‘I’ve been wondering who let the paparazzi staking out number eighteen know that Deeby wasn’t going to be there for hours. Someone tipped them off; that’s why they’d left the street before Lula fell.’

‘Yeah? I dunno,’ said Kolovas-Jones.

He increased his pace very slightly, reaching the car ahead of the other two and unlocking it.

‘Didn’t Macc have a load of luggage with him? Was it in the car with you?’

‘Nah, it’d all been sent ahead by the record company days before. He got off the plane with just a carry-on bag – and about ten security people.’

‘So you weren’t the only car sent for him?’

‘There were four cars – but Deeby himself was with me.’

‘Where did you wait for him, while he was in the nightclub?’

‘I just parked the car and waited,’ said Kolovas-Jones. ‘Just off Glasshouse Street.’

‘With the other three cars? Were you all together?’

‘You don’t find four parking spaces side by side in the middle of London, mate,’ said Kolovas-Jones. ‘I dunno where the others were parked.’

Still holding the driver’s door open, he glanced at Wilson, then back at Strike.

‘How’s any of this matter?’ he demanded.

‘I’m just interested,’ said Strike, ‘in how it works, when you’re with a client.’

‘It’s fucking tedious,’ said Kolovas-Jones, with a sudden flash of irritation, ‘that’s what it is. Driving’s mostly waiting around.’

‘Have you still got the control for the doors to the underground garage that Lula gave you?’ Strike asked.

‘What?’ said Kolovas-Jones, although Strike would have taken an oath that the driver had heard him. The flicker of animosity was undisguised now, and it seemed to extend not only to Strike, but also to Wilson, who had listened without comment since noting aloud that Kolovas-Jones was an actor.

‘Have you still got—’

‘Yeah, I’ve still got it. I still drive Mr Bestigui, don’t I?’ said Kolovas-Jones. ‘Right, I gotta go. See ya, Derrick.’

He threw his half-smoked cigarette into the road and got into the car.

‘If you remember anything else,’ said Strike, ‘like the name of the friend Lula was meeting in Vashti, will you give me a call?’

He handed Kolovas-Jones a card. The driver, already pulling on his seat belt, took it without looking at it.

‘I’m gonna be late.’

Wilson raised his hand in farewell. Kolovas-Jones slammed the car door, revved the engine and reversed out of the parking space, scowling.

‘He’s a bit of a star-fucker,’ said Wilson, as the car pulled away. It was a kind of apology for the younger man. ‘He loved drivin’ her. He tries to drive all the famous ones. He’s been hoping Bestigui’ll cast him in something for two years. He was well pissed off when he didn’t get that part.’

‘What was it?’

‘Drug dealer. Some film.’

They walked off together in the direction of Brixton underground station, past a gaggle of black schoolgirls in uniforms with blue plaid skirts. One girl’s long beaded hair made Strike think, again, of his sister, Lucy.