‘He’s ex-SIB,’ threw in Wardle, from beside the filing cabinet.

‘I know that,’ barked Carver, raising wiry eyebrows flecked with scurf. ‘I’ve heard from Anstis all about the fucking leg and the life-saving medal. Quite the colourful CV.’

Carver removed his hands from behind his head, leaned forwards and laced his fingers together on the desk instead. His corned-beef complexion and the purple bags under his hard eyes were not flattered by the strip lighting.

‘I know who your old man is and all.’

Strike scratched his unshaven chin, waiting.

‘Like to be as rich and famous as Daddy, would you? Is that what all this is about?’

Carver had the bright blue, bloodshot eyes that Strike had always (since meeting a major in the Paras with just such eyes, who was subsequently cashiered for serious bodily harm) associated with a choleric, violent nature.

‘Rochelle didn’t jump. Nor did Lula Landry.’

‘Bollocks,’ shouted Carver. ‘You’re speaking to the two men who proved Landry jumped. We went through every bit of fucking evidence with a fine-toothed fucking comb. I know what you’re up to. You’re milking that poor sod Bristow for all you can get. Why are you fucking smiling at me?’

‘I’m thinking what a tit you’re going to look when this interview gets reported in the press.’

‘Don’t you dare fucking threaten me with the press, dickhead.’

Carver’s blunt, wide face was clenched; his glaring blue eyes vivid in the purple-red face.

‘You’re in a heap of trouble here, pal, and a famous dad, a peg-leg and a good war aren’t going to get you out of it. How do we know you didn’t scare the poor bitch into fucking jumping? Mentally ill, wasn’t she? How do we know you didn’t make her think she’d done something wrong? You were the last person to see her alive, pal. I wouldn’t like to be sitting where you are now.’

‘Rochelle crossed Grantley Road and walked away from me, as alive as you are. You’ll find someone who saw her after she left me. Nobody’s going to forget that coat.’

Wardle pushed himself off the filing cabinets, dragged a hard plastic chair over to the desk and sat down.

‘Let’s have it, then,’ he told Strike. ‘Your theory.’

‘She was blackmailing Lula Landry’s killer.’

‘Piss off,’ snapped Carver, and Wardle snorted in slightly stagey amusement.

‘The day before she died,’ said Strike, ‘Landry met Rochelle for fifteen minutes in that shop in Notting Hill. She dragged Rochelle straight into a changing cubicle, where she made a telephone call begging somebody to meet her at her flat in the early hours of the following morning. That call was overheard by an assistant at the shop; she was in the next cubicle; they’re separated by a curtain. Girl called Mel, red hair and tattoos.’