Career of Evil

52

Strike, who had been standing in the shadow of a warehouse in Bow, keeping watch on Blondin Street, heard Robin’s sudden gasp, the thud of the mobile on the pavement and then the scuffling and skidding of feet on asphalt.

He began to run. The phone connection to Robin was still open, but he could hear nothing. Panic sharpened his mental processes and obliterated all perception of pain as he sprinted down a darkening street in the direction of the nearest station. He needed a second phone.

“Need to borrow that, mate!” he bellowed at a pair of skinny black youths walking towards him, one of whom was chuckling into a mobile. “Crime’s being committed, need to borrow that phone!”

Strike’s size and his aura of authority as he pelted towards them made the teenager surrender the phone with a look of fear and bewilderment.

“Come with me!” Strike bellowed at the two boys, running on past them towards busier streets where he might be able to find a cab, his own mobile still pressed to his other ear. “Police!” Strike yelled into the boy’s phone as the stunned teenagers ran alongside him like bodyguards. “There’s a woman being attacked near Catford Bridge station, I was on the line to her when it happened! It’s happening right — no, I don’t know the street but it’s one or two away from the station — right now, I was on the line to her when he grabbed her, I heard it happen — yeah — and fucking hurry!

“Cheers, mate,” Strike panted, throwing the mobile back into the hands of its owner, who continued to run alongside him for several yards without realizing that he no longer needed to.

Strike hurtled around a corner; Bow was a totally unfamiliar area of London to him. On he ran past the Bow Bells pub, ignoring the red-hot jabs of the ligaments in his knee, moving awkwardly with only one free arm to balance himself, his silent phone still clamped to his ear. Then he heard a rape alarm going off at the other end of the line.

“TAXI!” he bellowed at a distant glowing light. “ROBIN!” he yelled into the phone, sure she could not hear him over the screeching alarm. “ROBIN, I’VE CALLED THE POLICE! THE POLICE ARE ON THEIR WAY. ARE YOU LISTENING, YOU FUCKER?”

The taxi had driven off without him. Drinkers outside the Bow Bells stared at the lunatic hobbling past at high speed, yelling and swearing into his phone. A second taxi appeared.

“TAXI! TAXI!” Strike bellowed and it turned, heading towards him, just as Robin’s voice spoke in his ear, gasping.

“Are... you there?”

“JESUS CHRIST! WHAT’S HAPPENED?”

“Stop... shouting...”

With enormous difficulty he modulated his volume.

“What’s happened?”

“I can’t see,” she said. “I can’t... see anything...”

Strike wrenched open the back door of the cab and threw himself inside.

“Catford Bridge station, hurry! What d’you mean, you can’t—? What’s he done to you? NOT YOU!” he bellowed at the confused cabbie. “Go! Go!”

“No... it’s your bloody... rape alarm... stuff... in my face... oh... shit...”

The taxi was speeding along, but Strike had to physically restrain himself from urging the driver to floor it.

“What happened? Are you hurt?”

“A — a bit... there are people here...”

He could hear them now, people surrounding her, murmuring, talking excitedly amongst themselves.

“... hospital...” he heard Robin say, away from the phone.

“Robin? ROBIN?”

“Stop shouting!” she said. “Listen, they’ve called an ambulance, I’m going to—”

“WHAT’S HE DONE TO YOU?”

“Cut me... up my arm... I think it’ll need stitching... God, it stings...”

“Which hospital? Let me speak to someone! I’ll meet you there!”

Strike arrived at the Accident and Emergency Department at University Hospital Lewisham twenty-five minutes later, limping heavily and wearing such an anguished expression that a kindly nurse reassured him that a doctor would be with him shortly.

“No,” he said, waving her away as he clumped towards the reception desk, “I’m here with someone — Robin Ellacott, she’s been knifed—”

His eyes traveled frantically over the packed waiting room where a young boy was whimpering on his mother’s lap and a groaning drunk cradled his bloodied head in his hands. A male nurse was showing a breathless old lady how to use an inhaler.

“Strike... yes... Miss Ellacott said you’d be coming,” said the receptionist, who had checked her computer records with what Strike felt was unnecessary and provocative deliberation. “Down the corridor and to the right... first cubicle.”

He slipped a little on the shining floor in his haste, swore and hurried on. Several people’s eyes followed his large, ungainly figure, wondering whether he was quite right in the head.

“Robin? Fucking hell!”

Scarlet spatters disfigured her face; both eyes were swollen. A young male doctor, who was examining an eight-inch wound in her forearm, barked:

“Out until I’ve finished!”

“It isn’t blood!” Robin called as Strike retreated behind the curtain. “It’s the damn spray stuff in your rape alarm!”

“Stay still, please,” Strike heard the doctor say.

He paced a little outside the cubicle. Five other curtained beds hid their secrets along the side ward. The nurses’ rubber soles squeaked on the highly polished gray floor. God, how he hated hospitals: the smell of them, the institutional cleanliness underlaid with that faint whiff of human decomposition, immediately transported him back to those long months in Selly Oak after his leg had been blown off.

What had he done? What had he done? He had let her work, knowing the bastard had her in his sights. She could have died. She should have died. Nurses rustled past in their blue scrubs. Behind the curtain, Robin gave a small gasp of pain and Strike ground his teeth.

“Well, she’s been extremely lucky,” said the doctor, ripping the curtains open ten minutes later. “He could have severed the brachial artery. There’s tendon damage, though, and we won’t know how much until we get her into theater.”

He clearly thought they were a couple. Strike did not put him right.

“She needs surgery?”

“To repair the tendon damage,” said the doctor, as though Strike were a bit slow. “Plus, that wound needs a proper clean. I want to X-ray her ribs as well.”

He left. Bracing himself, Strike entered the cubicle.

“I know I screwed up,” said Robin.

“Holy shit, did you think I was going to tell you off?”

“Maybe,” she said, pulling herself up a little higher on the bed. Her arm was bound up in a temporary crêpe bandage. “After dark. I wasn’t paying attention, was I?”

He sat down heavily beside the bed on the chair that the doctor had vacated, accidentally knocking a metal kidney dish to the floor. It clanged and rattled; Strike put his prosthetic foot on it to silence it.

“Robin, how the fuck did you get away?”

“Self-defense,” she said. Then, correctly reading his expression, she said crossly, “I knew you didn’t believe I’d done any.”

“I did believe you,” he said, “but Jesus fucking Christ—”

“I had lessons from this brilliant woman in Harrogate who was ex-army,” said Robin, wincing a little as she readjusted herself on her pillows again. “After — you know what.”

“Was this before or after the advanced driving tests?”

“After,” she said, “because I was agoraphobic for a while. It was the driving that really got me back out of my room and then, after that, I did self-defense classes. The first one I signed to was run by a man and he was an idiot,” said Robin. “All judo moves and — just useless. But Louise was brilliant.”

“Yeah?” said Strike.

Her composure was unnerving him.

“Yeah,” said Robin. “She taught us it’s not about clever throws when you’re an ordinary woman. It’s about reacting smartly and fast. Never let yourself get taken to a second location. Go for the weak spots and then run like hell.

“He grabbed me from behind but I heard him just before he got to me. I practiced it loads with Louise. If they grab you from behind, you bend over.”

“Bend over,” repeated Strike numbly.

“I had the rape alarm in my hand. I bent right over and slammed it into his balls. He was wearing tracksuit pants. He let go for a couple of seconds and I tripped on this damn dress again — he pulled out the knife — I can’t remember exactly what happened then — I know he cut me as I was trying to get up — but I managed to press the button on the alarm and it went off and that scared him — the ink went all over my face and must’ve gone in his as well, because he was close to me — he was wearing a balaclava — I could hardly see — but I got in a good jab at his carotid artery as he bent over me — that’s the other thing Louise taught us, side of the neck, you can make them collapse if you do it right — and he staggered, and then I think he realized people were coming and he ran.”

Strike was speechless.

“I’m really hungry,” said Robin.

Strike felt in his pockets and pulled out a Twix.

“Thanks.”

But before she could take a bite, a nurse escorting an old man past the foot of her bed said sharply:

“Nil by mouth, you’re going to theater!”

Robin rolled her eyes and handed the Twix back to Strike. Her mobile rang. Strike watched, dazed, as she picked it up.

“Mum... hi,” said Robin.

Their eyes met. Strike read Robin’s unexpressed desire to save her mother, at least temporarily, from what had just happened, but no diversionary tactics were necessary because Linda was gabbling without allowing Robin to speak. Robin laid the mobile on her knees and switched it to speakerphone, her expression resigned.

“... let her know as soon as possible, because lily of the valley is out of season, so if you want it, it’ll be a special order.”

“OK,” said Robin. “I’ll skip lily of the valley.”

“Well, it would be great if you could call her directly and tell her what you do want, Robin, because it isn’t easy being the intermediary. She says she’s left you loads of voicemails.”

“Sorry, Mum,” said Robin. “I’ll call her.”

“You’re not supposed to be using that in here!” said a second cross nurse.

“Sorry,” said Robin again. “Mum, I’ll have to go. I’ll speak to you later.”

“Where are you?” Linda asked.

“I’m... I’ll ring you later,” said Robin, and cut the call.

She looked at Strike and asked:

“Aren’t you going to ask me which of them I think it was?”

“I’m assuming you don’t know,” said Strike. “If he was wearing a balaclava and your eyes were full of ink.”

“I’m sure about one thing,” said Robin. “It wasn’t Whittaker. Not unless he changed into sweatpants the moment I left him. Whittaker was wearing jeans and he was — his physique wasn’t right. This guy was strong, but soft, you know? Big, though. As big as you.”

“Have you told Matthew what’s happened?”

“He’s on his w—”

He thought, when her expression changed to one of near horror, that he was about to turn and see a livid Matthew bearing down upon them. Instead, the disheveled figure of Detective Inspector Roy Carver appeared at the foot of Robin’s bed, accompanied by the tall, elegant figure of Detective Sergeant Vanessa Ekwensi.

Carver was in shirtsleeves. Large wet patches of sweat radiated out from his armpits. The constantly pink whites of his bright blue eyes always made him look as though he had been swimming in heavily chlorinated water. His thick, graying hair was full of large flakes of dandruff.

“How are—?” began Detective Sergeant Ekwensi, her almond-shaped eyes on Robin’s forearm, but Carver interrupted with an accusatory bark.

“What’ve you been up to, then, eh?”

Strike stood up. Here at last was the perfect target for his so far suppressed desire to punish somebody, anybody, for what had just happened to Robin, to divert his feelings of guilt and anxiety onto a worthy target.

“I want to talk to you,” Carver told Strike. “Ekwensi, you take her statement.”

Before anyone could speak or move, a sweet-faced young nurse stepped obliviously between the two men, smiling at Robin.

“Ready to take you to X-ray, Miss Ellacott,” she said.

Robin got stiffly off the bed and walked away, looking back over her shoulder at Strike, trying to convey warning and restraint with her expression.

“Out here,” Carver growled at Strike.

The detective followed the policeman back through A&E. Carver had commandeered a small visitors’ room where, Strike assumed, news of imminent or actual death was conveyed to relatives. It contained several padded chairs, a box of tissues on a small table and an abstract print in shades of orange.

“I told you to stay out of it,” Carver said, taking up a position in the middle of the room, arms folded, feet wide apart.

With the door closed, Carver’s body odor filled the room. He did not stink in the same way as Whittaker: not of ingrained filth and drugs, but of sweat that he could not contain through the working day. His blotchy complexion was not improved by the overhead strip lighting. The dandruff, the wet shirt, the mottled skin: he seemed to be visibly falling to pieces. Strike had undoubtedly helped him on his way, humiliating him in the press over the murder of Lula Landry.

“Sent her to stake out Whittaker, didn’t you?” asked Carver, his face growing slowly redder, as though he were being boiled. “You did this to her.”

“Fuck you,” said Strike.

Only now, with his nose full of Carver’s sweat, did he admit to himself that he had known it for a while: Whittaker was not the killer. Strike had sent Robin after Stephanie because, in his soul, he had thought it the safest place to put her, but he had kept her on the streets, and he had known for weeks that the killer was tailing her.

Carver knew that he had hit a nerve. He was grinning.

“You’ve been using murdered women to pay off your fucking grudge against your stepdaddy,” he said, taking pleasure in Strike’s rising color, grinning to see the large hands ball into fists. Carver would enjoy nothing more than running Strike in for assault; they both knew it. “We’ve checked out Whittaker. We checked all three of your fucking hunches. There’s nothing in any of them. Now you listen to me.”

He took a step closer to Strike. Though a head shorter, he projected the power of a furious, embittered but powerful man, a man with much to prove, and with the full might of the force behind him. Pointing at Strike’s chest, he said:

“Stay out of it. You’re fucking lucky you haven’t got your partner’s blood on your hands. If I find you anywhere near our investigation again, I’ll fucking run you in. Understand me?”

He poked his stubby fingertip into Strike’s sternum. Strike resisted the urge to knock it away, but a muscle in his jaw twitched. For a few seconds they eyeballed each other. Carver grinned more widely, breathing as though he had just triumphed in a wrestling match, then strutted to the door and left, leaving Strike to stew in rage and self-loathing.

He was walking slowly back through A&E when tall, handsome Matthew came running through the double doors in his suit, wild-eyed, his hair all over the place. For the first time in their acquaintanceship, Strike felt something other than dislike for him.

“Matthew,” he said.

Matthew looked at Strike as though he did not recognize him.

“She went for an X-ray,” said Strike. “She might be back by now. That way,” he pointed.

“Why’s she need—?”

“Ribs,” said Strike.

Matthew elbowed him aside. Strike did not protest. He felt he deserved it. He watched as Robin’s fiancé tore off in her direction, then, after hesitating, turned to the double doors and walked out into the night.

The clear sky was now dusted with stars. Once he reached the street he paused to light a cigarette, dragging on it as Wardle had done, as though the nicotine were the stuff of life. He began to walk, feeling the pain in his knee now. With every step, he liked himself less.

“RICKY!” bawled a woman down the street, imploring an escaping toddler to return to her as she struggled with the weight of a large bag. “RICKY, COME BACK!”

The little boy was giggling manically. Without really thinking what he was doing, Strike bent down automatically and caught him as he sped towards the road.

“Thank you!” said the mother, almost sobbing her relief as she jogged towards Strike. Flowers toppled off the bag in her arms. “We’re visiting his dad — oh God—”

The boy in Strike’s arms struggled frantically. Strike put him down beside his mother, who was picking up a bunch of daffodils off the pavement.

“Hold them,” she told the boy sternly, who obeyed. “You can give them to Daddy. Don’t drop them! Thanks,” she said again to Strike and marched away, keeping a tight grip on the toddler’s free hand. The little boy walked meekly beside his mother now, proud to have a job to do, the stiff yellow flowers upright in his hand like a scepter.

Strike walked on a few paces and then, quite suddenly, stopped dead in the middle of the pavement, staring as though transfixed by something invisible hanging in the cold air in front of him. A chilly breeze tickled his face as he stood there, completely indifferent to his surroundings, his focus entirely inward.

Daffodils... lily of the valley... flowers out of season.

Then the sound of the mother’s voice echoed through the night again — “Ricky, no!” — and caused a sudden explosive chain reaction in Strike’s brain, lighting a landing strip for a theory that he knew, with the certainty of a prophet, would lead to the killer. As the steel joists of a building are revealed as it burns, so Strike saw in this flash of inspiration the skeleton of the killer’s plan, recognizing those crucial flaws that he had missed — that everyone had missed — but which might, at last, be the means by which the murderer and his macabre schemes could be brought down.