It must be tough, I’m sorry.

She then returned to her laptop and the last bit of Strike’s document, detailing actions to be taken, and with initials beside each to show which of them should undertake it.

Action points

Talk to Gregory Talbot again—CS

I want to know why, even after he got well, Bill Talbot never told colleagues about the leads in this notebook he’d withheld from colleagues during the investigation, ie, sighting of Brenner in Skinner Street the night Margot disappeared/blood on the Phippses’ carpet/a death Margot might have been worried about/Mucky Ricci leaving the practice one night.

Speak to Dinesh Gupta again—CS

He might know who Brenner was visiting in Skinner Street that night. Could have been a patient. He might also be able to shed light on Mucky Ricci appearing at the party. Will also ask him about “Scorpio” in case this refers to a patient whose death seemed suspicious to Margot.

Interview Roy Phipps—CS/RE

We’ve tiptoed around Phipps too long. Time to ring Anna and see whether she can persuade him to give us an interview.

Try and secure interview with one of Wilma Bayliss’s children—CS/RE

Especially important if we can’t get to Roy. Want to re-examine Wilma’s story (Roy walking, blood on the carpet).

Find C. B. Oakden—CS/RE

Judging from his book, he’s full of shit, but there’s an outside possibility he knows things about Brenner we don’t, given that his mother was the closest person to Brenner at the practice.

Find & interview Paul Satchwell—CS/RE

Find & interview Steven Douthwaite—CS/RE

Robin couldn’t help but feel subtly criticized. Strike had now added his initials to action points that had previously been Robin’s alone, such as finding Satchwell, and persuading Wilma Bayliss’s children to give them interviews. She set the laptop down again, picked up her phone and headed back to the kitchen for breakfast.

An abrupt silence fell when she walked into the room. Linda, Stephen and Jenny all wore self-conscious looks of those who fear they might have been overheard. Robin put bread in the toaster, trying to tamp down her rising resentment. She seemed to sense mouthed speech and gesticulations behind her back.

“Robin, we just ran into Matthew,” said Stephen suddenly. “When we were walking Annabel round the block.”

“Oh,” said Robin, turning to face them, trying to look mildly interested.

It was the first time Matthew had been spotted. Robin had avoided midnight mass out of conviction that he and Sarah would be there, but her mother had reported that none of the Cunliffes had attended. Now Linda, Stephen and Jenny were all looking at her, worried, pitying, waiting for her reaction and her questions.

Her phone beeped.

“Sorry,” she said, picking it up, delighted to have a reason to look away from them all.

Morris had texted:

Why’s your Christmas so shit?

While the other three watched, she typed back:

My ex-father-in-law lives locally and my ex has brought his new girlfriend home. We’re currently the local scandal.

She didn’t like Morris, but at this moment he felt like a welcome ally, a lifeline from the life she had forged, with difficulty, away from Matthew and Masham. Robin was on the point of setting down the phone when it beeped again and, still with the other three watching her, she read:

That stinks.

It does, she texted back.

Then she looked up at her mother, Stephen and Jenny, forcing herself to smile.

“D’you want to tell me about it?” Robin asked Stephen. “Or do I have to ask?”

“No,” he said hurriedly, “it wasn’t much—we were just pushing Annabel up to the Square and back, and we saw them coming toward us. Him and that—”

“Sarah,” supplied Robin. She could just imagine them hand in hand, enjoying the wintry morning, the picturesque town, sleepy in the frost and early sunshine.

“Yeah,” said Stephen. “He looked like he wanted to double back when he saw us, but he didn’t. Said, ‘Congratulations in order, I see.’”

Robin could hear Matthew saying it.

“And that was it, really,” said Stephen.

“I’d’ve liked to have kicked him in the balls,” said Jenny suddenly. “Smug bastard.”

But Linda’s eyes were on Robin’s phone.

“Who are you texting back and forth on Boxing Day?” she asked.

“I’ve just told you,” said Robin. “Morris. He works for the agency.”

She knew exactly what impression she was giving Linda, but she had her pride. Perhaps there was no shame in being single, but the pity of her family, the thought of Matthew and Sarah walking through Masham, everyone’s suspicion of her and Strike, and the fact that there was nothing whatsoever to tell about her and Strike, except that he thought he’d better start taking over some of her leads because she’d got no results: all made her want to clutch some kind of fig leaf to her threadbare dignity. Smarmy and overfamiliar as he might be, Morris was today, perhaps, more to be pitied than censured, and was offering himself up to save Robin’s face.

She saw her mother and brother exchange looks and had the empty satisfaction of knowing that they were already haring after her false scent. Miserable, she opened the fridge and took out half a bottle of carefully re-corked champagne left over from Christmas Day.

“What are you doing?” asked Linda.

“Making myself a mimosa,” said Robin. “Still Christmas, isn’t it?”

One more night and she’d be back on the train to London. Almost as though she had heard Robin’s antisocial thought, a cry of anguish issued through the baby monitor just behind her, making Robin jump, and what she was starting to think of as the baby circus relocated from the kitchen to the sitting room, Linda bringing a glass of water for Jenny to drink while breastfeeding and turning on the TV for her, while Stephen ran upstairs to fetch Annabel.

Drink, Robin decided, was the answer. If you splashed in enough orange juice, nobody had to know you were finishing off a bottle of champagne single-handedly, and those feelings of misery, anger and inadequacy that were writhing in the pit of your stomach could be satisfactorily numbed. Mimosas carried her through to lunchtime, when everyone had a glass of red, although Jenny drank “just a mouthful” because of Annabel, and ignored Robin’s suggestion that alcoholic breast milk might help her sleep. Morris was still texting, mostly stupid Christmas knock-knock jokes and updates on his day, and Robin was replying in the same mindless manner that she sometimes continued eating crisps, with a trace of self-loathing.

My mother’s just arrived. Send sherry and excuses not to talk to her WI group about policework.

What’s your mother’s name? Robin texted back. She was definitely a little bit drunk.

Fanny, said Morris.

Robin was unsure whether to laugh or not, or, indeed, whether it was funny.

“Robs, d’you want to play Pictionary?” asked Jonathan.