And this time, albeit reluctantly, she left. He waited until he heard the door on to Denmark Street bang shut, then rolled up his trouser leg, detached the prosthesis and examined his swollen knee, and the end of his leg, which was inflamed and bruised. He wondered exactly what he had done to himself, but there was no time to take the problem to an expert tonight.

He half wished, now, that he had asked Robin to fetch him something to eat before she left. Clumsily, hopping from spot to spot, holding on to the desk, the top of the filing cabinet and the arm of the sofa to balance, he managed to make himself a cup of tea. He drank it sitting in Robin’s chair, and ate half a packet of digestives, spending most of the time in contemplation of the face of Jonah Agyeman. The paracetamol had barely touched the pain in his leg.

When he had finished all the biscuits, he checked his mobile. There were many missed calls from Robin, and two from John Bristow.

Of the three people who Strike thought might present themselves at his office this evening, it was Bristow he hoped would make it there first. If the police wanted concrete evidence of murder, his client alone (though he might not realise it) could provide it. If either Tony Landry or Alison Cresswell turned up at his offices, I’ll just have to… then Strike snorted a little in his empty office, because the expression that had occurred to him was ‘think on my feet’

But six o’clock came, and then half past, and nobody rang the bell. Strike rubbed more cream into the end of his leg, and reattached the prosthesis, which was agony. He limped through into the inner office, emitting grunts of pain, slumped down in his chair and, giving up, took the false leg off again and slid down, to lay his head on his arms, intending to do no more than rest his tired eyes.

2

Footsteps on the metal stairs. Strike sat bolt upright, not knowing whether he had been asleep five minutes or fifty. Somebody rapped on the glass door.

‘Come in, it’s open!’ he shouted, and checked that the unattached prosthesis was covered by his trouser leg.

To Strike’s immense relief, it was John Bristow who entered the room, blinking through his thick-lensed glasses and looking agitated.

‘Hi, John. Come and sit down.’

But Bristow strode towards him, blotchy-faced, as full of rage as he had been the day that Strike had refused to take the case, and gripped the back of the offered chair instead.

‘I told you,’ he said, the colour waxing and waning in his thin face as he pointed a bony finger at Strike, ‘I told you quite clearly that I didn’t want you to see my mother without me present!’

‘I know you did, John, but—’