At first, she merely stared at it, her pulse unaltered. The earring wasn’t hers. She owned no diamond studs. She wondered why she hadn’t trodden on it when she climbed into bed with a sleeping Matthew in the early hours of the morning. Perhaps her bare foot had missed it, or, more probably, the earring had been in the bed and displaced only when Robin pulled off the undersheet.

Of course, there were many diamond stud earrings in the world. The fact remained that the pair to which Robin’s attention had most recently been drawn had been Sarah Shadlock’s. Sarah had been wearing them the last time Robin and Matthew had gone to dinner, the night that Tom had attacked Matthew with sudden and apparently unwarranted ferocity.

For what felt like a very long time, but was in reality little over a minute, Robin sat contemplating the diamond in her hand. Then she laid the earring carefully on her bedside cabinet, picked up her mobile, entered “Settings,” removed her caller ID, then phoned Tom’s mobile.

He answered within a couple of rings, sounding grumpy. In the background, a presenter was wondering aloud what the forthcoming Olympic closing ceremony would be like.

“Yah, hello?”

Robin hung up. Tom wasn’t playing five-a-side football. She continued to sit, motionless, her phone in her hand, on the heavy matrimonial bed that had been so difficult to move up the narrow stairs of this lovely rented house, while her mind moved back over the clear signs that she, the detective, had willfully ignored.

“I’m so stupid,” Robin said quietly to the empty, sunlit room. “So bloody stupid.”

54

Your gentle and upright disposition, your polished mind, your unimpeachable honor, are known to and appreciated by everyone…

Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

Though the early evening was still bright, Della’s front garden lay in shadow, which gave it a placid, melancholy air in contrast to the busy, dusty road that ran beyond the gates. As Strike rang the doorbell, he noted two large dog turds on the otherwise immaculate front lawn and he wondered who was helping Della with such mundane tasks now that her marriage was over.

The door opened, revealing the Minister for Sport in her impenetrable black glasses. She was wearing what Strike’s elderly aunt back in Cornwall would have called a housecoat, a knee-length purple fleece robe that buttoned to the high neck, giving her a vaguely ecclesiastic air. The guide dog stood behind her, looking up at Strike with dark, mournful eyes.

“Hi, it’s Cormoran Strike,” said the detective, without moving. Given that she could neither recognize him by sight nor examine any of the identification he carried, the only way she could know whom she was admitting to her house was by the sound of his voice. “We spoke on the phone earlier and you asked me to come and see you.”

“Yes,” she said, unsmiling. “Come in, then.”

She stepped back to let him pass, one hand on the Labrador’s collar. Strike entered, wiping his feet on the doormat. A swell of music, loud strings and woodwind instruments, cut through by the pounding of a kettle drum, issued from what Strike assumed was the sitting room. Strike, who had been raised by a mother who listened mainly to metal bands, knew very little about classical music, but there was a looming, ominous quality about this music that he didn’t particularly care for. The hall was dark, because the lights hadn’t been turned on, and otherwise nondescript, with a dark brown patterned carpet that, while practical, was rather ugly.

“I’ve made coffee,” said Della. “I’ll need you to carry the tray into the sitting room for me, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“No problem,” said Strike.

He followed the Labrador, which padded along at Della’s heels, its tail wagging vaguely. The symphony grew louder as they passed the sitting room, the doorframe of which Della touched lightly as she passed, feeling for familiar markers to orient herself.

“Is that Beethoven?” asked Strike, for something to say.

“Brahms. Symphony Number One, C Minor.”

The edges of every surface in the kitchen were rounded. The knobs on the oven, Strike noticed, had raised numbers stuck to them. On a cork noticeboard was a list of phone numbers headed IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, that he imagined were for the use of a cleaner or home help. While Della crossed to the worktop opposite, Strike extracted his mobile from his coat pocket and took a picture of Geraint Winn’s number. Della’s outstretched hand reached the rim of the deep ceramic sink, and she moved sideways, where a tray sat already laden with a mug and a cafetière of freshly brewed coffee. Two bottles of wine stood beside it. Della felt for both of these, turned and held them out to Strike, still unsmiling.

“Which is which?” she asked.

“Châteauneuf-du-Pape, 2010, in your left hand,” said Strike, “and Château Musar, 2006, in your right.”

“I’ll have a glass of the Châteauneuf-du-Pape if you wouldn’t mind opening the bottle and pouring it for me. I assumed that you wouldn’t want a drink, but if you do, help yourself.”

“Thanks,” said Strike, picking up the corkscrew she had laid beside the tray, “coffee will be fine.”

She set off silently for the sitting room, leaving him to follow with the tray. As he entered the room he caught the heavy scent of roses and was fleetingly reminded of Robin. While Della grazed furniture with her fingertips, feeling her way towards an armchair with wide wooden arms, Strike saw four large bunches of flowers positioned in vases around the room and punctuating the overall drabness with their vivid colors, red, yellow and pink.

Aligning herself by pressing the backs of her legs against the chair, Della sat down neatly, then turned her face towards Strike as he set the tray on the table.

“Would you put my glass here, on my right chair arm?” she said, patting it, and he did so, while the pale Labrador, which had flopped down beside Della’s chair, watched him out of kind, sleepy eyes.

The strings of the violins in the symphony swooped and fell as Strike sat down. From the fawn carpet to the furniture, all of which might have been designed in the seventies, everything seemed to be in different shades of brown. Half of one wall was covered in built-in shelves holding what he thought must be at least a thousand CDs. On a table to the rear of the room was a stack of Braille manuscripts. A large, framed photograph of a teenage girl sat on the mantelpiece. It occurred to Strike that her mother could not even enjoy the bittersweet solace of looking at Rhiannon Winn every day, and he found himself filled with inconvenient compassion.

“Nice flowers,” he commented.

“Yes. It was my birthday a few days ago,” said Della.

“Ah. Many happy returns.”

“Are you from the West Country?”

“Partly. Cornwall.”

“I can hear it in your vowels,” said Della.

She waited while he dealt with the cafetière and poured himself coffee. When the sounds of clinking and pouring had ceased, she said:

“As I said on the phone, I’m very worried about Aamir. He’ll still be in London, I’m sure, because it’s all he’s ever known. Not with his family,” she added, and Strike thought he heard a trace of contempt. “I’m extremely concerned about him.”