“It’s OK, actually. Depends which bit you’re working in. I’m PA to one of the high-ups. The work’s interesting.”

“Nice guy?” asked Robin casually.

Gemma drank several mouthfuls of wine before saying,

“He’s… all right. Devil you know, isn’t it? I like the job and the company. I’ve got a great salary and a ton of friends there… oh damn—”

Her handbag had slipped off the barstool. As Gemma bent to retrieve it, Robin, whose eyes had roamed across the vista of cream, gray and beige in front of her, suddenly spotted Saul Morris.

He’d just walked into the bar, wearing a suit, an open-necked shirt and a remarkably smug smile. He glanced around, picked out Gemma and Robin by the bright colors of their dresses, and froze. For a second or two, he and Robin simply stared at each other; then Morris turned abruptly and hurried back out of the bar.

Gemma settled herself back onto her barstool, bag safely on her lap. The mobile phone she’d left lying on the counter now lit up.

“Andy?” said Gemma, answering quickly. “Yeah… no, I’m here already…”

There was a long silence. Robin could hear Morris’s voice. He was using the same wheedling tone in which he’d tried to talk her into bed, with all those puerile jokes and have-I-upset-yous.

“Fine,” said Gemma, her expression hardening. “Fine. I just… I’m going to take your number off my phone now and I’d like you… no, actually, I… oh just fuck off!”

She hung up, flushed, her lips trembling.

“Why,” she said, “do they always want to be told they’re still nice guys, after they’ve been total shits?”

“Often wondered that meself,” said Yorkshire Robin. “Boyfriend?”

“Yeah,” said the shaken Gemma. “For six months. Then he just stands me up one night, with no explanation. Then he comes back a couple of times—booty calls, basically,” she said, taking another big swig of wine. “And finally he just ghosts me. I texted him yesterday, I said, look, I just wanna meet, just want an explanation—”

“Sounds like a right twat,” said Robin, whose heart was racing with excitement at this perfect opportunity to have a heart-to-heart. “Hey,” she called to the barman, “can we have a couple more wines and a menu, please?”

And after that, Robin found getting confidences out of Gemma as easy as shelling peas. With three large glasses of wine inside her, and her new friend from Yorkshire being so funny, supportive and understanding, a plate of chicken and polenta to eat, and a bottle of wine (“Yeah, why the hell not?”), she moved seamlessly from the misdemeanors of “Andy” to the inappropriate and unsolicited groping by her boss that had escalated until she was on the verge of quitting.

“Can’t you go to HR?” asked Robin.

“He says nobody’ll believe me because of what happened when we were on a course last year… although… To tell you the truth, I don’t really know what happened,” said Gemma, and looking away from Robin she mumbled, “I mean… we had sex… but I was so out of it… so drunk… I mean, it wasn’t, you know… it wasn’t rape… I’m not saying that…”

“Were you in a fit state to give consent?” said Robin, no longer laughing. She’d only drunk half a glass of wine.

“Well, not… but… no, I’m not putting myself through that,” said Gemma, flushed and tearful. “Not the police and everything, God no… he’s a big shot, he could afford great lawyers… an’ if I didn’t win, how’m I gonna get another job in the City?… Court, and the papers… anyway, it’s too late now… people saw me… coming out of his room. I pretended it was all OK. I had to, I was so embarrassed… rumor mill’s been in overdrive since. We both denied anything happened, so how would it look if I…

“Andy told me I shouldn’t report it,” said Gemma, pouring the last of the bottle into her glass.

“Did he?”

“Yeah… I told him about it, firs’ time we had sex… see, it was the firs’ time I’d slept with anyone since… and he said, “Yeah, you’ll want to keep that quiet… be loads of grief for you, an’ he’ll probably get off’… He was ex-police, Andy, he knew all about that kind of thing.”

You total shit, Morris.

“No, if I was going to tell about anything,” said Gemma, hazily, “it’d be the insider bloody trading… Oh yeah… nobody knows ’cept me…”

One hour later, Robin and Gemma emerged into the darkening street, Robin almost holding Gemma up, because she showed a tendency to sag if unsupported. After a ten-minute wait, she succeeded in flagging down a taxi, and loaded the very drunk Gemma into it.

“Le’s go out Saturday!” Gemma called to Robin, trying to stop her closing the door.

“Fantastic!” said Robin, who’d given the PA a fake number. “Ring me!”

“Yeah, I will… thanks so much for dinner!”

“No problem!” said Robin, and she succeeded at last in slamming the door on Gemma, who waved at her until the cab turned the corner.

Robin turned away and walked quickly back past the Vintry. A young man in a suit wolf-whistled as she passed.

“Oh bugger off,” muttered Robin, pulling out her phone to call Strike.

To her surprise, she saw she’d missed seven calls from him. She’d also received an email whose subject line read: Creed.

“Oh my God,” said Robin out loud.

She sped up, wanting to get away from the hordes of suited men still walking the streets, to be alone and able to concentrate. Retreating at last into the dark doorway of a gray stone office block, she opened the email. After reading it through three times, to make absolutely sure her eyes weren’t deceiving her, she called Strike back.

“There you are!” he said, answering on the first ring. “Guess what?”

“What?”

“I’ve found Douthwaite!”

“You’ve what?” gasped Robin, attracting the startled attention of a sober-looking City gent shuffling past in the dark, holding a tightly furled umbrella. “How?”

“Names,” said Strike, who sound elated. “And Pat listening to hits of the seventies.”

“I don’t—”

“He called himself Jacks first time, right? Well, Terry Jacks had a massive hit with a song called ‘Seasons in the Sun’ in ’74. They played it this afternoon. We know Douthwaite fancied himself a singer, so I thought, bet that’s where he got the idea for ‘Jacks’…”

Robin could hear Strike pacing. He was evidently as excited as she felt.

“So then I went back to Oakden’s book. He said Douthwaite’s ‘Longfellow Serenade’ was a particular hit with the ladies. I looked it up. That was one of Neil Diamond’s. So then,” said Strike, “I start Googling Steve Diamond…

“I’m about to text you a picture,” said Strike. “Stand by.”

Robin took the phone away from her ear and waited. Within a few seconds, the text arrived, and she opened the accompanying picture.