Lund smirked as if he’d remembered a filthy joke. ‘Olivia tells me you’re getting married.’

Charlie moved the words around in her brain. Liv hadn’t mentioned knowing Lund personally. ‘Have you seen my sister recently?’

‘Last week. Simon, isn’t it? Your fiancé? Also a cop.’

‘How well do you and Liv know each other?’ Vogue, Elle, The English Home . . . The magazines Lund had suggested to Charlie were all ones Olivia subscribed to. No. Please, no.

‘How well does anyone know anyone? Liv can’t believe your parents haven’t tried to talk you out of marrying him,’ said Lund amiably. ‘Says she’s tried, but you won’t listen to her.’

Charlie’s insides had turned to lead. She opened her mouth to speak, but found she couldn’t. Every last word had declared itself unavailable.

‘My impression is that you don’t really listen to anyone,’ Lund added, his eyes drifting to the screen of his BlackBerry. Were there messages on it from Olivia?

Charlie pulled her handbag off the back of her chair and marched out of the restaurant. Outside, walking fast in no particular direction, she realised she’d broken the strap. She heard a stifled cry that must have come from her. Where to go, what to do next? Not Olivia’s flat. She’d kill her sister if she saw her now. Better to calm down first. Charlie pulled her phone out of her bag, made sure it was still switched off. She ached to ring Simon, but knew that if she spoke to him in her present state, they’d end up having a row. Simon, like Dominic Lund, didn’t understand why she hadn’t simply tackled Ruth openly about the newspaper cuttings. He thought the bedroom wall thing was odd, but didn’t understand why it had upset Charlie to the extent that it had. He thinks I’m overreacting.

A street sign caught her eye as she tried and failed to light a cigarette in the cold wind: ‘Charlotte Street’. How many Charlotte Streets could there be in London? Charlie answered her own question: more than one, easily. Still, it was possible. This seemed the right sort of area, and she could see what looked like a gallery further down the road.

She dropped her unlit cigarette and lighter back into her bag and broke into a run. A few seconds later, the possibility became a reality. There was the name, in orange and brown letters on the glass: TiqTaq. This was the gallery Ruth Bussey had mentioned last night. Charlie took a deep breath and went in.