‘But since then, I’ve come to think that perhaps I have deserved all of it,’ said Lady Bristow distantly, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. ‘I’ve wondered whether I’m being punished. Because I loved them too much. I spoiled them. I couldn’t say no. Charlie, Alec and Lula. I think it must be punishment, because otherwise it would be too unspeakably cruel, wouldn’t it? To make me go through it again, and again, and again.’

Strike had no answer to give. She invited pity, but he found he could not pity her even as much as, perhaps, she deserved. She lay dying, wrapped in invisible robes of martyrdom, presenting her helplessness and passivity to him like adornments, and his dominant feeling was distaste.

‘I wanted Lula so much,’ said Lady Bristow, ‘but I don’t think she ever… She was a darling little thing. So beautiful. I would have done anything for that girl. But she didn’t love me the way Charlie and John loved me. Maybe it was too late. Maybe we got her too late.

‘John was jealous when she first came to us. He had been devastated about Charlie… but they ended up being very close friends. Very close.’

A tiny frown crumpled the paper-fine skin of her forehead.

‘So Tony was quite wrong.’

‘What was he wrong about?’ asked Strike quietly.

Her fingers twitched upon the covers. She swallowed.

‘Tony didn’t think we should have adopted Lula.’

‘Why not?’ asked Strike.

‘Tony never liked any of my children,’ said Yvette Bristow. ‘My brother is a very hard man. Very cold. He said dreadful things after Charlie died. Alec hit him. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t true – what Tony said.’

Her milky gaze slid to Strike’s face, and he thought he glimpsed the woman she must have been when she still had her looks: a little clingy, a little childish, prettily dependent, an ultra-feminine creature, protected and petted by Sir Alec, who strove to satisfy her every whim and wish.

‘What did Tony say?’

‘Horrible things about John and Charlie. Awful things. I don’t,’ she said weakly, ‘want to repeat them. And then he phoned Alec, when he heard that we were adopting a little girl, and told him we ought not to do it. Alec was furious,’ she whispered. ‘He forbade Tony our house.’

‘Did you tell Lula about all this when she visited that day?’ asked Strike. ‘About Tony, and the things he said after Charlie died; and when you adopted her?’

She seemed to sense a reproach.

‘I can’t remember exactly what I said to her. I had just had a very serious operation. I was a little drowsy from all the drugs. I can’t remember precisely what I said now…’

And then, with an abrupt change of subject:

‘That boy reminded me of Charlie. Lula’s boyfriend. The very handsome boy. What is his name?’

‘Evan Duffield?’