A cold morning towards the end of November finds Robin watching Mrs A.

‘Eleven o’clock found Robin in Mount Street in Belgravia, standing beneath one of the extravagant banners of silver lights that stretched across the road, pretending to be talking on her phone while the ex-wife of their professional cricketer client shopped in Balenciaga.’ (Chapter 13)

It is two days after Strike’s birthday, the evening of which Robin spent with Strike and Murphy discussing the silver vault case at Robin’s flat, and she is still feeling unsettled and tense.

‘Now she stood staring across the road at a motif carved in stone over the windows of Balenciaga; it was either a tree or a sheaf of corn. Possibly she was being influenced by the masonic symbolism she’d been reading up on during her Tube journey that morning: the sheaf of corn, she now knew, represented bounty and charity to Freemasons.’ (Chapter 13)

Balenciaga’s flagship London store was located at 12 Mount Street from 2017 to 2021, at which point it moved to Sloane Street. The address is now occupied by the fashion house Toteme.

Robin is expecting to hand over the surveillance of Mrs A to Dev Shah, but instead Strike arrives, and an hour early, as he wants to discuss the silver vault case.  Just as they meet, Mrs A leaves Balenciaga, carrying a large shopping bag, and sets off up the street.  Strike and Robin follow, on the opposite pavement, twenty yards behind her.

Mrs A enters a jewellers, and Strike and Robin keep an eye on her reflection in the shop window opposite.  Whilst they wait, their conversation turns to Bijou, and their plans for Christmas. They agree they will take Decima Mullins on as a client, and Strike calls Decima, who is very grateful. 

Find Mount Street on the map below.