‘There you are! I’ve been calling and calling, there’s been loads… What’s the matter, are you all right?’

‘I’m fine,’ he lied.

‘No you’re… What’s happened to you?’

She hastened down the stairs towards him. He was white, and sweaty, and looked, in Robin’s opinion, as though he might be sick.

‘Have you been drinking?’

‘No I haven’t been bloody drinking!’ he snapped. ‘I’ve – sorry, Robin. In a bit of pain here. I just need to sit down.’

‘What’s happened? Let me…’

‘I’ve got it. No problem. I can manage.’

Slowly he pulled himself to the top landing and limped very heavily to the old sofa. When he dropped his weight into it, Robin thought she heard something deep in the structure crack, and noted, We’ll need a new one, and then, But I’m leaving.

‘What happened?’ she asked.

‘I fell down some stairs,’ said Strike, panting a little, still wearing his coat. ‘Like a complete tit.’

‘What stairs? What happened?’

From the depths of his agony he grinned at her expression, which was part horrified, part excited.

‘I wasn’t wrestling anyone, Robin. I just slipped.’

‘Oh, I see. You’re a bit – you look a bit pale. You don’t think you could have done something serious, do you? I could get a cab – maybe you should see a doctor.’

‘No need for that. Have we still got any of those painkillers lying around?’

She brought him water and paracetamol. He took them, then stretched out his legs, flinched and asked:

‘What’s been going on here? Did Graham Hardacre send you a picture?’

‘Yes,’ she said, hurrying to her computer monitor. ‘Here.’

With a shunt of her mouse and a click, the picture of Lieutenant Jonah Agyeman filled the monitor.

In silence, they contemplated the face of a young man whose irrefutable handsomeness was not diminished by the overlarge ears he had inherited from his father. The scarlet, black and gold uniform suited him. His grin was slightly lopsided, his cheekbones high, his jaw square and his skin dark with an undertone of red, like freshly brewed tea. He conveyed the careless charm that Lula Landry had had too; the indefinable quality that made the viewer linger over her image.

‘He looks like her,’ said Robin in a hushed voice.

‘Yeah, he does. Anything else been going on?’

Robin seemed to snap back to attention.

‘Oh God, yes… John Bristow called half an hour ago, to say he couldn’t get hold of you, and Tony Landry’s called three times.’

‘I thought he might. What did he say?’