“So where—?" asked Robin.

"I'm taking you to the Ritz for champagne," said Strike.

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah. It's why I'm wearing you a suit."

For a moment Robin simply looked at him, then she reached up and hugged him tightly. Surrounded by banked flowers, both remembered the hug they'd shared at the top of the stairs on her wedding day, but this time, Robin turned her face and kissed Strike deliberately on the cheek, lips to stubble.

"Thanks, Strike. This really means a lot."

And that, thought her partner, as the two of them headed away toward the Ritz in the golden glow of the early evening, really was well worth sixty quid and a bit of an effort . . .

Out of his subconscious rose the names Mazankov and Krupov, and it was a second or two before he remembered where he'd heard them, why they sounded Cornish, and why he thought of them now. The corners of his mouth twitched, but as Robin didn't see him smiling, he felt no compulsion to explain.”