For a moment, Robin couldn’t for the life of her think who Eden Richards was. The woman on the end of the line seemed to divine her dilemma, because she continued,

“Wilma Bayliss’s daughter. You sent me and my brothers and sisters messages. You wanted to talk to us about Margot Bamborough.”

“Oh, yes, of course, thank you for calling me back!” said Robin, backing into the bookie’s doorway, her finger in the ear not pressed against the phone, to block out the sound of traffic. Eden, she now remembered, was the oldest of Wilma’s offspring, a Labor councilor from Lewisham.

“Yeah,” said Eden Richards, “well, I’m afraid we don’t want to talk to you. And I’m speaking for all of us here, OK?”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Robin, watching abstractedly as a passing Doberman Pinscher squatted and defecated on the pavement while its scowling owner waited, a plastic bag hanging from his hand. “Can I ask why—?”

“We just don’t want to,” said Eden. “OK?”

“OK,” said Robin, “but to be clear, all we’re doing is checking statements that were made around the time Margot—”

“We can’t speak for our mother,” said Eden. “She’s dead. We feel sorry for Margot’s daughter, but we don’t want to drag up stuff that—it’s something we don’t particularly want to relive, any of our family. We were young when she disappeared. It was a bad time for us. So the answer’s no, OK?”

“I understand,” said Robin, “but I wish you’d reconsider. We aren’t asking you to talk about anything pers—”

“You are, though,” said Eden. “Yeah, you are. And we don’t want to, OK? You aren’t police. And by the way: my youngest sister’s going through chemotherapy, so leave her alone, please. She doesn’t need the grief. I’m going to go now. The answer’s no, OK? Don’t contact any of us again, please.”

And the line went dead.

“Shit,” said Robin out loud.

The owner of the Doberman Pinscher, who was now scooping a sizable pile of that very substance off the pavement, said,

“You and me both, love.”

Robin forced a smile, stuffed her mobile back into her pocket and walked on. Shortly afterward, still wondering whether she could have handled the call with Eden better, Robin pushed open the glass door of Stirling and Cobbs, Solicitors.

“Well,” said Judith five minutes later, once Robin was sitting opposite her in the tiny office full of filing cabinets. The monosyllable was followed by silence as Judith glanced over the documents in the file in front of her, clearly reminding herself of the facts of the case while Robin sat watching. Robin would much rather have sat for another five minutes in the waiting room than witness this casual and hasty revision of what was causing her so much stress and pain.

“Umm,” said Judith, “yes… just checking that… yes, we had a response to ours on the fourteenth, as I said in my email, so you’ll be aware that Mr. Cunliffe isn’t prepared to shift his position on the joint account.”

“Yes,” said Robin.

“So, I really think it’s time to go to mediation,” said Judith Cobbs.

“And as I said in my reply to your email,” said Robin, wondering whether Judith had read it, “I can’t see mediation working.”

“Which is why I wanted to speak to you face to face,” said Judith, smiling. “We often find that when the two parties have to sit down in the same room, and answer for themselves, especially with impartial witnesses present—I’d be with you, obviously—they become far less intransigent than they are by letter.”

“You said yourself,” Robin replied (blood was thumping in her ears: the sensation of not being heard was becoming increasingly common during these interactions), “the last time we met—you agreed that Matthew seems to be trying to force this into court. He isn’t really interested in the joint account. He can outspend me ten times over. He just wants to beat me. He wants a judge to agree that I married him for his bank account. He’ll think it money well spent if he can point to some ruling that says the divorce was all my fault.”

“It’s easy,” said Judith, still smiling, “to attribute the worst possible motives to ex-partners, but he’s clearly an intelligent—”

“Intelligent people can be as spiteful as anyone else.”

“True,” said Judith, still with an air of humoring Robin, “but refusing to even try mediation is a bad move for both of you. No judge will look kindly on anyone who refuses to at least try and settle matters without recourse to the courts.”

The truth, as perhaps Judith and Robin both equally knew, was that Robin dreaded having to sit face to face with Matthew and the lawyer who had authored all those cold, threatening letters.

“I’ve told him I don’t want the inheritance he got from his mother,” said Robin. “All I want back out of that joint account is the money my parents put into our first property.”

“Yes,” said Judith, with a hint of boredom: Robin knew that she’d said exactly this, every time they’d met each other. “But as you’re aware, his position—”

“Is that I contributed virtually nothing to our finances, so he ought to keep the whole lot, because he went into the marriage out of love and I’m some kind of gold-digger.”

“This is obviously upsetting you,” said Judith, no longer smiling.

“We were together ten years,” said Robin, trying, with little success, to remain calm. “When he was a student and I was working, I paid for everything. Should I have kept the receipts?”

“We can certainly make that point in mediation—”

“That’ll just infuriate him,” said Robin.

She raised a hand to her face purely for the purpose of hiding it. She felt suddenly and perilously close to tears.

“OK, fine. We can try mediation.”

“I think that’s the sensible thing to do,” said Judith Cobbs, smiling again. “So, I’ll contact Brophy, Shenston and—”

“I suppose I’ll get a chance to tell Matthew he’s a total shit, at least,” said Robin, on a sudden wave of fury.

Judith gave a small laugh.

“Oh, I wouldn’t advise that,” she said.

Oh, wouldn’t you really? thought Robin, as she hitched on another fake smile, and got up to leave.

A blustery, damp wind was blowing when she left the solicitor’s. Robin trudged back toward Finborough Road, until finally, her face numb, her hair whipping into her eyes, she turned into a small café where, in defiance of her own healthy eating rules, she bought a large latte and a chocolate brownie. She sat and stared out at the rainswept street, enjoying the comfort of cake and coffee, until her mobile rang again.

It was Strike.

“Hi,” she said, through a mouthful of brownie. “Sorry. Eating.”

“Wish I was,” he said. “I’m outside the bloody theater again. I think Barclay’s right: we’re not going to get anything on Twinkletoes. I’ve got Bamborough news.”

“So’ve I,” said Robin, who had managed to swallow the mouthful of brownie, “but it isn’t good news. Wilma Bayliss’s children don’t want to talk to us.”