‘I’m not threatening you. I’m thinking about a multiple murderer who’s walking around out there planning the next one – but if it’s the papers you’re worried about, I don’t think they’re going to go too easy on anyone who clung to the suicide theory once another body surfaced. Call Deeby Macc, Wardle, before someone else gets killed.’

11

‘No,’ said Strike forcefully, on the telephone that evening. ‘This is getting dangerous. Surveillance doesn’t fall within the scope of secretarial duties.’

‘Nor did visiting the Malmaison Hotel in Oxford, or SOAS,’ Robin pointed out, ‘but you were happy enough that I did both of them.’

‘You’re not following anyone, Robin. I doubt Matthew would be very happy about it, either.’

It was funny, Robin thought, sitting in her dressing gown on her bed, with the phone pressed to her ear, how Strike had retained the name of her fiancé, without ever having met him. In her experience, men did not usually bother to log that kind of information. Matthew frequently forgot people’s names, even that of his newborn niece; but she supposed that Strike must have been trained to recall such details.

‘I don’t need Matthew’s permission,’ she said. ‘Anyway, it wouldn’t be dangerous; you don’t think Ursula May’s killed anyone…’

(There was an inaudible ‘do you?’ at the end of the sentence.)

‘No, but I don’t want anyone to hear I’m taking an interest in her movements. It might make the killer nervous, and I don’t want anyone else thrown from a height.’

Robin could hear her own heart thumping through the thin material of her dressing gown. She knew that he would not tell her who he thought the killer was; she was even a little frightened of knowing, notwithstanding the fact that she could think of nothing else.

It was she who had called Strike. Hours had passed since she had received a text saying that he had been compelled to go with the police to Scotland Yard, and asking her to lock up the office behind her at five. Robin had been worried.

‘Call him, then, if it’s going to keep you awake,’ Matthew had said; not quite snapping, not quite indicating that he was, without knowing any of the details, firmly on the side of the police.

‘Listen, I want you to do something for me,’ said Strike. ‘Call John Bristow first thing tomorrow and tell him about Rochelle.’

‘All right,’ said Robin, with her eyes on the large stuffed elephant Matthew had given her on their first Valentine’s Day together, eight years previously. The present-giver himself was watching Newsnight in the sitting room. ‘What are you going to be doing?’

‘I’m going to be on my way to Pinewood Studios for a few words with Freddie Bestigui.’

‘How?’ said Robin. ‘They won’t let you near him.’

‘Yeah, they will,’ said Strike.