‘People will spout any amount of shit when there’s a celebrity involved,’ said Carver.

‘If Landry phoned anyone from that cubicle,’ said Wardle, ‘it was Duffield, or her uncle. Her phone records show they were the only people she called, all afternoon.’

‘Why did she want Rochelle there when she made the call?’ asked Strike. ‘Why drag her friend into the cubicle with her?’

‘Women do that stuff,’ said Carver. ‘They piss in herds, too.’

‘Use your fucking intelligence: she was making the call on Rochelle’s phone,’ said Strike, exasperated. ‘She’d tested everyone she knew to try and see who was talking to the press about her. Rochelle was the only one who kept her mouth shut. She established that the girl was trustworthy, bought her a mobile, registered it in Rochelle’s name but took care of all the charges. She’d had her own phone hacked, hadn’t she? She was getting paranoid about people listening in and reporting on her, so she bought a Nokia and registered it to somebody else, to give herself a totally secure means of communication when she wanted it.

‘I grant you, that doesn’t necessarily rule out her uncle, or Duffield, because calling them on the alternative number might have been a signal they’d organised between them. Alternatively, she was using Rochelle’s number to speak to somebody else; someone she didn’t want the press to know about. I’ve got Rochelle’s mobile number. Find out what network she was with and you’ll be able to check all this. The unit itself is a crystal-covered pink Nokia, but you won’t find that.’

‘Yeah, because it’s at the bottom of the Thames,’ said Wardle.

‘Course it isn’t,’ said Strike. ‘The killer’s got it. He’ll have got it off her before he threw her into the river.’

‘Fuck off!’ jeered Carver, and Wardle, who had seemed interested against his better judgement, shook his head.

‘Why did Landry want Rochelle there when she made the call?’ Strike repeated. ‘Why not make it from the car? Why, when Rochelle was homeless, and virtually destitute, did she never sell her story on Landry? They’d have given her a great wad for it. Why didn’t she cash in, once Landry was dead, and couldn’t be hurt?’

‘Decency?’ suggested Wardle.

‘Yeah, that’s one possibility,’ said Strike. ‘The other’s that she was making enough by blackmailing the killer.’

‘Boll-ocks,’ moaned Carver.

‘Yeah? That Muppet coat she was pulled up wearing cost one and a half grand.’

A tiny pause.

‘Landry probably gave it to her,’ said Wardle.

‘If she did, she managed to buy her something that wasn’t in the shops back in January.’

‘Landry was a model, she had inside contacts – fuck this shit,’ snapped Carver, as though he had irritated himself.