If only she could come inside his head and see what was there, Strike thought, she’d understand that she occupied a unique place in his thoughts and in his affections. He felt he owed her that information, but was afraid that saying it might move this conversation into territory from which it would be difficult to retreat.

But, from second to second, sitting here, now with more than half a bottle of neat whisky inside him, a different spirit seemed to move inside him, asking himself for the first time whether determined solitude was what he really wanted, for evermore.

Joanie reckons you’re gonna end up with your business partner. That Robin girl.

All or nothing. See what happens. Except that the stakes involved in making any kind of move would be the highest of his life; higher by far than when he’d staggered across a student party to chat up Charlotte Campbell, when, however much agony he’d endured for her later, he’d risked nothing more than minor humiliation, and a good story to tell.

Robin, who’d eaten as much curry as she could handle, had now resigned herself to not hearing what Strike felt for Charlotte. She supposed it had been a forlorn hope, but it was something she was very keen to know. The neat whisky she’d drunk had given the night a slight fuzziness, like a rain haze, and she felt slightly wistful. She knew that if it hadn’t been for the alcohol, she might feel simply unhappy.

“I suppose,” said Strike, with the fatalistic daring of a trapeze artist, swinging out into the spotlight, only black air beneath him, “Ilsa’s been trying to matchmake, your end, as well?”

Across the room, sitting in shadow, Robin experienced something like an electric shock through her body. That Strike would even allude to a third party’s idea of them being romantically involved was unprecedented. Didn’t they always act as though nothing of the sort could be further from anyone’s mind? Hadn’t they always pretended certain dangerous moments had never happened, such as when she’d modeled that green dress for him, and hugged him while wearing her wedding dress, and felt the idea of running away together pass through his mind, as well as hers?

“Yes,” she said, at last. “I’ve been worried… well, embarrassed about it, because I haven’t…”

“No,” said Strike quickly, “I never thought you were…”

She waited for him to say something else, suddenly acutely aware, as she’d never been before, that a bed lay directly above them, barely two minutes from where they sat. And, like Strike, she thought, everything I’ve worked and sacrificed for is in jeopardy if I take this conversation to the wrong place. Our relationship will be forever marred by awkwardness and embarrassment.

But worse than that, by far: she was scared of giving herself away. The feelings she’d been denying to Matthew, to her mother, to Ilsa and to herself must remain hidden.

“Well, sorry,” said Strike.

What did that mean, Robin wondered, her heart thumping very hard: she took another large gulp of whisky before she said,

“Why are you apologizing? You’re not—”

“She’s my friend.”

“She’s mine, too, now,” said Robin. “I… don’t think she can help herself. She sees two friends of the opposite sex getting on…”

“Yeah,” said Strike, all antennae now: was that all they were? Friends of the opposite sex? Not wanting to leave the subject of men and women, he said,

“You never told me how mediation went. How come he settled, after dragging it out all this time?”

“Sarah’s pregnant. They want to get married before she has it… or before she gets too big for a designer dress, knowing Sarah.”

“Shit,” said Strike quietly, wondering how upset she was. He couldn’t read her tone or see her clearly: the office was now full of shadow, but he didn’t want to turn on the lights. “Is he—did you expect that?”

“S’pose I should have,” said Robin, with a smile Strike couldn’t see, but which hurt her bruised face. “She was probably getting annoyed with the way he was dragging out our divorce. When he was about to end their affair, she left an earring in our bed for me to find. Probably getting worried he wasn’t going to propose, so she forgot to take her pill. It’s the one way women can control men, isn’t it?” she said, momentarily forgetting Charlotte, and the baby she claimed to have lost. “I’ve got a feeling she’d just told him she was pregnant when he canceled mediation the first time. Matthew said it was an accident… maybe he didn’t want to have it, when she first told him…”

“Do you want kids?” Strike asked Robin.

“I used to think so,” said Robin slowly. “Back when I thought Matthew and I were… you know. Forever.”

As she said it, memories of old imaginings came to her: of a family group that had never existed, but which had once seemed quite vivid to her. The night that Matthew had proposed, she’d formed a clear mental picture of the pair of them with three children (a compromise between his family, where there had been two children, and her own, which had had four). She’d seen it all quite clearly: Matthew cheering on a young son who was learning to play rugby, as he’d done himself; Matthew watching his own little girl onstage, playing Mary in the school nativity play. It struck her now how very conventional her imaginings had been, and how much Matthew’s expectations had become her own.

Sitting here in the darkness with Strike, Robin thought that Matthew would, in fact, be a very good father to the kind of child he’d be expecting: in other words, a little boy who wanted to play rugby, or a little girl who wanted to dance in a tutu. He’d carry their pictures around in his wallet, he’d get involved at their schools, he’d hug them when they needed it, he’d care about their homework. He wasn’t devoid of kindness: he felt guilty when he did wrong. It was simply that what Matthew considered right was so heavily colored by what other people did, what other people considered acceptable and desirable.

“But I don’t know, any more,” said Robin, after a short pause. “I can’t see myself having kids while doing this job. I think I’d be torn… and I don’t ever want to be torn again. Matthew was always trying to guilt me out of this career: I didn’t earn enough, I worked too many hours, I took too many risks… but I love it,” said Robin, with a trace of fierceness, “and I don’t want to apologize for that any more…

“What about you?” she asked Strike. “Do you want children?”

“No,” said Strike.

Robin laughed.

“What’s funny?”

“I give a whole soul-searching speech on the subject and you’re just: no.”

“I shouldn’t be here, should I?” said Strike, out of the darkness. “I’m an accident. I’m not inclined to perpetuate the mistake.”

There was a pause, then Robin said, with asperity,

“Strike, that’s just bloody self-indulgent.”

“Why?” said Strike, startled into a laugh. When he’d said the same to Charlotte, she’d both understood and agreed with him. Early in her teens, her drunken mother had told Charlotte she’d considered aborting her.