People do kill themselves, you know, Miranda, when they think their whole reason for living is being taken away from them. Even the fact that other p… - Robert Galbraith

She thought it might be the very first time that Strike had ever given any indication that he saw her as a woman, and she silently filed away the exchange to pore over later, in solitude.

it was weird. Would you believe it if some supermodel called you up and told you she was your sister?’

Strike thought of his own bizarre family history.

‘Probably,’ he said.

"It's an illness," she said, although she made the words sound like "it's uh nillness."
Nillness, thought Strike, for a second distracted. 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.