For a few moments there was silence, except for the flick of photographs and the tapping of Robin’s short nails against the keys. The door into the inner office behind Strike was closed to conceal the camp bed and other signs of habitation, and the air was heavy with the scent of artificial limes, due to Strike’s liberal use of cheap air-freshener before Robin had arrived. Lest she perceive any tinge of sexual interest in his decision to sit at the other end of her desk, he had pretended to notice her engagement ring for the first time before sitting down, then made polite, studiously impersonal conversation about her fiancé for five minutes. He learned that he was a newly qualified accountant called Matthew; that it was to live with Matthew that Robin had moved to London from Yorkshire the previous month, and that the temping was a stopgap measure before finding a permanent job.
‘D’you think she could be in one of these pictures?’ Robin asked, after a while. ‘The girl from the treatment centre?’
She had brought up a screen full of identically sized photographs, each showing one or more people dressed in dark clothes, all heading from left to right, making for the funeral. Crash barriers and the blurred faces of a crowd formed the backdrop to each picture.
Most striking of all was the picture of a very tall, pale girl with golden hair drawn back into a ponytail, on whose head was perched a confection of black net and feathers. Strike recognised her, because everyone knew who she was: Ciara Porter, the model with whom Lula had spent much of her last day on earth; the friend with whom Landry had been photographed for one of the most famous shots of her career. Porter looked beautiful and sombre as she walked towards Lula’s funeral service. She seemed to have attended alone, because there was no disembodied hand supporting her thin arm or resting on her long back.
Next to Porter’s picture was that of a couple captioned Film producer Freddie Bestigui and wife Tansy. Bestigui was built like a bull, with short legs, a broad barrel chest and a thick neck. His hair was grey and brush-cut; his face a crumpled mass of folds, bags and moles, out of which his fleshy nose protruded like a tumour. Nevertheless, he cut an imposing figure in his expensive black overcoat, with his skeletal young wife on his arm. Almost nothing could be discerned of Tansy’s true appearance, behind the upturned fur of her coat collar and the enormous round sunglasses.
Last in this top row of photographs was Guy Somé, fashion designer. He was a thin black man who was wearing a midnight-blue frock coat of exaggerated cut. His face was bowed and his expression indiscernible, due to the way the light fell on his dark head, though three large diamond earrings in the lobe facing the camera had caught the flashes and glittered like stars. Like Porter, he appeared to have arrived unaccompanied, although a small group of mourners, unworthy of their own legends, had been captured within the frame of his picture.