Wardle paused, perhaps checking his notes.

‘No, he didn’t mention gloves.’

‘Well, that clears that up,’ said Strike.

Wardle said nothing at all. Strike waited for the policeman to either hang up or impart more information.

‘The inquest is on Thursday,’ said Wardle abruptly. ‘On Rochelle Onifade.’

‘Right,’ said Strike.

‘You don’t sound that interested.’

‘I’m not.’

‘I thought you were sure it was murder?’

‘I am, but the inquest won’t prove that one way or the other. Any idea when her funeral’s going to be?’

‘No,’ said Wardle irritably. ‘What does that matter?’

‘I thought I might go.’

‘What for?’

‘She had an aunt, remember?’ said Strike.

Wardle rang off in what Strike suspected was disgust.

Bristow called Strike later that morning with the time and place of Rochelle’s funeral.

‘Alison managed to find out all the details,’ he told the detective on the telephone. ‘She’s super-efficient.’

‘Clearly,’ said Strike.

‘I’m going to come. To represent Lula. I ought to have helped Rochelle.’

‘I think it was always going to end this way, John. Are you bringing Alison?’

‘She says she wants to come,’ said Bristow, though he sounded less than enamoured of the idea.

‘I’ll see you there, then. I’m hoping to speak to Rochelle’s aunt, if she turns up.’

When Strike told Robin that Bristow’s girlfriend had discovered the time and place of the funeral, she appeared put out. She herself had been trying to find out the details at Strike’s request, and seemed to feel that Alison had put one over on her.

‘I didn’t realise you were this competitive,’ said Strike, amused. ‘Not to worry. Maybe she had some kind of head-start on you.’

‘Like what?’

But Strike was looking at her speculatively.

‘What?’ repeated Robin, a little defensively.

‘I want you to come with me to the funeral.’

‘Oh,’ said Robin. ‘OK. Why?’

She expected Strike to reply that it would look more natural for them to turn up as a couple, just as it had seemed more natural for him to visit Vashti with a woman in tow. Instead he said:

‘There’s something I want you to do for me there.’

Once he had explained, clearly and concisely, what it was that he wanted her to do, Robin looked utterly bewildered.

‘But why?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’d rather not say that, either.’

Robin no longer saw Strike through Matthew’s eyes; no longer wondered whether he was faking, or showing off, or pretending to be cleverer than he was. She did him the credit, now, of discounting the possibility that he was being deliberately mysterious. All the same, she repeated, as though she must have heard him wrongly:

‘Brian Mathers.’

‘Yeah.’

‘The Death Threat Man.’

‘Yeah.’

‘But,’ said Robin, ‘what on earth can he have to do with Lula Landry’s death?’

‘Nothing,’ said Strike, honestly enough. ‘Yet.’