There had been plenty written about police incompetence; Carver had been snapped hurrying down the street, his jacket flying, the sweat patches just visible on his shirt; but Wardle, handsome Wardle, who had helped Strike bring Bristow in, had so far been treated with indulgence, especially by female journalists. Mostly, however, the news media had feasted all over again on the corpse of Lula Landry; every version of the story sparkling with pictures of the dead model’s flawless face, and her lithe and sculpted body.

Robin was talking; Strike had not been listening, his attention diverted by the throbbing in his arm and leg.

‘… a note of all the files and your diary. Because you’ll need someone, now, you know; you’re not going to be able to take care of all this on your own.’

‘No,’ he agreed, struggling to his feet; he had intended to do this later, at the moment of her departure, but now was as good a moment as any, and it made an excuse to leave the sofa, which was extremely uncomfortable. ‘Listen, Robin, I haven’t ever said a proper thank-you…’

‘Yes you have,’ she said hurriedly. ‘In the cab on the way to the hospital – and anyway, there’s no need. I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve loved it, actually.’

He was hobbling away into the inner office, and did not hear the catch in her voice. The present was hidden at the bottom of his kitbag. It was very badly wrapped.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘This is for you. I couldn’t have done it without you.’

‘Oh,’ said Robin, on a strangled note, and Strike was both touched and faintly alarmed to see tears spill down her cheeks. ‘You didn’t have to…’

‘Open it at home,’ he said, but too late; the package was literally coming apart in her hands. Something slithered, poison-green, out of the split in the paper, on to the desk in front of her. She gasped.

‘You… oh my God, Cormoran…’

She held up the dress she had tried on, and loved, in Vashti, and stared at him over the top of it, pink-faced, her eyes sparkling.

‘You can’t afford this!’

‘Yeah, I can,’ he said, leaning back against the partition wall, because it was marginally more comfortable than sitting on the sofa. ‘Work’s rolling in now. You’ve been incredible. Your new place is lucky to get you.’

She was frantically mopping her eyes with the sleeves of her shirt. A sob and some incomprehensible words escaped her. She reached blindly for the tissues that she had bought from petty cash, in anticipation of more clients like Mrs Hook, blew her nose, wiped her eyes and said, with the green dress lying limp and forgotten across her lap:

‘I don’t want to go!’

‘I can’t afford you, Robin,’ he said flatly.