When Strike first meets the agency’s new client, Anna Phipps, he also meets her wife, Dr. Kim Sullivan, a BPS Registered Psychologist. ¹

“Her blonde friend had come with her: or perhaps, thought Strike, they were more than friends. An indefinable sense of closeness seemed to bind the two women, whom he judged to be around forty. They wore jeans and shirts and the blonde in particular had the slightly weather-beaten leanness that suggests weekends spent hill walking or cycling. She was what some would call a ‘handsome’ woman, by which they meant that she was bare faced. High-cheekboned, bespectacled, her hair pulled back into a ponytail, she also looked stern.” ²

It’s clear to Strike from their first meeting that Kim is very protective of Anna and worries that he might be another person who wants to take advantage of her vulnerable wife. However, Strike’s honesty about their poor chances of solving this forty-year-old case appears to win Kim’s trust, and she and Anna agree to hire Strike and Robin.³

^{1, 2: Troubled Blood, Chapter 2
3: Troubled Blood, Chapters 6 & 7}