She’d read for barely a minute when she burst out,

“You were sleeping with a married—and she killed herself?”

“I wasn’t—we weren’t—once, it happened, once! Nobody kills themselves over that!”

“Why’d she do it, then? Why?”

“Her husband was a bastard.”

“My husband’s a bastard. I haven’t topped myself!”

“Christ’s sake, Donna—”

“What happened?”

“It was nothing!” said Douthwaite. “We used to hang out together, few of the lads at work and their wives and whatever, and one night I was out with some other mates and ran into Joanna, who was with some girlfriends and… some cunt tipped off her husband we’d left the pub together and—”

“And then this doctor disappeared and all, and the police came calling?”

Donna got to her feet, Douthwaite’s crumpled statement quivering in her hand. Still sitting on the slippery maroon coverlet, Robin remembered the day she’d found Sarah Shadlock’s diamond earring in her bed, and thought she knew a little, a very little, of what Donna was experiencing.

“I knew you were a bloody cheat and a liar, but three girlfriends dead? One’s a tragedy,” said Donna furiously, and Strike wondered whether they were about to hear a Wildean epigram, “but three? How bloody unlucky can one man get?”

“I never had anything going on with that doctor!”

“You’ll try it on with anyone!” shrieked Donna, and addressing Robin, she said, “Year before last, I catch him in a guest bedroom with one of my best friends—”

“Christ’s sake, Donna!” whimpered Douthwaite.

“—and six months ago—”

“Donna—”

“—I find out he’s been sneaking around with one of our regulars—and now—” said Donna, advancing on Douthwaite, his statements clutched in her fist. “You creepy bastard, what happened to all these women?”

“I had nothing to do with any of them dying, fuck’s sake!” said Douthwaite, trying for an incredulous laugh and merely looking terrified. “Donna, come on—you think I’m some kind of murderer?”

“You expect me to believe—”

To Strike’s surprise, Robin suddenly jumped to her feet. Taking Donna by the shoulders, she guided her back into her chair.

“Put your head down,” Robin was saying, “head down.”

When Robin moved to untie Donna’s apron, which was tight around her waist, and Strike saw that Donna’s forehead, which was all he could see now she had sunk her face into her hands, was as white as the net curtain behind her.

“Donna?” said Douthwaite feebly, but his wife whispered,

“You stay away from me, you bastard.”

“Breathe,” Robin was saying, crouching beside Donna’s chair. “Get her some water,” she told Strike, who got up and went into the tiny shower room, where a plastic beaker sat in a holder over the sink.

Almost as pale as his wife, Douthwaite watched as Robin persuaded Donna to drink.

“Stay there, now,” Robin told the landlady, one hand resting on her shoulder. “Don’t get up.”

“Did he have something to do with them dying?” Donna whispered, looking sideways at Robin, her pupils enormous with shock.

“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Robin murmured back.

She turned and looked meaningfully at Strike, who silently agreed that the best thing he could do for the stricken Donna was to get information out of Douthwaite.

“We’ve got a number of questions we’d like to ask you,” Strike told him. “Obviously you’re not obliged to answer them, but I’d put it to you that it would be in the best interests of everyone, yourself included, to cooperate.”

“What questions?” said Douthwaite, still flat against the door. Then, in a torrent of words, he said, “I’ve never hurt anyone, never, I’m not a violent man. Donna will tell you, I’ve never laid a finger on her in anger, that’s not who I am.”

But when Strike merely continued to look at him, Douthwaite said pleadingly,

“Look, I’ve told you—with Joanna—it was a one-night stand. I was just a kid,” he said, and in an echo of Irene Hickson, he said, “You do those kinds of things when you’re young, don’t you?”

“And when you’re old,” whispered Donna. “And all the bloody years in between…”

“Where were you,” Strike asked Douthwaite, “when Joanna killed herself?”

“In Brent,” said Douthwaite. “Miles away! And I had witnesses to prove it. We used to work in pairs, selling, each do one side of the street, and I was out with a bloke called Tadger,” and he tried to laugh again. Nobody smiled. “Tadger, you can imagine the grief he… well, he was with me all day…

“Got back to the office late in the afternoon, and there was a group of lads in there, and they told us Hammond had just got the message his wife had topped herself…

“Terrible,” said the pale and sweating Douthwaite, “but except for that one night together, I had nothing to do with it. But her old man—well, it was easier to blame me,” said Douthwaite, “wasn’t it, than think about his own bloody behavior?

“I got home a couple of nights later and he was lying in wait. Ambush. He beat the shit out of me.”

“Good!” said Donna, on a half-sob.

“And your neighbor, Janice the nurse, looked after—”

“Straight off with the neighbor, were you, Steve?” said Donna, with a hollow laugh. “Get the nurse to mop you up?”

“It wasn’t like that!” said Douthwaite with surprising vehemence.

“It’s his little trick,” the white-faced Donna told Robin, who was still kneeling by her chair. “Always got a sob story on the go. Fell for it myself. Heartbroken after the love of his life drowned… oh my God,” Donna whispered, slowly shaking her head. “And she was the third.” With a hysterical little laugh, she said, “As far as we know. Maybe there are others. Who knows?”

“Christ’s sake, Donna!” said Douthwaite, yet again. Patches of underarm sweat were visible through his thin turquoise T-shirt: Strike could literally smell his fear. “Come on, you know me, you know I’d never hurt anyone!”

“Janice says she advised you to see the doctor about your symp—”

“She never told me to go to the doctor!” snapped Douthwaite, one eye on his wife. “I didn’t need telling, I went off my own bat because I was just getting worried about the… headaches and… mostly headaches. I felt really bad.”

“You visited Margot six times in one two-week period,” said Strike.

“I felt ill, stomach pains and what have you… I mean, it obviously affected me, Joanna dying, and then people talking about me…”

“Oh, poor you, poor you,” murmured Donna. “Jesus effing Christ. You hate going to the doctor. Six times in two weeks?”

“Donna, come on,” said Douthwaite imploringly, “I was feeling like shit! And then the bloody police come and make out like I was stalking her or something. It was all my health!”