Robin, who was busy trying to remember the route to the Trafalgar she’d memorized that morning, thought at once about all those stories Ilsa had told her about Strike and Charlotte’s relationship. Ilsa had told her Strike had refused an invitation to go over to their house that evening for dinner, claiming that he had a prior arrangement with his sister. Robin found it hard to believe this, given Strike’s and Lucy’s recent row. Perhaps she was being paranoid, but she’d also wondered whether Strike wasn’t avoiding being in her company outside work hours.

“You don’t suspect Irene, do you?”

“Only of being a liar, a gossip and a compulsive attention-seeker,” said Strike. “I don’t think she’s bright enough to have abducted Margot Bamborough and not given herself away in forty years. On the other hand, lies are always interesting. Anything else catch your interest?”

“Yes. There was something funny about that Leamington Spa story, or rather, Irene’s reaction when she heard Janice talking about it… I think Leamington Spa meant something to her. And it was odd that Janice hadn’t told her what that patient said. You’d think she definitely would have done, given that they’re best friends, and they both knew Margot, and they’ve stayed in touch all these years. Even if Janice thought that man Ramage was making it all up, why wouldn’t she tell Irene?”

“Another good point,” said Strike, looking thoughtfully at the neo-classical façade of the National Maritime Museum as they drove past wide stretches of beautifully manicured emerald lawn. “What did you think of Janice?”

“Well, when we were allowed to hear her speak, she seemed quite decent,” said Robin cautiously. “She seemed fair-minded about Margot and Douthwaite. Why she puts up with being treated as Irene’s skivvy, though…”

“Some people need to be needed… and there might be a sense of obligation, if Irene was telling the truth about her and her husband helping Janice out financially when she needed it.”

Strike spotted the pub Robin had chosen from a distance. Large and opulent-looking, with many balconies and awnings, not to mention window-baskets and coats of arms, it stood on the bank of the Thames. Robin parked and they proceeded past black iron bollards to the paved area where many wooden tables afforded a view over the river, in the midst of which a life-size black statue of the diminutive Lord Nelson faced the water.

“See?” said Robin, “you can sit outside and smoke.”

“Isn’t it a bit cold?” said Strike.

“This coat’s padded. I’ll get the—”

“No, I will,” said Strike firmly. “What d’you want?”

“Just a lime and soda, please, as I’m driving.”

As Strike walked into the pub, there was a sudden chorus of “Happy Birthday to You.” For a split-second, seeing helium balloons in the corner, he was horror-struck, thinking that Robin had brought him here for a surprise party; but a bare heartbeat later, it registered that he didn’t recognize a single face, and that the balloons formed the figure 80. A tiny woman with lavender hair was beaming at the top of a table full of family: flashes went off as she blew out the candles on a large chocolate cake. Applause and cheers followed, and a toddler blew a feathered whistle.

Strike headed toward the bar, still slightly shaken, taking himself to task for having imagined, for a moment, that Robin would have arranged a surprise party for him. Even Charlotte, with whom he’d had the longest and closest relationship of his life, had never done that. Indeed, Charlotte had never allowed anything as mundane as his birthday to interfere with her own whims and moods. On Strike’s twenty-seventh, when she’d been going through one of her intermittent phases of either rampant jealousy, or rage at his refusal to give up the army (the precise causes of their many scenes and rows tended to blur in his mind), she’d thrown his wrapped gift out of a third-floor window in front of him.

But, of course, there were other memories. His thirty-third birthday, for instance. He’d just been discharged from Selly Oak hospital, and was walking for the first time on a prosthesis, and Charlotte had taken him back to her flat in Notting Hill, cooked for him, and returned from the kitchen at the end of the meal holding two cups of coffee, stark naked and more beautiful than any woman he had ever seen. He’d laughed and gasped at the same time. He hadn’t had sex for nearly two years. The night that had followed would probably never be forgotten by him, nor the way she had sobbed in his arms afterward, telling him that he was the only man for her, that she was afraid of what she felt, afraid that she was evil for not regretting his missing lower leg if it brought her back to him, if it meant that, at last, she could look after him as he had always looked after her. And close to midnight, Strike had proposed to her, and they’d made love again, and then talked through to dawn about how he was going to start his detective agency, and she’d told him she didn’t want a ring, that he was to save his money for his new career, at which he would be magnificent.

Drinks and crisps purchased, Strike returned to Robin, who was sitting on an outside bench, hands in her pockets, looking glum.

“Cheer up,” said Strike, speaking to himself as much as to her.

“Sorry,” said Robin, though she didn’t really know why she was apologizing.

He sat down beside her, rather than opposite, so both of them faced the river. There was a small shingle beach below them, and waves lapped the cold pebbles. On the opposite bank rose the steel-colored office blocks of Canary Wharf; to their left, the Shard. The river was the color of lead on this cold November day. Strike tore one of the crisp packets down the middle so that both could help themselves. Wishing she’d asked for coffee instead of a cold drink, Robin took a sip of her lime and soda, ate a couple of crisps, returned her hands to her pockets, then said,

“I know this isn’t the attitude, but honestly… I don’t think we’re going to find out what happened to Margot Bamborough.”

“What’s brought this on?”

“I suppose Irene misremembering names… Janice going along with her, covering up the reason for the Christmas party row… it’s such a long time ago. People are under no obligation to tell the truth to us now, even if they can remember it. Factor in people getting wedded to old theories, like that whole thing about Gloria and the pill in Brenner’s mug, and people wanting to make themselves important, pretending to know things and… well, I’m starting to think we’re attempting the impossible here.”

A wave of tiredness had swept over Robin while sitting in the cold, waiting for Strike, and in its wake had come hopelessness.

“Pull yourself together,” said Strike bracingly. “We’ve already found out two big things the police never knew.” He pulled out his cigarettes, lit one, then said, “Firstly: there was a big stock of barbiturates on the premises where Margot worked. Secondly: Margot Bamborough might well have had an abortion.

“Taking the barbiturates first,” he said, “are we overlooking something very obvious, which is that there were means on the premises to put someone to sleep?”

“Margot wasn’t put to sleep,” said Robin, gloomily munching crisps. “She walked out of there.”