‘Fuck – sorry!’ His loud voice reverberated around the stairwell. ‘I didn’t see you – didn’t expect anyone to be there…’

From under their feet, the strange and solitary graphic designer who inhabited the office below yelled, ‘What’s happening up there?’ and a second later, a muffled complaint from above indicated that the manager of the bar downstairs, who slept in an attic flat over Strike’s office, had also been disturbed – perhaps woken – by the noise.

‘Come in here…’

Strike pushed open the door with his fingertips, so as to have no accidental contact with her while she stood huddled against it, and ushered her into the office.

‘Is everything all right?’ called the graphic designer querulously.

Strike slammed the office door behind him.

‘I’m OK,’ lied Robin, in a quavering voice, still hunched over with her hand on her chest, her back to him. After a second or two, she straightened up and turned around, her face scarlet and her eyes still wet.

Her accidental assailant was massive; his height, his general hairiness, coupled with a gently expanding belly, suggested a grizzly bear. One of his eyes was puffy and bruised, the skin just below the eyebrow cut. Congealing blood sat in raised white-edged nail tracks on his left cheek and the right side of his thick neck, revealed by the crumpled open collar of his shirt.

‘Are you M-Mr Strike?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I-I’m the temp.’

‘The what?’

‘The temp. From Temporary Solutions?’

The name of the agency did not wipe the incredulous look from his battered face. They stared at each other, unnerved and antagonistic.