To Strike’s surprise, a satyr’s grin impressed itself on Bestigui’s pouchy face.

‘Who told you that?’

‘Isn’t it true?’

For the first time, Bestigui seemed to feel he had the upper hand in the conversation.

‘No, it’s not true. Anthony Landry has given me a pretty broad hint that once Lady Bristow’s dead, he’ll be happy to talk about it.’

‘He wasn’t angry, then, when he called you to talk about it?’

‘As long as it’s tastefully handled, yadda yadda…’

‘D’you know Tony Landry well?’

‘I know of him.’

‘In what context?’

Bestigui scratched his chin, smiling to himself.

‘He’s your wife’s divorce lawyer, of course.’

‘For now he is,’ said Bestigui.

‘You think she’s going to sack him?’

‘She might have to,’ said Bestigui, and the smile became a self-satisfied leer. ‘Conflict of interest. We’ll see.’

Strike glanced down at his notebook, considering, with the gifted poker player’s dispassionate calculation of the odds, how much risk there was in pushing this line of questioning to the limit, on no proof.

‘Do I take it,’ he said, looking back up, ‘that you’ve told Landry you know he’s sleeping with his business partner’s wife?’

One moment’s stunned surprise, and then Bestigui laughed out loud, a boorish, aggressive blast of glee.

‘Know that, do you?’

‘How did you find out?’

‘I hired one of your lot. I thought Tansy was doing the dirty, but it turned out she was giving alibis to her bloody sister, while Ursula was having it away with Tony Landry. It’ll be a shitload of fun to watch the Mays divorcing. High-powered lawyers on both sides. Old family firm broken up. Cyprian May’s not as limp as he looks. He represented my second wife. I’m going to have a fucking blast watching that one play out. Watching the lawyers screw each other for a change.’

‘That’s a nice bit of leverage you’ve got with your wife’s divorce lawyer, then?’

Bestigui smiled nastily through the smoke.

‘Neither of them know I know yet. I’ve been waiting for a good moment to tell them.’

But Bestigui seemed to remember, suddenly, that Tansy might now be in possession of an even more powerful weapon in their divorce battle, and the smile faded from his crumpled face, leaving it bitter.

‘One last thing,’ said Strike. ‘The night that Lula died: after you’d followed your wife down into the lobby, and brought her back upstairs, did you hear anything outside the flat?’

‘I thought your whole fucking point is that you can’t hear anything inside my flat with the windows closed?’ snapped Bestigui.