Robert Galbraith

His loud voice reverberated around the stairwell

while she stood huddled against it

coupled with a gently expanding belly,

His subconscious had become entangled with Charlotte again;

But Robin, heading back to the office with sandwiches and crisps, felt even sorrier for Strike than she had done before. His marriage—or, if they had not been married, his live-in relationship—had failed; he was sleeping in his office; he had been injured in the war, and now she discovered that his mother had died in dubious and squalid circumstances.

It’s an illness,’ she said, although she made the words sound like ‘it’s uh nillness’.
Nillness, thought Strike, for a second distracted. He had slept badly. Nillness, that was where Luna Landry had gone, and where all of them, he and Rochelle included, were headed. Sometimes illness turned slowly to nillness, as was happening to Bristow’s mother… sometimes nillness rose to meet you out of nowhere, like a concrete road slamming your skull apart

She laid upon the desk a black lacquered tray, on which stood two silver filigree Russian tea glasses, in each of which was a pale green steaming concoction with wilted leaves floating in it.

THE BUZZ IN THE STREET was like the humming of flies

Photographers stood massed behind barriers patrolled by police

their long-snouted cameras poised