Clara and Emma had known each other from their school days, had gone in the same year to the same Cambridge college and, though subsequently taking very different paths, had never lost touch. It was on the face of it a surprising friendship, commonly explained by the attraction of opposites. Emma, heterosexual, with her disturbing heart-stirring beauty which Dalgliesh knew could be more a burden than the envied and unmixed blessing of popular imagination; Clara, short with a round cheerful face, bright-eyed behind large spectacles and with the stumpy walk of a ploughman. That she was attractive to men was to Dalgliesh one more example of the mystery of sexual appeal. He had sometimes wondered whether Clara’s first response to him had been activated by jealousy or regret. Both seemed unlikely. Clara was so obviously happy with her partner, the frail gentle-faced Annie, who, Dalgliesh suspected, was tougher than she looked. It was Annie who made their Putney flat a place where no one entered without—in Jane Austen’s words—the sanguine expectation of happiness. After achieving a first in mathematics, Clara had begun working in the City, where she was a highly successful fund manager. Colleagues came and went, but Clara was retained. Emma had told him that she planned to leave the job in three years’ time, when she and Annie would use the considerable capital accrued to begin a very different life. In the meantime, much of what she earned was spent on good causes close to Annie’s heart.

Three months earlier, Emma and he had attended the ceremony of Clara and Annie’s civil partnership, a quietly satisfying celebration at which only Clara’s parents, Annie’s widowed father and a few close friends had been guests. Afterwards there had been a lunch cooked by Annie in the flat. After the second course was finished Clara and Dalgliesh together carried plates into the kitchen to bring in the pudding. It was then she had turned to him with a resolution which suggested that she had been waiting for this opportunity.

“It must seem perverse in us to tie a legal knot when you heteros are scrambling in thousands to divorce, or living together without benefit of marriage. We were perfectly happy as we were, but we needed to ensure that each is the other’s recognised next of kin. If Annie is ever in hospital, I need to be there. And then there’s the property. If I die first, it must go untaxed to Annie. I expect she’ll spend most of it on lame ducks, but that’s up to her. It won’t be wasted. Annie is very wise. People think that our partnership lasts because I’m the stronger and Annie needs me. Actually the reverse is true, and you’re one of the rare people who’ve seen that from the start. Thank you for being with us today.”