‘Yeah, Rochelle, that’s right. Looly met her in rehab or something, poor little thing. Looly was, like, unbelievably sweet to her. Used to take her shopping and stuff. Anyway, they never found him, or it was the wrong place, or something. I can’t remember.’

‘Was she looking for a man called Agyeman?’

‘I don’t think she ever told me the name.’

‘Or Owusu?’

Ciara turned her beautiful light eyes upon him in astonishment.

‘That’s Guy’s real name!’

‘I know.’

‘Oh my God,’ Ciara giggled. ‘Guy’s dad never went to college. He was a bus driver. He used to beat Guy up for sketching dresses all the time. That’s why Guy changed his name.’

The car was slowing down. The long queue, four people wide, stretching along the block, led to a discreet entrance that might have been to a private house. A gaggle of dark figures was gathered around a white-pillared doorway.

‘Paps,’ said Kolovas-Jones, speaking for the first time. ‘Careful how you get out of the car, Ciara.’

He slid out of the driver’s seat and walked around to the left-hand back door; but the paparazzi were already running; ominous, darkly clad men, raising their long-nosed cameras as they closed in.

Ciara and Strike emerged into flashes like gunfire; Strike’s retinas were in sudden, dazzling whiteout; he ducked his head, his hand closed instinctively around Ciara Porter’s slender upper arm, and he steered her ahead of him through the black oblong that represented sanctuary, as the doors opened magically to admit them. The queuing hordes were shouting, protesting at their easy entry, yelping with excitement; and then the flashes stopped, and they were inside, where there was an industrial roar of noises, and a loud insistent bass line.

‘Wow, you’ve got a great sense of direction,’ said Ciara. ‘I usually, like, ricochet off the bouncers and they have to push me in.’

Streaks and blazes of purple and yellow light were still burned across Strike’s field of vision. He dropped her arm. She was so pale that she looked almost luminous in the gloom. Then they were jostled further inside the club by the entry of another dozen people behind them.

‘C’mon,’ said Ciara, and she slipped a soft, long-fingered hand inside his and tugged him along behind her.