Phillipa Delaunay is the sister of Alexander Graves, the ‘Stolen Prophet’, the daughter of Colonel and Mrs Edward Graves, and the wife of Nicholas Delaunay.

Strike meets Phillipa, along with her husband and parents, at their home, Garvestone Hall in Norfolk. In her late forties, she is described as ‘plump and blonde’ and ‘wearing a pink cashmere sweater and a tweed skirt.  Her bobbed hair was tied back in a velvet bow… while her ruddy, broken-veined cheeks suggested a life led largely out of doors’.  She is eight inches shorter than Strike and has ‘chilly blue eyes’ (Ch 38).

She remains stoney-faced and unhelpful throughout the interview and as Strike leaves she follows him out and tells him that ‘nothing good… can come of your digging around into Daiyu’s death’.  She is angry and resentful of the attention that her brother and his daughter got from the family, and tells Strike that she is concerned about the impact of the investigation on her children (Ch 38).