‘Yeah. There was nothing in the flat, nothing on her laptop, but that wasn’t a surprise. She did it on the spur of the moment, didn’t she? She was bipolar, she’d just argued with that little tosser and it pushed her over – well, you know what I mean.’

Wardle checked his watch, and drained the last of his pint.

‘I’m gonna have to go. The wife’ll be pissed off, I told her I’d only be half an hour.’

The over-tanned girls had left without either man noticing. Out on the pavement, both lit up cigarettes.

‘I hate this fucking smoking ban,’ said Wardle, zipping his leather jacket up to the neck.

‘Have we got a deal, then?’ asked Strike.

Cigarette between his lips, Wardle pulled on a pair of gloves.

‘I dunno about that.’

‘C’mon, Wardle,’ said Strike, handing the policeman a card, which Wardle accepted as though it were a joke item. ‘I’ve given you Brett Fearney.’

Wardle laughed outright.

‘Not yet you haven’t.’

He slipped Strike’s card into a pocket, inhaled, blew smoke skywards, then shot the larger man a look compounded of curiosity and appraisal.

‘Yeah, all right. If we get Fearney, you can have the file.’

11

‘Evan Duffield’s agent says his client isn’t taking any further calls or giving any interviews about Lula Landry,’ said Robin next morning. ‘I did make it clear that you’re not a journalist, but he was adamant. And the people in Guy Somé’s office are ruder than Freddie Bestigui’s. You’d think I was trying to get an audience with the Pope.’

‘OK,’ said Strike. ‘I’ll see whether I can get at him through Bristow.’

It was the first time that Robin had seen Strike in a suit. He looked, she thought, like a rugby player en route to an international: large, conventionally smart in his dark jacket and subdued tie. He was on his knees, searching through one of the cardboard boxes he had brought from Charlotte’s flat. Robin was averting her gaze from his boxed-up possessions. They were still avoiding any mention of the fact that Strike was living in his office.

‘Aha,’ he said, finally locating, from amid a pile of his mail, a bright blue envelope: the invitation to his nephew’s party. ‘Bollocks,’ he added, on opening it.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘It doesn’t say how old he is,’ said Strike. ‘My nephew.’

Robin was curious about Strike’s relations with his family. As she had never been officially informed, however, that Strike had numerous half-brothers and sisters, a famous father and a mildly infamous mother, she bit back all questions and continued to open the day’s paltry mail.

Strike got up off the floor, replaced the cardboard box in a corner of the inner office and returned to Robin.

‘What’s that?’ he asked, seeing a sheet of photocopied newsprint on the desk.