Career of Evil

57

Four days passed. Numb with shock and misery, Robin at first hoped and even believed that Strike would call her, that he would regret what he had said to her, that he would realize what a mistake he had made. Linda had left, kind and supportive to the last, but, Robin suspected, secretly happy to think that Robin’s association with the detective had ended.

Matthew had expressed enormous sympathy in the face of Robin’s devastation. He said that Strike did not know how lucky he had been. He had enumerated for her all the things she had done for the detective, foremost of which was accepting a laughably small salary for unreasonably long hours. He reminded Robin that her status as partner in the agency had been entirely illusory, and totted up all the proofs of Strike’s lack of respect for her: the absence of a partnership agreement, the lack of overtime pay, the fact that she always seemed to be the one who made tea and went out to buy sandwiches.

A week previously, Robin would have defended Strike against all such accusations. She would have said that the nature of the work necessitated long hours, that the moment to demand a pay rise was not when the business was fighting for its very survival, that Strike made her mugs of tea quite as often as she made them for him. She might have added that Strike had spent money he could ill afford training her in surveillance and countersurveillance, and that it was unreasonable to expect him, as senior partner, sole investor and founding member of the agency, to place her on absolutely equal legal footing with himself.

Yet she said none of those things, because the last two words that Strike had spoken to her were with her every day like the sound of her own heartbeat: gross misconduct. The memory of Strike’s expression in that last moment helped her pretend that she saw things exactly as Matthew did, that her dominant emotion was anger, that the job which had meant everything to her could be easily replaced, that Strike had no integrity or moral sense if he could not appreciate that Angel’s safety trumped all other considerations. Robin had neither the will nor the energy to point out that Matthew had performed an abrupt volte-face on the last point, because he had been furious, initially, when he had found out that she had gone to Brockbank’s.

As the days went by without any contact from Strike, she felt unspoken pressure from her fiancé to pretend that the prospect of their wedding on Saturday not only made up for her recent sacking, but consumed all her thoughts. Having to fake excitement while he was present made Robin relieved to be alone during the day while Matthew worked. Every evening, before he returned, she deleted the search history on her laptop, so that he would not see that she was constantly looking for news about the Shacklewell Ripper online and — just as often — Googling Strike.

On the day before she and Matthew were due to leave for Masham, he arrived home holding a copy of the Sun, which was not his usual read.

“Why have you got that?”

Matthew hesitated before answering and Robin’s insides twisted.

“There hasn’t been another—?”

But she knew there had not been another killing: she had been following the news all day.

He opened the paper, folded it to a page about ten in, and handed it to her, his expression hard to read. Robin found herself staring at her own photograph. She was walking with her head down in the picture, dressed in her trench coat, leaving court after giving evidence at the well-publicized trial of the murderer of Owen Quine. Two smaller pictures were set into her own: one of Strike, looking hungover, the other of the spectacularly beautiful model whose killer they had worked together to catch. Beneath the photo spread were the words:

There were several more paragraphs, but Robin could not bear to read them. Instead, she looked at the byline, which was that of Dominic Culpepper, a journalist whom Strike knew personally. Possibly he had called Culpepper, who often badgered Strike for stories, and let him have this one, to make sure his need for a new assistant was disseminated as widely as possible.

Robin had not thought that she could feel any worse, but now she discovered that she had been mistaken. She really was sacked, after everything that she had done for him. She had been a disposable “Girl Friday,” an “assistant” — never a partner, never an equal — and now he was already looking for somebody with a background in the police or the military: somebody disciplined, someone who would take orders.

Rage gripped her; everything blurred, the hall, the newspaper, Matthew standing there trying to look sympathetic, and Robin had to physically resist the impulse to dive into the sitting room, where her mobile sat charging on a side table, and call Strike. She had thought of doing so many times in the last four days, but then it had been to ask — to beg — him to reconsider.

Not anymore. Now she wanted to shout at him, belittle him, accuse him of base ingratitude, hypocrisy, lack of honor—

Her burning eyes met Matthew’s and she saw, before he rearranged his expression, how delighted he was that Strike had put himself so dramatically in the wrong. Matthew, she could tell, had looked forward to showing her the newspaper. Her anguish was nothing compared to his ecstasy at her separation from Strike.

She turned away, heading for the kitchen, resolving that she would not shout at Matthew. If they rowed it would feel like a triumph for Strike. She refused to allow her ex-boss to sully her relationship with the man whom she had to — the man whom she wanted to marry in three days’ time. Clumsily dumping a saucepan of spaghetti into a colander, Robin spattered herself with boiling water and swore.

“Pasta again?” said Matthew.

“Yes,” said Robin coldly. “Is that a problem?”

“God, no,” said Matthew, approaching her from behind and putting his arms around her. “I love you,” he said into her hair.

“I love you too,” said Robin mechanically.

The Land Rover was packed with everything they would need for their stay up north, for the wedding night at Swinton Park Hotel and for their honeymoon “somewhere hot,” which was all that Robin knew about the destination. They set off at ten o’clock the following morning, both wearing T-shirts in the bright sunshine, and as Robin got into the car she remembered that misty morning in April when she had driven away, Matthew in hot pursuit, when she had been desperate to get away, to get to Strike.

She was a much better driver than Matthew, but when the two of them made a journey together, he always took the wheel. Matthew sang Daniel Bedingfield’s “Never Gonna Leave Your Side” as he turned onto the M1. An old song, it dated from the year that they had both started university.

“Could you not sing that?” said Robin suddenly, unable to bear it any longer.

“Sorry,” he said, startled. “It seemed appropriate.”

“Maybe it’s got happy memories for you,” said Robin, turning to look out of the window, “but it hasn’t for me.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Matthew look at her, then turn back to the road. After another mile or so she wished she had not said anything.

“That doesn’t mean you can’t sing something else.”

“That’s all right,” he said.

The temperature had fallen slightly by the time they reached Donington Park Services, where they stopped for a coffee. Robin left her jacket hanging over the back of her chair when she went to the bathroom. Alone, Matthew stretched, his T-shirt riding up out of his jeans to reveal a few inches of flat stomach and drawing the attention of the girl serving behind the Costa Coffee bar. Feeling good about himself and life, Matthew grinned and winked at her. She turned red, giggled and turned to her smirking fellow barista, who had seen.

The phone in Robin’s jacket rang. Assuming that it was Linda trying to find out how close they were to home, Matthew reached lazily across — conscious of the girls’ eyes upon him — and tugged the phone out of Robin’s pocket.

It was Strike.

Matthew looked at the vibrating device as though he had inadvertently picked up a tarantula. The phone continued to ring and vibrate in his hand. He looked around: Robin was nowhere to be seen. He answered the call, then immediately cut it. Now Corm Missed Call was written across the screen.

The big ugly bastard wanted Robin back, Matthew was sure of it. Strike had had five long days to realize he’d never get anyone better. Maybe he’d started interviewing people for the position and nobody had come close, or maybe all of them had laughed in his face at the pitiful salary he was offering.

The phone rang again: Strike was calling back, trying to make sure that the hanging up had been deliberate rather than accidental. Matthew looked at the mobile, paralyzed with indecision. He dared not answer on Robin’s behalf or tell Strike to fuck off. He knew Strike: he’d keep calling back until he spoke to Robin.

The call went to voicemail. Now Matthew realized that a recorded apology was the worst thing that could happen: Robin could listen to it again and again and finally be worn down and softened by it...

He looked up: Robin was returning from the Ladies. With her phone in his hand he stood up and pretended to be talking into it.

“It’s Dad,” he lied to Robin, placing a hand over the mouthpiece and praying that Strike would not call back again while he was standing in front of her. “Mine’s out of battery... listen, what’s your passcode? I need to look something up for the honeymoon flights — it’s to tell Dad—”

She gave it to him.

“Give me a sec, I don’t want you to hear anything about the honeymoon,” he said and walked away from her, torn between guilt and pride in his own quick thinking.

Once safe inside the men’s bathroom, he opened up her phone. Getting rid of any record of Strike’s calls meant deleting her entire call history — this he did. Then he called voicemail, listened to Strike’s recorded message and deleted that too. Finally, he went into the settings on Robin’s phone and blocked Strike.

Breathing deeply he turned to his handsome reflection in the mirror. Strike had said on the voicemail message that if he did not hear back from her he would not call again. The wedding was in forty-eight hours’ time, and the anxious, defiant Matthew was counting on Strike keeping his word.