. ‘How did you know that?’

‘Wilson, the security guard. He thought Bestigui said something to Lula that she didn’t like.’

‘Yeah. He’s right. I’d forgotten about that. Freddie said something about Deeby Macc, about Looly being excited about him coming, how he really wanted to get them on film together. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but he made it sound dirty, you know?’

‘Did Lula know that Bestigui and her adoptive father had been friends?’

‘She told me it was the first she’d ever heard of it. She always stayed out of Freddie’s way at the flats. She didn’t like Tansy.’

‘Why not?’

‘Oh, Looly wasn’t interested in that whole, like, whose husband’s got the biggest fucking yacht crap, she didn’t want to get into their crowd. She was so much better than that. So not like the Chillingham girls.’

‘OK,’ said Strike, ‘can you talk me through the afternoon and evening you were with her?’

Ciara dropped her second fag end into the Coke can, with another little spitting fizz, and immediately lit another.

‘Yeah. OK, let me think. Well, I met her at her place in the afternoon. Bryony came over to do her eyebrows and ended up giving us both manicures. We just had, like, a girlie afternoon together.’

‘How did she seem?’