“Dad had been bringing in most of the money,” said Porschia. “There were five of us, and Mum had never had much schooling. Before Dad got arrested, she’d been studying, trying to pass some exams, better herself. We were just about making ends meet while Dad was bringing in a wage, but once he was gone, we struggled.”

“Our mum and her sister married two brothers,” said Maya. “Nine children between them. The families were really close, right up until Dad got arrested—but then everything changed. My Uncle Marcus went to court every day while Dad was on trial, but Mum wouldn’t go and Uncle Marcus was really angry at her.”

“Well, he knew it would’ve made a big difference, if the judge had seen Dad had the family united behind him,” snapped Eden. “I went. I bunked off school to go. I knew he was innocent.”

“Well, good for you,” said Porschia, though her tone was far from congratulatory, “but Mum didn’t want to sit in open court listening to her husband talk about how often he had sex with his girlfriend—”

“That woman was trash,” said Eden curtly.

“Dirty water does cool hot iron,” said Porschia, with a Bajan inflection. “His choice.”

“So, anyway,” said Maya hastily, “the judge believed the woman, and Dad got put away. Mum never went to visit him inside, and she wouldn’t take me or Porschia or our brothers, either.”

“I went,” piped up Eden again. “I got Uncle Marcus to take me. He was still our dad. Mum had no right to stop us seeing him.”

“Yeah, so,” continued Maya, before Porschia could say anything, “Mum wanted a divorce, but she had no money for legal advice. So Dr. Bamborough put her in touch with this feminist lawyer, who’d give legal help to women in difficult circumstances, for a reduced fee. When Uncle Marcus told Dad that Mum had managed to get herself a lawyer, Dad wrote to her from prison, begging her to change her mind. He said he’d found God, that he loved her and he’d learned his lesson and all he wanted was his family.”

Maya took a sip of her coffee.

“About a week after Mum got Dad’s letter, she was cleaning Dr. Bamborough’s consulting room one evening after everyone had left, and she noticed something in the bin.”

Maya unfastened the handbag she’d been holding on her lap, and took out a pale blue piece of heavily creased paper, which had clearly been crumpled up into a ball at some point in the past. She held it out to Robin, who laid it flat on the table so that Strike could read it, too.

The faded handwriting was a distinctive mix of capitals and lower-case letters.

LEAVE MY GIRL ALONE YOU CUNT OR I’LL MAKE SURE YOU GO TO HELL SLOW AND PAINFUL.

Robin glanced sideways at Strike and saw her own, barely disguised astonishment mirrored there. Before either of them could say anything, a group of young women passed their table, forcing Strike to push his chair in. Chatting and giggling, the women sat down at the table behind Maya and Eden.

“When Mum read that,” said Maya, speaking more quietly so that the newcomers couldn’t hear her, “she thought Dad had sent it. Not literally, because the prison censor would never have let that go out—she thought someone had done it for him.”

“Specifically, Uncle Marcus,” said Eden, arms folded and expression pinched. “Uncle Marcus, who was a lay preacher and never used the c-word in his life.”

“Mum took the note over to Uncle Marcus and Auntie Carmen’s,” said Maya, ignoring this interjection, “and asked Marcus straight out if he was behind it. He denied it, but Mum didn’t believe him. It was the mention of hell: Marcus was a fire-and-brimstone kind of preacher back then—”

“—and he didn’t believe Mum really wanted a divorce,” said Porschia. “He blamed Dr. Bamborough for persuading Mum to leave Dad, because, you know, Mum really needed a white woman to point out her life was shit. She’d never have noticed otherwise.”

“Going for a cigarette, OK?” said Eden abruptly. She pushed herself up and walked out, her heels rapping on the wooden floorboards.

Both younger sisters seemed to exhale in relief with her departure.

“She was Dad’s favorite,” Maya told Strike and Robin quietly, watching through the window as Eden took out a packet of Silk Cut, shook her hair out of her face and lit herself a cigarette. “She really loved him, even if he was a womanizer.”

“And she never got on with Mum,” said Porschia. “Their rows would’ve woken the dead.”

“In fairness,” said Maya, “them splitting up hit Eden hardest. She left school at sixteen, got herself a job at Marks & Spencer to help support—”

“Mum never wanted her to drop out of school,” said Porschia. “That was Eden’s choice. Eden likes to claim it was a sacrifice she made for the family, but come on. She couldn’t wait to get out of school, because Mum put so much pressure on her to get good grades. She likes to claim she was a second mother to all of us, but that’s not how I remember it. I mostly remember her whacking merry hell out of me if I so much as looked at her wrong.”

On the other side of the window, Eden stood smoking with her back to them.

“The whole situation was a nightmare,” said Maya sadly. “Mum and Uncle Marcus never made it up, and with Mum and Carmen being sisters…”

“Let’s just tell them now, while she can’t stick her oar in,” Porschia urged Maya, and turning to Strike and Robin, she said, “Auntie Carmen was helping Mum get the divorce, behind Uncle Marcus’s back.”

“How?” asked Robin, as a waiter passed their table on the way to the group of women at the next table.

“See, when the lawyer Dr. Bamborough had recommended told Mum what she charged, Mum knew she’d never be able to afford her, not even at the reduced rates,” said Porschia.

“Mum came home afterward and cried,” said Maya, “because she was desperate to have the divorce done and dusted before Dad got out of jail. She knew otherwise he’d just move right back in and she’d be trapped. Anyway, a few days later, Dr. Bamborough asked her how things had gone with the lawyer, and Mum admitted she wasn’t going to go through with the divorce, for lack of funds, so,” Maya sighed, “Dr. Bamborough offered to pay the lawyer, in exchange for Mum doing a few hours a week cleaning the house out in Ham.”

The women at the table behind theirs were now flirting with the young waiter, wondering whether it was too early for a cream cake, giggling about breaking their diets.

“Mum didn’t feel she could refuse,” said Maya. “But what with the costs of getting all the way out to Ham, and the time it would take her to get out there, when she already had two other jobs and exams coming up…”

“Your Aunt Carmen agreed to do the cleaning for her,” guessed Robin, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Strike glance at her.

“Yeah,” said Maya, eyes widening in surprise. “Exactly. It seemed like a good solution. Auntie Carmen was a housewife and Uncle Marcus and Dr. Bamborough were both out at work all day, so Mum thought neither of them would ever know the wrong woman was turning up.”

“There was one sticky moment,” said Porschia, “remember, M? When Dr. Bamborough asked us all over to a barbecue at her house?” She turned to Robin. “We couldn’t go, because Dr. Bamborough’s nanny would’ve realized Mum wasn’t the woman turning up once a week to clean. My Auntie Carmen didn’t like that nanny,” Porschia added. “Didn’t like her at all.”

“Why was that?” asked Strike.

“She thought the girl was after Dr. Bamborough’s husband. Went red every time she said his name, apparently.”

The door of the café opened and Eden walked back inside. As she sat down, Robin caught a whiff of smoke mingling with her perfume.

“Where’ve you got to?” she asked, looking cold.

“Auntie Carmen cleaning instead of Mum,” said Maya.

Eden re-folded her arms, ignoring her coffee.

“So the statement your mother gave the police, about the blood and Dr. Phipps walking across the garden—” said Strike.

“—was really her telling him everything Carmen had told her, yeah,” said Maya, feeling again for the cross around her neck. “She couldn’t own up that her sister had been going there instead of her, because my Uncle Marcus would’ve gone crazy if he’d found out. Auntie Carmen begged Mum not to tell the police and Mum agreed.

“So she had to pretend she was the one who’d seen the blood on the carpet and Dr. Phipps walking across the lawn.”

“Only,” interrupted Porschia, with a humorless laugh, “Carmen changed her mind about Dr. Phipps, after. Mum went back to her after her first police interview and said, ‘They’re asking whether I couldn’t have got confused and mistaken one of the workmen for Dr. Phipps.’ Carmen said, ‘Oh. Yeah. I forgot there were workmen round the back. Maybe I did.’”

Porschia let out a short laugh, but Robin knew she wasn’t truly amused. It was the same kind of laughter Robin had taken refuge in, the night she’d discussed rape with Max over the kitchen table.