He was shown to a table for two and sat down to wait. Madeline was usually at least half an hour late. She ran a very successful business, with a flagship store on Bond Street, from which she sold and lent jewellery to high-profile clients including A-list actresses and royals. Strike was becoming used to Madeline arriving in a keyed-up state, talking frenetically about the latest work problem until, with a few sips of alcohol inside her, she unwound. She was entirely self-made, and he liked her commitment to what she did, her passion for her business and her pithy observations on the people who underestimated her because of her accent and background. She also happened to be beautiful and eager to have sex with him, and after his long period of enforced celibacy and that dangerous moment with Robin outside the Ritz, these salves to his ego were exceptionally welcome. Even though he hadn’t told any of his friends he was seeing Madeline, he was trying, as he put it to himself, to ‘give things a chance’.
‘I’ll wait, thanks,’ he told the waitress who’d come to take his order, and spent the following twenty minutes perusing a drinks menu that was notable both for its length and for the extravagant concoctions on offer. At the next table, a couple had just been delivered a pair of cocktails that appeared to have candyfloss balanced on the rim of the glass. Strike would have been far happier with a pint of Doom Bar.
‘Babes, I’m so sorry I’m late again,’ came Madeline’s breathless voice at last. She was wearing a suede mini-dress and boots, and looked, as she had every time they’d gone out together, wonderful. Sliding into the chair beside him, she wound one arm around his neck, pulled him in for a kiss on the mouth, then said,
‘I had to see lawyers – God I need a drink – they’ve looked at the pictures and they agree it looks like those bitches at Eldorado have ripped off my design. An hour and a half explaining to me exactly how hard it is to prove, as if I don’t know that already – but I s’pose telling me the same thing ten different times keeps the clock ticking and they bill by the hour, so obviously – I haven’t looked, you’ll have to come back,’ she snapped at the waitress, who’d reappeared. The girl retreated. Madeline took the cocktail menu from Strike.
‘What are you having? I need something strong – what d’you think of this place? It’s cool, right? What am I going to have? Vodka – yeah, I’ll have an Orca Punch. Where’s that girl gone?’
‘You just told her to sod off,’ said Strike.
‘Shit, was I rude? Was I? I’ve had such a bloody awful afternoon – we’ve got a new security guy too and he’s seriously OTT – he nearly stopped Lucinda Richardson coming in the store this afternoon. I think I’m gonna have to give him a cheat sheet of who people are – oh , there she is,’ said Madeline, now flashing a smile at the waitress, who returned looking slightly wary. ‘Can I have an Orca Punch?’
‘And a Toronto, please,’ said Strike, and the waitress smiled at him and moved away.
‘How was your day?’ Madeline asked Strike, but before he could answer she slid a hand onto his thigh under the table. ‘Babes, I’ve got to ask you something, and I’m a bit worried about it. I think I’d rather just ask you now and get it out of the way.’
‘I’ve been expecting this,’ said Strike seriously. ‘No, I’m not going to model for you.’
Madeline let out a yelp of laughter.
‘Fuck, you’d be fantastic. What a fucking ad that would be: I could put you in a tiara. No, but it’s funny you should say that, because… Look, it was already in the pipeline, but I’m worried how you’re going to take it… It’s Charlotte Campbell.’
‘What about her?’ said Strike, trying to keep his tone casual.
As Madeline had been dining with Charlotte’s stepbrother on the night he met her, he hadn’t been surprised to discover that Madeline knew rather a lot about his and Charlotte’s long entanglement. However, he’d made a point of ascertaining the precise degree of her friendship with his ex-fiancée before progressing to a second date, and had been glad to learn that Madeline’s acquaintance with Charlotte was slight, a mere matter of lending her jewellery and bumping into one another at the kinds of launches and cocktail parties that Madeline’s clients routinely attended.
‘She agreed to be one of my models for the new collection, last year,’ said Madeline, watching Strike closely for his reaction. ‘I’ve felt weird about telling you – there are four of them – I’ve got Alice de Bock, Siobhan Vickery and Constance Cartwright…’
None of these names meant anything to Strike, and Madeline seemed to gather as much from his blank expression.
‘Well, they’re all a bit – Alice is that model who was done for shoplifting and Siobhan’s the girl who had an affair with Evan Duffield while he was still married – the collection’s called “Notorious”, so I wanted to use women who’re, you know – women known to the gossip columns, put it that way. I was going to use Gigi Cazenove,’ said Madeline, her expression suddenly sombre. ‘That poor girl who—’
‘Hanged herself on New Year’s Eve, yeah,’ said Strike. He’d since read up on the story. The twenty-three-year-old pop singer hadn’t produced the kind of music Strike ever voluntarily listened to and press pictures of her huge-eyed, narrow face had put him in mind of a startled deer. For six months before her death she’d been a spokeswoman for an environmental charity.
‘Exactly. She’d been through this shitty social media storm that turned out to be based on nothing and I thought it would be such a glorious fuck you to all the people who’d hounded her, but – well, anyway, Charlotte agreed to model and we’re supposed to be doing the photos next week. But if you don’t want me to, I s’pose we could drop her—’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Strike. ‘It’s your business – literally. I don’t care. Nothing to do with me.’
He wasn’t delighted by the news, but it wasn’t a surprise. Charlotte had done some occasional modelling over the years he’d known her, along with writing odd bits and pieces for Vogue and Tatler: the fallbacks of a beautiful it-girl with no particular need to work.
‘D’you mean that? Seriously? Because she would be fucking great and the four of them together would definitely make a splash. I’m going to put Charlotte in a fuck-off collar studded with uncut emeralds.’
‘A collar?’ repeated Strike, thinking of dogs.
‘It’s a heavy choker-y kind of necklace,’ said Madeline, laughing at him again and leaning in for another kiss. ‘God, I love that you don’t give a shit about jewellery. It’s such a nice fucking change of pace.’
‘Are most men interested in jewellery?’
‘You’d be surprised – or, I don’t know if they give a shit about actual jewellery, but they’re often quite interested in design, or the value of the stones, or they’ve got opinions – I’m so tired of men giving me their opinions – or maybe I’m just sick of lawyers. Where’s that bloody girl? I’m dying for a drink…’