Career of Evil

25

Strike didn’t like it, but he was forced to concede that Robin’s plan was a good one and that the danger of Holly tipping off Noel outweighed the probable risk to Robin. Accordingly, when Holly left work with a colleague at five o’clock, she was followed on foot by Strike, although unaware of his presence. Robin, meanwhile, drove to a deserted stretch of road beside a wide stretch of marshy wasteland, retrieved her holdall from the back of the car, wriggled out of her jeans and dragged on a smarter, though creased, pair of trousers.

She was driving back across the bridge towards central Barrow when Strike called to inform her that Holly had not returned home, but headed straight to the pub at the end of her street.

“Great, I think that’ll be easier anyway,” shouted Robin in the direction of her mobile, which was lying on the front passenger seat, set to speakerphone. The Land Rover vibrated and rattled around her.

“What?”

“I said, I think — never mind, I’m nearly there!”

Strike was waiting outside the Crow’s Nest car park. He had just opened the passenger door when Robin gasped:

“Get down, get down!”

Holly had appeared in the doorway of the pub, pint in hand. She was taller than Robin and twice as broad in her black cap-sleeved T-shirt and jeans. Lighting a cigarette, she squinted around at what must have been a view she knew by heart, and her narrowed eyes rested briefly on the unfamiliar Land Rover.

Strike had scrambled into the front seat as best he could, keeping his head low. Robin put her foot down and drove away at once.

“She didn’t give me a second look when I was following her,” Strike pointed out, hoisting himself into a sitting position.

“You still shouldn’t let her see you if you can help it,” said Robin sententiously, “in case she noticed you and it reminds her.”

“Sorry, forgot you’re Highly Commended,” said Strike.

“Oh sod off,” said Robin with a flash of temper. Strike was surprised.

“I was joking.”

Robin turned into a parking space further up the street, out of sight of the Crow’s Nest entrance, then checked her handbag for a small package she had bought earlier in the afternoon.

“You wait here.”

“The hell I will. I’ll be in the car park, keeping an eye out for Brockbank. Give me the keys.”

She handed them over with ill grace and left. Strike watched her walking towards the pub, wondering about that sudden spurt of temper. Perhaps, he thought, Matthew belittled what he probably saw as meager achievements.

The Crow’s Nest stood where Ferry and Stanley Roads met and formed a hairpin bend: a large, drum-shaped building of red brick. Holly was still standing in the doorway, smoking and drinking her pint. Nerves fluttered in the pit of Robin’s stomach. She had volunteered for this: now hers was the sole responsibility for finding out where Brockbank was. Her stupidity at bringing the police down on them earlier had made her touchy, and Strike’s ill-timed humor had reminded her of Matthew’s subtly belittling comments about her countersurveillance training. After formal congratulations on her top marks Matthew had implied that what she had learned was, after all, no more than common sense.

Robin’s mobile rang in her coat pocket. Aware of Holly’s eyes on her as she approached, Robin pulled out the phone to check the caller’s name. It was her mother. On the basis that it would look slightly more unusual to switch off the call than to take it, she raised it to her ear.

“Robin?” came Linda’s voice as Robin passed Holly in the doorway without looking at her. “Are you in Barrow-in-Furness?”

“Yes,” said Robin. Confronted by two inner doors, she chose the one on the left, which brought her into a large, high-ceilinged and dingy bar room. Two men in the now-familiar blue overalls were playing pool at a table just inside the door. Robin sensed, rather than saw, the turning of several heads towards the stranger. Avoiding all eye contact, she drifted towards the bar as she continued her call.

“What are you doing there?” asked Linda and, without waiting for a response, “We’ve had the police on the phone, checking whether Dad lent you the car!”

“It was all a misunderstanding,” said Robin. “Mum, I can’t really talk now.”

The door opened behind her and Holly walked past, thickly tattooed arms folded, giving Robin a sideways look of appraisal and, she sensed, animosity. Apart from the short-haired barmaid, they were the only two females in the place.

“We called the flat,” her mother went on, unheeding, “and Matthew said you’d gone away with Cormoran.”

“Yes,” said Robin.

“And when I asked whether you’d have time to drop round for lunch this weekend—”

“Why would I be in Masham this weekend?” Robin asked, confused. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Holly taking a bar stool and chatting to several more blue-overalled men from the BAE factory.

“It’s Matthew’s dad’s birthday,” said her mother.

“Oh, of course it is,” said Robin. She had completely forgotten. There was to be a party. It had been on the calendar so long that she had got used to the sight of it and forgotten that the trip back to Masham was actually going to happen.

“Robin, is everything all right?”

“Like I said, Mum, I can’t really talk right now,” said Robin.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes!” said Robin impatiently. “I’m absolutely fine. I’ll ring you later.”

She hung up and turned to the bar. The barmaid, who was waiting to take her order, wore the same look of shrewd appraisal as the watching neighbor in Stanley Road. There was an extra layer to their caginess around here, but Robin understood, now, that theirs was not the chauvinistic antagonism of the local for the stranger. Rather, it was the protectiveness of a people whose business was confidential. With her heart beating slightly faster than usual, Robin said with an air of forced confidence:

“Hi, I don’t know whether you can help me. I’m looking for Holly Brockbank. I was told she might be in here.”

The barmaid considered Robin’s request, then said, unsmiling:

“Tha’s ’er, down the bar. Can A get th’somethin’?”

“Glass of white wine, please,” said Robin.

The woman whom she was impersonating would drink wine, Robin knew. She would also be unfazed by the edge of mistrust she saw in the barmaid’s eyes, by Holly’s reflexive antagonism, by the up-and-down stares of the pool players. The woman whom she was pretending to be was cool, clearheaded and ambitious.

Robin paid for her drink then headed directly for Holly and the three men chatting to her at the bar. Curious but cagey, they fell silent when it became clear that they were Robin’s destination.

“Hello,” said Robin, smiling. “Are you Holly Brockbank?”

“Yeah,” said Holly, her expression grim. “Whee’re thoo?”

“Sorry?”

Aware of several pairs of amused eyes on her, Robin kept her smile in place by sheer force of will.

“Who — are — yew?” asked Holly, in a mock London accent.

“My name’s Venetia Hall.”

“Ooh, unlucky,” said Holly with a broad grin at the closest workman, who sniggered.

Robin pulled a business card out of her handbag, freshly printed that afternoon on a machine in a shopping center, while Strike remained behind, keeping an eye on Holly in the bakery. It had been Strike’s suggestion that she use her middle name. (“Makes you sound like a poncy southerner.”)

Robin handed over the business card, looked boldly into Holly’s heavily kohled eyes and repeated: “Venetia Hall. I’m a lawyer.”

Holly’s grin evaporated. Scowling, she read the card, one of two hundred Robin had had printed for £4.50.

“I’m looking for your brother Noel,” said Robin. “We—”

“’Ow did thoo know A was ’ere?”

In her mistrust she seemed to be swelling, bristling like a cat.

“A neighbor said you might be.”

Holly’s blue-overalled companions smirked.

“We might have some good news for your brother,” Robin plowed on bravely. “We’re trying to find him.”

“A dunno where ’e is and A don’ care.”

Two of the workmen slid away from the bar towards a table, leaving only one behind, who smiled faintly as he observed Robin’s discomfiture. Holly drained her pint, slid a fiver sideways at the remaining man and told him to get her another, clambered off her bar stool and strode away towards the Ladies, her arms held stiffly like a man’s.

“’Er boyo an’ ’er don’ speak,” said the barmaid, who had drifted up the bar to eavesdrop. She seemed to feel vaguely sorry for Robin.

“I don’t suppose you know where Noel is?” Robin asked, feeling desperate.

“’E’s not been in ’ere for a year or more,” said the barmaid vaguely. “You know where ’e is, Kev?”

Holly’s friend answered only with a shrug and ordered Holly’s pint. His accent revealed him to be Glaswegian.

“Well, it’s a pity,” said Robin, and her clear, cool voice did not betray the frantic pounding of her heart. She dreaded going back to Strike with nothing. “There could be a big payout for the family, if only I can find him.”

She turned to go.

“For the family, or for him?” asked the Glaswegian sharply.

“It depends,” said Robin coolly, turning back. She did not imagine that Venetia Hall would be particularly chummy with people unconnected to the case she was building. “If family members have had to take on a carer role — but I’d need details to judge. Some relatives,” lied Robin, “have had very significant compensation.”

Holly was coming back. Her expression turned thunderous when she saw Robin talking to Kevin. Robin walked off to the Ladies herself, her heart pounding in her chest, wondering whether the lie she had just told would bear fruit. By the look on Holly’s face as they passed each other, Robin thought there was an outside chance that she might be cornered by the sinks and beaten up.

However, when she came out of the bathroom she saw Holly and Kevin nose to nose at the bar. Robin knew not to push any harder: either Holly bit, or she did not. She tied her coat belt more tightly and walked, unhurriedly but purposefully, back past them towards the door.

“Oi!”

“Yes?” Robin said, still a little coolly, because Holly had been rude and Venetia Hall was used to a certain level of respect.

“Orlrigh’, wha’s it all abou’?”

Though Kevin seemed keen to participate in their conversation, his relationship with Holly was apparently not far enough advanced to permit listening in on private financial matters. He drifted away to a fruit machine looking disgruntled.

“We can yatter over ’ere,” Holly told Robin, taking her fresh pint and pointing Robin to a corner table beside a piano.

The pub’s windowsill bore ships in bottles: pretty, fragile things compared to the huge, sleek monsters that were being constructed beyond the windows, behind that high perimeter wall. The heavily patterned carpet would conceal a thousand stains; the plants behind the curtains looked droopy and sad, yet the mismatched ornaments and sporting trophies gave a homey feel to the large room, the bright blue overalls of its customers an impression of brotherhood.

“Hardacre and Hall is representing a large group of servicemen who suffered serious and preventable injury outside the field of combat,” said Robin, sliding into her pre-rehearsed spiel. “While we were reviewing records we came across your brother’s case. We can’t be sure until we talk to him, of course, but he’d be very welcome to add his name to our pool of litigants. His would be very much the type of case we’re expecting to win. If he joins us, it’ll add to the pressure on the army to pay. The more complainants we can get, the better. It would be at no cost to Mr. Brockbank, of course. No win,” she said, mimicking the TV adverts, “no fee.”

Holly said nothing. Her pale face was hard and set. There were cheap rings of yellow gold on every digit except her wedding-ring finger.

“Kevin said summa’ abou’ the family gettin’ money.”

“Oh yes,” said Robin blithely. “If Noel’s injuries have impacted you, as a family—”

“Ower righ’ they ’ave,” snarled Holly.

“How?” asked Robin, taking a notebook out of her shoulder bag and waiting, pencil poised.

She could tell that alcohol and a sense of grievance were going to be her greatest allies in extracting maximum information from Holly, who was now warming to the idea of telling the story she thought the lawyer wanted to hear.

The first thing to be done was to soften that first impression of animosity towards her injured brother. Carefully she took Robin over Noel joining the army at sixteen. He had given it everything: it had been his life. Oh yeah, people didn’t realize the sacrifices soldiers made... did Robin know Noel was her twin? Yeah, born on Christmas Day... Noel and Holly...

To tell this bowdlerized story of her brother was to elevate herself. The man with whom she had shared a womb had sallied forth into the world, traveled and fought and been promoted through the ranks of the British Army. His bravery and sense of adventure reflected back on her, left behind in Barrow.

“...’n ’e married a woman called Irene. Widow. Took ’er on with two kids. Jesus. No good turn goes unpunished, don’t they say?”

“What do you mean?” asked Venetia Hall politely, clasping half an inch of warm vinegary wine.

“Married ’er, ’ad a son with ’er. Lovely little boy... Ryan... Lovely. We’ve not seen him for... six years, is it? Seven years? Bitch. Yeah, Irene jus’ fucked off when ’e was at the doctor’s one day. Took the kids — and his son was everything to Noel, mind. Everything — so much for in sickness and in fuckin’ health, eh? Some fuckin’ wife. When ’e needed support most. Bitch.”

So Noel and Brittany had long since parted company. Or had he made it his business to track down the stepdaughter whom he surely blamed as much as Strike for his life-changing injuries? Robin maintained an impassive expression, although her heart was racing. She wished she could text Strike right there and then.

After his wife had left, Noel had turned up uninvited at the old family home, the tiny two up, two down on Stanley Road in which Holly had lived all her life and which she had occupied alone since her stepfather had died.

“A took ’im in,” said Holly, straightening her back. “Family’s family.”

There was no mention of Brittany’s allegation. Holly was playing the concerned relative, the devoted sister, and if it was a ham performance Robin was experienced enough, now, to know that there were usually nuggets of truth to be sifted from even the most obvious dross.

She wondered whether Holly knew about the accusation of child abuse: it had happened in Germany, after all, and no charges had been brought. Yet if Brockbank had been truly brain damaged on his discharge, would he have been canny enough to remain silent about the reason for his ignominious exit from the army? If he had been innocent and not of sound mind, wouldn’t he have talked, perhaps endlessly, of the injustice that had brought him to such a low ebb?

Robin bought Holly a third pint and turned her deftly to the subject of what Noel had been like after he had been invalided out.

“’E wasn’ ’imself. Fits. Seizures. ’E was on a load o’ medication. I jus’ go’rover nursin’ my stepfather — ’e ’ad a stroke — an’ then A gets Noel comin’ ’ome, with ’is convulsions and...”

Holly buried the end of her sentence in her pint.

“That’s tough,” said Robin, who was now writing in a small notebook. “Any behavioral difficulties? Families often mention those kinds of challenges as the worst.”

“Yeah,” said Holly. “Well. ’Is temper wasn’ improved by gettin’ ’is brain knocked outta his skull for ’im. ’E smashed up the ’ouse for us twice. ’E was orlwuz ragin’ at us.

“’E’s famous now, tha knows,” said Holly darkly.

“Sorry?” said Robin, thrown.

“The gadgee that beat ’im up!”

“The gadg—”

“Cameron fuckin’ Strike!”

“Ah, yes,” said Robin. “I think I’ve heard of him.”

“Oh yeah! Fuckin’ private detective now, in orl the papers! Fuckin’ military policeman when ’e beat the shit outta Noel... fuckin’ damaged him for fuckin’ life...”

The rant went on for some time. Robin made notes, waiting for Holly to tell her why the military police had come for her brother, but she either did not know or was determined not to say. All that was certain was that Noel Brockbank had attributed his epilepsy entirely to the actions of Strike.

After what sounded like a year of purgatory, during which Noel had treated both his twin sister and her house as convenient outlets for his misery and his temper, he left for a bouncer’s job in Manchester obtained for him by an old Barrovian friend.

“He was well enough to work, then?” asked Robin, because the picture Holly had painted was of a man totally out of control, barely able to contain explosions of temper.

“Yeah, well, ’e was orlrigh’ by then as long as ’e didn’t drink and took his meds. A were glad to see the back of ’im. Took it outta me, ’avin’ ’im ’ere,” said Holly, suddenly remembering that there was a payout promised to those whose lives had been badly affected by their relative’s injuries. “I ’ad panic attacks. Wen’ to my GP. It’s in my records.”

The full impact of Brockbank’s bad behavior on Holly’s life filled the next ten minutes, Robin nodding seriously and sympathetically and interjecting encouraging phrases such as “Yes, I’ve heard that from other relatives,” and “Oh yes, that would be very valuable in a submission.” Robin offered the now-tractable Holly a fourth pint.

“A’ll ge’ you one,” said Holly, with a vague show of getting to her feet.

“No, no, this is all on expenses,” said Robin. As she waited for the fresh pint of McEwan’s to be poured, she checked her mobile. There was another text from Matthew, which she did not open, and one from Strike, which she did.

Yes, she texted back.

“So your brother’s in Manchester?” she asked Holly on her return to the table.

“No,” said Holly, after taking a large swig of McEwan’s. “’E was sacked.”

“Oh, really?” said Robin, pencil poised. “If it was as a result of his medical condition, you know, we can help with an unfair dismissal—”

“It weren’t coz of tha’,” said Holly.

A strange expression crossed the tight, sullen face: a flash of silver between storm clouds, of something powerful trying to break through.

“’E come back ’ere,” said Holly, “an’ it all started again—”

More stories of violence, irrational rages, broken furniture, at the end of which Brockbank had secured another job, vaguely described as “security,” and taken off for Market Harborough.

“An’ then he come back again,” said Holly, and Robin’s pulse quickened.

“So he’s here in Barrow?” she asked.

“No,” said Holly. She was drunk now and finding it harder to retain a hold on the line she was supposed to be peddling. “’E jus’ come back for a coupla weeks but this time A told him A’d ’ave the police on ’im if ’e come back again an’ ’e lef’ f’r good. Need a slash,” said Holly, “an’ a fag. D’you smoke?”

Robin shook her head. Holly got a little unsteadily to her feet and proceeded to the Ladies, leaving Robin to pull her mobile out of her pocket and text Strike.

She regretted the last two words as soon as she had pressed “send,” in case they elicited another sarcastic reference to her countersurveillance course, but her phone buzzed almost immediately and she saw two words:

When Holly finally returned to the table, smelling strongly of Rothmans, she was carrying a white wine, which she slid across to Robin, and her fifth pint.

“Thanks very much,” said Robin.

“See,” said Holly plaintively, as though there had been no break in the conversation, “it was havin’ a real impact on me ’ealth, ’aving ’im ’ere.”

“I’m sure,” said Robin. “So does Mr. Brockbank live—?”

“’E was violent. A told you abou’ the time he shoved me head into the fridge door.”

“You did, yes,” said Robin patiently.

“An’ ’e blacked me eye when A tried to stop him smashing up me mam’s plates—”

“Awful. You’d certainly be in line for some kind of payout,” lied Robin and, ignoring a tiny qualm of guilt, she plunged straight towards the central question. “We assumed Mr. Brockbank was here in Barrow because this is where his pension’s being paid.”

Holly’s reactions were slower after four and a half pints. The promise of compensation for her suffering had given her a glow: even the deep line that life had graven between her eyebrows, and which gave her a look of permanent fury, seemed to have diminished. However, the mention of Brockbank’s pension turned her muzzily defensive.

“No, it’s not,” said Holly.

“According to our records, it is,” said Robin.

The fruit machine played a synthetic jingle and flashed in the corner; the pool balls clicked and thudded off the baize; Barrovian accents mingled with Scots. Robin’s flash of intuition came to her like certain knowledge. Holly was helping herself to the military pension.

“Of course,” said Robin, with a convincing lightness, “we know Mr. Brockbank might not be picking it up for himself. Relatives are sometimes authorized to collect money when the pensioner is incapacitated.”

“Yeah,” said Holly at once. A blush was creeping blotchily up her pale face. It made her look girlish, notwithstanding the tattoos and multiple piercings. “A collected it for ’im when ’e was first out. When ’e was ’avin’ fits.”

Why, thought Robin, if he was so incapacitated, did he transfer the pension to Manchester, and then to Market Harborough, and then back to Barrow again?

“So are you sending it on to him now?” asked Robin, her heart beating fast again. “Or can he pick it up for himself now?”

“Lissen,” said Holly.

There was a Hell’s Angels tattoo on her upper arm, a wing-helmeted skull that rippled as she leaned in towards Robin. Beer, cigarettes and sugar had turned her breath rancid. Robin did not flinch.

“Lissen,” she said again, “you get people payouts, like, if they’ve been... if they’ve been hurt, like, or... wharrever.”

“That’s right,” said Robin.

“Wharriff someone’d been... wharriff social services shoulda... shoulda done somethin’ an’ they never?”

“It would depend on the circumstances,” said Robin.

“Our mam lef’ when we was nine,” said Holly. “Lef’ us with oor stepfather.”

“I’m sorry,” said Robin. “That’s tough.”

“Nineteen-seventies,” said Holly. “Nobody gave a shit. Child abuse.”

A lead weight dropped inside Robin. Holly’s bad breath was in her face, her mottled face close. She had no idea that the sympathetic lawyer who had approached her with the promise of sacks of free cash was only a mirage.

“’E done it to both of us,” said Holly. “Me step. Noel gorrit an’ all. From when we wuz tiny. We useter hide under ower beds together. An’ then Noel did it to me. Mind,” she said, suddenly earnest, “’e could be orlright, Noel. We wuz close and tha’ when we wuz little. Anyway,” her tone revealed a sense of double betrayal, “when ’e wor sixteen, he lef’ us to join the army.”

Robin, who had not meant to drink any more, picked up her wine and took a large slug. Holly’s second abuser had also been her ally against her first: the lesser of two evils.

“Bastard, he wor,” she said, and Robin could tell she meant the stepfather, not the twin who had abused her then disappeared abroad. “He had an accident at work when A was sixteen, though, an’ after tha’ A could manage ’im better. Industrial chemicals. Fucker. Couldn’t get it up after that. On so many painkillers an’ shit. An’ then ’e ’ad his stroke.”

The look of determined malice on Holly’s face told Robin exactly what kind of care the stepfather might have received at her hands.

“Fucker,” she said quietly.

“Have you received counseling at all?” Robin heard herself ask.

I do sound like a poncy southerner.

Holly snorted.

“Fuck, no. You’re the firs’ person A’ve ever told. S’pose you’ve heard a lot of stories like this?”

“Oh, yes,” said Robin. She owed Holly that.

“A told Noel, last time ’e come back,” said Holly, five pints to the bad now and slurring her words badly, “fuck off an’ stay away from us. You leave or A’m going to the p’lice about what you did to us before, an’ see what they think o’ that, after all these little girls keep sayin’ you’ve fiddled with ’em.”

The phrase turned the warm wine rancid in Robin’s mouth.

“Tha’s ’ow he lost the job in Manchester. Groped a thirteen-year-ould. Prob’bly the same in Market ’Arborough. ’E wouldn’ tell me why ’e was back, but A know ’e’ll’ve done summat like that again. ’E learned from the best,” said Holly. “So, could A sue?”

“I think,” said Robin, fearful of giving advice that would cause further damage to the wounded woman beside her, “that the police would probably be your best bet. Where is your brother?” she asked, desperate, now, to extract the information she wanted and leave.

“Dunno,” said Holly. “When A told ’im A’d go to the p’lice ’e wen’ beserk, bu’ then...”

She mumbled something indistinct, something in which the word “pension” was just audible.

He told her she could keep the pension if she didn’t go to the police.

So there she sat, drinking herself into an early grave with the money her brother had given her not to reveal his abuse. Holly knew he was almost certainly still “fiddling” with other young girls... had she ever known about Brittany’s accusation? Did she care? Or had the scar tissue grown so thick over her own wounds that it rendered her impervious to other little girls’ agony? She was still living in the house where it had all happened, with the front windows facing out on barbed wire and bricks... why hadn’t she run, Robin wondered. Why hadn’t she escaped, like Noel? Why stay in the house facing the high, blank wall?

“You haven’t got a number for him, or anything like that?” Robin asked.

“No,” said Holly.

“There could be big money in this if you can find me any kind of contact,” said Robin desperately, throwing finesse to the wind.

“’S’old place,” Holly slurred, after a few minutes’ muddled thought and fruitless staring at her phone, “’n Market ’Arbrough...”

It took a long time to locate the telephone number of Noel’s last place of work, but at last they found it. Robin made a note, then dug ten pounds out of her own purse and thrust it into Holly’s willing hand.

“You’ve been very helpful. Very helpful indeed.”

“It’s jus’ gadgees, isn’t i’? All th’same.”

“Yes,” said Robin, without a clue what she was agreeing to. “I’ll be in touch. I’ve got your address.”

She stood up.

“Yeah. See thoo. Jus’ gadgees. All th’same.”

“She means men,” said the barmaid, who had come over to collect some of Holly’s many empty glasses, and was smiling at Robin’s clear bewilderment. “A gadgee is a man. She’s saying men are all the same.”

“Oh yes,” said Robin, barely aware of what she was saying. “So true. Thanks very much. Good-bye, Holly... take care of yourself...”