“You’re an aunt! Jenny’s just had the baby!”

“Oh,” said Robin, and very slowly her brain computed that this was Stephen, her elder brother, on the line. “Oh, that’s wonder-ful… what—?”

“A girl!” said Stephen jubilantly. “Annabel Marie. Eight pounds eight ounces!”

“Wow,” said Robin, “that’s—is that big? It seems—”

“I’m sending you a picture now!” said Stephen. “Got it?”

“No—hang on,” said Robin, sitting up. Bleary-eyed, she switched to speakerphone to check her messages. The picture arrived as she was peering at the screen: a wrinkled, bald red baby swaddled in a hospital robe, fists balled up, looking furious to have been forced from a place of quiet, padded darkness into the brightness of a hospital ward.

“Just got it. Oh, Stephen, she’s… she’s beautiful.”

It was a lie, but nevertheless, tears prickled in the exhausted Robin’s eyes.

“My God, Button,” she said quietly; it was Stephen’s childhood nickname. “You’re a dad!”

“I know!” he said. “Insane, isn’t it? When are you coming home to see her?”

“Soon,” Robin promised. “I’m back for Christmas. Give Jenny all my love, won’t you?”

“I will, yeah. Gonna call Jon now. See you soon, Robs.”

The call was cut. Robin lay in darkness, staring at the brightly lit picture of the crumpled baby, whose puffy eyes were screwed up against a world she seemed to have decided already was not much of a place. It was quite extraordinary to think of her brother Stephen as a father, and that the family now had one more member.

Robin seemed to hear her cousin Katie’s words again: It’s like you’re traveling in a different direction to the rest of us. In the old days with Matthew, before she’d started work at the agency, she’d expected to have children with him. Robin had no strong feelings against having children, it was simply that she knew, now, that the job she loved would be impossible if she were a mother, or at least, that it would stop being the job she loved. Motherhood, from her limited observation of those her age who were doing it, seemed to demand as much from a woman as she could possibly give. Katie had talked of the perennial tug on her heart when she wasn’t with her son, and Robin had tried to imagine an emotional tether even stronger than the guilt and anger with which Matthew had tried to retain her. The problem wasn’t that Robin didn’t think she’d love her child. On the contrary, she thought it likely that she would love that child to the extent that this job, for which she had voluntarily sacrificed a marriage, her safety, her sleep and her financial security, would have to be sacrificed in return. And how would she feel, afterward, about the person who’d made that sacrifice necessary?

Robin turned on the light and bent to pick up the things she had knocked off her bedside table: an empty glass, thankfully unbroken, and the thin, flimsy paperback entitled Whatever Happened to Margot Bamborough? by C. B. Oakden, which Robin had received in the post the previous morning, and which she’d already read.

Strike didn’t yet know that she had managed to get hold of a copy of Oakden’s book and Robin had been looking forward to showing him. She had a couple more fragments of Bamborough news, too, but now, perhaps because of her sheer exhaustion, the feeling of anticipation at sharing them had disappeared. Deciding that she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep, she got out of bed.

As she showered, Robin realized, to her surprise, that she was crying.

This is ridiculous. You don’t even want a baby. Get a grip of yourself.

When Robin arrived upstairs, dressed, with her hair blow-dried and concealer applied to the shadows under her eyes, she found Max eating toast in the kitchen.

“Morning,” he said, looking up from a perusal of the day’s news on his phone. “You all right?”

“Fine,” said Robin, with forced brightness. “Just found out I’m an aunt. My brother Stephen’s wife gave birth this morning.”

“Oh. Congratulations,” said Max, politely interested. “Um… boy or girl?”

“Girl,” said Robin, turning on the coffee machine.

“I’ve got about eight godchildren,” said Max gloomily. “Parents love giving the job to childless people. They think we’ll put more effort in, having no kids of our own.”

“True,” said Robin, trying to maintain her cheery tone. She’d been made godmother to Katie’s son. The christening had been the first time she’d been in the church in Masham since her wedding to Matthew.

She took a mug of black coffee back to her bedroom, where she opened up her laptop and decided to set down her new information on the Bamborough case in an email to Strike before they met. They might not have much time together before Oonagh Kennedy’s interview, so this would expedite discussion.

Hi,

Few bits and pieces on Bamborough before I see you:

? Charles Ramage, the hot tub millionaire, is dead. I’ve spoken to his son, who couldn’t confirm the story about the Margot sighting, but remembered Janice nursing his father after his crash and said Ramage Snr liked her and “probably told her all his stories, he had loads of them.” Said his father never minded exaggerating if it made a story better, but was not a liar and “had a good heart. Wouldn’t have told a lie about a missing woman.” Also confirmed that his father was close friends with a “senior police officer” (couldn’t remember rank or first name) called Greene. Ramage Snr’s widow is still alive and living in Spain, but she’s his second wife and the son doesn’t get on with her. I’m trying to get a contact number/email address for her.

? I’m 99% sure I’ve found the right Amanda White, who’s now called Amanda Laws. Two years ago she posted a piece on Facebook about people disappearing, which included Margot. She said in the comment that she’d been personally involved in the Margot disappearance. I’ve sent her a message but nothing back yet.

? I’ve got hold of a copy of Whatever Happened to Margot Bamborough? and read it (it’s not long). Judging by what we know about Margot so far, it looks full of inaccuracies. I’ll bring it with me this morning.

See you in a bit x

Sleep-deprived, Robin had added the kiss automatically and had sent the email before she could retract it. It was one thing to put a kiss on a birthday card, quite another to start adding them to work emails.

Shit.

She could hardly write a PS saying “Ignore that kiss, my fingers did it without me meaning to.” That would draw attention to the thing if Strike hadn’t thought anything of it.

As she closed her laptop, her mobile screen lit up: she’d received a long, excited text from her mother about baby Annabel Marie’s perfection, complete with a photograph of herself cradling her new granddaughter, Robin’s father beaming over his wife’s shoulder. Robin texted back:

She’s gorgeous!

even though the baby was quite as unprepossessing in the new photograph as she’d been in the old. Yet she wasn’t really lying: the fact of Annabel’s birth was somehow gorgeous, an everyday miracle, and Robin’s mysterious shower tears had been partly in acknowledgment of the fact.

As the Tube sped her toward Piccadilly Circus, Robin took out her copy of C. B. Oakden’s book, which she’d found at a second-hand bookshop in Chester, and flicked through it again. The dealer had said the book had been in his shop for several years, and had arrived in a job lot of books he’d taken off the hands of the family of an elderly local woman who’d died. Robin suspected that the dealer hadn’t known of the book’s murky legal status before Robin’s email inquiry, but he appeared to have no particular moral qualms about selling it. As long as Robin guaranteed by phone that she wouldn’t reveal where she’d got it, he was happy to part with it, for a hefty mark-up. Robin only hoped Strike would think the price justified, once he’d read it.

Robin’s particular copy appeared to have escaped pulping because it had been one of the author’s free copies, which must have been given to him before the court decision. An inscription on the fly-leaf read: To Auntie May, with every good wish, CB Oakden (Carl). To Robin, “with every good wish” seemed an affected, grandiose message to send an aunt.