‘After she left, I was very upset,’ she said. ‘Very upset indeed. Talking about Charlie always does that to me. She could see how distressed I was, but she still left to meet her friend. I had to take pills, and I slept. No, I never saw Tony; I didn’t see anyone else. He might say he was here, but I don’t remember anything until John woke me up with a supper tray. John was cross. He told me off.’

‘Why was that?’

‘He thinks I take too many pills,’ said Lady Bristow, like a little girl. ‘I know he wants the best for me, poor John, but he doesn’t realise… he couldn’t… I’ve had so much pain in my life. He sat with me for a long time that night. We talked about Charlie. We talked into the early hours of the morning. And while we were talking,’ she said, dropping her voice to a whisper, ‘at the very time we were talking, Lula fell… she fell off the balcony.

‘So it was John who had to break the news to me, the next morning. The police had arrived on the doorstep, at the crack of dawn. He came into the bedroom to tell me and…’

She swallowed, and shook her head, limp, barely alive.

‘That’s why the cancer came back, I know it. People can only bear so much pain.’

Her voice was becoming more slurred. He wondered how much Valium she had already taken, as she closed her eyes drowsily.

‘Yvette, would it be all right if I used your bathroom?’ he asked.

She assented with a sleepy nod.

Strike got up, and moved quickly, and surprisingly quietly for a man of his bulk, into the walk-in wardrobe.

The space was lined with mahogany doors that reached to the ceiling. Strike opened one of the doors and glanced inside, at overstuffed railings of dresses and coats, with a shelf of bags and hats above, breathing in the musty smell of old shoes and fabric which, in spite of the evident costliness of the contents, evoked an old charity shop. Silently he opened and closed door after door, until, on the fourth attempt, he saw a cluster of clearly brand-new handbags, each of a different colour, that had been squeezed on to the high shelf.

He took down the blue one, shop-new and shiny. Here was the GS logo, and the silk lining that was zipped into the bag. He ran his fingers around it, into every corner, then replaced it deftly on the shelf.

He selected the white bag next: the lining was patterned with a stylised African print. Again he ran his fingers all around the interior. Then he unzipped the lining.