His disappointment at Strike’s chosen line of inquiry was so evident that the detective felt it might be politic to slip in a little covert justification of the immense fee his client was paying.

‘The other reason I was calling was to let you know that tomorrow evening I’m meeting one of the CID officers who covered the case. Eric Wardle. I’m hoping to get hold of the police file.’

‘Fantastic!’ Bristow sounded impressed. ‘That’s quick work!’

‘Yeah, well, I’ve got good contacts in the Met.’

‘Then you’ll be able to get some answers about the Runner! You’ve read my notes?’

‘Yeah, very useful,’ said Strike.

‘And I’m trying to fix up a lunch with Tansy Bestigui this week, so you can meet her and hear her testimony first hand. I’ll ring your secretary, shall I?’

‘Great.’

There was this to be said for having an underworked secretary he could not afford, Strike thought, once he had rung off: it gave a professional impression.

St Elmo’s Hostel for the Homeless turned out to be situated right behind the noisy concrete flyover. A plain, ill-proportioned and contemporaneous cousin of Lula’s Mayfair house, red brick with humbler, grubby white facings; no stone steps, no garden, no elegant neighbours, but a chipped door opening directly on to the street, peeling paint on the window ledges and a forlorn air. The utilitarian modern world had encroached until it sat huddled and miserable, out of synch with its surroundings, the flyover a mere twenty yards away, so that the upper windows looked directly out upon the concrete barriers and the endlessly passing cars. An unmistakably institutional flavour was given by the large silver buzzer and speaker beside the door, and the unapologetically ugly black camera, with its dangling wires, that hung from the lintel in a wire cage.

An emaciated young girl with a sore at the corner of her mouth stood smoking outside the front door, wearing a dirty man’s jumper that swamped her. She was leaning up against the wall, staring blankly towards the commercial centre barely five minutes’ walk away, and when Strike pressed the buzzer for admission to the hostel, she gave him a look of deep calculation, apparently assessing his potentialities.

A small, fusty, grimy-floored lobby with shabby wooden panelling lay just inside the door. Two locked glass-panelled doors stood to left and right, affording him glimpses of a bare hall and a depressed-looking side room with a table full of leaflets, an old dartboard and a wall liberally peppered with holes. Straight ahead was a kiosk-like front desk, protected by another metal grille.

A gum-chewing woman behind the desk was reading a newspaper. She seemed suspicious and ill-disposed when Strike asked whether he could speak to a girl whose name was something like Rachel, and who had been a friend of Lula Landry’s.

‘You a journalist?’

‘No, I’m not; I’m a friend of a friend.’

‘Should know her name, then, shouldn’t you?’

‘Rachel? Raquelle? Something like that.’

A balding man strode into the kiosk behind the suspicious woman.