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“I said that, Mel, didn’t I?” crowed the pink-haired girl. “I told her that.”

Mel was immediately on the defensive.

“But he wasn’t there! He never went to her flat! He must’ve been saying he had something on and he didn’t want to see her, because she was going, ‘Come after, then, I’ll wait up, it don’t matter. I probably won’t be home till one anyway. Please come, please.’ Like, begging him. Anyway, she had her friend in the cubicle with her. Her friend heard everything; she would’ve told the police, wouldn’t she?”

Robin was pulling on the glittering coat again, for something to do. Almost as an afterthought, as she twisted and turned in front of the mirror, she asked:

“And it was definitely Evan Duffield she was talking to, was it?”

“Of course it was,” said Mel, as though Robin had insulted her intelligence. “Who else would she’ve been asking round to her place in the early hours? She sounded desperate to see him.”

“God, his eyes,” said the girl with the cotton candy hair. “He is so gorgeous. And massive charisma in person. He came in here with her once. God, he’s sexy.”

Ten minutes later, Robin having modeled a further two outfits for Strike, and agreed with him in front of the assistants that the sequined coat was the best of the bunch, they decided (with the assistants’ agreement) that she ought to bring Sandra in to have a look at it the following day before they committed themselves. Strike reserved the five-thousand-pound coat under the name of Andrew Atkinson, gave an invented mobile phone number and left the boutique with Robin in a shower of friendly good wishes, as though they had already spent the money.

They walked fifty yards in silence, and Strike had lit up a cigarette before he said:

“Very, very impressive.”

Robin glowed with pride.

5

STRIKE AND ROBIN PARTED AT New Bond Street station. Robin took the underground back to the office to call BestFilms, look through online telephone directories for Rochelle Onifade’s aunt, and evade Temporary Solutions (“Keep the door locked” was Strike’s advice).

Strike bought himself a newspaper and caught the underground to Knightsbridge, then walked, having plenty of time to spare, to the Serpentine Bar and Kitchen, which Bristow had chosen for their lunch appointment.

The trip took him across Hyde Park, down leafy walkways and across the sandy bridle path of Rotten Row. He had jotted down the bare bones of the girl called Mel’s evidence on the Tube, and now, in the sun-dappled greenery, his mind drifted, lingering on the memory of Robin as she had looked in the clinging green dress.

He had disconcerted her by his reaction, he knew that; but there had been a weird intimacy about the moment, and intimacy was precisely what he wanted least at the moment, most especially with Robin, bright, professional and considerate as she was. He enjoyed her company and he appreciated the way that she respected his privacy, keeping her curiosity in check. God knew, thought Strike, moving over to avoid a cyclist, he had come across that particular quality rarely enough in life, particularly from women. Yet the fact that he would, quite soon, be free of Robin was an inextricable part of his enjoyment of her presence; the fact that she was going to move on imposed, like her engagement ring, a happy boundary. He liked Robin; he was grateful to her; he was even (after this morning) impressed by her; but, having normal sight and an unimpaired libido, he was also reminded every day she bent over the computer monitor that she was a very sexy girl. Not beautiful; nothing like Charlotte; but attractive, nonetheless. That fact had never been so crudely presented to him as when she walked out of the changing room in the clinging green dress, and in consequence he had literally averted his eyes. He acquitted her of any deliberate provocation, but he was realistic, all the same, about the precarious balance that must be maintained for his own sanity. She was the only human with whom he was in regular contact, and he did not underestimate his current susceptibility; he had also gathered, from certain evasions and hesitations, that her fiancé disliked the fact that she had left the temping agency for this ad hoc agreement. It was safest all round not to let the burgeoning friendship become too warm; best not to admire openly the sight of her figure draped in jersey.

Strike had never been to the Serpentine Bar and Kitchen. It was set on the boating lake, a striking building that was more like a futuristic pagoda than anything he had ever seen. The thick white roof, looking like a giant book that had been placed down on its open pages, was supported by concertinaed glass. A huge weeping willow caressed the side of the restaurant and brushed the water’s surface.

Though it was a cool, breezy day, the view over the lake was splendid in the sunlight. Strike chose an outdoor table right beside the water, ordered a pint of Doom Bar and read his paper.