The Hallmarked Man

81

It took a full forty-eight hours for the whites of Strike’s eyes to recover from the pepper spray, during which time he had an emergency tetanus shot and passed his video footage of the dog fight, and the names and addresses of Plug and his friends, to police in Ipswich. The bites to Strike’s inner thigh meant walking was even more painful than usual, yet his mood remained buoyant throughout. Not only had Robin agreed to go to Sark with him, she’d chosen not to answer Murphy’s phone call on Valentine’s Day, and her feelings towards Strike seemed to have reverted to their usual state. Admittedly, Strike didn’t know exactly what that state was, but their friendship, at least, appeared to have been mysteriously and completely repaired. The universe had apparently decided that, instead of being the butt of a cruel cosmic joke, Strike was to be granted a modicum of hope, and so elated was he, both by the restoration of normal relations with Robin and the fact that he hadn’t fathered a daughter, he was now daring to wonder whether he might have a chance to make the declaration he’d so recently deemed impossible, at some propitious point on the island of Sark.

The earliest he and Robin could travel to the island was on Wednesday of the following week, because the ferry from Guernsey didn’t carry passengers on Monday or Tuesday in the off-season. Pat had booked the detectives rooms at the Old Forge, the only B&B open in February, and Strike had looked up the house online. It might not have quite the views of that Lake District hotel he’d chosen with such high hopes, but possessed its own rustic charm. Better yet, he and Robin would be completely alone in the remote house: the owner, and provider of breakfast, lived off-site.

Meanwhile, Robin and Murphy had done a lot of talking since Valentine’s Day. Murphy had offered a full apology for having become antagonistic in the aftermath of the gazumping, which made Robin feel obliged to make a concession of her own, so she told him with only partial honesty that she’d dragged her feet over looking for a suitable place to live, not because she didn’t want to cohabit, but because both their lives were currently busy and stressful even without the addition of house-hunting. She said she was happy to make an increased offer on the two-bedroomed house if Murphy was, and tried to ignore the way her spirits sank slightly when he agreed. Murphy then took the conversation back to children, only, he emphasised, because he wanted them to be completely honest with each other, not because he was pressuring her for a decision. Out of an obscure desire for propitiation, and because she felt guilty about her recent half-truths and outright falsehoods, Robin disclosed for the first time that she’d been to the GP for a check-up, and learned there that the odds of a live birth with IVF were far lower than she’d have guessed. Murphy did a poor job of concealing his happiness that she’d talked to a doctor at all, clearly imagining this meant she was contemplating imminent egg freezing. Hoping to capitalise on this goodwill, Robin told him she’d be going to Sark the following week, for work.

Murphy took this news well enough, but when they met for a takeaway at Robin’s flat on Monday evening, two days before she was due to fly out to Guernsey with Strike, Murphy pointed out, apropos of nothing, that the two of them had never yet taken a foreign holiday together. Robin agreed that this would be a nice thing to do and hoped the subject might rest there.

Shortly after they’d got into bed and Robin had turned out the light, there was a silence that felt laden with the unspoken. Robin felt certain something was coming that she wouldn’t want to hear. Then Murphy said in the darkness,

‘What would you have wanted to do, if it hadn’t been ectopic?’

‘What?’ said Robin, although she’d heard him quite clearly.

‘What if the pregnancy had been viable? What would you have wanted to do?’

Robin felt as though the bed had melted away beneath her. It was the question she’d dreaded, the question she hadn’t dared ask herself, and she knew why he’d posed it when they couldn’t see each other’s faces. Every second seemed to span an hour. At last she said,

‘That’s not a fair question.’

She waited for him to speak, but he didn’t, so she said,

‘I didn’t know until it was all over. I had no choice. It – the embryo – whatever it was – it was dead before I knew.’

‘But if it hadn’t been. If you’d had the choice.’

‘That’s not a fair question.’

Robin’s voice had wavered out of control.

‘It was an accident,’ she said. ‘A mistake. It shouldn’t have happened at all.’

‘But if—’

‘I don’t know, Ryan. I don’t know how I’d feel if I got pregnant accidentally with a baby that could survive, and I’m never going to know, am I?’

‘I didn’t—’

‘Want to upset me? Want a row? Why now? Why ask me this tonight?’

But she knew why. It was because of Sark, because of Strike; Murphy might not be doing it consciously, but she could tell he simultaneously wanted to punish her and push her into admissions that were either reassurances or rebuffs.

He became conciliatory once he heard the pain in her voice, and Robin, too tired to want an argument, forced herself to respond in kind. The short conversation that followed resolved nothing, and while it ended with Robin in Murphy’s arms, she had to force herself to lie there quietly, with the familiar twist of anger and distress in the pit of her stomach.

‘You all right?’ said Pat gruffly, removing her e-cigarette to ask the question, when Robin entered the office the following morning.

‘Fine,’ said Robin.

She’d just seen something on Instagram which, while not dispelling her personal troubles, had at least forced them to the back of her mind.

‘D’you know where Kim is?’ she asked Pat.

‘She’s in Forest Gate, trying to find that Hussein Mohamed’s house.’

‘How’re you getting on with Powell?’ asked Robin, looking at the long lists of pubs with ‘silver’ in the name, most of them crossed out, that lay on the office manager’s desk. Silver End, Colchester; Silver Ball, Cornwall; Silver Hind, Lymington…

‘No luck. Has he told you’ – Robin knew Pat was talking about Strike, whom she always called ‘he’ when he wasn’t around – ‘there’s only one B&B open on Sark? You’re out of season.’

‘I know. It doesn’t matter, it’s not as though we’re going on holiday,’ said Robin, almost as though Murphy could hear her, and, keen for a change of subject, she said, glancing at the aquarium,

‘The fish are doing well.’

‘He doesn’t like the black one,’ said Pat.

‘Who, Strike?’ said Robin, looking at the knobble-headed fish as it undulated slowly through the plastic plants.

‘I told him it looks like him,’ said Pat, and, miserable though Robin felt, she laughed.

Her mobile buzzed and she looked down to see a picture sent by her mother, which showed Stephen and Jenny side by side with Martin and Carmen, both mothers holding their baby sons; fat Barnaby and the fragile-looking Dirk. With yet another pang of guilt, Robin was reminded that she still hadn’t bought either of her new nephews presents.

She moved into the inner office, sat down at the partners’ desk and was about to call Kim when her mobile buzzed with a text. To her surprise, she saw a message from Wynn Jones, Tyler Powell’s friend, whom she’d texted the previous day, reiterating her request for an interview, and assuring him that she wasn’t working for the Whiteheads.

Jones’ text had a picture of Robin that had appeared in the press two years previously. He’d written: Is this you?

Yes, Robin texted back. Why?

To her displeasure, Jones responded with a drooling emoji.

Robin knew the world was full of young men whose instinctive reaction to any passable-looking woman was sexualised banter. She also knew that, in the interests of fostering this new line of communication, she should respond with a laughing emoji. She did so, unsmiling, then took a deep breath, and called Kim Cochran.

‘Hi,’ said Kim, answering within a few rings. ‘What’s up?’

‘Any luck with the Mohameds’ house?’

‘Not yet,’ said Kim.

‘Right,’ said Robin. ‘Well, I wanted to talk to you about the dark-haired girl Albie Simpson-White met, in the Sun in Splendour.’

‘Clarissa, yeah. What about her?’

‘Well, for a start, her name isn’t Clarissa,’ said Robin. ‘That was Laetitia Benton, the girl we’ve been trying to trace.’

‘No,’ said Kim, with complete confidence, ‘her name was Clarissa, he was calling her “Riss” or something for short.’

‘Laetitia Benton’s friends call her “Tish”,’ said Robin, ‘and I know that was her, because she’s just accepted my follower request in Instagram. The most recent pictures are of her on holiday, not in Sicily, which is where you said she was going, but in Sardinia.’

‘OK, fine, I misheard,’ said Kim dismissively. ‘But we know where she’s living now, so when she comes back from Sardinia—’

‘Thanks to you not taking that bit of surveillance seriously, we’ve missed an opportunity to speak face to face with one of the people who was closest to Rupert Fleetwood before he disappeared. She was our best lead.’

‘I always take surveillance seriously,’ snapped Kim, ‘but that pub was very noisy, and I’m not the only one who’s made a mistake late—’

‘Did you tell Strike you might not have heard correctly?’ asked Robin.

‘I thought I had heard correctly, so why would I tell him I hadn’t? Sorry, but I think you’re making a really big deal out of this, for some reason. You can email her, can’t you?’

‘I’d have thought a woman of your experience would know that it’s far harder for witnesses to refuse to talk in person,’ said Robin.

‘“Witnesses”,’ scoffed Kim. ‘We don’t even know that she knows anything!’

‘So you only put in effort when you’ve decided it’s worth it?’

‘No,’ said Kim, with yet another of her little laughs, ‘but—’

‘You know I’m a partner in this agency, right?’ said Robin.

‘Yes, obviously I—’

‘Then you might want to watch your tone.’

‘I’m just pointing out—’

‘An apology would be great,’ said Robin.

‘OK, fine, I’m sorry!’

Robin hung up.

Her outburst of anger hadn’t provided the catharsis she’d been seeking.

She looked down at her mobile to check whether Wynn Jones had texted again, but he hadn’t, so instead she switched on her computer and went to the missing persons’ website where Sapphire Neagle was listed. The girl still hadn’t been found.

After sitting in thought for a couple of minutes, Robin brought up the interior footage of Ramsay Silver she’d saved.

The existence of a blonde who’d driven the Peugeot 208 had reminded Robin of something to which she’d previously attached no importance. She fast forwarded, then pressed play as the blurry figure of the blonde customer entered Ramsay Silver.

Her face was impossible to make out, but her build was discernible: short, slim yet curvy. Definitely not, as Robin had wanted to check, a girl who might credibly have been nicknamed ‘Olive Oyl’. Yet she looked young from the way she moved between cabinets. Her hair, which was wavy and fairly short, was a whitish blur. She was wearing a dress, rather than Medina’s pink top and jeans, but carrying a fairly large tote bag over her shoulder. Could it contain a change of clothes?

Robin watched her speaking to Pamela. Pamela donned her white gloves to open a cabinet. Wright came upstairs and heaved one of the medium-sized crates off into the vault.

Todd arrived, but Robin was still watching the blonde. It did seem an odd place for a young woman to shop… of course, she might have a masonic relative…

Now Wright and Todd lifted the largest crate and disappeared from view again, while the blonde, still being attended to by Pamela, pored over something small from the very same glass cabinet from which Kenneth Ramsay had extracted the triangular pocket watch and the orb charm to show Robin.

Pamela opened the cabinet. Something undistinguishable was chosen by the blonde and Pamela moved to the till while Wright reappeared, followed a while later by Todd.

The blonde customer left, now holding a little black bag containing her purchase. Pamela descended the stairs to the vault.

Robin let the footage continue playing while thinking about the blonde and the brunette who’d both driven the Peugeot 208. Two young women, or one young woman swapping clothes and wigs? She strongly suspected the latter, and that the woman in question had been Sofia Medina.

Onscreen, the blurry figures of Wright and Todd were gesticulating at each other, Todd clearly indicating that he wanted to leave, and Wright, from his agitated hand movements, protesting. Todd departed. Wright now stood alone, back to the camera. At 17.55, he crossed the shop to use the crank and began to lower the metal blinds over the shop windows.

Robin reached out and pressed pause. She’d just noticed something she hadn’t registered before. She rewound.

It was almost imperceptible, but Wright had tripped slightly on his walk towards the window. Robin was instantly reminded of a murder victim in a previous case who’d been seen to turn her heel as she’d left work. In that instance, the explanation had been that she’d been drugged, but that seemed most unlikely in Wright’s case. Perhaps he was just tired; he’d done a lot of lifting and carrying. Nevertheless, Robin rewound and watched his slight stumble again, squinting in an effort to make the figure clearer, to no avail.

It looked as though his foot had hit some small obstacle, but due to the many glass cases packed onto the shop floor and the poor quality of the film, it was impossible to see what might have made him trip. After watching the incident five times in a row she was no wiser, and turned the recording off. As she did so, another Wynn Jones text arrived.

Wouldn’t mind being frisked by you

Just in case Robin had missed the subtle joke, he’d added two water-drop emojis, which, as Robin knew full well, could denote sweat or ejaculate. Less amused than ever, she nevertheless replied with another laughing emoji.

82

In spite of her tiredness, and notwithstanding lingering feelings of guilt and anxiety that were rapidly becoming habitual, Robin arrived at Gatwick at six o’clock the following morning in a state of relative cheerfulness and excitement because she was getting her wish of leaving London, however briefly.

She entered the airport pulling her small wheeled suitcase behind her and scanning the check-in desks for her partner, but saw no sign of him. Strike’s last text to her had been at ten o’clock the previous evening, when he’d been on the still-at-liberty Plug. Robin had just joined a queue when she spotted Strike walking towards her, a kit bag over his shoulder, unshaven, baggy-eyed with tiredness, and limping slightly.

‘Up all fucking night,’ were his first words as he joined her.

‘Why?’

‘Plug still hasn’t been fucking arrested. This is getting grim.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘He had a couple of smaller dogs in his car. Drove to fifteen Carnival Street again – that black monstrosity clearly didn’t die in the Valentine’s Day massacre – and took the dogs inside, by the scruffs of their necks. Fucking horrible noises ensued – sounded like the black monster was ripping them apart.’

‘Oh my God,’ said Robin.

‘I’ve called the RSCPA and told them they need to get to Carnival Street, asap. Sooner that thing’s put down, the better. Anyway, Plug then drove to fucking Barking.’

‘Appropriate.’

‘What? Oh, yeah… well, I think that black hellhound’s got a sister, because round five in the morning, Plug came out of a shithole of a house carrying a puppy that looked just like it.

‘Anyway, I had his uncle on the blower, first thing. He’s bloody furious Plug hasn’t been arrested yet. Came close to blaming me.’

‘How’s that your fault?’

‘Clients, innit,’ said Strike. ‘We’re supposed to be able to work magic. I told him the police’ll be trying to identify and bag as many of the ring as possible simultaneously, so they don’t tip off the rest, but apparently it’s my job to make them work faster.’

Bags checked in, they proceeded to the departure lounge, where Strike consumed a couple of espressos in an attempt to wake himself up. This wasn’t the way he’d planned setting off to Sark. Given the declaration he was hoping to make there, he’d wanted at least to have a shower first, and he was currently too exhausted to come up with much in the way of sparkling repartee. Robin, who could see he was struggling to keep his eyes open, decided to wait until they were on the flight before engaging in the conversation about Belgium and Reata Lindvall she was burning to have. At the same time, and even with Strike so sleepy, she enjoyed an ease she hadn’t felt much lately, and she knew part of the reason was that nobody was about to spring a conversation about lost babies or frozen eggs on her.

At last they filed onto the plane, Robin letting Strike take the window seat, because he was large enough to inconvenience both neighbours if he sat in the middle. The young man on Robin’s left was speaking volubly in French to his friend across the aisle, so she felt safe to say to Strike,

‘I did a lot of reading on Reata Lindvall last night. I know you don’t think—’

‘Forget what I said before,’ said Strike, slightly more alert for his ingestion of caffeine and thinking he should capitalise on what might be a temporary spurt of energy. He was prepared to disavow almost anything he’d ever said if it would further his prospects with Robin, and while he had new information of his own to share, he was more than happy to listen to her first.

‘OK,’ said Robin, ‘well, I know Jim Todd can’t have killed Reata and her daughter, because he was already in jail for the trafficking, but he does seem well connected, criminally speaking. As well connected as Jason Knowles, in his way.’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘Shame he’s too old to have been one of Branfoot’s promising young thugs. That would’ve fitted in nicely. He could’ve recommended Oz to Branfoot as the hitman.’

‘Oz sounds younger than Todd, doesn’t he? But not really young.’

‘Agreed,’ said Strike, ‘but he and Todd seem to have an identical taste in victims: teenagers and very young women. I think it’s within the realms of possibility that they met through the trafficking stuff.’

The plane began to move.

‘Well, I found out a few new things about the Lindvall murders last night,’ said Robin. ‘I was combing through old news reports, and obviously they’re mostly in French, so it wasn’t easy, but the human remains they found in the woods are interesting – more for what was missing than what was there.’

‘Which bits were missing?’

‘Heads, hands and feet,’ said Robin. ‘The bone fragments they retrieved were so small they couldn’t even tell whether they’d come from an adult or a child. Whoever the bones belonged to seemed to have been dismembered, and the bones were then baked to make them easier to crush.’

Pushed back into her seat as the plane’s nose rose into the air, she brought up a saved article on her own phone, which showed pictures of the woodland beside the Lac d’Ougrée.

‘I know wild animals might’ve dug up or carried off bits of the corpses in the years before the remains were found,’ said Robin, ‘but it seems very convenient foxes would have removed the exact parts that might have led to an ID.’

‘It does, yeah,’ said Strike. The caffeine was wearing off quicker than he’d hoped, but he was forcing himself to concentrate, partly out of a desire to ingratiate himself, but also because his interest had been genuinely awakened. ‘So we’ve got a definite overlap in the m.o. of the Lindvalls’ killer and William Wright’s?’

‘Exactly,’ said Robin, ‘but there’s more. Most of the old articles I’ve found take it for granted that Reata and Jolanda were both in the woods, because clothing and belongings from both were found there, but the most detailed contemporary account I’ve found, which I had to translate into English, says the bone fragments only showed one set of DNA. The trouble is, Reata and Jolanda both had unknown fathers, and Reata’s mother had been cremated, so there was no way of telling whether the fragments were the mother’s or the daughter’s, and of course the belongings in the woods had rotted and rusted and were untestable, and the accused boyfriend had chucked all their stuff at home.’

‘Makes you think,’ said Strike, not entirely honestly. In spite of his best efforts, he was feeling increasingly groggy.

‘And then the case became really politicised,’ said Robin, swiping right to show a picture of a women’s march proceeding along a bridge over the River Meuse, near the Lac d’Ougrée. ‘Did you read about the protests while the trial was going on?’

‘Angry women,’ said Strike, as the plane hit a small amount of turbulence and he and Robin bumped elbows.

‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘Maes’s defence team argued Reata had neglected Jolanda, found her an inconvenience, regretted not having her adopted, and killed her, possibly accidentally, in a fit of temper. The defence argued that the possessions of Reata’s found at the burial site could have been planted by Reata herself, in the hope people would think she was dead, as well as Jolanda.’

‘Pretty thin,’ said Strike.

‘I know. You can see why it became a real cause célèbre for feminists. I’m not saying the jury was swayed by that, but objectively speaking, they had no concrete proof that two people had been murdered. All that’s beyond doubt is that parts of one body were in the woods. But Maes was the only person claiming Reata was a neglectful mother. Other witnesses said she loved Jolanda. Meanwhile the prosecution argued that the bone fragments found were more likely to be Reata’s, because Jolanda’s would have been smaller and easier to hide. Maes still sticks to it that he’s innocent. He’s got a little online fan club of men who think he was framed by Reata. There are supposed sightings of her after she disappeared, but none of them look very credible.’

In spite of Strike’s best efforts, Robin could tell he wasn’t finding what she was telling him of gripping import, so she reverted to a more obviously relevant subject.

‘I’m making some headway with Powell’s friend Wynn Jones, by the way. We’ve been texting back and forth.’

‘Really?’ said Strike, fighting another yawn. He was finding the plane’s motion distinctly soporific.

‘Yes. He’s actually been a bit—’ The word that came to Robin’s mind was ‘creepy’, but reflecting that, compared to some of the men involved in this case, Jones’ behaviour was more oafish than sinister, she said, ‘—flirty.’

‘Has he, now?’

‘Yes. He Googled pictures of me going in and out of court,’ said Robin. ‘Anyway, I think I’ve managed to convince him the Whiteheads aren’t our clients. I told him we’re working for a woman and he said “it’s Dilys, isn’t it?” I said I couldn’t confirm that, but he told me Dilys had called him, worried that Tyler was the body in the vault, and he – Jones – told Dilys she was soft in the head.’

‘Might explain why Dilys thinks Jones is rude.’

‘That’s what I thought. Anyway, I’m hoping to get him to FaceTime me and press him on why Powell mentioned silver on the phone to him, because he’s ignored that question twice.

‘But while we’re on Powell: I don’t feel great about this, but I really do think I should try and talk to the Whiteheads. Just to find out whether there was any concrete reason for thinking Powell sabotaged his own car, or if it was just a rumour. And there are a couple of other things,’ said Robin. ‘This might be absolutely nothing, but—’

She realised, mid-sentence, that Strike had sunk into a doze, head against the window. As she looked at him, he let out a loud, deep snore. To her left, the Frenchman laughed.

‘’E’s tired, your ’usband.’

‘Yes,’ said Robin, tugging the in-flight magazine out of the pocket in front of her. ‘He works nights.’

Fifty minutes later, as the plane began its bumpy descent, Strike woke with a start.

‘Shit,’ he mumbled. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s fine,’ said Robin.

‘Was I snoring?’

‘A bit.’

Strike wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, afraid he’d also been drooling.

‘Don’t think I snored as badly as this before my nose got broken,’ he said apologetically.

‘How did that happen?’ said Robin, who’d never asked.

‘Boxing. Uppercut from a Welsh Grenadier. He got lucky.’

‘Of course he did,’ said Robin, amused.

‘He did,’ Strike insisted. ‘I knocked him out the following round. You were telling me more about Lindvall,’ he added.

‘I’d finished,’ said Robin untruthfully. ‘That was it.’

Strike falling asleep while she was talking had temporarily dimmed her enthusiasm for the subject.

Strike yawned, then said,

‘Did you know they found silver on Sark in the nineteenth century?’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. Nineteenth century. They hit a good vein, thought they’d struck it rich, and poured money into the mines, but the vein petered out. Cost a fortune, because they were digging out under the sea and they needed pumps to keep the water out. Then a shaft caved in, drowning ten miners, and that was the end of Sark silver. Ruined the Seigneur.’

‘Who’s the Seigneur?’

‘Feudal ruler of Sark. It’s a weird place,’ said Strike. ‘Last feudal system in Europe, till 2008, when they decided to try democracy instead.’

Robin’s fantasies of warmth and light were dashed by her first sight of Guernsey, where it was chilly and wet. She and Strike took a taxi from the airport to the town of St Peter Port, from which they were to catch the ferry to Sark. The talkative taxi driver made further discussion of the case impossible until they’d left him outside the ferry ticket office, where they were informed that, in addition to their ferry tickets, they should purchase luggage labels, which would ensure their bags were transported to their lodgings by tractor on arrival on Sark.

‘How’re your sea legs?’ Strike asked Robin as they walked towards the harbour, rain peppering their faces as they looked out over the choppy grey sea.

‘They’ve never been tested much,’ Robin admitted.

‘Ah well,’ said Strike. ‘Short trip.’

Only as he began to descend the long, steep, wet, grilled-metal ramp down to the ferry did it occur to Strike that he should have thrown his walking stick into the kit bag he’d packed, necessarily hastily, that morning. He walked slowly, his right knee trembling on every alternate step, holding tight to the handrail, while Robin watched in some trepidation. However, Strike reached the interior of the small ferry without mishap and, not wanting to take any more chances, sat in the first row of cold plastic seats, directly opposite a sign reading: Sark Shipping reserves the right to refuse embarkation and passage to any person who appears to be in a drunken state.

The engines roared into life, and the ferry heaved away from the dock.

‘Eyes on the horizon if you feel ill,’ Strike advised Robin, and she thought immediately of Christmas Eve, her jerky vision, and Murphy’s hunched, angry back.

83

‘Not too bad,’ said Strike, forty-five minutes later.

‘No,’ said Robin, although in fact she hadn’t found the movement of the old ferry very pleasant and had indeed spent the last twenty minutes staring out at the horizon without talking.

‘Careful on the steps,’ called a young ferryman behind them. ‘They’re slippery.’

Cursing himself anew for forgetting his stick, Strike moved at a snail-like pace up the steep stone steps of the harbour, which were indeed dangerously slimy, even though the rain had now passed off. At last, leg throbbing, he reached the top of the flight to see three tractors, one of which was pulling open-sided passenger trailers that were already almost full of people, and two of which were being loaded with luggage.

‘Squeeze on,’ shouted the ticket collector, beckoning Strike and Robin forwards. ‘Gawn, there’s room!’

Robin found a narrow strip of seat beside a large man in a paint-stained beanie hat, while Strike crammed himself in beside two women who had shopping bags perched in their laps. Robin couldn’t see how the vehicle could possibly hold any more people, but the last two ferry passengers, both male and clearly local, judging by the greetings they threw the tractor drivers, ambled up and, seeing no seat space, simply climbed onto the edge of a trailer, unconcerned, remaining standing while clinging on to the metal poles holding up the roof.

The tractor driver started up the engine, and towed the line of trailers through a short tunnel in the hillside, then up a very steep road, Robin worrying unnecessarily about the standing men, who seemed oblivious to any danger. A couple of minutes later, the tractor arrived at the top of the hill and came to a halt outside a cream-painted pub, the Bel Air, over which both the Sark flag and Union Jack fluttered. All passengers disembarked and set off in different directions on foot, leaving Strike and Robin alone to take stock of their surroundings, while the tractor bearing their green-tagged luggage disappeared from view.

Ahead stretched something in the nature of a high street, though to people used to London it had a very strange appearance: no cars, single-storey buildings, and a thoroughly sleepy air.

‘Right,’ said Strike, ‘de Leon’s mother lives on Rue des Laches, which is supposed to be close.’

He was wearing the pinched expression that told Robin he was already in a lot of pain. They headed a short distance up the road, which was really a dirt track, level though puddled, with stones protruding here and there. Only now did Robin fully appreciate the implications of a total lack of buses or taxis; they had a lot of walking ahead, because they’d arrived on the east of the island and their B&B lay to the south.

To her relief, the first wooden signpost they reached pointed them left, towards the Rue des Laches. They proceeded along a second track, with fields on one side and houses on the other, until Strike said,

‘That’s it, there.’

The low-roofed house was painted pale blue and looked rather shabby. A couple of bare-branched apple trees stood in the front garden. As Strike and Robin walked up the front path, a burly, bearded man rounded the corner of the building, pushing a wheelbarrow full of logs.

‘Morning,’ called Strike. ‘My name’s Cormoran Strike, this is Robin Ellacott, and we’re looking for Mrs de Leon.’

‘She’s gone over to St Peter Port,’ said the man suspiciously. ‘What d’you want with her?’

‘To ask her about her son, Danny.’

‘Oh yeah?’ said the man, setting down the handles of the wheelbarrow. His expression had hardened. ‘Why?’

‘Can I ask who—?’

‘I’m his brother,’ said the man. ‘Older brother. Richard de Leon.’

To Robin’s alarm, Richard now picked up one of the short logs in his wheelbarrow and, holding it in the grip of one hand, advanced on them slowly. She was reminded of Ian Griffiths bursting angrily out of his house in Ironbridge clutching his guitar, but the elder de Leon brother presented a very different calibre of threat. While shorter than Strike, his forearms were massive, and the broken veins in his face suggested long days of hard labour, out of doors.

‘What’s Danny to you?’ he said.

‘Just wanted to know whether you or your mother have heard from him lately,’ said Strike.

‘No,’ said Richard. ‘We haven’t.’

‘He hasn’t come home to Sark, then?’

‘No,’ said Richard. ‘He hasn’t.’

‘Have you heard from him lately?’

‘No,’ said Richard, for the third time. ‘He’s not here. Haven’t seen him, haven’t heard from him.’

‘For how long?’ asked Strike.

‘What d’you wanna know that for?’

‘We’re investigating an unidentified body,’ said Strike, reaching a hand into his pocket, but keeping his eyes on the log in Richard’s hand. ‘Friends of Danny’s in London are worried it was him. This is my card.’

De Leon all but snatched it from Strike’s hand and glared at it suspiciously.

‘“Private detective”?’ he said, with a snort, as though Strike had handed him a joke item.

‘That’s right,’ said Strike.

De Leon looked up at the detective with dark, bloodshot eyes. The resemblance between him and the fake-tanned, blond man who adorned the office corkboard was slight.

‘What’re you really after?’

‘I’ve just told you,’ said Strike. ‘If you say Danny’s not here—’

‘Not a matter of me saying it, he’s not,’ said Richard loudly. ‘You calling me a liar?’

‘No,’ said Strike, ‘I’m saying—’

‘He’s in London,’ said Richard. ‘All right? He went to London.’

‘And how long has it been since you heard from him?’

‘How’s that any of your business?’

‘Because if you’ve heard from him since last June, he can’t be the dead man we’re trying to identify,’ said Strike.

Richard de Leon glared up at Strike for several seconds before saying,

‘No. We ain’t heard from him since June.’

‘Right,’ said Strike. ‘Well, thank—’

‘You stay away from my mother,’ said de Leon, and now Robin remembered Valentine Longcaster issuing a similar implied threat, about his younger sister. ‘You don’t go fucking near our mother, you hear me?’

‘I’d be hard put to go anywhere near her, seeing as she’s in Guernsey and I don’t know what she looks like,’ said Strike. ‘Thanks for your help, though.’

He wasn’t certain the log in de Leon’s hand wouldn’t be deployed once they turned their backs, so Strike gestured at Robin to go first. Both regained the road without sustaining any injury from flung wood, but Richard de Leon continued to glare at them until they passed out of sight.

‘D’you believe him?’ said Robin quietly, as they headed back up the Rue de Laches.

‘Not sure,’ said Strike. ‘There were odd features about that conversation.’

‘I’d have expected a bit more concern, wouldn’t you? After hearing there’s a body out there that might be Danny?’

‘I would, yeah,’ said Strike. ‘Didn’t blink, did he? Just wanted us to piss off.’

‘Maybe he and Danny don’t get on? Maybe he doesn’t care whether Danny’s alive or dead?’

‘Or he knows exactly where Danny is, and thinks we’re after him.’

‘Assassins sent by Oliver Branfoot?’

‘If that’s what he’s worried about, it means Danny and his brother are in each other’s complete confidence – which they might be, I s’pose,’ said Strike. ‘I tend to forget there are siblings who actually tell each other everything.’

‘Don’t you?’ said Robin.

‘Christ, no,’ said Strike. ‘Do you?’

‘No,’ admitted Robin, thinking of her disastrous Christmas.

‘Fancy something to eat while we plan next steps?’

They walked back to the Bel Air pub, which seemed the most likely place to find food, Strike’s limp becoming ever more pronounced. As Robin paused to pat the Golden Retriever that exited a small ice cream shop to greet them, she said,

‘Actually, I’ll see you in there. Something I forgot to bring – want to see if I can buy one.’

Wondering whether she was going to call Murphy, Strike proceeded alone past the pub’s bathrooms, which lay on the opposite side of a small yard, and were labelled Men/Hommes and Women/Femmes, and entered the Bel Air.

A few locals were watching horse-racing on the large flatscreen in the front room, which was carpeted in red. The pub made Strike think of his old Cornish local, the Victory, having a distinctly nautical air that extended, in the second of two rooms, to a bar fashioned out of a wooden rowing boat. He bought himself a pint, enquired about food, was informed that pizzas were all that were on offer, ordered two, then went and sat down, with relief, at a table in the corner, beside a wall full of framed old music posters, featuring not only the Beatles and Bowie, but his father’s band, the Deadbeats.

Robin, meanwhile, was walking up the main street, the Avenue. Barring a shop selling silver jewellery, nearly everything was closed, but at last she spotted a kind of general store, which was open and which seemed to provide everything from basic household goods to greetings cards and toys. She was just about to enter when, glancing left, she saw a large figure walking towards her, and recognised Richard de Leon. Catching sight of Robin, he turned hastily and strode back towards the Rue des Laches.

Robin carried her purchase, a walking stick with a rubber handle, back to the pub. Drawing level with the Rue des Laches she looked down the lane, but Richard de Leon appeared to have retreated back into his mother’s house.

She found Strike in the back room of the Bel Air, where she handed him the stick.

‘Yes, you do need it,’ she said in exasperation, as Strike opened his mouth to remonstrate. ‘We’ve got to walk to the B&B after this. Strike, come on, I even got it in army green so nobody’ll think you’re a big girl’s blouse.’

Strike grinned, though reluctantly, because he could just imagine Murphy striding, unimpeded, over the island, possibly with his bloody gym bag and water bottle.

‘Should’ve brought one with me,’ he admitted. ‘Thanks. I’ve ordered you a pizza, it was all they had.’

‘Great,’ said Robin. ‘I’ve just run into Richard de Leon again, by the way. He wasn’t threatening,’ she added, forestalling Strike’s question. ‘He didn’t say anything at all, just spotted me and turned back the way he’d come.’

‘Strange,’ said Strike, as a group of people settled at a neighbouring table. He took a sip of his zero-alcohol beer, then said, in a lower voice, ‘I was going to tell you this before I fell asleep on the plane. That Scottish Gateshead I thought might be Niall Semple’s dead best mate’s sister? I think I’ve found a few traces of her online over the weekend. She’s started and abandoned two different Twitter accounts and a Facebook page over the last seven years. See for yourself.’

Robin flicked through the pictures on Strike’s phone. Rena Liddell’s posts were often cryptic and occasionally garbled. She seemed fond of random pictures of clouds, doorways and blurry shots of the backs of passers-by, but not of selfies. Her profile picture on all three accounts was a cartoon picture of a purple and blue bat.

‘Zubat,’ said Robin.

‘What?’ said Strike.

‘Her avi, it’s a Pokémon called Zubat. My brother Jon was mad about Pokémon when he was a kid. But she’s calling herself @Mirbat, not @Zubat.’

‘That’s one of the things that made me almost certain it was her.’

‘You like Pokémon?’ said Robin, laughing as she looked up.

‘No,’ said Strike, ‘Mirbat’s a coastal town in Oman. There was a battle there in 1972: nine SAS guys versus two hundred and fifty Communist rebels. The SAS won.’

‘Nine against two hundred and fifty?’

‘Best of the best,’ said Strike, just as he had in Ironbridge. ‘Wouldn’t be surprised if Rena heard about the battle from her brother, hence the name.’

Robin scrolled down through Rena’s chaotic and garbled output. A preoccupation with Muslims and the danger Rena felt they posed to the UK were very evident throughout her posts. A few of her tweets had been reported and taken down. Judging by those that remained, Robin suspected they’d been extremely Islamophobic.

‘I think we’re talking serious mental illness, addiction or both,’ said Strike. ‘She posts in spurts, with hiatuses for months, but she’s been writing less and becoming more incoherent lately. However, if you look back to 2015, she managed to say something when she might’ve been on the right meds…’

Robin scrolled backwards and saw:

‘’Course,’ said Strike, ‘if Richard de Leon’s telling the truth and he hasn’t heard from Danny since June the eighteenth last year, Rena Liddell becomes irrelev—’

Strike’s mobile rang in Robin’s hand.

‘Wardle,’ she said, handing it back.

‘I’ll take it outside,’ said Strike, with a glance at the group at the next table.

The walking stick, Strike had to grudgingly admit, was helpful and enabled him to get out into the courtyard more speedily than he would have done without it.

‘What’s up?’ he asked Wardle.

‘Hi,’ said the policeman. ‘Nothing urgent. I just wanted to ask… were you serious about a job at the agency?’

‘Yeah, of course. We probably couldn’t match the salary you’re on, though.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Wardle. ‘I’m thinking about it. Like I said, with Mum dying, I can still see Liam right.’

‘We could use you as soon as you want to work,’ said Strike, although it occurred to him as he said it that he hadn’t yet discussed this with his detective partner. Absent-mindedly turning to face the high street, he saw Richard de Leon exit the Rue des Laches, glance around, spot Strike watching him, and beat a hasty retreat back down the track from which he’d just emerged.

Meanwhile, in the pub, a barman had just arrived at Robin’s table with two pizzas.

‘On holiday?’ he asked, as he set them down.

‘Not really,’ said Robin. ‘We’re looking for a man called Danny de Leon.’

‘Danny?’ said the barman cheerfully. ‘He’s up at Helen Platt’s, just seen him. Clos de Camille, on Rue de La Seigneurie. He’s doing her garden.’

84

Pizzas eaten, Strike and Robin emerged half an hour later from the Bel Air and set off up the Avenue beneath a sky still threatening rain, and following the verbal directions given to them by the helpful barman. As they passed the small, low-built shops that were either empty or closed, Strike said,

‘What would you say are the chances our friend Richard was trying to sneak off up the road to warn his brother we’re after him?’

‘High to very high,’ said Robin.

‘Why didn’t he just phone him?’

‘Maybe he has,’ said Robin. ‘Or maybe he waited for you to go back into the pub so he could dash up there. He might be waiting for us at Helen Platt’s. Hope he hasn’t brought his log.’

Strike laughed, but didn’t quip back, because even with the stick he was finding the Avenue harder going than he would have done had it been tarmacked, and didn’t want to look or sound like a man struggling with the terrain, not when Murphy would probably be vaulting gates if he was here, the limber fucker.

‘I don’t understand why this place is British,’ said Robin, as they turned right into Rue de la Seigneurie. ‘All the place names are French and we’re nearer France than Britain.’

‘I don’t think it is British, strictly speaking,’ said Strike, still trying determinedly not to wince or pant. ‘The Seigneur used to hold the island for the British monarch, or something. All goes back to William the Conqueror.’

They passed a church and graveyard and the local police station, both old, low buildings of stone, and after a further five minutes found themselves passing attractive houses. Ahead, in the distance to the left, they could see the tower of what Strike knew from maps was the Seigneurie, the large stone building where the current Seigneur lived.

‘That’s it,’ said Robin suddenly, pointing at a house painted light pink. ‘Clos de Camille.’

It was rather better maintained than the de Leon family residence, the camellia tree for which it was named standing proudly beside the front door. However, nobody answered when Robin rang the doorbell.

‘Maybe Richard has called to warn him,’ she said, rejoining Strike in the street.

A painted side gate stood open, through which they could see into a long and well-tended garden.

‘There’s a bloke with a spade,’ said Strike, squinting at a figure in a bright yellow jacket, who seemed to be working at the far end of an expanse of lawn. ‘We could—’

Robin’s mobile rang.

‘Sorry,’ she said, with a sinking feeling, seeing Murphy was calling. ‘I need to—’

‘OK, I’ll see you in there,’ said Strike, and he left her, going through the open gate, making liberal use of his stick as he walked out onto the lawn in the direction of the distant gardener. Robin waited until her partner was out of earshot, then answered her phone.

‘Hi,’ said Murphy. ‘How’s Sark?’

‘Cold,’ said Robin, watching Strike move slowly towards the distant man in the yellow jacket, who still had his back to the road.

‘Found what you were looking for?’

‘Possibly. I don’t know.’

‘Listen, I wanted to talk about Monday night.’

Robin, who’d thought she’d been sufficiently affectionate when she’d said goodbye to Murphy on Tuesday morning to avoid a post-mortem, thought, oh God, not now.

‘Ryan, I’m mid-job. We can talk about it when I get back.’

‘Which is when?’

‘Tomorrow, if we’re lucky,’ said Robin, watching Strike. The figure in the yellow jacket still hadn’t turned around.

‘It’s been playing on my mind, that’s all,’ said Murphy. ‘I genuinely didn’t mean to upset you, with what I said, I was just trying—’

‘Please,’ said Robin, through clenched teeth, ‘don’t say you were trying to be honest.’

‘You don’t want—?’

‘Of course I want honesty between us, it just seems like it’s becoming a catch-all excuse to force conversations I—’

‘I wasn’t trying to force anything, I’m trying to understand—’

‘And I gave you my answer,’ said Robin, trying to hold herself together. ‘I answered you honestly. I don’t know what I’d have done if the baby had been viable, and I don’t think it’s fair—’

‘Were you sad? At all? About the baby?’

‘Yes,’ said Robin, her voice breaking. ‘Yes, I’ve cried about the baby. Is that what you need to know? That I’m not inhuman?’

‘I never—’

‘Be honest, Ryan. You want me to behave as you think a woman should behave.’

‘What’s that supposed—?’

‘You wanted me to sob in your arms about our lost child and say I wanted to get my eggs frozen immediately, so we can make a replacement.’

‘That’s not—’

‘Look, I’m working,’ said Robin, watching Strike, who was now within easy calling distance of the gardener. ‘I’d rather—’ She gasped, then exclaimed, ‘Oh my God – I’ve got to go!’ and hung up.

Cormoran Strike had just taken a spade to the face.

85

Danny de Leon had swung his spade so forcefully at Strike’s head that it had knocked the latter over. From his suddenly prone position in the wet grass, Strike saw the panicked young man drop his weapon and begin to run towards the house, while Robin sprinted towards them.

‘Don’t you fucking dare!’ Strike yelled, afraid de Leon would employ violence on Robin, too, but Robin, bracing herself, and given an advantage by the fact that de Leon had looked back at Strike when he’d shouted, bent low and tackled him around the waist, hooking her leg around one of his and causing both of them to topple over, though Robin got the worst of it, hitting the ground hard with de Leon on top of her.

‘We’re detectives, we’re not after you,’ she managed to gasp, in spite of being winded. ‘We came to Sark to find out whether you were OK!’

He was trying to fight free of her while she clung with all her might to his yellow jacket. Strike, meanwhile, had managed to get to his feet and, forgetting the walking stick, hobbled ill-advisedly towards the struggling pair, slipping on grass as he came, almost falling again, reaching them just in time to seize de Leon before he could break free from Robin, and drag him into a standing position.

The fake tan and the peroxided hair were no more. De Leon’s hair was what looked like its natural dark brown, and the perfect teeth for which Lord Oliver Branfoot had paid stood out, very white, against a face that was now naturally weather-beaten as opposed to fake tanned. He was short, strongly built and handsome, and continued to struggle with Strike until the latter shook him and bellowed,

‘FUCKING GIVE IT UP, WE’RE NOT HERE TO KILL YOU!’

‘We were worried you’d been murdered,’ panted the dishevelled and grass-stained Robin, clambering back onto her feet. ‘We thought you were a body—’

‘In a safe,’ said Danny, and immediately looked as though he wished he hadn’t. He’d stopped resisting but seemed both angry and scared. Raising his hands to his ears he said,

‘My earbuds—’

‘Forget your fucking earbuds,’ said Strike, whose jaw was bleeding and rapidly swelling. ‘We want to talk to you.’

Danny looked as though he’d have liked to refuse, but looking up at Strike, some of the fight seemed to go out of him.

‘Fine,’ he muttered. ‘We can go in the house.’

‘What about the owner?’ said Strike.

‘She’s out. She’s gone shopping on Guernsey with my mum.’

‘I’ll get your stick,’ Robin told Strike. ‘I’ll see you in there.’

So Strike stumbled off in the direction of the house, jaw throbbing, knee extremely painful for his run over slippery grass, and still holding on to Danny’s jacket in case he made a break for it, while Robin headed for the end of the lawn where she picked up Strike’s walking stick and found Danny’s earbuds, one of which had been crushed by a man’s foot.

The back door of Clos de Camille led directly into a neat kitchen with pale pink walls, hung with small seascapes that reminded Strike of Ted and Joan’s house in St Mawes. Danny had just sat down at the pine table when Robin entered with Strike’s stick.

‘You need to clean that,’ she said, looking at Strike’s face, where a livid cut had been made by the spade. ‘It’s bleeding and filthy.’

Strike moved to the sink and busied himself with soap and water, while Robin opened the door of the fridge freezer and found a packet of frozen peas. She handed the packet to Strike, who muttered thanks while drying his face with kitchen roll.

Now a fourth person arrived via the back door: Richard de Leon.

‘Oh Christ, what d’you want?’ cried Danny.

‘The fuck’s going on?’ demanded Richard.

‘Your brother just smacked me in the face with a spade,’ said Strike, the bag of frozen peas clutched to his jaw.

‘Why weren’t you answering your fucking phone?’ Richard demanded of his younger brother.

‘I was listening to music, all right?’

‘As we’ve already told you, Mr de Leon,’ said Robin, trying to defuse the situation, because both de Leon brothers looked on the verge of outbursts, possibly of physical violence, ‘we were worried your brother was dead.’

‘Well, he’s not, is he?’ said Richard.

‘Thanks for that,’ said Strike, frozen peas still pressed to his face. ‘We weren’t sure.’

‘Well, why’re you after him, if he’s not—?’

‘This isn’t complicated,’ said Strike, who now lowered himself onto a chair at the kitchen table, his knee excruciatingly painful, and more than willing to vent his own temper on anyone who presented a target. ‘A man was murdered, we got tipped off it was your brother, we look for your brother, he’s alive, it wasn’t him. I’ll draw it for you, if you want.’

‘You’re not helping, all right?’ Danny said resentfully to Richard. ‘Just fuck off out of it!’

‘Will I, fuck?’ asked Richard, and then, rounding on Robin again, who he seemed to feel was most likely to give him a rational response, ‘All right, you know he’s alive – why’re you still here?’

‘Because we’d like to ask him some questions about Oliver Branfoot,’ said Robin.

Richard looked from Robin to Danny and back to Robin again.

‘It’s real?’ he said, now looking more shocked than angry. ‘This Branfoot thing? It’s for real?’

‘I told you it fucking was!’ said Danny.

‘Yeah, but you talk a lot of shit, don’t you?’

‘Why don’t you just f—?’

‘It’s real,’ said Robin.

‘How do we know you’re not working for him?’ said Richard.

‘Is it likely we’d mention his name, if we were?’ snarled Strike. He could tell he was going to have a hugely swollen face when they arrived at the B&B.

‘Danny,’ said Robin, ‘how d’you know Lord Branfoot thinks you were the man in the safe?’

‘I was told,’ said Danny.

‘Who by?’

‘I’m not telling you that, no chance. They’ll be in for it next.’

‘You tell us, fuckwit,’ said Richard, who now dragged a third chair out from the table and sat down.

‘What’s it matter who tipped me off?’

‘Was it another actor in Branfoot’s private films?’ asked Robin.

‘I just told you, I’m not – how d’you even know about any of this?’

‘Your friend Fiona put an anonymous note through our office door,’ said Robin. ‘Her boyfriend told her you were the body in the vault, and she believed him. She’s very worried about you.’

‘I know, she kept calling me,’ said Danny, ‘but I couldn’t tell her I was all right, could I, because fucking Craig woulda told Branfoot, if he’d known where I was!’

‘She says Lord Branfoot threatened you, after he paid for you to get your teeth fixed.’

‘He paid for your fucking teeth?’ cried Richard.

‘Yeah,’ said Danny, ‘so what?’

‘Why couldn’t you pay for your own fucking teeth?’

‘He offered, OK?’

‘This is the fucking problem!’ said Richard, jabbing a thick forefinger at Danny. ‘You always want something for fucking nothing!’

‘Branfoot got plenty out of me back, don’t you fucking worry!’

‘What made you come back to Sark, Danny?’ asked Robin.

‘I was – never mind,’ muttered Danny.

‘You tell the fucking truth!’ roared Richard.

‘I was getting a bad vibe!’ shouted Danny. ‘All right?’

‘What fucking bad vibe?’

‘From Branfoot?’ said Robin.

‘Yeah,’ said Danny.

‘What happened?’ said Robin, trying to forestall Richard.

‘I was… walking home one night,’ said Danny haltingly, ‘’n I was followed. Big geezer. I sped up, he sped up. I started to run, so did he. Taxi come along and I flagged it down. I looked back, the bloke was running off in the opposite direction… Branfoot knows people, rough people through his – you know – his bullshit charity stuff. Blokes who’ve been in jail and are up for a bit of cash… he told me once he’s the only man in London who knows as many pigs as criminals… I stayed home for a few days after I was followed but then I saw the geezer again. He was hanging round in the street, looking up at my windows.’

‘Is that when you decided to come home?’ asked Robin.

‘Not straight away. But then this mate of mine called and said fucking Craig was going around talking about how I was gonna be “taken care of”. So – yeah – I packed a bag, waited till the bloke hanging around left for the night, called a taxi and went straight to the airport.’

‘The friend who tipped you off that Branfoot was going to “take care of you”,’ said Robin, ‘is this the same person who told you Branfoot thinks you were the body in the silver shop?’

‘Yeah,’ said Danny. ‘The bloke who was meant to kill me must’ve told Branfoot that was me.’

It was apparent to Robin from Richard’s expression that he’d previously taken Danny’s account of what had made him flee London as either exaggerated, or complete fiction. The arrival of two strangers in pursuit of his brother had clearly come as a shock, but Robin could tell that listening to Danny repeating his story to a third party, especially a third party who was providing confirmation of it, had tipped Richard into a state of alarm he’d hitherto escaped.

‘Well, Branfoot’s not gonna think that body was you for ever, is he?’ Richard said hotly. Pointing at Strike and Robin he said, ‘If they found out, so can bloody Branfoot! How long d’you think it’ll take for him to work out you just came home to Mum?’

‘Look, just fuck off out of this, it’s got nothing to do with you!’ said Danny angrily, standing up so quickly his chair fell over backwards.

‘Danny, please sit down,’ said Robin. ‘Please. We want to help.’

She looked at Strike, inviting his agreement, but as Strike currently wanted little more than to thump Danny himself, he said nothing.

‘You, help?’ Danny said to Robin, and she heard the fear beneath his aggression. ‘How can you bloody help? You’re making it bloody worse! I’m safe as long as he thinks I was the body in the vault, and here’s you trying to prove it wasn’t me!’

‘Well, the obvious way to remove the threat would be to—’

‘No,’ said the de Leon brothers together.

‘He’s not bloody going public,’ said Richard.

‘I’m not talking to the press, no fucking way,’ said Danny.

‘Our mum doesn’t know what he’s been up to,’ said Richard. ‘And she’s not gonna know, either. She only lost our dad last year.’

‘If I talk, Branfoot’ll make sure I’m bloody finished off,’ said Danny.

‘But what Branfoot’s doing is illegal,’ said Robin. ‘He’s filming people without their consent, and if—’

‘They all took money on film, there’s no proof,’ said Danny. ‘If I talk—’

‘But your brother’s right, Danny. When that body’s identified—’

‘Then I’ll go somewhere else,’ said Danny wildly.

‘You’re going to live in hiding for ever?’

‘If I have to!’

‘Christ almighty, what a fucking mess!’ exploded Richard, also standing up. ‘I stuck up for you with Dad, Dan, but Christ’s sake, I’m starting to think he was—’

Danny lunged at his brother; Richard parried his punch, but Danny kept attacking, driving Richard, who appeared not to want to retaliate, back up against the kitchen cupboards. Strike now dropped the packet of peas, heaved himself back onto his feet, interposed his bulk between the brothers and pushed Danny backwards with one large hand on the younger man’s chest.

‘Pick up that chair and fucking sit down,’ he said, ‘and bear in mind that I still owe you one for the fucking spade.’ He pointed at Robin. ‘She’s nicer than I am. My interest in your well-being ended when I found out you were alive. Trouble is, Branfoot’s going after us now, because he thinks we’re going to prove you were the body in the vault, and he appears to have sicced the goons who were after you on to our agency. She’s already been threatened with a fucking dagger.’

‘I can’t believe this,’ said Richard, passing a hand over his mouth. ‘I can’t fucking believe it.’

Danny, who’d remained on his feet against Strike’s orders, now shouted at his brother,

‘You know why I left!’

Some of the fight seemed to go out of Richard, who hitched up his trousers, looking uncomfortable.

‘Yeah, I know why… and I’m not saying you were wrong to leave, Dan. But why’d you have to do that for a—?’

‘You’re the one who said I’m useless at everything else!’

‘I never said you were useless at everything else, you bloody liar, I said you’d never make a fucking builder!’ shouted Richard. ‘They’re the only choices in London, are they? Dry stone walling or getting your cock out?’

Strike now picked up the fallen kitchen chair and righted it.

‘Sit,’ he told Danny for the second time. Looking defeated, Danny complied.

Richard took a chair, too, and so did Strike, whose right knee was trembling worse than ever.

Addressing Robin from under his thick eyebrows, Richard muttered,

‘Our dad was… hard on Dan. But why d’you have to get involved with all that, though?’ he said miserably, turning to Danny.

‘I dunno,’ said Danny. ‘I needed money – it just happened!’

‘Coke’s what happened, you little prick,’ said Richard.

‘Not a little prick,’ muttered Danny. ‘Or I couldn’t’ve paid for the coke.’

‘Ha bloody ha,’ said Richard. He looked sideways at Strike. ‘So what now?’

‘We tell Branfoot he’s alive,’ said Strike implacably.

‘We can’t!’ said Robin.

‘You want to spend the next couple of years looking over your shoulder for a bloke with a dagger, do you?’ said Strike angrily. ‘It was blunt last time, it might not be, next. Branfoot knows proper criminals, he’s made bloody sure he knows them.’ He now addressed Danny. ‘You either tell the press about Branfoot and make him too scared to make a move on you, or we’ll tell him. There’s no third option here. It’s going to come out.’

The de Leon brothers looked as though they, too, had been hit with spades. Robin picked up the frozen peas from the floor and handed them back to Strike, who said ‘cheers’ and pressed them back against his throbbing jaw. At last, Richard said,

‘He’ll talk to the press, once we’ve prepared Mum.’

‘Oh God,’ said Danny, slumping face down onto the kitchen table.

‘Well, we’ve got to tell her,’ said Richard angrily. ‘It’ll be the biggest story in Sark since the bloody German occupation.’

‘I should’ve killed myself,’ said Danny, his voice muffled.

‘Who’ll that help, you stupid sod, except Branfoot?’

‘He’ll go public,’ said Richard to Strike. ‘Just give us a few days.’

Strike glanced at Robin, who looked pleadingly back at him. With extreme reluctance, he said,

‘It needs to be soon. I want Branfoot off our backs.’

‘All right. We’ll explain to Mum – although how the fuck we’re going to explain this – aw, don’t start!’ he said to the back of his brother’s head, because Danny, who was still face down, had started to sob.

‘Have you still got my card?’ Strike asked Richard.

‘Yeah, at the house.’

‘I want your phone numbers, as well. Branfoot needs exposing quickly. Leave it much longer and it might be one of us who gets bloody murdered.’

Richard gave both mobile numbers and Strike typed them into his phone, while Danny continued to sob. This done, Richard stood up.

‘I’ll see you out.’

Leaving Danny face down on the table, they walked back to the street around the side of the house, Strike in serious pain and leaning heavily on his stick. When they reached the road, Richard said,

‘You don’t wanna judge… see, our dad was a shit to Danny,’ he said uncomfortably. ‘He was… you know. Whatsit. Homophobic. They never got on. That’s why Dan left. That’s why he went off the rails, the silly sod. He run off and done what Dad thought men like him do, see? Rebellion,’ said Richard. ‘That’s what it was.’

‘I understand,’ said Robin.

Strike, whose injury was smarting all the more for contact with the chilly air, said nothing. The side of his face felt as though it had been inflated with a football pump.

‘Silly sod,’ repeated Richard. ‘I didn’t realise… he was always one for tall tales, you know? I thought he was making half of it up. Thought he imagined that the guy was chasing him. This is all… it’s a shock, you know?’

‘Of course,’ said Robin. ‘We really don’t want Danny to come to harm.’

Richard glanced at Strike, who made a non-committal noise, but only to keep Robin happy.

‘All right, well, like I say – give us a few days,’ said Richard. He heaved a deep sigh. ‘Mum thinks Danny’s been working at a Savile Row tailors. He’s been telling her about all the celebrities he’s been measuring up for fucking tuxes.’

86

‘Shall we find somewhere to sit down?’ were Robin’s first words, once Richard de Leon had returned inside Clos de Camille. Though the gash made by the spade had stopped bleeding, the left side of Strike’s swollen face was turning purple as the bruises rose to the surface.

‘I’m fine,’ he said, well aware he must look anything but.

‘Well, I could use a coffee or something, after all that,’ said Robin.

To her relief, because she’d feared they might have to return to the Avenue to find somewhere, an establishment on Rue de la Seigneurie was open for custom, though this necessitated an upstairs climb to the Captain’s Bar, where portholes were painted on the sloping eaves. No longer in a fit state to appreciate nautical décor, Strike slumped into a seat by the window and on being informed by Robin that the place didn’t serve coffee, asked for the beer he really wanted.

‘Alcoholic,’ he added, because in the absence of painkillers he was happy to improvise, and Robin was immediately reminded of Christmas Eve, and Murphy’s sudden rage because she’d questioned him on the alcohol content of his pint.

‘So… that’s it,’ said Robin, when she rejoined Strike at the table with his beer and her own tonic water. ‘De Leon’s out. He was your favourite for Wright, as well.’

‘He was, yeah,’ admitted Strike. ‘I could see a reason for him being polished off in the vault, but I can’t see why the hell Powell or Semple—’

‘Or Rupert—’

‘Or Fleetwood, if we must – had to die there.’

‘Nor can I,’ said Robin. After a moment or two she said, ‘D’you think the dead man was someone else entirely, who was killed for reasons we don’t know?’

‘I think that every other hour,’ said Strike. ‘But if it was someone we’ve never heard of, the police don’t seem to have heard of them either, and it seems bloody odd literally nobody’s come forwards to say it might’ve been that man. But I think it’s safe to conclude that whoever Oz is, he’s not the man Branfoot paid to kill de Leon. Shanker’s been hoodwinked. I’ll have to let him know the supposed killer’s full of it.’

Rain began to fall again as they sat beside the window and each sipped their drinks.

‘So, it turns out there are brothers who tell each other everything,’ said Robin.

‘Doubt Danny wanted to tell him,’ said Strike. ‘Probably thought he might need Richard as back-up, if Branfoot’s henchman turned up.’

‘They’re fond of each other, though, you could tell… Have you seen Al lately?’ she asked, referring to the only half-brother with whom Strike had contact.

‘No,’ said Strike. ‘Still pissed off I didn’t want to reconcile with Rokeby after finding out he had prostate cancer. We haven’t talked since.’

‘I like him,’ said Robin, who’d met Al only once, but retained the memory of someone who seemed both fond of and impressed by his older brother.

‘So you keep telling me.’

‘You do, too,’ said Robin, smiling.

‘He’s all right,’ said Strike, with a slight shrug. ‘We’ve just got fuck-all in common.’

‘Like Martin and me,’ said Robin, who then clapped a hand to her forehead and gasped, ‘oh, bugger.’

‘What?’

‘I forgot to call Mum back yesterday, about Dirk.’

‘About what?’

‘Dirk, Martin’s son. My newest nephew. He was supposed to be going home yesterday. There were some problems with the birth; he’s got a paralysed arm.’

‘Shit,’ said Strike.

‘They think it’ll resolve,’ said Robin.

‘Your family’s been doing a lot of breeding lately.’

Robin experienced again that slight inner wince that was now accompanying all mention of babies and pregnancy, unaware that Strike had noticed a slight external flinch.

‘Listen,’ she said, keen to get off the subject, ‘I doubt we’re going to be able to get a takeaway for dinner, I haven’t seen anywhere that’s open. Why don’t I go and buy some food we can cook at the Old Forge this evening?’

‘It’s raining.’

‘Which is why it’s lucky I’m not made of papier mâché.’

‘OK, I’ll come,’ said Strike, picking up his pint with the intention of downing it.

‘No,’ said Robin. ‘You stay here and rest your leg. Don’t look at me like that, we’ve still got to walk to the B&B afterwards. Just let it settle down a bit, I’ll be back soon.’

Robin left Strike to stare back out of the window, feeling as though he was some creaky old codger being looked after by a granddaughter. He hadn’t yet seen his face in a mirror, but he knew the spade injury must look bad, because it was drawing covert looks from the men playing pool. His knee, which he’d twisted during his unwise dash over wet grass in pursuit of Danny de Leon, also felt dangerously swollen again. Wondering how far away the B&B would prove to be, he watched a trickle of primary-age children running past outside, clearly just released from school, all healthy and nimble. He was still exhausted, knew he looked terrible, and, after the unforeseen physical challenges he’d already met on Sark, was in nearly as poor a state as he’d been on the occasion, over a year previously, when Robin had told him he wasn’t fit to walk upstairs with her, into what he’d feared might be a murderous trap. This wasn’t the way he’d wanted the trip to go, and, to compound his feeling of misery, he wondered whether Robin’s odd look when he’d mentioned breeding didn’t indicate that she’d soon have – or, perhaps, already had – something to tell him that would indicate a cementing of her relationship with Murphy that no declaration of his could weaken.

It took Robin almost an hour, firstly to find the supermarket, then to load up a bag with the ingredients for spaghetti carbonara, adding wine she felt they deserved and painkillers and alcohol wipes for Strike’s face. She returned to the Captain’s Bar because she didn’t want Strike to have to walk alone to meet her, given the state of his leg. By the time she returned, the bruising and swelling of his jaw was even worse, giving his face a very lopsided appearance.

‘How does it feel?’ Robin asked.

‘Still not as bad as that bloody spray of yours.’

Strike forced himself back into a standing position.

‘I can carry one of those,’ he said, holding out his hand.

‘It’s fine, I can—’

‘Give me one of the fucking bags, I’ve got one hand free and one good leg.’

‘All right, all right,’ said the exasperated Robin. ‘There, happy?’

‘Ecstatic,’ said Strike, and they moved off towards the stairs.

As they walked back along Rue de la Seigneurie, unavoidably slowly, because Strike was now severely impeded by his twisted knee, he said,

‘What would you think of Wardle coming to work for us?’

‘Wardle?’ said Robin, in surprise. ‘Would he be interested?’

‘He would, yeah.’

‘Well, he’d be great,’ said Robin, ‘but can we afford him?’

‘He’s not expecting the salary he’s on in the CID. Cost-benefit; we could take on more work with another subcontractor. I think he’d more than pay for himself.’

‘What’s made him want to leave the police?’

While Strike explained the combination of personal circumstances that had made Wardle keen on a change of career, Robin had time to remember that Murphy didn’t like Eric Wardle. He’d never explained why, but usually had a critical comment to make whenever his name came up. However, it wasn’t up to Murphy who the agency hired, any more than it was up to him which cases they decided to investigate.

The rain had passed off again, but the light was rapidly fading and, their progress being so slow, the sun had set before they reached the lonely lane along which the Old Forge was supposed to lie. Soon they were immersed in velvety darkness.

‘The stars are incredible, aren’t they?’ said Robin, looking upwards. In the absence of street lights, they shone hard and bright against the deep black, every constellation clearly marked.

‘Yeah,’ said Strike, who might, under other circumstances, have attempted to wax poetic, but was now in a lot of pain and mainly concentrating on the damp, uneven terrain, which Robin was illuminating with her phone torch. The wind was whispering through the hedgerows; Robin kept glancing back, expecting to see a vehicle behind her, but it was a relief to think that nobody in a gorilla mask was about to appear.

‘I think this is it,’ she said at last, as a building loomed to the right.

Forbearing to say ‘Christ, I hope so,’ Strike followed her carefully up a short gravelled drive, down a few stone steps, and at last, with enormous relief, through the unlocked door of the B&B, where Robin turned on the lights.

They stood in a large hallway, with a wooden walkway overhead connecting two upstairs bedrooms. To the right was a bedroom, to the left, a shower room. Their bags, still with the green tags attached, were sitting in the middle of the wooden floor.

‘D’you want to take the ground-floor bedroom?’ said Robin.

‘Cheers,’ said Strike. ‘All right if I get a shower before we eat?’

‘Of course, I’ll cook,’ said Robin, taking the bag of shopping from him.

Their fingers touched as he handed it over. Robin felt a tiny thrill pass through her, and then a sudden sense of mingled excitement and panic.

87

The Old Forge’s kitchen contained an Aga set into a brick wall, and had enough seating for eight people. Wooden model lighthouses stood on the window sills, but the depth of the darkness outside obscured any view of coast or sea.

Robin had been cooking and drinking wine for ten minutes when her mobile buzzed and she guessed it was going to be Murphy. Taking her carbonara sauce off the heat, she reached for it and read:

Maybe this is insecurity, but it’s the truth. You say you love me, but I feel like you withhold part of yourself from me. Sometimes I even feel like you’re humouring me. I’ve felt all along like I’m dragging you into living together, but I can’t remember you ever showing real enthusiasm for it and when I told you we’d been gazumped, I couldn’t hear any disappointment.

What you said about the baby earlier: you’re wrong. It isn’t that I want you to act like I think women should act, it’s that you’ve never once acknowledged that it was our kid you lost. I’ve felt like I can’t show any sadness about the baby because it’ll make you feel pressured.

There’s a distance between us sometimes and I don’t know if that’s just who you are, and this is how you love, or whether you’re fooling both of us about what you really feel. And if it’s the second one, I’d rather know now.

Robin stood staring at this message, so shocked she was only recalled to her surroundings when she realised the cheese sauce was starting to spit in the pan, and turned hastily back to attend to it. Cold waves of panic and fear were breaking over her. So Murphy knew… what? She loved him, didn’t she? Yes, she thought – knew – she did. But he’d sensed…

Strike entered the kitchen, still leaning on his stick but feeling better for having showered, his wet hair looking little different than it usually did.

‘Smells great,’ he said, and he set about laying the smaller of the two tables in the room.

‘How’s the face?’ asked Robin.

‘Had worse,’ grunted Strike.

‘There are alcohol wipes at the bottom of the bag if you need them.’

When she’d tipped the spaghetti into a large dish and placed it on the table, Robin said,

‘Give me a mo – dig in, don’t wait,’ and headed out into the hall, picked up her holdall and took it upstairs, choosing the nearest bedroom at random, which was decorated in yellow and contained three beds, including a double: designed, as she dimly registered, for a family… Sitting on the bed, she read Murphy’s message again, then typed out her answer, sentence by painful sentence.

You know I love you.

Did she, though? Really? Trying to tamp down yet another upsurge of anxiety and guilt Robin continued,

I don’t know what you mean about distance.

Didn’t she? Perhaps she did – but wouldn’t any couple be feeling some strain, after her long stay at Chapman Farm, Murphy’s terrible shooting case, the hassle of house hunting, and, of course, the ectopic pregnancy?

Robin typed on:

I was sad about the baby, I’ve cried about it, but finding out I can’t have kids naturally was horrible. I’m still processing it, and you pressuring me to talk about it, and make decisions about my eggs, isn’t helping. Please understand that I need time to get my head around what happened and what I’m going to do next.

That, at least, was honest.

Can we please talk about this properly once I’m home? I’m with Strike, we’re still working, and I can’t have a conversation about this without him hearing.

She hesitated, reminding herself of the good times she’d had with Murphy. She knew him to be a good, kind man, didn’t she? So she ended:

I really do love you xxxxx

She pressed send, feeling a hollowness that had nothing to do with hunger. Her phone buzzed; she was afraid of what she was about to read, but looking down, saw only another text from Wynn Jones.

So is the only way I get to speak to you being interviewed?

Yes, Robin texted back automatically. Then, not wanting to stay upstairs for too long in case Strike asked whether everything was all right, she headed back down the wooden staircase.

‘Sorry,’ said Strike as she walked back into the kitchen, his mouth full of spaghetti, ‘starving.’

‘It’s fine, I told you not to wait,’ said Robin, with forced cheeriness, topping up her wine glass. ‘I think I’m getting close to talking to Wynn Jones. He’s just texted me again.’

Strike swallowed.

‘Great. This is fantastic, by the way.’

‘Good,’ said Robin, sitting down opposite him.

‘So, did you find out how Dirk is?’

‘Wh – oh, my nephew? Yes,’ said Robin, who had indeed called her mother on the way to the supermarket that afternoon. ‘They’re happy with him. They’re still hopeful his palsy thing will clear up.’

‘What was the issue?’

‘It was a difficult birth,’ said Robin. A lump seemed to have lodged in her throat again. You’ve been left with quite a lot of damage… She took another swig of wine. ‘His nerves were torn, and he was premature, as well.’ The embryo couldn’t get past the scarring, you see…

‘Smaller than the eleven-pounder, then?’

‘Much,’ said Robin with difficulty, remembering the bumpy ride on the gurney, and the icy feeling of the ultrasound wand.

Strike took another large mouthful of spaghetti. Notwithstanding the throbbing of his face and leg, he knew that the moment was fast approaching when he was going to tell her he loved her. What was required now was a bit of easy conversation, hopefully involving a few laughs, and more wine, to loosen inhibitions. He might initiate a bit of subtle probing about the state of her relationship with Murphy, and then…

‘So, from what you’ve seen, would you fancy living on Sark?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Robin, who was having difficulty dispelling thoughts of Murphy’s text, and finding it hard to swallow her pasta, because of the lump in her throat. ‘It’s very pretty.’

‘I thought we’d see more horses.’

‘They probably only get the carts out in summer,’ said Robin. ‘For tourists.’

‘Yeah. I’d be all right if they let me have my own tractor, but—’

Strike suddenly realised, to his great consternation, that Robin was crying, though trying to conceal the fact. He swallowed hastily.

‘What’ve I—?’

‘It’s nothing, it’s not you,’ said Robin in a high-pitched voice. She got to her feet, stumbled towards the kitchen roll and tore off a few sheets. ‘Ignore me, just ignore me, I’m sorry.’

‘Why—?’

‘It’s n-nothing,’ said Robin again, leaning up against the side, but she couldn’t stop crying.

‘Don’t give me that, what—?’

‘I… lost a baby.’

‘What?’ said Strike, horror-struck.

Unable to keep it in any longer, unable to pretend, unable to cope alone with the burden of her own confusion and guilt, Robin blundered back to the table, sat down, and told the short and brutal story of her accidental pregnancy, through sobs.

‘Shit,’ said Strike. ‘I’m… sorry.’

He had no idea what else to say. He didn’t know what this meant, for Robin or for her relationship, didn’t know whether she was mourning the loss of the child, whether she’d wanted the baby. He watched helplessly as Robin fought unsuccessfully to regain control of herself.

‘I don’t know why I’m so – oh God.’

Unable to stop herself crying, she slumped forwards on the table, just as Danny de Leon had done earlier, face hidden in her arms, her hair falling into her plate of spaghetti. Her loyalty to Murphy mingled with her conflicted feelings about the text he’d just sent her, and she was battling a powerful urge to let out the things she hadn’t dared say to any other human being.

Strike could think of nothing to do except reach across the table and lay a large hand on her shoulder while she cried. He’d rarely been at such a loss, or so afraid of saying the wrong thing.

‘Did you… want it?’

‘No,’ said Robin, her voice halfway between a squeak and a moan. ‘It was a complete accident. I didn’t even know – until it was all – all over… oh God, I’m sorry…’

‘Stop apologising,’ said Strike. In his total ignorance of what might be involved in ectopic pregnancy, he said, ‘What… how long were you in hospital?’

‘Only a couple of nights,’ said Robin, raising her wet face, still trying to regain control. ‘It wasn’t a big – not a big deal. It’s just that it happened because… the rapist… when I was nineteen… he gave me an infection and that’s why I can’t… I don’t know why I’m doing this!’ she said a little hysterically, as more unquenchable tears fell, and she frantically wiped her face.

‘Does Murphy – Ryan—?’

‘He’s been great, but he really wants kids.’ Robin blew her nose on the kitchen roll, then took a deep breath. ‘I can’t fault him, he says he wants me, whether or not I can have them, and he’s been really kind since it happened…’

‘Good,’ Strike forced himself to say, although it was possibly the most insincere monosyllable that had ever passed his lips. ‘’Course,’ he added, ‘he’s not stupid. He knows he won’t ever find anyone like you again.’

‘Thank you,’ Robin mumbled, mopping her eyes with her left hand, but her right found Strike’s, and squeezed it.

‘And by the sounds of it,’ said Strike, ‘you could still – if you wanted—’

‘But I don’t know whether I do want kids,’ said Robin, and her relief at saying this to someone other than Murphy felt like taking off a tourniquet. ‘If I had a baby, I couldn’t do this any more. I’m sure there are women who could do both, but I don’t think I’m one of them. It isn’t that I don’t like kids, I can totally see why people want them and love having them, I get it, as much as you can when you haven’t done it yourself, but I love this so much. It wouldn’t be the same if I had children, I’d be more worried about taking risks, I’d feel guilty about the hours, it would mean divided loyalties, and I’m worried I’d resent them for having to give this up, or not being able to give it what I can give it now. Is that selfish?’ she asked, looking at Strike with tear-filled eyes.

‘Bloody hell, it’s the opposite of selfish,’ said Strike robustly. ‘If everyone thought properly about having kids before they did it, there’d be a lot fewer fucked-up people in the world.’

‘The doctors say I should freeze my eggs, and Ryan wants me to, he paints it as me having options… maybe I should,’ said Robin, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. ‘Maybe that’s the smart thing to do… it’s just all been forced on me, and finding out that that fucking rapist took the chance away from me…’

She wiped her eyes, noticed the cheese sauce on her hair, and wiped that off, too.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Strike again, at a loss as to what else to say.

‘It’s fine,’ said Robin, blowing her nose. ‘It was nothing, compared to what you went through.’

‘What, my leg? It’s different, not worse,’ said Strike. ‘Once you’ve been inside a military hospital, trust me, you count your bloody blessings. My amputation was below knee. That’s a whole different ball game to above the knee. I’m not paraplegic. Didn’t have my genitals blown off, I’ve still got my sight – just, after that bloody spray. I do fine.’ Afraid that it might be too soon for humour, he nevertheless added,

‘Obviously a blow, knowing I’ll never dance Swan Lake again.’

To his relief, Robin laughed.

‘D’you ever think about the person who planted the IED?’

‘Not much,’ said Strike. ‘He did what he thought he had to do. It wasn’t personal.’

‘I don’t s’pose it was personal with my rapist, either,’ said Robin.

‘That’s different,’ said Strike again.

Robin took a deep breath and said,

‘I’m really sorry I laid all this on you.’

‘What friends are for,’ said Strike.

But he’d never been in such a quandary as the one he now faced. Could he really tell her now, when she was reeling from a recent pregnancy loss, ‘Here’s something you might want to factor in when thinking about the future: I love you’?

‘Let’s just talk about the case,’ said Robin, withdrawing her hand from his. ‘Please.’

‘All right, but let’s eat first,’ said Strike.

So they ate, each consumed by their thoughts. Strike was furiously pondering what to do for the best, trying to examine the question from all sides. She’d just shared something deeply personal. Didn’t that open the door for him to do the same? They were alone together at last, in the most remote place they were ever likely to visit, where nobody else could reach them or interrupt. Wasn’t it madness to let this chance go? Yet he was afraid that by speaking now, when Robin was clearly already in a state of crisis, he’d transform himself, perhaps for ever, from friend and confidant into another source of pain and confusion.

Robin noticed Strike’s slight scowl, and wondered whether he was thinking her as chaotic and careless as she felt herself to be, for getting into such a mess, for slumping into her spaghetti and sobbing, and she had a sudden mental image of Kim Cochran, always neat and professional and cheerful, her personal life in perfect order. We’ve all made mistakes. Admittedly, I never married one of mine…

When both had finished their dinner, they moved at Robin’s suggestion into the sitting room next door, which had a beamed ceiling and a brick fireplace with a wood burner, Robin carrying the wine.

‘Fire?’ suggested Strike, because the room was chilly, and while that didn’t much bother him, he knew from experience it tended to bother women.

‘Great,’ said Robin, who’d already pulled a throw off the sofa to wrap around herself.

She looked around the low-ceilinged room, at the ship in a bottle and a china horse standing on the mantelpiece, at yet another seascape on the wall and the array of pamphlets advertising the attractions of Sark spread on a side table, and thought how much she’d have liked being here if not for that text of Murphy’s. She felt physically tired, but craved mental stimulation, and was conscious, too, of a desire to prove to Strike that she was still up to the job, no matter her personal problems.

‘So,’ she said, while Strike was busy with old newspapers and logs, ‘we’re back at the question of why Wright was killed in the vault, if it wasn’t a masonic double bluff.’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike, whose spirits had sagged at these words. She wanted to talk about work. Was this a deliberate closing of the door on any more personal conversation? Was she as aware as he was of the unusualness of this situation – the isolated house, the hundreds of miles between them and London – and seeking to restore relations to a professional footing? With reluctance, and a heaviness of heart, he reached the conclusion that bringing up his own feelings right now would be a mistake; possibly an irrecoverable one.

‘All right,’ he said, having successfully lit the fire, closed the door on the wood burner and dragged himself back up into a standing position by using the mantelpiece beam, ‘what reasons do people have, for killing in particular places?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Robin.

Strike poured himself more wine and sat down in a wicker chair, which creaked loudly.

‘I can think of four.’

‘Really?’ said Robin, taken aback.

‘Yeah. Chance, convenience, opportunity and necessity.’

‘Well,’ said Robin, pulling the throw tighter around herself, soothed by having an intellectual exercise to engage her mind, and grateful for the fire, ‘it definitely wasn’t chance, was it? Wright and his murderer didn’t find themselves in that vault at that time in the morning by chance. It was pre-arranged. Organised.’

‘Agreed,’ said Strike.

Robin drank more wine, trying to focus.

‘What came after chance?’ she asked.

‘Convenience. Covers domestic murder, in particular. I think we can discount that. As far as places to commit murder go, I’d struggle to think of one more inconvenient than an underground silver vault.’

‘So, then – opportunity?’

‘Opportunity would fit fine if the killer had been Kenneth Ramsay, Pamela Bullen-Driscoll or Jim Todd. The vault might well have been one of the very few places they’d have had the chance to bash a strong young man over the head from behind, without witnesses. Unfortunately, they all have unbreakable alibis. So we’re left with necessity. The vault was literally the only place the killing was possible.’

Correctly interpreting Robin’s lack of response Strike said,

‘I can’t think why it would have been necessary to do it there, either. Even if we accept the premise that Wright was lured to his death on the promise of a cut of the proceeds from the robbery, why did the killer make it so difficult for themselves? If a victim’s after easy money, there are a hundred other scenarios they could be persuaded into, and they’d be bound to offer the back of their head at some point. Why there?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Robin again. ‘I feel as though we’ve got a lot of pieces from different jigsaws.’

‘We have,’ said Strike. ‘Semple, Powell, Fleetwood – Knowles, come to that… fuck knows what “Barnaby’s” is.’

Watching the dancing flames Robin said,

‘How often do you think there’s a murder case where both the killer and his victim were pretending to be someone else?’

‘Infrequently, I’d imagine,’ said Strike, ‘but I’m sure more killers would do it that way, if they could arrange it. Wright’s false identity worked brilliantly in his murderer’s favour. When you can’t identify the victim, it’s bloody difficult to see why anyone wanted them dead.’

Both watched the flames dancing in the wood burner for a while. Then Robin said,

‘I keep thinking about Wright. The way Daz and Mandy described him… he sounded…’

Robin’s voice trailed away. She drank some wine.

‘“Sounded”?’ Strike prompted her.

‘Well, a bit… lonely, or lost, or something… It seems so silly to go downstairs to your neighbours and eat a takeaway and smoke dope with them, and let them get a really good look at you, if you’re in disguise because you’re planning a burglary. If Wright knew he was only going to be there a short time, why get friendly with Mandy and Daz? And ordering weights to his flat – why would you do that, if you knew you’d only be there a month?’

‘Two very good points,’ said Strike.

‘D’you still think Todd wrote Wright’s CV?’ Robin asked.

‘I do, yeah,’ said Strike. ‘Ergo, Wright thought Todd was an associate, maybe even a friend… but that throws up more questions, doesn’t it? If Todd was a double agent, convincing Wright he was on his side, but actually luring Wright to the vault for Oz to kill, we arrive back at the perennial question, why did the murder have to be in the vault? And why the hell would Wright have agreed to walk into the vault at one o’clock in the morning, with the man he was running from? This isn’t a Shakespearean comedy, where a man styles his hair differently and instantly becomes indistinguishable from his own sister. A curly wig’s hardly an impenetrable disguise.’

‘Wright might never have met Oz before, or known what he looked like.’

‘Then it’s just as strange that he agreed to walk into the vault with him at one in the morning. Mandy said Wright told her and Daz “or he might send someone”. Wright knew he might not recognise the man who came for him.’

‘I know Reata Lindvall probably wasn’t “Rita Linda”,’ Robin said, remembering Strike’s glazed expression on the plane, ‘but say she is, for the sake of argument – maybe Todd told Wright what had happened to her, after learning the truth in his Belgian jail?’

‘That crossed my mind after I heard Todd was in prison in Belgium,’ said Strike, ‘but if Wright thought Todd was his mate, why would Wright share the information with the press? That’d blow Todd’s incognito, remind the world he’s a convicted rapist, point the police and press right back towards him, and set Todd up for concealing evidence.’

Almost a minute passed as each pursued their own thoughts. Then:

‘That email sent to Osgood from Ramsay Silver…’ said Robin, freeing herself from the throw to tug her phone out of her pocket. Having found the message, she read it aloud.

‘“Dear Mr Osgood (Oz), I can help you with something that I know has been a problem for you if you would be happy to meet me.”’

She looked up at Strike.

‘It has to be Wright who sent that email. Todd wouldn’t have emailed Oz from work, not if they were accomplices.’

‘Soundly reasoned, as far as it goes,’ said Strike, ‘but did Wright mean to email Oz the fake music producer, or Osgood, the genuine one?’

‘What if Wright knew Osgood had an imposter, and was going to tell him who it was? The inclusion of “Oz” might’ve been a hint?’

‘That’d fit,’ said Strike, ‘but it’s not the only explanation. What if Wright was offering to help with a problem that was going to be resolved down in the vault at one in the morning?’

‘What kind of problem could Osgood have had, that meant going down to the silver vault at one in the morning?’

‘Well, for instance, “I’m currently lacking a hundred grand’s worth of masonic silver,”’ said Strike, and Robin laughed.

‘It’s tempting to try and fit Semple into all this,’ Strike continued, ‘because his mental state might explain some of the anomalies – putting too much trust in Todd, smoking dope with the neighbours. Possibly he did have a fixation about the Murdoch silver…’

‘But you could fit Powell into it, too,’ said Robin. ‘He wanted a fresh start and we know he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, which could explain him trusting Todd too much, and not recognising the danger posed to him by Oz.’

‘True, but like I said in Ironbridge, a masonic silver shop seems a particularly weird place for a mechanic to choose to work. Plus, nobody seems to have given too much of a shit about Powell except his grandmother, and her interest seems to be largely that he wasn’t doing her shopping any more. I think that car crash was a genuine accident. Do we honestly think the nice middle-class Whiteheads, bereaved or not, hired assassins to search the length and breadth of the UK for Tyler Powell?’

‘No,’ admitted Robin, ‘but Tyler might have thought that’s what was going to happen… we’re forgetting Rupert Fleetwood.’

‘I haven’t forgotten him,’ said Strike, ‘but I’ll tell you one thing: it makes no sense for Todd to have written a CV for Fleetwood, who’d have known perfectly well how to write one – and given his expensive private education, I’d be stunned if he couldn’t learn enough about silver to pass that interview without needing Todd at all. On the other hand, I find it very credible that Powell would’ve been happy for someone else to take charge of that part of the job, and the same might apply to Semple. We don’t know what his reading, writing or concentration were like, post-injury, and he’d probably never written a CV in his life. Men in the Special Forces don’t need them.’

‘I’m sure Rupert’s still alive,’ said Robin, ‘but wouldn’t you have expected some sign of him by now? He must know we’re looking for him. Sacha Legard must have checked where he is, after you spoke to him. And I’m certain Albie Simpson-White knows what happened to him. And yet Rupert hasn’t done anything to stop us trying to find him, or to put Decima out of her misery. He must know that would be kinder, in the long run – and what about his son? Doesn’t he care about him at all?’

‘No idea,’ said Strike.

‘He’s another one who seems to have acted really inconsistently,’ said Robin. ‘Albie really did make him sound like a good person, you know. He swore Rupert loved Decima, and yet he’s gone without a word… I’ve got to try and corner Cosima Longcaster,’ said Robin, with determination. ‘I’m going to try and do that this week… Listen, would you mind if I turn in? I’m so tired – you must be, too, you were awake all night.’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘I could use an early night.’

‘I’ll just wash up,’ said Robin, freeing herself from the throw she’d wrapped around herself.

‘I’ll do it, you cooked. It’s a pan and two plates,’ said Strike, rising with difficulty out of his chair, with the help of his stick. ‘Go to bed. I’ll take care of it.’

When Robin had gone upstairs, Strike limped back to the kitchen, feeling thoroughly miserable. It wasn’t much comfort to think he’d done the right and decent thing in not forcing his own emotional crisis on Robin when she was clearly in the middle of a serious one of her own, but his last glimmer of hope had now fizzled into darkness, leaving him full of self-recrimination. He had nobody but himself to blame for the fact that he’d been forced, in what was likely to be the most auspicious setting for romance he and Robin would ever visit together, to listen to her outline her plans to preserve her eggs for Murphy.

A framed affirmation stood on the sill over the sink where he washed up the dinner things. It read: Always end the day with a positive thought. No matter how hard things were, tomorrow is a fresh opportunity to make it better.

Strike cast this a dark look as he dried his hands, then hobbled off across the hall towards his bedroom.

88

The injury to Strike’s face looked even worse the following morning, the swelling slightly diminished but livid blue bruises dappling his skin. His face continued to ache and he chose not to shave, for fear of reopening the gash left by the spade.

Before heading back to the ferry, he and Robin walked a little way along La Coupée, which lay just beyond the Old Forge: a high, narrow isthmus connecting the main island from Little Sark. While a windswept Robin was looking down at the turbulent grey sea, Strike, who’d just checked his phone, said,

‘We might be lucky to get back today.’

‘Why?’

‘Storm Doris just hit the UK,’ said Strike. ‘Ninety mile an hour winds. They’ve grounded a ton of flights.’

Sure enough, when they arrived at the airport on Guernsey it was to find their flight had been delayed and rumours flying between tetchy passengers that it would be cancelled. Robin caught herself hoping it would; that she and Strike could just retire to a Guernsey hotel and that she’d be able to enjoy another evening away from London with a clear conscience. However, an hour after the scheduled departure time they were allowed to board.

The descent into Gatwick was nerve-racking, and at one point Robin instinctively grabbed Strike’s forearm as the plane zig-zagged on its approach to the runway, buffeted by gale-force winds. However, they landed without mishap to a round of applause from the passengers, excluding Strike, for whom the forearm-grabbing had been bittersweet, and who’d happily have endured a far rougher descent for prolonged physical contact.

Though London still bore traces of the battering it had taken from the storm, the following day was calm, bright and cold. A tree had been blown over in the Richmond street where Two-Times and his wife lived, and Strike watched men in yellow jackets dealing with it while sitting in his BMW, glad to be able to keep the weight off his leg after all the walking he’d done on Sark, his jaw still painful, and feeling even more depressed than he had at the Old Forge. He could draw no comfort from the memory of Robin clutching his arm on the plane or holding his hand in the kitchen, because she and Murphy would soon be living together, and whether or not she wanted children now, the direction of travel was plain to see; Murphy putting on subtle pressure, Robin finally caving, and then realising, as she’d said back on Sark, that she couldn’t detach from her child sufficiently to work as she worked now…

Kim was supposed to be taking over surveillance on Mrs Two-Times at seven that evening, but with ten minutes to go, Strike received a text from her.

Really sorry, personal emergency, are you all right to stay on her? I’ll be there as soon as I can.

As he was tired and hungry in addition to feeling depressed, Strike wasn’t best pleased by this message, but he returned an affirmative answer, only to see Mrs Two-Times emerge alone from her house a few minutes later, climb into an Uber, and set off in the direction of central London. Strike followed in his BMW, hoping she wasn’t going too far; he really wanted to get home. While watching her check her make-up in the back seat of the car, Strike wondered whether Two-Times wouldn’t end up ditching her, as he’d done a previous girlfriend who’d proved disappointingly monogamous. It was a shame, Strike thought, that he didn’t have the same fetish as Two-Times; he’d be having the time of his life if he derived pleasure from knowing the woman he loved was fucking someone better-looking.

Mrs Two-Times’ driver dropped her outside the St Martins Lane Hotel. Strike found a parking space, then entered the spacious white-floored lobby, which was decorated with such objects as giant chess pieces and a sofa draped in fake fur. Trying not to limp too obviously, he crossed to an information desk and was informed that there was a restaurant and café. He went to check both, but neither showed any sign of his target.

Now wondering whether Mrs Two-Times hadn’t actually disappeared into a bedroom for an assignation, he asked a passing staff member whether there was anywhere else he might check for his date, and was directed to the Blind Spot, a secret bar, admittance to which was gained via a hidden white door with an outstretched golden hand as a handle. Strike was in no mood to find this charmingly whimsical.

The room inside was long, narrow and so dark that he nearly fell on his face by snagging his fake foot on the edge of a rug. Having regained his balance, he spotted Mrs Two-Times at the far end of the room, barely illuminated by a small shaded lamp and sharing a booth with two other women. A waiter directed Strike to the only vacant table, which was a leather booth positioned so that Strike was forced to keep an eye on Mrs Two-Times in a large mirror on the opposite wall, which gave a partial and distorted image.

Speakers over his head were playing ‘Itchycoo Park’.

The waiter handed him a cocktail menu. Fuck it. He was a ten-minute walk from the office; he’d leave the car where it was; he deserved alcohol. Having flicked impatiently past the cocktails, all of which were themed for different cities and countries, he ordered a double Ardbeg and attempted to find a way to extend the leg bearing the prosthesis in the narrow space between table and leather sofa.

Strike’s drink arrived shortly after he’d texted Kim the new location. He took a large gulp of the smoky whisky, disinclined to order expensive bar snacks, in spite of his hunger, because he was hoping not to be there long. All around him in the dim lighting sat couples, their faces illuminated by small puddles of light cast by the lamps, so, hoping to look like someone waiting for a girlfriend, he took refuge in his phone, searching online records for Jim Todd’s mother, a task he’d been doing intermittently all day.

Nancy Jameson was proving difficult to locate, because she’d alternated between her married and maiden names. Strike had found several court judgments against her, mostly for disorderly conduct, but also for shoplifting, though the last of these dated from five years previously. Strike knew she might be dead, but persisted in looking for her, because the mundane task was keeping his mind off his other troubles. When he’d finished his first whisky, he ordered another.

By eight o’clock, with Françoise Hardy singing over the speakers, and Strike on his third double Ardbeg, his mobile rang with a call forwarded from the office. Raising it to his ear, he said,

‘Strike.’

The line was bad. For a few seconds, nobody spoke, but Strike could hear a crackling noise. Then a notably deep, male voice said,

‘This is Rupert Fleetwood.’

It was a few seconds before Strike registered what had just been said; two and a half double Ardbegs hadn’t improved his powers of concentration. Fumbling hastily for the notebook in his pocket, he said, raising his voice over Françoise Hardy:

‘It’s good to speak to you, Mr Fleetwood.’

‘You’ve been looking for me,’ said the deep voice.

‘Yes,’ said Strike.

The unexpectedness of the call, coming so soon after Robin had expressed surprise that Fleetwood hadn’t been in touch with them, had caught him off-guard.

‘Your ex-girlfriend’s very worried about you.’

There was no response.

‘Where are you, currently?’ asked Strike, who’d managed to get his notebook open and was trying to find his pen.

‘That doesn’t matter,’ said the deep voice. ‘Just tell Decima I’m all right.’

‘That won’t make her very happy, I’m afraid,’ said Strike, switching his mobile phone to his left ear, so he could write. ‘She doesn’t believe you’d ever have left her. She thinks the reason you haven’t been in touch is that you’re dead.’

He waited, but there was no response.

‘At a bare minimum, I think she’d like to know why you disappeared,’ said Strike.

‘It wasn’t going to work between us.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘It just wasn’t,’ said the voice. ‘It isn’t her fault.’

‘I’m going to need proof you’re genuinely Rupert Fleetwood if you want me to pass this message on,’ said Strike. ‘Tell me something only he and Decima would know.’

He waited, pen poised.

‘She called me “Bear”,’ said the deep voice.

‘And she and Rupert are the only ones who’d know that, are they? Decima never did it in anyone else’s hearing?’

‘I can think of something only Rupert and Decima knew, before he disappeared,’ said Strike.

‘I stole her father’s silver ship,’ said the deep voice.

‘Plenty of people know Fleetwood stole that ship. I want something only Rupert and Decima—’

The caller hung up.

Strike lowered his mobile, frowning. He wondered whether to call Robin with the news that Rupert Fleetwood, or somebody pretending to be him, had just called, but she was probably with Murphy.

While the whisky wasn’t precisely cheering him, it was at least having a numbing effect, which was better than nothing, so he ordered a fourth, wondering what had become of Kim. This lateness was most unlike her; she was usually punctual to a fault.

His fresh drink had just been set down in front of him when his mobile rang again, also with a call forwarded from the office. Hoping it might be the man with the deep voice again, he answered.

‘Strike.’

‘Aye, it’s me,’ said a loud and angry whisper. ‘Wha’ for are ye waitin’? Ah need tae meet ye!’

After a moment’s incomprehension Strike said,

‘Are you the person who’s been calling me about a bridge?’

‘Dunnae talk aboot tha’!’ she said furiously. ‘Ah need ye tae come!’

‘Where are you?’ said Strike, trying to tug his notebook out of his pocket again.

‘Jus’ come tae the Golden Fleece, f’ fuck’s sake!’

‘Where is that?’

‘Ye know where, it’s the only place Ah’m safe, kinda, but Ah’ve gottae be careful, Ah think they’re watchin’ me—’

‘Are you Rena Liddell?’

‘DUNNAE SAY MAH FUCKIN’ NAME!’ she howled.

He heard the clunk of a call box receiver being slammed down.

Shit.

Strike was now exceptionally hungry in addition to being slightly drunk, so he caved in and ordered chips and calamari rings from the bar snack menu. Barely had the waiter departed than Kim entered the bar at last.

‘I’m so sorry, I’ve never been late for a job,’ she mumbled.

As she sat down beside him, Strike saw by the limited illumination of the booth that he wasn’t the only person with facial injuries. Someone had very obviously gouged Kim’s face, leaving deep, bloody scratches. Her right eye was puffy and Strike could see bruises forming around it.

‘What happened to you?’

‘I – it’s – Ray – you know, my ex?’

Rendered slower in comprehension than he usually was, because of all the Ardbeg he’d consumed, Strike said,

‘The jobless bloke, yeah – he did that?’

‘No, it was – I told you he was with someone when we got together, didn’t I? Well, it was her.’

‘Christ,’ said Strike.

‘I opened my flat door and she was standing there, waiting,’ said Kim. ‘Look, I’m really sorry, can I get a proper drink, I really—’

In no position to refuse, given how much Ardbeg he’d already consumed, Strike raised a hand to summon the waiter and, as Kim was now sitting with her face in her hands and muttered ‘anything’, Strike ordered her an Ardbeg, too.

When her drink arrived, Kim took a large swallow then coughed and said,

‘God, that’s disgusting, what is it?’

‘Whisky.’

‘Oh… well, I s’pose it’ll do the job.’

She tipped more down her throat.

‘What made your ex’s ex turn up today?’ asked Strike.

‘Because Ray’s killed himself,’ said Kim baldly.

The image of Charlotte lying in a blood-filled bath swum up out of Strike’s subconscious. He remembered the shock of a previous suspect being found hanged in her garage.

‘Fuck, I’m sorry.’

‘It’s nothing to do with me,’ said Kim quickly. ‘We split months ago, it’s not my fault, but she’s looking for someone to blame. She was the one pestering him for money all the time. They’ve got kids together,’ she added.

She took another gulp of the Ardbeg.

‘I opened my flat door and she was there on the landing, waiting. She grabbed me by the hair and punched me right in the face. She had me on the floor, then she was kicking me, then she was on top of me—’

‘Isn’t she police?’ said Strike, who dimly remembered what Kim had told him in the Dorchester.

‘Yeah. If she’s that fucking worried about her kids, you wouldn’t’ve thought she’d want to be arrested right after their dad died, would you? My neighbours came out onto the landing, he pulled her off me, and his wife called the cops. I had to give a statement. Then I get outside to my car and find out she’s keyed it and smashed in all the windows. I had to get a taxi here. I don’t know how I’m going to follow Mrs Two-Times home.’

‘I wouldn’t worry about that,’ said Strike. ‘She’s not going to shag anyone else tonight.’

‘Oh God, you’re so nice,’ Kim said, and she leaned into him before draining her glass of whisky. ‘Can I get another one?’

Strike had some misgivings about ordering her a second drink, but he raised his hand nonetheless. If he hadn’t ordered food he’d now be on the way home, but he was starving and wanted his chips.

By the time his food and Kim’s fresh Ardbeg had arrived, she’d twice more leaned into him, pressing her right arm into his left, with breathy little laughs. She seemed understandably shaken by the news that her ex-boyfriend was dead, but he didn’t like the flirtatiousness that was creeping into her behaviour, either on its own terms, or in the context of recent bereavement. Meanwhile, he’d been given only three calamari rings, which didn’t seem much of a reward for staying put. He helped himself to chips.

‘There he is, that’s Ray,’ said Kim, showing Strike a photo on her phone, though he didn’t particularly want to see it. Ray had been a good-looking man with the same kind of thick, prematurely grey hair as Barclay. Strike wondered whether he was being shown the picture because Kim stood beside Ray in a very revealing handkerchief top.

‘That was in Ibiza,’ said Kim, with a catch in her voice, turning the screen back towards herself and examining the picture. ‘Oh God,’ she said, with sudden emotion, scrolling through pictures. ‘He did it in his car. Exhaust fumes. I don’t know why I’m…’

She began to cry. Strike, who didn’t want to make any physical gesture of comfort, and was struggling to marshal his thoughts, given his tiredness and the large amount of whisky he’d drunk, said,

‘’S a shit thing to happen.’

Exactly as he’d feared, Kim now slumped into him and stayed there, sobbing, as Johnny Kidd & the Pirates began singing over the speakers.

Fuck’s sake, thought Strike, now unable to reach his chips without dislodging Kim. Glancing down, he saw her mobile lying face up in her lap, showing her, nude, displaying her tan lines in a mirror. He looked away, hoping the lack of a consoling arm around her might persuade her to shift, and after a minute, it did. With another breathy laugh and a whispered ‘sorry’, she straightened back up, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

‘Oh shit!’ she said, with poorly feigned embarrassment, flipping over the mobile. ‘I don’t know what I’m…’ Turning her shining brown gaze fully on him for the first time, she uttered a little gasp. ‘Wait – what happened to you?’

He was too slow to stop her touching him lightly on the side of the face.

‘Spade,’ he said, reaching for the last of his chips.

‘A spade?’

‘Yeah. Look, I’m going to have to—’

He raised his hand for the bill, and as he did so, Kim slid a hand onto his thigh.

‘You’ve been so nice. Thank you.’

He reached down, took her wrist and threw her hand back into her lap.

‘Don’t.’

‘What?’

‘You know what. We’re not going to fuck,’ said Strike, more forcefully than he’d have done had he not drunk so much. ‘Ever.’

‘What? I didn’t—’

‘Enough,’ said Strike, whose tongue felt far heavier than it should have, but whose anger at himself, and the mess he’d made with Robin, had at last found a target. ‘No more accidental texts, none of it, all right? And keep your fucking nudes to yourself.’

He was hyper-aware of Kim sitting rigidly beside him as he paid his bill. He didn’t doubt she felt angry and humiliated, but he didn’t care. Having paid, he got up with difficulty, pins and needles in his legs, and said, without looking at her,

‘See you at the office.’

He left, and only by a miracle of luck did he avoid tripping over the rug for a second time.

89

Robin felt as though she’d been away from London for a fortnight, instead of the forty-eight hours that had actually passed. Worst of all was the jitteriness that had returned almost as soon as the storm-tossed plane had landed. She now realised how safe she’d felt in Sark. She was back in noisy, crowded London, where any of the men you passed might have a gorilla mask hidden at home; she resumed looking over her shoulder every few yards and taking counter-surveillance dashes into traffic and last-second exits from Tube trains.

Nor was this suppressed, ever-present fear the worst of her worries. She and Murphy met for dinner in an Italian restaurant on Saturday evening, and talked. She repeated that she loved him, said she felt no distance and that she definitely wanted them to move in together. She tried not to remember Strike holding her hand across the kitchen table at the Old Forge, or about how understanding he’d been when she’d cried. She had to forget all that. She was moving in with Murphy.

She stayed at Murphy’s flat overnight and remained there on Sunday. They had sex twice; he seemed far happier than he’d been lately, and Robin told herself she was, too.

To Robin’s surprise, late on Sunday afternoon, Tyler Powell’s friend Wynn Jones sent her his agreement to speaking to her that evening by FaceTime.

‘Everything OK?’ asked Murphy, observing her expression as she read Jones’ text.

‘Fine,’ said Robin. ‘Just someone I’m trying to talk to about Rupert Fleetwood.’

She wondered why she was still lying to him about exactly what she was doing on the silver vault case and supposed it was force of habit.

‘Listen, d’you mind if I do an hour at the gym?’ asked Murphy.

‘No, of course not,’ said Robin.

She felt relieved at the prospect of being alone, and even gladder Murphy wasn’t present when, ten minutes after he’d left the flat, Strike called her.

‘Can you talk?’ he asked in a croaky voice.

‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘Are you all right?’

Strike, who was lying on his bed in his attic room with his prosthesis off, said,

‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

In fact, his stomach had been upset all day, which he suspected was the fault of the kebab he’d bought on the way home from the Blind Spot the previous evening, because his hunger had been unassuaged by a few exorbitantly priced chips and three calamari rings. He’d slept late, then lain on his bed trying to ignore his gastro-intestinal discomfort while vaping and continuing to search for Jim Todd’s mother online, an ice pack strapped to his painful knee. He’d soon need to put his prosthesis back on, because that evening he was due to tail Plug.

‘I’ve got big news,’ he went on, ‘I got a call last night from a man claiming to be Rupert Fleetwood.’

‘What?’

‘Yeah. Quite the coincidence, after you saying you were surprised he hadn’t been in touch. He gave me the nickname he claims Decima used for him, admitted to stealing the nef, but when I pressed him for something only he and Decima would know, he hung up.’

‘Oh,’ said Robin.

‘He had a bass voice. I’ve emailed Decima to ask whether that fits Rupert, though knowing her, she’ll say someone must’ve been putting it on. I think I’ve found Todd’s mother, too. She’s in Harlesden, so I’m going to check her out as soon as I’ve got time, see whether Todd’s been in touch. And one other thing,’ said Strike, hoping there wasn’t about to be a row. ‘Kim’s resigned. I’ve just got the email.’

‘Oh,’ said Robin again. For the first time in days, her spirits lifted. ‘Why—? Did something happen, or—?’

‘Yeah, something happened,’ said Strike, who’d decided he needed to be honest about this, even if it led to trouble. ‘She turned up for surveillance and she was in a state. Her ex has gassed himself in his car.’

‘Oh my God!’

‘And then his ex turned up at Kim’s, to give Kim a hiding. She arrived in the bar and she was crying, she’d been roughed up and… well, she was leaning on me and putting her hand on my leg and—’ He remembered the naked photograph, but decided against mentioning it. ‘I’d had a few. I told her to sod off and she took offence. Well,’ Strike admitted, ‘I was fairly offensive. Anyway, it’s a two-line resignation: “I wish to terminate my contract with immediate effect. Kindly forward the balance of payment.”’

‘Right,’ said Robin, feeling slightly dazed. This was a lot to process in a single phone call. ‘Well… to be completely honest… I’m glad to see the back of her.’

‘Thank Christ,’ said Strike, relaxing slightly. He’d been worried about Robin’s reaction; specifically, that she might be uptight about him having more of what might be generally termed ‘woman trouble’. ‘In better news, Wardle’s handed in his resignation at work, so we won’t be short staffed for long.’

‘Great,’ said Robin. ‘Well, I’ve just had a breakthrough with Wynn Jones. I’ll be FaceTiming him in half an hour.’

‘He still flirting?’

‘If you can call it “flirting”, sending me aubergine emojis,’ said Robin.

‘Sending you what?’ said Strike, on whom this comment was lost. He’d never used an emoji in his life.

‘I’ll explain some other time,’ said Robin. She’d never yet discussed erect penises or the symbols used for them online with Strike, and wasn’t going to start now. ‘I’ll let you know how I get on. Speak later.’

Robin made herself a coffee and, at the appointed time, called Wynn Jones on her laptop. After just a few rings, he answered with the words ‘all right?’

Jones was a heavy-set youth with a double chin and almost no neck. His very short dark hair had already receded to reveal a large expanse of shiny red forehead. One of his eyes was larger than the other, which gave him an unfortunate look of craftiness. With his weathered appearance and his tartan shirt, he’d have blended in easily with any of the land workers Robin had known in Masham, some of them school mates who were uninterested in academic life because they had farms on which to work and, in some cases, to inherit.

Jones was sitting in what looked like a very cramped and none-too-tidy sitting room. The leatherette sofa bore evidence of having been shredded in places by a cat’s claws. Buckled beer cans and takeaway cartons were piled on a low table to Jones’ left and the edge of a dartboard was visible over his head, the surrounding wall pockmarked with holes. Jones was clutching a can of Carlsberg, and though it was barely six o’clock in the evening, he had the slightly sloppy, glazed look of a man who’d already had several beers.

‘Hi,’ said Robin. ‘Thanks very much for agreeing to talk to me, Wynn.’

‘’S’all right,’ said Jones. He glanced off camera and raised his eyebrows at someone or something out of sight; a knowing, amused look.

‘She ’ot, then?’ said a voice off-camera.

‘Yeah, not bad,’ said the smirking Jones.

‘So, as I explained, Wynn,’ said Robin, pretending she hadn’t heard this, ‘I wanted to talk to you about Tyler, because his grandmother thinks—’

‘’E was a body,’ said Jones, and Robin heard gruff chortles from the man off camera. ‘Senile, i’n she? Smart London detective like you shoulda worked that out by now, if you’ve talked to her.’

Chippy distaste for the capital and its denizens was also familiar to Yorkshire-born Robin, so she ignored this comment.

‘Dilys doesn’t believe the man who’s called her since July is Tyler. She thinks—’

‘It’s me, yeah,’ said Jones, looking unabashed. ‘Daft old cow. I’ve told her it’s not. Lugs told me to tell ’er, so I did.’

‘Lugs?’

‘That’s what we call him. “Lugs”. You and Jonny Rokeby’s boy should be paying me, by rights. Telling you stuff you should already know.’

The man off camera laughed.

‘Dilys is always thinkin’ people are tryna trick her,’ said Wynn. ‘Thought the postman had nicked her pension book last year, daft old bat. Lugs is sick of ’er, anyway. Making him do her shopping and all sorts.’

‘Have you heard from Tyler since he left?’

‘Yeah, but then he got pissed off with me,’ said Jones, grinning more broadly than ever.

‘Why was that?’

‘Called him a fuckin’ coward, din’ I?’

‘Why did you call him a coward?’

‘Should’ve just fuckin’ thumped all of ’em what were saying shit about him and that crash,’ said Jones, and he took another sip of lager. ‘’S what I’d’a done, if they were talking shit about me. Made himself look proper fuckin’ guilty, running away.’

‘So you’re sure Tyler’s innocent, are you?’

‘Why’re you askin’ me that, if you’re on Dilys’s side?’

‘I’m just trying to find out where Tyler’s gone and whether anyone’s hurt him,’ said Robin.

‘Nobody’s bloody ’urt him, he’s fine! An’ he wouldn’t never of done nothing to his Mazda. Go all the way to Birmingham to fuck with it? Bloody load of balls.’

‘People said the car was tampered with in Birmingham, did they?’

‘“People” didn’t say it. Fuckin’ Faber White’ead did.’

‘This is Hugo’s father?’

‘Yeah. He was putting it about someone on the car park camera, fiddlin’ with it.’

‘Really?’ said Robin. ‘D’you know what that person looked—?’

‘There wasn’t nobody there,’ sneered Jones. ‘White’ead didn’t want to believe his dipshit fucking son was speeding. Sabotage my arse.’

The person off camera laughed again.

‘Tyler was at home the night of the crash, right?’ said Robin.

‘Yeah, ’e ’ad a cold or something.’

‘Were his parents there?’

‘No, they’d buggered off to Florida by then.’

‘D’you know where he’s gone, Wynn?’

‘Yeah,’ said Jones, his smirk widening. ‘But you gotta make it worth my while if I’m gonna tell you that.’

There was yet another bark of laughter in the background.

‘Tyler’s not there now, is he?’ said Robin, struck by a sudden suspicion. ‘Listening to you talk to me?’

Robin heard a door opening and slamming and a lot of chortling.

‘No, ’course not,’ said Jones, grinning more broadly than ever.

‘Could you introduce me to the friend you’ve got there, listening in?’ Robin asked.

The camera made a dizzying spin as Jones turned his phone to face a young man with crooked brown teeth, who was sitting on a sagging tweed armchair. Robin assumed the door behind the latter was the one that had just been slammed, either for comic effect by the snaggle-toothed youth, or by a third party who’d just left. He waved at Robin, leering, and the camera phone swung back towards Jones.

‘Don’t you want to put Dilys’s mind at rest, Wynn?’ Robin asked.

‘I’ve told ’er ’e’s gone to work in a pub, an’ ’e’s told her, and I’ve told ’er it’s not me calling ’er,’ said Jones impatiently. ‘Lugs doesn’t want ’er to know where ’e’s working ’cause ’e doesn’t want the silly old cow bothering ’im, that’s all, but ’e’s told ’er ’e’s alive and she keeps saying “stop it Wynn Jones, I know that’s you”.’

Robin decided to try another tack.

‘Tyler stopped talking to you, you say?’

‘Yer.’

‘When was that?’

‘Can’t remember. Round Christmas?’

‘You’re certain it was really Tyler calling and texting you, though?’

‘’Course I am.’

‘Tell me about Tyler and Anne-Marie,’ said Robin, planning to circle back to the name of the pub.

‘Ain’t nothing to tell.’

‘They were in a relationship, weren’t they?’

‘Nah, it was that Chloe Griffiths ’e ’ad the throbber for.’

The young man with bad teeth laughed again in the background.

‘This is Chloe who lived opposite him?’

‘Yeah. Anne-Marie was nothing, ’e didn’t care. Well,’ Jones corrected himself, ‘’e cared she was dead, but not cause they were shagging.’

‘Wasn’t Anne-Marie Tyler’s girlfriend?’ said Robin.

‘Nah. Just mates.’

‘My information is that Tyler was very upset when they split up.’

‘’Oo told you that, bloody Faber White’ead?’

‘I haven’t spoken to the Whiteheads,’ said Robin.

‘It was that Chloe he liked, not Anne-Marie. He had the proper ’orn for Chloe, and she led him on, and the silly sod thought ’e was going to get somewhere, but I coulda told ’im he was wasting his time.’

‘Why’s that?’ said Robin.

‘She got stuff out of ’im, but never done nothing with ’im, and then she dropped him fucking flat and buggers off with another bloke. Snobby,’ Jones added. ‘A-levels and all that. She wasn’t gonna go with some mechanic.’

‘What stuff did Chloe get out of Tyler?’ asked Robin.

‘Bought her a fucking bracelet, all with flowers on, for her birthday,’ said Jones, as though this was an outlandish thing for Powell to have done, and Robin’s mind darted to the silver charm bracelet hidden in her wardrobe, which she’d still never worn. ‘But ’e never got anything back out of her, silly sod.’

‘Did Tyler ever mention silver to you, on the phone?’ asked Robin.

‘Silver?’ scoffed Jones. ‘Why’d he be talking about bloody silver?’

‘I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking. Can you remember any phone conversation where Tyler mentioned silver, or something that might’ve sounded like silv—?’

‘Sylvain, maybe,’ said Jones, apparently struck by a sudden thought. ‘Sylvain Deslandes.’

‘Who’s Sylvain Deslandes?’ said Robin.

‘Wolves left-back.’

‘A footballer?’

‘Yeah,’ said Jones, smirking again at the London woman’s lack of elementary knowledge.

‘Can you remember Tyler talking to you about Sylvain Deslandes, or do you just think it’s possible that happened?’

‘We could’ve talked about ’im, yeah,’ said Jones. ‘Lugs rated ’im.’

‘D’you know a girl called Zeta?’ asked Robin. ‘She was living in Ironbridge around the time Tyler left.’

‘No, I don’t know no Zeta,’ said Jones. ‘I don’t live in Ironbridge, I live in Apeton.’

‘Zeta told me Tyler overheard her talking about him, and he threatened her.’

‘Don’t blame ’im,’ said Jones forcefully. ‘If they was saying shit like that about me, I’d’ve bloody decked ’em – girl or not,’ he added, and took another swig of lager.

‘Did Tyler ever borrow any of the cars at the garage where he worked?’

‘No, ’course ’e didn’t. Why?’

‘Zeta says a car nearly hit her on Wellsey Road, and she thought—’

‘Wesley Road,’ Jones corrected her, with a local’s pedantic pleasure in correcting the ignorant out-of-towner.

‘So you do know Ironbridge?’ said Robin.

‘I was at school there, wa’n I? And I go there for a drink sometimes.’

‘But you’ve never run across Zeta?’

‘No, and if she’s saying Lugs fuckin’ tried to run ’er over, she’s a fuckin’ attention-seeking liar.’

‘What about Rita?’ said Robin. ‘Did you ever hear Tyler mention anyone of that name?’

‘Zeta, Rita – ’oo’s next, Peter?’

‘Ryvita,’ said the out-of-sight youth with the crooked teeth, and both young men guffawed.

‘So he never talked about a woman called Rita, or Reata?’ Robin persisted.

‘Bloody ’ell, I jus’ told you, it was fucking Chloe Griffiths ’e liked,’ said Jones impatiently, ‘so Zeta and Rita and all those tossers going on about the crash, they was talking bollocks, and if they was claiming ’e done stuff to them, too, they’re full of shit, all right? Chasing clout off the back of all what ’appened.’

‘Wynn, I’d be really glad if you’d give me the name of the pub where Tyler’s working. I’d just like to reassure Dilys that he’s alive, and that’ll be the end of it.’

‘Maybe I’ll give you the name if you give me something,’ said Jones, and the out-of-sight young man snorted with laughter.

‘Did Tyler have any other friends I might talk to, about where he’s gone?’ said Robin, ignoring the second hint that Jones wanted quid pro quos.

‘No,’ said Jones, and then, ‘well, yeah, he had friends, but nobody knows more’n I know.’

‘Can you please give me the name of the pub where he’s working, Wynn?’

Jones took a large swig from his Carlsberg can, emptying it, then crushed it one-handed and bent down to fetch another; Robin caught a glimpse of a dirty carpet and an overflowing ashtray.

‘Whachew gonna give me?’ said Jones, his fat face even redder for having bent over. He laid his mobile on his lap and Robin now saw a nicotine-stained ceiling and the underside of the can Jones was opening before his face filled the screen again.

‘Don’t you want to put Dilys’s mind at rest?’ asked Robin.

‘That old cow badmouths me, I don’t give a shit whether ’er mind’s at rest or not,’ said Jones. ‘Tell you what—’

Jones’ friend had started laughing harder than ever, although the punchline hadn’t yet been delivered. Robin thought she knew what was coming; it had become ever more likely since that first drooling emoji. Jones either didn’t know Powell’s whereabouts, or had promised his friend he would keep his secrets. He was boorish and childish, and a woman he was unlikely ever to meet was good only for amusing himself and his mates with.

‘—show us your tits and I’ll give ya—’

Robin ended the call.

She slumped back in her chair and rubbed her tired eyes. She couldn’t help thinking that Powell’s friendship with the crudely offensive Jones tended to add weight to the portrait of him given by Chloe and Zeta, rather than the one offered by Dilys and Griffiths. Opening her eyes again, Robin looked back down at her notebook.

For some reason, she was experiencing a tiny, nagging doubt, but she didn’t know why. Had she just missed something, failed to make an important connection? She read back over her notes, but couldn’t see anything obvious, so she tried to remember everything Jones had said, aside from the bits she’d thought important enough to transcribe. Dilys thinks Jones pretending to be Tyler. Bracelet for Chloe. Zeta, Rita, who’s next, Peter? Apeton. Wesley Road.

Robin heard the door of the flat open and close; Murphy had returned. He entered the room seconds later, rummaging in his gym bag.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake – I’ve left my phone at the fucking gym.’

‘Here,’ said Robin, holding out her own.

Murphy called his own phone and, after a brief conversation, hung up.

‘They’ve got it at the front desk. Shall I pick up a curry on my way back?’

‘That’d be great,’ said Robin, yawning.

Murphy departed again. Robin sat thinking about Tyler Powell, for whom she’d never found any social media. Turning back to her laptop, she opened both Twitter and Instagram and began searching for variations on the names ‘Lugs’ and ‘Powell’.

After twenty minutes, she found an Instagram account she thought might, possibly, have been Tyler’s: LugzCarz. It featured nothing but pictures of vintage motors interspersed with photos of engines on which the person posting was working. The account had few followers, but two things made Robin suspect it was Powell’s: there had been no additions since May of the previous year, when Powell had left Ironbridge under a cloud of suspicion, and beneath a picture of a 1965 Austin-Healey Mark III somebody had replied: fuck off posting cars like we don’t know what you did. However, as far as clues to Powell’s current whereabouts went, the account was useless.

Robin closed down the website, stretched and got to her feet.

Murphy had left his gym bag behind. It had leaked a puddle of clear fluid. Evidently he hadn’t put the lid of his water bottle on securely enough.

Robin opened the bag, to find a tangle of damp gym clothes. Sure enough, the bottle contained only dregs, and the top wasn’t properly screwed back on.

A faint smell made her sniff her fingers. Unable to believe the evidence of her nose, Robin put her index finger into her mouth.

Still crouched, tasting pure spirit, she felt again that icy wave of shock she’d felt on finding the diamond stud that had flown from the bedclothes in that house in Deptford, the day she’d left Matthew for good. She thought of the upswing in gym sessions and runs that she’d imagined were doing Murphy so much good. She recalled Christmas Eve, when she’d thought, if she hadn’t known better, he’d been drinking, like her brothers. She remembered the night of their worst row.

Blank-faced, she fetched kitchen roll and mopped up the spilled excess on the floor, then set the water bottle, with its incriminating dregs, on the coffee table. She stood for another minute, staring at it, then headed into the kitchen, where she made a methodical search of the cupboards that turned up no spirits whatsoever.

The sky outside was dark; she hadn’t noticed night falling. She headed into the bedroom and opened Murphy’s wardrobe. Presumably her boyfriend had searched other people’s cupboards and drawers in a professional capacity, but private detectives rarely if ever got to rifle through the personal belongings of suspects.

Robin had to stand on tiptoe to access the top shelf. Behind a pile of T-shirts and a small box of foreign currency and old charging leads was a hessian bag that clinked when she touched it. She tugged it down, already certain of what she was about to see.

There were six bottles of vodka inside, one of them almost empty.

90

Strike was, yet again, back in Carnival Street in Haringey, watching the house where Plug’s friends were keeping the gigantic black dog. He was starting to feel a lot of sympathy for the client’s view that it was outrageous Plug hadn’t been arrested yet. Strike wasn’t overly sentimental about animals; with the sole exception of a snake he’d once succeeded in catching as a boy, he’d never felt the urge for a pet. Nevertheless, what he’d witnessed at the dog fight, and seen of Plug since, had convinced him the sadistic bastard deserved a prison sentence, as soon as possible, thereby freeing both his mother and his son from his bullying and coercion.

Strike was currently standing in a patch of deep shadow beneath a non-functioning street lamp, vaping and waiting for the reappearance of his target. Stars appeared gradually above him, a little more visible than they might have been in a better lit street, though by no means as bright as they’d been when viewed from Sark. Preferring not to brood about the night at the Old Forge, Strike crossed the road and found himself another patch of shadow on the pavement outside the junkyard. A large sign proclaimed that the place was called Brian Judge Scrap and its border fence ran the length of the road. Strike could see the tops of heaps of compacted metal. He wondered whether Robin’s old Land Rover had been consigned to such a metal cemetery.

A rusted van passed and pulled up at the entrance of the yard. The driver killed the lights, got out and went to speak into the intercom beside the gate.

As the man’s face was illuminated by the security light over the gate, Strike had the strange feeling he’d seen him somewhere before. He was smaller than average, hairy, fortyish, very dark and not particularly good-looking. Strike had the idea he’d once seen the man wearing a suit and tie rather than the grubby sweatshirt and jeans he was currently sporting, and that he’d been walking along with a group of similarly smartly attired others, but when or where this might have happened, he couldn’t think.

Chains clinked from within the yard. The gates began to open. The driver got back into the van, leaving the lights off, and drove inside. The gates closed again.

Where the hell had he seen that man before? At a wedding? A funeral? He associated him vaguely with church, but Strike hadn’t set foot in a church more than a handful of times in the past ten years. The dark man most certainly hadn’t attended either Ted’s or Joan’s funerals, nor had he been present in the empty church Strike had spent part of the morning he’d learned that Charlotte was dead.

The door of the house Strike was watching opened. Plug emerged, holding a large, wriggling puppy. Strike took a few photos from the shadows and was about to tail Plug back up the street when he suddenly remembered where he’d seen the van driver before.

A few years previously, Strike and Robin had investigated a cold case that had brought them within the orbit of a pair of violent criminals called the Ricci brothers. The pair visited their father, Niccolò (a gangster who’d been known as ‘Mucky’ in his pimping and pornography-making heyday), every Sunday at his nursing home. Strike could now visualise the group turning up, children and wives smartly dressed, the two men in suits. The older brother, Luca, had had the more fearsome reputation, but Marco, the younger of the two, and the man who’d just driven a van into Brian Judge Scrap, had his own respectable tally of acid attacks and knifings.

A powerful instinct was telling Strike to stay put, rather than tail Plug, so he watched Plug out of sight without following. Now alone on the otherwise deserted street, Strike asked himself what he was playing at, but had no answer, except that his subconscious, having revealed the identity of the man in the van, seemed to be trying to tell him something else.

He resumed his position in the first patch of shadow in which he’d lurked, on the opposite side of the street to the scrapyard. Ten minutes passed, with Strike staring at the sign giving the junkyard’s name. Then, rather as scrap itself may slide and settle, something in the depths of his mind shifted, and he saw what had lain hidden, and knew why he’d stayed.

Cockney rhyming slang.

Brian Judge.

Judge.

Barnaby Rudge.

As he felt in his pocket for his mobile, a Renault glided to a halt in front of the gates. Marco Ricci slid back out of the yard, got into the car, and it drove away. From inside the scrapyard came a rumbling sound. An odd time to start the noisy business of compacting a vehicle or firing up an incinerator, but under certain circumstances, such jobs might be a matter of urgency.

Shanker answered Strike’s call within thirty seconds.

‘’S’up, Bunsen?’

‘Wanted to ask you a question. Do you, personally, have any stake in Barnaby’s?’

When Shanker spoke again, he sounded cagey.

‘Why’re you askin’?’

‘Answer me.’

‘I ain’t ever used it, personal,’ said Shanker. ‘No.’

‘So the police couldn’t tie you to anything in Haringey? Specifically, Carnival Street?’

Strike waited for Shanker to deny that Barnaby’s was in Carnival Street, but instead, in an ominous tone, he asked,

‘Woss goin’ on, Bunsen?’

‘I’m giving you a heads-up, in return for the one you gave me a few months back.’

‘’Oo’s grassed?’ said Shanker furiously.

‘Someone was tailed and certain suspicious activity was observed,’ said Strike.

‘Fuck,’ said Shanker. Then, ‘You ain’t wiv a pig right now, are ya?’

‘You think I’d call you if I had a copper with me?’ said Strike.

‘’Ow do I know? Know enough o’ the fuckin’ cocksuckers, dontcha?’

‘They speak highly of you, too,’ said Strike. ‘All right. Just wanted to give you advance warning.’

‘Awright, cheers,’ said Shanker grumpily, and he hung up.

91

At exactly the moment Robin heard Murphy’s key turn in the lock of the front door again, Strike called her mobile. She refused the call and waited, feeling sick, for Murphy to reappear in the sitting room, which he did seconds later, phone in one hand and a curry in his other.

‘Got you chicken Madras,’ he said, smiling and holding up the bag.

Then his eyes fell on the open water bottle Robin had positioned on the coffee table in front of her.

‘What’s that doing there?’

‘It spilled,’ said Robin. ‘In your sports bag.’

‘What were you doing rummaging in my—?’

‘It leaked out onto the floor,’ said Robin. ‘I was mopping it up when I realised what it was.’

She stared up at him, waiting, feeling strangely shivery, like someone in the early stages of flu.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He looked at the bottle with its vodka dregs, back at Robin, then said,

‘I…’

Robin had imagined his possible reactions while waiting for him to return. She’d wondered whether he’d try and pretend this was a one-off lapse, even that someone else had filled the bottle without his knowledge. Life had taught her there were few limits on the lies desperate men were prepared to tell.

Murphy’s eyes filled with tears. He dropped the takeaway and sat down in an armchair, face in his hands, and began to sob. There was no question that his tears were genuine: he was making noises that were barely human; strangled, whooping wails, his whole body shaking.

Robin had never seen him cry before, but she offered no comfort. She wanted to hear what he had to say, how many more untruths he was prepared to tell.

At last, he began to talk in broken sentences, not looking at her, and still crying.

‘Those kids who were shot… I fucked up… it was all on me… I thought the eyewitness was bullshitting… went and arrested the wrong… it was all on me, I did it… I was sure the fucker had done it… I got rough with him… investigation… complaints…

‘I had a beer in the pub… just one… couldn’t stop… couldn’t fucking stop… you’re going to leave, aren’t you?’

He looked up at her, red-eyed, face wet.

‘You’ve gone on and on about honesty,’ whispered Robin, ‘and all this time, you’ve been drinking…’

‘Not all the time – I swear, not all the time, it’s been stop-start – I kept trying to – I’m going back to AA tomorrow. I’ll throw all the booze I’ve got out, you can watch me doing it.’

‘You’ve got more, in this flat?’ said Robin, testing to see what he’d say.

‘Yeah, in – in the wardrobe,’ said Murphy. ‘I’ll do it right now. Robin, you’re literally the best thing that happened to me, I’ll make this up to you—’

‘What about that night?’ she said. ‘The night I got pregnant?’

‘I wasn’t drunk then,’ he said quickly. ‘It started after that.’

She didn’t believe him. Getting up off the sofa, she went into his bedroom to fetch the overnight holdall she’d already packed, and her coat. When she returned, Murphy was on his feet.

‘Robin, I swear I’m going back to AA tomorrow, it’ll stop—’

‘I need… not to be here,’ said Robin, pulling her coat on. Her insides felt icy. For months now she’d felt guilty about lying to him by omission, while he’d been hiding this gigantic secret.

‘Is this it?’ he said, sounding panicked. ‘It’s over?’

‘I need some time,’ said Robin.

‘Do you love me?’

‘Yes,’ she said automatically.

‘The house—’

‘We need to withdraw the offer,’ said Robin. She’d thought that through as well, while he’d been picking up his phone from whichever pub or bar he’d been in, unless he really had gone to the gym and sat in the café, drinking neat vodka, pretending to be rehydrating after exercise.

‘No,’ said Murphy. ‘Robin, please—’

‘You need to focus on getting sober,’ said Robin. ‘We’re not adding moving house to everything else that’s going on. I’ll call you when I’ve—’

‘Decided how to break it to me gently that it’s over?’ said Murphy, starting to sob again. ‘Robin, don’t go. Please don’t leave. I swear, I’m going to clean up—’

‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow,’ said Robin. She shouldered her holdall and headed out of the front door.

92

Strike assumed Robin was having too good an evening with Murphy to bother picking up his call, which somewhat blunted his sense of triumph about his unexpected Barnaby’s epiphany. Tired, but with no desire to go home and be depressed in his attic, he had decided to head for Harlesden and the last known address of Jim Todd’s mother, Nancy Jameson, née Philpott.

Forty minutes after leaving Carnival Road, he pulled up in a car park flanked on three sides by low-rise blocks of flats. Even in semi-darkness, Magdalen Court looked a dismal place; Strike would have chosen Carnival Street and a view of the scrapyard before this. Litter was strewn everywhere. A small patch of dead grass beside Strike’s parking space was covered in cigarette ends. Graffiti covered several grey walls. The buildings were of concrete and in their diluted brutalism looked like cheap homages to the National Theatre. Long grey balconies stretched across each floor, doors set at regular intervals. Squinting upwards, Strike saw Nancy Jameson’s flat, number 39, illuminated on the second floor of the middle block. A light was on in her window.

A group of five youths stood vaping a short distance away from where Strike had parked, all eyeing the BMW speculatively. Two of the youths were white, two brown and the last black. Strike headed straight for them, entering a fug of cannabis vapour.

‘There’s a fiver in it for each of you if that car’s in the same state I left it in when I get back downstairs.’

‘Wha’?’ said one of the white boys blearily; he had long, dry peroxided hair and was wearing a hoodie emblazoned with the words WACKEN OPEN AIR.

‘Yeah, all right,’ said the black youth, who was tall, wiry, and wore no jacket over his Snoop Dogg T-shirt, in spite of the chilliness of the evening.

Strike headed for the stairwell visible on the corner of the middle building. The interior walls were graffitied, too, and someone had recently either thrown a takeaway curry over the banisters, or vomited. Strike, who’d lived in places like this with his mother, offered up an inner prayer of gratitude that he no longer had to.

He reached the second-floor balcony and knocked on the door of flat 39. Nobody answered.

Glancing down into the forecourt he saw the five youths staring up at him.

‘D’you know Nancy Jameson?’ he called down at them.

One of the two South Asian boys, who had a patchy beard, called back,

‘She’ll be pissed.’

His companions laughed. Strike knocked again. Nobody answered.

He moved to look through the window, but the very dirty net curtains made it almost impossible to make out more than the fact that a lamp was switched on. Nevertheless, after watching for a few seconds, he thought he saw a movement in the corner of the room.

He returned to the front door and knocked a third time. There was no response. He returned to the car park.

‘You know Nancy, do you?’ he asked the bearded youth, as he approached the group.

‘Yeah, she’s a right old bitch,’ said the teenager, to mutters of agreement and laughs from his friends.

‘Seen her lately?’

The boy shook his head.

‘Any of you?’ said Strike, looking around the group.

‘I seen her,’ said the second white boy, who was wearing a Millwall football strip. ‘Wiv a fat bloke.’

‘Younger than herself?’

The boy shrugged. Strike remembered being that age himself; everyone over forty looked decrepit.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘I have reason to believe Nancy might’ve done herself an injury and is unable to open the front door.’

It was a flimsy excuse, but as the youths would be witnesses to what he was doing in any case, Strike thought he might as well lay the foundation of a defence now. He returned to his car and extracted his bunch of skeleton keys from the glove compartment.

‘You gonna break in?’ said the bearded youth, in interest.

‘It’s not breaking in,’ lied Strike.

‘Can we come?’ said the youth in the Millwall top.

‘Worried about Nancy too, are you?’ said Strike.

‘Yeah,’ said the second of the South Asian boys, who alone was wearing a coat, and whose acne looked painful. ‘We’ve been dead worried.’

‘And you think I ought to get in there and check on her, do you?’ said Strike, still thinking of what he might have to tell a lawyer.

The boy with acne laughed.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Def’nitely.’

Strike supposed it was the skeleton keys that interested them, or perhaps they wanted to witness the old woman’s drunken outrage at a stranger entering her flat. He doubted there was much else to do in Magdalen Court on a Sunday night in February.

‘I need at least one of you to keep an eye on my car,’ he said.

‘Does the one minding the car get the whole twenny-five quid?’ asked the black youth.

‘No, but he gets an extra fiver,’ said Strike.

‘Awright then, I’ll stay,’ said the boy.

So Strike traipsed back upstairs, the two white boys and the two South Asian boys following in his wake.

‘That was Baggy,’ he heard one of the boys saying to another, pointing at the curry or vomit splattered at the foot of the stairs, and they all chuckled.

Strike knocked a fourth time on Nancy’s flat door without result, so he inserted the key in the lock and turned it. No inside chain had been put up, so he wasn’t obliged to shoulder the door or break any part of it.

‘What’s that fucking smell?’ said the bearded youth, pushing forwards, but finding himself impeded by the arm Strike had just thrown up.

‘Stay here,’ said the detective firmly. ‘Do not come in.’

The unmistakeable, sickly sweet smell of decaying flesh had just assaulted his nostrils. He could hear the buzzing of flies.

‘Stay,’ he said firmly to the youths, and he proceeded down the narrow hall to look through the open door to his right, where the lamp was still switched on and where an incredibly emaciated cat let out a piteous miaow, trotted past him and escaped onto the balcony.

The bodies of Jim Todd and a woman Strike assumed to be his mother, Nancy, were lying on the dirty carpet in a foul miasma encouraged by the gas fire that continued to blaze. Todd, who was fully dressed, had been stabbed multiple times. His now black blood had soaked his shirt and the floor beneath him. There was evidence that the starving cat had chewed off part of his face. Nancy, a small, slight woman in a nightdress, had been killed with a single knife wound to the chest. The tache noire, a horizontal stripe, was visible in her dull, staring eyes, in one of which a maggot was wriggling.

‘FUCK!’

Strike turned: the youths had, of course, disregarded his instruction to stay put. The boy with acne had clapped a hand over his mouth.

‘Out,’ said Strike. ‘Out!’

Three of the youths blundered backwards but the bearded boy remained, apparently unable to move. Strike took him roughly by the shoulder of his jacket and marched him out onto the balcony, too late to stop the boy in the Millwall strip yelling down to his mate, who was watching Strike’s car,

‘They’ve been fucking murdered!’

‘Shut up,’ snarled Strike. ‘This isn’t a fucking game.’

The door of flat 38 now opened and a woman with a heavily lined face, dyed red hair and a tattooed throat came outside in dressing gown and slippers.

‘Woss going on?’ she demanded angrily.

‘With you in a minute,’ said Strike.

He turned to the boy with acne, who looked very sick and seemed less excited than the others, which Strike felt indicated a level of maturity.

‘Call the police. Tell them—’

‘I said, what’s going on?’

‘Just a moment, madam—’ Strike lowered his voice. ‘Tell them two people have been murdered and give them the add—’

‘I ain’t stayin’ if the police are comin’,’ said the boy in the WACKEN hoodie, and he set off at a jog, pushing the neighbour aside as he went.

‘Oi!’ she said, glaring after him. ‘What’s that smell?’ she added, striding closer.

‘Give the police the address,’ Strike continued, still talking to the boy with acne. ‘Then go down and wait, so you can show them up here – do not fucking tell anyone else,’ Strike added, seeing the other two boys were already busy with their phones. ‘We don’t want fucking sightseers and you don’t want to be charged with obstruction of justice.’

This, of course, was an entirely empty threat, but it did the job; both boys shoved their phones back into their pockets.

‘I said—’ began the neighbour ominously.

‘There’s been an accident,’ said Strike, as the three youths headed back towards the stairs. ‘The proper authorities are being notified.’

‘But—’

Strike stepped back inside flat 39 and closed the door in the woman’s face.

No matter that he’d seen plenty of bodies in his life, decaying corpses held no attraction for Strike. Nevertheless, he pulled his coat lapel up over his face to block out the worst of the carrion smell and returned to the sitting room, determined to make the most of the ten or fifteen minutes he was likely to have before the police arrived.

Another glance at the bodies confirmed his opinion that they’d been dead for days, even though putrefaction had undoubtedly been hastened by the gas fire. Todd, he observed, had a head injury, in addition to having been knifed several times in the abdomen and neck.

Strike looked around the small, fairly bare room. The woodchip wallpaper was peeling in places. The TV was at least ten years old. A large, angled, solid crystal paperweight lay on the floor, covered with dried blood and a single grey hair. Otherwise, there was no sign of a struggle.

Strike went to check the rest of the small flat. The bathroom wasn’t overly clean, but showed no traces of blood. Nancy’s bedroom was cluttered, untidy and smelled unsavoury. The next room was crammed with junk, but the single bed, with its disarranged duvet, suggested that Todd had been sleeping there. A corner of a book was visible beneath the pillow, which Strike moved to expose the title: How I Made Over $1,000,000 Playing Poker, by Doyle ‘Texas Dolly’ Brunson.

A distant siren was growing steadily louder. Strike could hear voices outside: more neighbours were coming out of their flats, massing like coffin flies. Pulling his coat lapel back over his nose, Strike headed out of the flat in time to see the flashing blue light enter the dark forecourt.