“Oh,” said Robin, “no. He’ll eat anything.”

She checked her emails on her phone as she drank a mug of black coffee. With a small stab of dread, she saw one from her lawyer titled “Mediation.” Opening it, she saw that an actual date was being proposed: Wednesday, March the nineteenth, over a month away. She pictured Matthew talking to his own lawyer, consulting his diary, asserting his power, as ever. I’m tied up for the whole of next month. Then she imagined facing him across a boardroom table, their lawyers beside them, and felt panic mixed with rage.

“You should eat breakfast,” said Max, still reading cookbooks.

“I’ll get something later,” said Robin, closing her email.

She picked up the coat she’d left draped over the arm of the sofa and said,

“Max, you haven’t forgotten my brother and his friend are spending the weekend, have you? I doubt they’ll be around much. It’s just a base.”

“No, no, all good,” said Max vaguely, lost in recipes.

Robin headed out into the cool, damp early morning, getting all the way to the Tube before she realized that she didn’t have her purse on her.

“Shit!”

Robin was usually tidy, efficient and organized; she rarely made this kind of mistake. Hair flying, she ran back to the flat, asking herself what the hell she could have done with it, and wondering, now panicking, whether she’d dropped it in the street or had it stolen out of her bag.

Meanwhile, in Denmark Street, the groggy Strike was hopping on his one foot out of the shower, eyes puffy, and similarly exhausted. The after-effects of a week spent covering Barclay’s and Hutchins’s shifts were now catching up with him, and he slightly regretted having asked Robin to come into work so early.

However, just after pulling on his trousers, his mobile rang and with a stab of fear, he saw Ted and Joan’s number.

“Ted?”

“Hi, Corm. There’s no need to panic, now,” said Ted. “I just wanted to give you an update.”

“Go on,” said Strike, standing bare-chested and frozen in the cold gray light filtered by the too-thin curtains of his attic flat.

“She’s not looking too clever. Kerenza was talking about trying to get her to hospital, but Joanie doesn’t want to go. She’s still in bed, she—didn’t get up, yesterday,” said Ted, his voice cracking. “Couldn’t manage it.”

“Shit,” muttered Strike, sinking down onto his bed. “Right, Ted, I’m coming.”

“You can’t,” said his uncle. “We’re surrounded by flood water. It’s dangerous. Police are telling everyone to stay put, not to travel. Kerenza can… she says she can manage her pain at home. She’s got drugs they can inject… because she’s not eating a lot now. Kerenza doesn’t think it’s… you know… she thinks it’ll be…”

He began to cry in earnest.

“… not immediate, but… she says… not long.”

“I’m coming,” said Strike firmly. “Does Lucy know how bad Joan is?”

“I called you first,” said Ted.

“I’ll tell her, don’t worry about that. I’ll ring you when we’ve put a plan together, all right?”

Strike hung up and called Lucy.

“Oh God, no,” his sister gasped, when he’d given her an unemotional summary of what Ted had said. “Stick, I can’t leave right now—Greg’s stuck in Wales!”

“The hell’s Greg doing in Wales?”

“It’s for work—oh God, what are we going to do?”

“When’s Greg back?”

“Tomorrow night.”

“Then we’ll go down Sunday morning.”

“How? The trains are all off, the roads are flooded—”

“I’ll hire a jeep or something. Polworth’ll meet us the other end with a boat if we have to. I’ll ring you back when I’ve got things sorted.”

Strike dressed, made himself tea and toast, carried them downstairs to the partners’ desk in the inner office and called Ted back, overriding his objections, telling him that, like it or not, he and Lucy were coming on Sunday. He could hear his uncle’s yearning for them, his desperate need for company to share the burden of dread and grief. Strike then called Dave Polworth, who thoroughly approved of the plan and promised to be ready with boat, tow ropes and scuba equipment if necessary.

“I’ve got fuck all else to do. My place of work’s underwater.”

Strike called a few car hire companies, finally finding one that had a jeep available. He was giving his credit card details when a text arrived from Robin.

Really sorry, I lost my purse, just found it, on my way now.

Strike had entirely forgotten that they were supposed to be catching up on the Bamborough case before the team meeting. Having finished hiring the jeep, he began to assemble the items he’d intended to discuss with Robin: the blood-smeared page he’d cut out of The Magus, which he’d now put into a plastic pouch, and the discovery he’d made the previous evening on his computer, which he brought up on his monitor, ready to show her.

He then opened up the rota, to check what shifts he’d have to reallocate now that he was heading back to Cornwall, and saw “Dinner with Max” written in for that evening.

“Bollocks,” he said. He didn’t suppose he could get out of it now, having agreed to it the previous day, but this was the last thing he needed.

At that very moment, Robin, who was climbing the escalator at Tottenham Court Road two steps at a time, heard her mobile ringing in her bag.

“Yes?” she gasped into the phone, as she emerged into the station, one among many bustling commuters.

“Hey, Robs,” said her younger brother.

“Hi,” she said, using her Oyster card at the barrier. “Everything OK?”

“Yeah, fine,” said Jonathan, though he didn’t sound quite as cheerful as the last time they’d spoken. “Listen, is it all right if I bring another guy with me to crash at yours?”

“What?” said Robin, as she emerged into the blustery rain and controlled chaos of the intersection of Tottenham Court Road and Charing Cross Road, at which there had now been building works for three and a half years. She hoped she’d misheard what Jonathan had said.

“Another guy,” he repeated. “Is that OK? He’ll sleep anywhere.”

“Oh Jon,” Robin moaned, half-jogging along Charing Cross Road now, “we’ve only got one sofa bed.”

“Kyle’ll sleep on the floor, he doesn’t care,” said Jonathan. “It’s not that big a deal is it? One more person?”

“OK, fine,” sighed Robin. “You’re still planning on getting here at ten, though?”

“I’m not sure. We might get an earlier train, we’re thinking of skipping lectures.”

“Yeah, but the thing is,” said Robin, “Cormoran’s coming over to dinner to talk to Max—”

“Oh great!” said Jonathan, sounding slightly more enthusiastic. “Courtney’d love to meet him, she’s obsessed with crime!”

“No—Jon, I’m trying to tell you, Max needs to interview Cormoran about a part he’s playing. I don’t think there’ll be enough food for another three—”

“Don’t worry about that, if we get there earlier, we’ll just order ourselves a takeaway.”

How was she supposed to say, “Please don’t come during dinner”? After he’d hung up, Robin broke into a jog, hoping that Jonathan’s time management, which she knew from experience could use improvement, might see him miss enough trains south to delay his arrival.

Taking the corner into Denmark Street at a run, she saw, with a sinking feeling, Saul Morris ahead of her, walking toward the office and carrying a small, wrapped bunch of pink gerberas.

They’d better not be for me.

“Hey, Robs,” he said, turning as she ran up behind him. “Oh dear,” he added, grinning, “someone overslept. Pillow face,” he said, pointing at the spot on his cheek where, Robin surmised, her own still bore a faint crease from the way she’d slept, face down and unmoving, because she was so tired. “For Pat,” he added, displaying his straight white teeth along with the gerberas. “Says her husband never gets her anything on Valentine’s.”

God, you’re smarmy, Robin thought, as she unlocked the door. She noticed that he was calling her “Robs” again, yet another sign that his discomfort in her presence post-Christmas had evaporated over the succeeding seven weeks. She wished she could as easily shrug off the lingering, unreasonable but no less potent sense of shame she felt, forever having seen his erection on her phone.

Upstairs, the harassed Strike was checking his watch when his mobile rang. It was unusually early for his old friend Nick Herbert to be calling him, and Strike, now sensitized to expect bad news, picked up with a sense of foreboding.

“All right, Oggy?”

Nick sounded hoarse, as though he’d been shouting.

“I’m fine,” said Strike, who thought he could hear footsteps and voices on the metal stairs outside. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much,” said Nick. “Wondered whether you fancied a pint tonight. Just you and me.”

“Can’t,” said Strike, very much regretting that this was so. “Sorry, I’ve got something on.”

“Ah,” said Nick. “OK. What about lunchtime, you free then?”