Robin could tell that Anna was crying, too. She felt wretched.

“I’m sorry,” said Strike formally. “Very sorry, not to have better news for you. However, Douthwaite remains of real interest, and—”

“No.”

Robin recognized Kim’s firm negative.

“No, I’m sorry,” said the psychologist. “We agreed a year.”

“We’re actually two weeks short,” said Strike, “and if—”

“Have you got any reason to believe you can find Steve Douthwaite in the next two weeks?”

Strike’s slightly bloodshot eyes met Robin’s wet ones.

“No,” he admitted.

“As I said in my email, we’re about to go on holiday,” said Kim. “In the absence of actually finding Margot’s body, there was always bound to be another angle you could try, one more person who might know something, and as I said at the start of this, we haven’t got the money, or, frankly, the emotional stamina, to keep this going forever. I think it’s better—cleaner—if we accept that you’ve done your best, and thank you for the trouble you’ve clearly taken. This has been a worthwhile exercise, even if—I mean, Anna and Roy’s relationship’s better than it’s been in years, thanks to your visit. He’ll be glad to hear that the cleaner accepted he wasn’t able to walk that day.”

“Well, that’s good,” said Strike. “I’m only sorry—”

“I knew,” said Anna, her voice wavering, “that it was going to be… almost impossible. At least I know I tried.”

After Anna had hung up, there was a silence in the room. Finally Strike said “Need a pee,” pulled himself up and left the room.

Robin got up, too, and began to gather together the photocopied pages from the police file. She couldn’t believe it was all over. Having put the records into a neat pile, she sat down and began to flick through them one more time, knowing that she was hoping to see something—anything—they’d overlooked.

From Gloria Conti’s statement to Lawson:

She was a short, dark, stocky woman who looked like a gypsy. I judged her to be in her teens. She came in alone and said she was in a lot of pain. She said her name was Theo. I didn’t catch her surname and I didn’t ask her to repeat it because I thought she needed urgent attention. She was clutching her abdomen. I told her to wait and I went to ask Dr. Brenner if he’d see her, because Dr. Bamborough was still with patients.

From Ruby Elliot’s statement to Talbot:

I saw them beside a telephone box, two women sort of struggling together. The tall one in the raincoat was leaning on the short one, who wore a plastic rain hood. They looked like women to me, but I didn’t see their faces. It looked to me like one was trying to make the other walk quicker.

From Janice Beattie’s statement to Lawson:

I’ve been on speaking terms with Mr. Douthwaite since he was assaulted at the flats, but I wouldn’t call him a friend. He did tell me how upset he was his friend had killed herself. He told me he had headaches. I thought it was tension. I know he grew up in foster care, but he never told me the names of any of his foster mothers. He never talked to me about Dr. Bamborough except to say he’d gone to her about his headaches. He didn’t tell me he was leaving Percival House. I don’t know where he’s gone.

From Irene Hickson’s second statement to Lawson:

The attached receipt proves that I was in Oxford Street on the afternoon in question. I deeply regret not being honest about my whereabouts, but I was ashamed of lying to get the afternoon off.

And beneath the statement was the photocopy of Irene’s receipt: Marks & Spencer, three items, which came to a total of ￡4.73.

From Joseph Brenner’s statement to Talbot:

I left the practice at my usual time, having promised my sister that I’d be home in time for dinner. Dr. Bamborough kindly agreed to see the emergency patient, as she had a later appointment with a friend in the area. I have no idea whether Dr. Bamborough had personal troubles. Our relationship was entirely professional. I have no knowledge of anyone who wanted to do her harm. I remember one of her patients sending her a small box of chocolates, although I can’t say for certain that it was from Steven Douthwaite. I don’t know Mr. Douthwaite. I remember Dr. Bamborough seemed displeased when Dorothy handed the chocolates to her, and asked Gloria, the receptionist, to throw them straight in the bin, although she later took them back out of the bin. She had a very sweet tooth.

Strike re-entered the office and dropped a five-pound note onto the table in front of Robin.

“What’s that for?”

“We had a bet,” he said, “about whether they’d extend the year if we had any outstanding leads. I said they would. You said they wouldn’t.”

“I’m not taking that,” said Robin, leaving the fiver where it lay. “There are still two more weeks.”

“They’ve just—”

“They’ve paid till the end of the month. I’m not stopping.”

“Did I not make myself clear just now?” said Strike, frowning down at her. “We’re leaving Ricci.”

“I know,” said Robin.

She checked her watch again.

“I’m supposed to be taking over from Andy in an hour. I’d better go.”

After Robin had left, Strike returned the photocopied papers to the boxes of old police records that still lay underneath the desk, then went out into the office where Pat sat, electronic cigarette between her teeth as always.

“We’ve lost two clients,” he told her. “Who’s next on the waiting list?”

“That footballer,” said Pat, bringing up the encrypted file on her monitor to show Strike a well-known name. “And if you want to replace both of them, there’s that posh woman who’s got the chihuahua.”

Strike hesitated.

“We’ll just take the footballer for now. Can you ring his assistant and say I’m available to take details any time tomorrow?”

“It’s Saturday,” said Pat.

“I know,” said Strike. “I work weekends and I doubt he’ll want anyone to see him coming in here. Say I’m happy to go to his place.”

He returned to the inner office and pushed up the window, allowing the afternoon air, heavy with exhaust fumes and London’s particular smell of warm brick, soot and, today, a faint trace of leaves, trees and grass, to permeate the office. Tempted to light up, he restrained himself out of deference to Pat, because he’d asked her not to smoke in the office. Clients these days were nearly all non-smokers and he felt it gave a poor impression to have the place reeking like an ashtray. He leaned on the windowsill and watched the Friday-night drinkers and shoppers walking up and down Denmark Street, half-listening to Pat’s conversation with the Premier League footballer’s assistant, but mostly thinking about Margot Bamborough.

He’d known all along there was only the remotest chance of finding out what had happened to her, but where had fifty weeks gone? He remembered all the time spent with Joan in Cornwall, and the other clients who’d come and gone, and asked himself if they might have found out what had happened to Margot Bamborough if none of these things had got in the way. Tempting though it was to blame distractions, he believed the outcome would have been the same. Perhaps Luca Ricci was the answer they weren’t ever going to be able to admit. A plausible answer, in many ways: a professional hit, done for some inscrutable underworld reason, because Margot had got too close to a secret, or interfered in the gangsters’ business. Leave my girl alone… she’d been the type to advise a stripper, or a hooker, or a porn actress, or an addict, to choose a different life, to give evidence against men who abused her…

“Eleven tomorrow,” rasped Pat, from behind Strike. “At ’is place. I’ve left his address on the desk for you.”

“Thanks very much,” he said, turning to see her already in her coat. It was five o’clock. She looked vaguely surprised to hear his thanks, but ever since Robin had shouted at him for being rude to Pat, Strike had been consciously trying to be politer to the secretary. For a moment she hesitated, electronic cigarette between her yellow teeth, then removed it to say,

“Robin told me what that Morris did. What he sent her.”

“Yeah,” said Strike. “Sleazy bastard.”

“Yeah,” said Pat. She was scrutinizing him closely, as though seeing things she hadn’t ever expected to find. “’Orrible. And ’e always reminded me,” she said surprisingly, “of a young Mel Gibson.”

“Really?” said Strike.

“Funny fing, looks,” she said. “You make assumptions.”

“I s’pose,” said Strike.

“You’ve got a real look of my first ’usband,” Pat told him.

“Is that right?” said Strike, startled.

“Yeah. Well… I’ll be off. ’Ave a good weekend.”