‘… he went straight from the airport to a nightclub, yeah,’ said Wardle. Again, a broad and apparently involuntary grin illuminated his face. ‘I interviewed Deeby at Claridges the day after she died. Massive bloke. Like you,’ he said, with a glance at Strike’s bulky torso, ‘only fit.’ Strike took the hit without demur. ‘Proper ex-gangster. He’s been in and out of the nick in LA. He nearly didn’t get a visa to get into the UK.

‘He had an entourage with him,’ said Wardle. ‘All hanging around the room, rings on every finger, tattoos on their necks. He was the biggest, though. One scary fucker Deeby’d be, if you met him down an alleyway. Politer than Bestigui by ten fucking miles. Asked me how the hell I could do my job without a gun.’

The policeman was beaming. Strike could not help drawing the conclusion that Eric Wardle, CID, was, in this case, as star-struck as Kieran Kolovas-Jones.

‘Wasn’t a long interview, seeing as he’d only just got off a plane and never set foot inside Kentigern Gardens. Routine. I got him to sign his latest CD for me at the end,’ Wardle added, as though he could not help himself. ‘That brought the house down, he loved it. The missus wanted to put it on eBay, but I’m keeping…’

Wardle stopped talking with an air of having given away a little more than he had intended. Amused, Strike helped himself to a handful of pork scratchings.

‘What about Evan Duffield?’

‘Him,’ said Wardle. The stardust that had sparkled over the policeman’s account of Deeby Macc was gone; the policeman was scowling. ‘Little junkie shit. He pissed us around from start to finish. He went straight into rehab the day after she died.’

‘I saw. Where?’

‘Priory, where else? Fucking rest cure.’

‘So when did you interview him?’

‘Next day, but we had to find him first; his people were being as obstructive as possible. Same story as Bestigui, wasn’t it? They didn’t want us to know what he’d really been doing. My missus,’ said Wardle, scowling even harder, ‘thinks he’s sexy. You married?’

‘No,’ said Strike.

‘Anstis told me you left the army to get married to some woman who looks like a supermodel.’

‘What was Duffield’s story, once you got to him?’

‘They’d had a big bust-up in the club, Uzi. Plenty of witnesses to that. She left, and his story was that he followed her, about five minutes later, wearing this fucking wolf mask. It covers the whole head. Lifelike, hairy thing. He told us he’d got it from a fashion shoot.’

Wardle’s expression was eloquent of contempt.