The Hallmarked Man

93

Strike’s professional life had more often seen him as interrogator rather than interrogated, but in recent years he’d found himself on the uncomfortable end of a police interview far more often than he’d have liked. Admittedly, there’d been occasions when he’d been there as a victim – the previous year he and Robin had been shot at, and the year before that an explosive device had been sent to their office – but this was the third occasion on which Strike had turned up a corpse in London, and that was without taking into account the two that Robin had found. Considering the matter impersonally, he could understand why the Met might be getting touchy about what was starting to look like a predilection, rather than happenstance.

He drove himself to the local police station, accompanied by a uniformed officer, and gave a statement, waiving his right to a lawyer. After listening to Strike’s account of how he’d come to find the two dead Jamesons, which included the fact that he’d been hired to identify the body in the Ramsay Silver vault, his interlocutor, an older man with a squint, demanded that Strike hand over his skeleton keys, which didn’t bother him, because he had several sets. The officer then left the room muttering about needing to make some calls. The detective remained alone at the scratched grey table for nearly an hour, vaping until told not to by an irate female officer who’d brought him a tepid cup of tea.

When the officer with the squint finally returned, it was to announce that Strike was going to be taken to Scotland Yard. When Strike asked whether he could drive his own car again, he was told ‘no’, and then, almost as an afterthought, placed under arrest.

‘What for?’ he asked, sure of the answer, but wanting confirmation.

‘Breaking and entering,’ said the sergeant with the squint.

It was almost midnight by the time Strike got out of the police car at Scotland Yard. The last time Strike had been here, he’d been genuinely, as opposed to euphemistically, assisting the Met with their enquiries. He was taken to a new interview room on an upper floor and, again, left alone.

Bearing in mind Wardle’s warning that he’d seriously pissed off the murder investigation team he assumed he was about to meet, Strike was intending to be honest as far as was practicable, while maintaining a sensible level of self-preservation. A jury might forgive his ingress into Mrs Jameson’s flat if convinced that he’d thought the two people on the floor might have been saved, so he intended to stick stubbornly to the story of which he’d laid foundations back in Magdalen Court. Should he find the investigative team intransigent, he was holding in reserve a serviceable metaphorical stick and a tempting informational carrot, and was confident both could be deployed to good effect. He therefore took out his vape pen and resumed his quiet enjoyment of nicotine until, at shortly before one o’clock in the morning, two plainclothes officers entered the room: a flabby-looking white man of around fifty, who wore a cheap-looking suit and a constipated expression, and a woman in her mid-thirties who had shoulder-length red hair. If forced to give an opinion, Strike would have called this woman prettyish. She had a large mole on her cheek, teeth with large gaps between them, but a good complexion and attractive green eyes. He had a feeling this might be Murphy’s contact: the woman called Iverson with whom Robin’s boyfriend had once had a drunken grope. Strike wondered whether the pair been summoned from their beds to interview him, or were pulling all-nighters. The man’s uptight expression might have been explained by either.

He switched on the recording device and introduced himself as DCI Northmore and, confirming Strike’s guess, the redhead as DCI Iverson. Northmore gave the date and time, revealing himself to have extremely bad breath, which Strike could smell from four feet away. Northmore invited Strike to state his name and address, asked him to confirm that he’d waived his right to a lawyer, then informed him that Iverson was investigating the silver vault murder, whereas he was enquiring into the murder of Sofia Medina. Strike was interested in this last piece of information: the Met had evidently reconsidered their opinion that the man and woman seen in St George’s Avenue were figments of Mandy’s imagination.

Northmore consulted the written notes the uniformed officer from Harlesden had handed over, then said,

‘You say you’ve been hired to identify the body that was found at Ramsay Silver on the twentieth of June last year.’

‘That’s right,’ said Strike.

‘Who’s hired you?’

‘Can’t tell you that, sorry.’

‘You understand you’re under arrest?’ said Northmore, who had large grey pouches under his bloodshot blue eyes.

‘Yep, grasped that,’ said Strike.

‘You’ve forfeited the right to remain silent.’

‘I’ve signed a legally binding contract with my client, who wants confidentiality.’

‘Those rules don’t apply when it’s law enforcement asking the questions, Mr Strike.’

‘Nothing I did this evening has anything to do with my client. I entered Mrs Jameson’s flat,’ Strike continued – he might as well get this bit out of the way – ‘because when I looked through her window I not only saw two people lying on the floor, but signs of movement. I thought at least one of them might’ve been alive, and possibly in urgent need of medical attention.’

‘You can’t have seen any movement,’ said Northmore, and another powerful gust of gingivitis washed over Strike. ‘Unless you’re claiming you spotted maggots through the window,’ he added, with a slight sneer.

‘There was a cat in the room,’ said Strike. ‘The lads who came upstairs with me saw it scarper when I went in. The net curtains were filthy. I couldn’t tell it was an animal moving. I thought it was one of the bodies.’

‘Why didn’t you call an ambulance, if you thought there were two injured people lying on the floor?’

‘Didn’t want to waste the emergency services’ time if they were lying there alive for some reason of their own.’

‘You’ve just said they weren’t answering the door.’

‘Which is why I thought someone needed to get inside urgently and see what was going on.’

They were both, Strike knew, performing for the tape. These exchanges were preliminaries to the important business before them. Northmore was reminding Strike how much trouble he was already in; Strike was laying out the defence he intended to mount, if they really wanted to charge him. The game hadn’t truly begun.

Iverson now spoke, revealing herself, unexpectedly, to be Welsh.

‘Has your client had a baby recently? Or been pregnant, over the last year?’

Strike sincerely hoped his expression hadn’t betrayed him, but the question had come as a shock.

‘Why’re you—?’

‘Wright told one of his upstairs neighbours he had a pregnant girlfriend,’ said Iverson, watching for Strike’s reaction. ‘He said he was saving up for an engagement ring.’

‘The neighbour in question being one of the Mohamed family?’ said Strike.

‘Yes,’ said Iverson.

‘I can’t disclose details about my client,’ said Strike, though the information that Wright had claimed to have a pregnant girlfriend had rattled him.

‘Where did you get the tip-off that Knowles wasn’t the man found in the silver vault?’ asked Iverson.

Noting that they were now acknowledging that they’d been well aware before tonight that Strike was investigating the body in the vault, he replied,

‘A contact.’

‘Same guy who’s previously given you tips on organised crime?’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike.

‘People might think an informant like that would do more good working with the police, than for a private detective,’ said Northmore. The man’s breath really stank; Strike was trying not to breathe through his nose. ‘Or d’you pay him well enough to make sure you’re the only one who gets tips?’

‘Not a question of money,’ said Strike, and Northmore let out a small, derisive snort, which irritated the detective, though he tried not to show it. ‘This particular contact would collaborate with the Met when hell freezes over.’

‘But we’re to take it on his say so that Knowles went to “Barnaby’s”?’

‘No need to take it on his say so, if I can point you to exactly what and where Barnaby’s is,’ said Strike, deciding it was time to hint at his valuable informational carrot.

As he’d expected, a further silence ensued.

‘You know where it is, do you?’ said Iverson.

‘I do, yeah,’ said Strike. ‘Found out this evening, as a matter of fact.’

‘Convenient,’ said Northmore.

‘Coincidental,’ said Strike.

‘You don’t seem to feel much compunction about complicating or impeding police investigations, Mr Strike,’ said Northmore.

‘When’ve I done that?’ asked Strike.

‘You entered a murder scene without authority just a couple of hours ago.’

‘Nobody knew it was a murder scene before I got in there.’

‘You’ve been interviewing people connected to two open murder inquiries.’

‘The William Wright inquiry was closed when my agency took the case,’ said Strike. ‘You’d identified him as Knowles. I’ve passed on every bit of information that could’ve been useful to you, since we started investigating. Haven’t hidden anything.’

‘Except Barnaby’s,’ said Northmore.

‘Just told you: I only found out what Barnaby’s is this evening.’

‘How much information has DCI Ryan Murphy been feeding you?’ asked Northmore.

Out of the corner of his eye, Strike saw a stiffening of Iverson’s expression. He was surprised they’d named Murphy, on tape. Could the man be under some kind of cloud? Might he even be under investigation?

‘Zero,’ said Strike.

‘Nothing’s been let slip during bedroom talk?’ said Northmore.

‘Haven’t shagged him yet,’ said Strike. ‘Playing hard to get.’

Iverson let out a slight gasp that might’ve been a suppressed laugh.

‘Murphy’s never shared confidential information with me, and to my knowledge he’s never shared it with my partner, either,’ said Strike.

‘You’ve had no scruples about illicitly procuring evidence from our team,’ said Northmore.

‘If you’re talking about the photos of the body, Cochran did that on her own initiative,’ said Strike, ‘and she’s now left our agency.’

‘Yeah? Why’s that? Doesn’t like the way you conduct business?’

Suspecting this was an allusion to the recent newspaper stories about his dealings with women, Strike chose not to answer.

‘Were you surprised to find Jim Todd dead tonight, Mr Strike?’ asked Iverson.

‘I was, yeah,’ said Strike. ‘I went there to try and get his contact details out of his mother, if she had them. I didn’t know he was staying with her.’

‘What made you so interested in Todd?’

‘I think he was the one who helped William Wright get the job at Ramsay Silver.’

He had the impression that this answer wasn’t a surprise to Iverson and surmised that the silver vault murder team, too, might have reached that conclusion.

‘What d’you know about Jim Todd’s movements on the seventeenth of June?’ asked Iverson.

‘Not much,’ said Strike.

‘Would you happen to know why he went to Dalston?’

Strike’s interest sharpened considerably.

‘I’d imagine,’ he said, guessing that the Met had been poring over more CCTV footage, ‘he was meeting Larry McGee.’

The impassive expressions facing him seemed to indicate that this was the police’s conclusion, too, but Iverson said,

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Because two blokes connected to the Murdoch silver heading out to Dalston, where they had no known reason to be, around the same time’ (Strike couldn’t be sure it had been at the same time, but was now probing) ‘seems highly coincidental.’

By the lack of pushback, he surmised that McGee and Todd had indeed converged in Dalston at the same time.

‘What d’you know about McGee and Todd’s relationship?’ asked Iverson.

‘Other than that Todd worked at Ramsay Silver, and McGee delivered the Murdoch silver there that day, very little. Todd let slip he knew McGee was dead when I interviewed him, though, which seemed strange, because he’d initially claimed not to know who he was.’

‘You’ve been in contact with McGee’s daughter,’ said Iverson.

‘I have, yeah,’ said Strike, ‘but she told me nothing useful, other than that McGee was a creep around women, which I’d already found out from his ex-colleagues at Gibsons.’

‘Offer the daughter money?’ said Northmore.

‘Why would I have offered her money?’ asked Strike, but the policeman didn’t enlighten him.

‘What made you so interested in McGee?’ asked Iverson.

‘I’m interested in everything that happened to the stolen silver. It’s tied to the murdered man I’m supposed to be identifying,’ said Strike. ‘Basic background, isn’t it?’

He hadn’t forgotten that the police’s interest in what had happened to the Murdoch silver immediately before its arrival at Ramsays had been minimal.

Iverson glanced at Northmore, who drew himself up in his chair before asking,

‘Where did you get the idea that Sofia Medina was tied to the silver vault murder?’

‘That wasn’t me, it was my partner. She spotted that the description of Medina’s body and clothing matched the description given to us of a woman who took objects out of Wright’s room in Newham. As you’re aware,’ Strike added, again for the benefit of the recording, ‘when we were told about the man and woman who entered Wright’s place in the hours before and the hours after his murder, we passed the information directly to you lot.’

‘You offered the witnesses money for information,’ said Iverson.

‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘They’re skint.’

‘You’ve been throwing a lot of money at potential witnesses,’ said Northmore, and the stench of diseased gums washed over Strike again, ‘which renders their testimony easy to undermine in court.’

‘If you’re telling me the Met’s never recompensed informers—’

‘You paid two of Jim Todd’s ex-neighbours, too. You can’t see how it might muddy the waters, a well-heeled private investigator wandering around throwing cash at witnesses and suspects?’ said Iverson.

The woman had some brass neck, thought Strike. She’d leaked to Murphy, knowing full well who his girlfriend was, and now sat smugly in her navy trouser suit, acting as though she, unlike Strike, had never deviated a hair’s breadth from a strict professionalism. Nevertheless, Strike had to admit the case she and Northmore were building against him was a decent one. Prior to the sale of Ted and Joan’s house he’d been far from well-off; all earnings had been ploughed back into the business, but it would be only too easy to depict him as the son of a multimillionaire rock star who trampled vaingloriously through open murder investigations, corrupting and perhaps suborning important witnesses to his own ends. Now he understood Northmore’s first, strange hint about keeping Shanker to himself by the power of his wallet, rather than sharing him, like some kind of human metal detector, with the police.

‘Did you give Gretchen Schiff money?’ asked Iverson.

‘My partner interviewed Schiff, and no, she didn’t give her money,’ said Strike, who’d decided it was time to pull out his metaphorical stick. ‘Have to say, we were surprised you hadn’t got the information about Oz out of Schiff, especially as Medina isn’t the only young woman who disappeared after meeting him, is she?’

He had to give Iverson this much credit: she had an excellent poker face. The mention of ‘Oz’ hadn’t caused even a slight tremor of recognition.

‘You know he’s done this at least twice, right?’ said Strike. ‘That a girl called Sapphire Neagle vanished after meeting a man who also posed as a music producer, and also gave her a ruby necklace?’

‘This interview is about what you know, not what we know,’ said Iverson.

‘Just surprised you haven’t appealed for information on him,’ said Strike. ‘Especially given the van business.’

Strike could tell Iverson really didn’t want to ask him to clarify what he meant; it would be an admission of weakness. Finally she said,

‘What van business?’

‘Oz was looking to buy a van,’ said Strike. ‘The real Calvin Osgood got an email about it, but he’d never tried to buy an old van. An abandoned van was found in the vicinity of Medina’s body, wasn’t it?’

He could have said more, could have said that he knew a young woman who’d been either genuinely blonde, or wearing a wig, had got into a van after dropping the silver Peugeot back at the rental centre, but as he owed this knowledge to Murphy, via Robin, he kept it to himself.

‘Strange, the way Truman didn’t want to look at anything that didn’t fit with the body being Knowles,’ said Strike.

Northmore’s eyes flickered towards the recording device. Strike knew perfectly well he was suddenly worried about what Strike might be about to say on tape, which was precisely why he intended to say it. If they wanted to intimidate him with the possibility of negative press, they needed to know he had stories of his own.

‘As we’re talking about coincidences, and the corruption of murder investigations,’ Strike continued, ‘I’m not sure it’s public knowledge yet that Malcolm Truman’s a member of the Winston Churchill Masonic Lodge, is it? Funnily enough, that’s the same lodge Lord Oliver Branfoot joined a couple of years ago. He’s been taking a keen interest in me lately, so I’ve made it my business to return the favour. I generally do return favours,’ he said, looking Northmore straight in the eye.

‘We’re going to take a short break,’ said the latter, looking up at the clock on the wall. ‘Pausing our interview at one twenty-five.’

He pressed the ‘off’ button on the recording device, got to his feet and caught Iverson’s eye. The pair of them left the room.

Strike sat alone for twenty minutes before the investigators returned, Northmore even grimmer-faced than when he’d left.

‘You said you like to return favours, Mr Strike,’ said Iverson.

‘You know, I’d feel safer if we were still recording,’ said Strike, folding his arms. Veiled threats to smear him to the papers and the very real possibility that he was about to be charged with breaking and entering didn’t incline him to make deals that could be reneged upon.

After a short pause, Northmore switched the device on again, announced that it was now a quarter to two and repeated the names of those present.

‘You said you like to return favours, Mr Strike.’

‘Whenever I can, yeah,’ said Strike.

‘We might be prepared not to press charges on the breaking and entering charge, given that you thought one or both of the Jamesons might have been capable of being saved.’

‘Very decent of you,’ said Strike, with no hint of a smile.

‘But you’ll be receiving a caution for the improper use of skeleton keys.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Strike.

‘Should any information we’ve shared with you tonight be made public, it would of course compromise our investigation,’ said Iverson. ‘The same goes for any personal details you might think you have about DCI Truman—’

‘Oh, I’m completely confident about the details,’ said Strike. ‘I’ve got photographic proof he attends the Winston Churchill Lodge.’

Northmore failed to disguise a slight wince.

‘Even so—’

‘Can’t see why I’d need to share that information with anyone else,’ said Strike. ‘It’s not fun being done over by the tabloids, as I know.’ For the benefit of the recording, he added, ‘And, as I think I’ve already proven by passing you all relevant information our agency’s unearthed, I’m far from wanting to derail police investigations.’

He enjoyed Northmore’s scowl.

‘All that being so,’ said Northmore, ‘we’d be glad to know what, and where, “Barnaby’s” is.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Strike. ‘There’s a scrapyard called Brian Judge’s on Carnival Street in Haringey. Fires up its incinerators and crushes vehicles at odd times of night. Marco Ricci, brother of Luca, was there a few hours ago, dropping off a filthy transit van.’

Northmore and Iverson exchanged glances that gave Strike the feeling that suspicions might have been raised before about the scrapyard or its owner.

Iverson looked again at the clock on the wall.

‘Interview concluded at seven minutes to two.’ Having turned off the tape she said, ‘All right, Mr Strike. You’re free to go.’

Strike was tired, hungry, his leg was throbbing and he’d been forced to leave his BMW in Harlesden. Nevertheless, he felt he’d come through the night on the profit side of the ledger.

94

At five a.m., Robin, who’d barely slept, decided there was no point staying in bed, and got up to make herself coffee.

There were three missed calls from Murphy on her phone, all of which she’d ignored, and several texts, which she’d read as they’d come in. One of them had a video clip attached; Murphy had filmed himself pouring away bottles of vodka down the kitchen sink. Robin wondered what the point of that had been. Did he imagine she thought his hidden stock comprised the entire world’s reserves?

His pleading, apologetic, explanatory texts were full of information of which she’d been unaware. He’d been placed under investigation at work and been spoken to by a superior about his drinking, after a colleague had ‘ratted him out’, knowing he was consuming vodka at work.

He claimed in his overnight texts that he hadn’t told her any of this because of the ectopic pregnancy: he hadn’t wanted to burden her, hadn’t wanted to dump all his problems on her after what she’d been through. He said he’d been consumed with guilt for months, that Robin was far too good for him, that he loved her more than he’d loved any woman, but if she wanted to leave him, he’d understand, because he’d breached her trust in ways he wasn’t going to try and justify, but he still implored her to stay, to give him another chance, to let him prove himself to her.

The cumulative effect of these texts was not only to rob Robin of sleep, but to fill her with anger, guilt and fear.

Murphy’s story contradicted itself. He’d already been under investigation at work before her hospitalisation, and she was certain he was lying about the night the pregnancy had happened, that he had indeed been drunk when they had sex. While she couldn’t place all the blame on him – it had been her choice to rely on condoms for a while, her choice not to go for the morning-after pill – she did blame him for his explosion of rage when she’d asked if he’d been drinking, which had made her feel so guilt-stricken at falsely accusing him.

And yet… with her eyes on the dark sky, Robin couldn’t lie to herself. She was far from guiltless.

Not once had Murphy criticised her for voluntarily enduring those long months undercover at Chapman Farm, which had left her in such a fragile mental state that she hadn’t wanted to restart taking hormones. He’d been nothing but kind and supportive in the wake of her return to normal life, and it was then (she realised, looking back) that he’d stopped talking to her much about his own work. She’d slid easily into a pattern of not asking him for details, of assuming that a lack of discussion about his job was what he preferred. Would a woman who genuinely loved him not have pushed harder, even if it had caused a row? He’d been duplicitous, certainly, but hadn’t she been a little too willing to be fooled? And hadn’t she been telling her boyfriend lies, either outright or by omission, for months?

Robin drank her rapidly cooling coffee, and remembered the night she’d cried, face down on the partners’ desk, about the lost baby, but also about Cormoran Strike. You say you love me, but I feel like you withhold part of yourself from me… was she part of the reason Murphy had turned, again, to drink? 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… she thought of the relief that had washed over her when they’d been gazumped… Can’t let even Christmas Eve go without sneaking off to text him… she hadn’t texted Strike, but she’d checked her phone in the hope that he’d texted her… she was so often guilty, not by the letter, but in the spirit…

Could she leave Murphy now, at what was clearly one of the lowest points of his life? After he’d stood by her, after Chapman Farm, and the pregnancy? What would happen to him, if she left? What if he was fired? She thought about Kim’s ex, who’d killed himself after Kim had dumped him. She seemed to see, again, the beautiful face of Charlotte Campbell, viewed through bloody bathwater. In spite of everything, she believed Murphy to be a fundamentally good man. She’d told him, repeatedly, that she loved him.

Unable to bear thoughts that were leading her deeper into misery, Robin went to shower and get dressed. As she dried her hair, Murphy texted her again.

Please don’t leave me. Please.

Robin didn’t respond. It was ridiculously early, but she didn’t care: she’d head to the office and catch up with paperwork.

95

Shortly after leaving Tottenham Court Road station an hour later, Robin realised that Strike had sent her a text while she’d been on the Tube.

Call when you’re awake, I’ve had a busy night

Robin pressed his number.

‘What’s happened?’

‘I thought you’d still be asleep. Where are you?’

‘Charing Cross Road.’

‘The hell are you doing up so early?’ said Strike.

‘Couldn’t sleep,’ said Robin.

‘Know the feeling,’ said Strike. He’d taken a taxi back to Harlesden to pick up his car, deposited it in the usual garage, headed back to the office, and then, struck by an idea and feeling far too awake to go to bed, had spent the ensuing hours going back over the silver vault file.

‘Where are you?’ asked Robin, who could hear background chat and clinking.

‘Dunno,’ said Strike. ‘Where am I? Hang on… Little Portland Café on Little Portland Street. I’m having a full English. Didn’t have any dinner.’

‘D’you want some company?’

‘Yeah, if it’s you,’ said Strike and, tired and miserable though Robin was, she felt a flicker of comfort at these words.

‘OK, I’ll see you there.’

Shortly before she arrived at the café, she received another text from her boyfriend.

Please just call me.

Another wave of anger and guilt washed over Robin. She needed to decide what she was going to say before she responded to Murphy. She currently had no idea.

When she entered the café, an old-fashioned greasy spoon, where the air was thick with the smell of bacon fat and frying eggs, she saw Strike at a corner table looking as she felt: exhausted and slightly unkempt.

‘What’s happened?’ Robin asked, dropping into the seat opposite him.

‘You all right?’ Strike asked, because Robin looked very pale and tired.

‘Fine,’ said Robin.

She had no intention of telling Strike about Murphy’s drinking: she felt too much loyalty to her boyfriend for that.

‘Want to eat something while I tell you?’

‘Actually,’ said Robin, who hadn’t had breakfast, ‘yes.’

She ordered tea and a bacon roll, and when the waiter had departed, Strike filled her in on his overnight activities, starting with Barnaby’s, moving through the discovery of two corpses, and concluding with his arrest, interview and release without charge, by which time Robin’s roll and mug of tea had arrived, and her mouth was hanging open.

‘Oh – my – God.’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘And there’s more. Iverson asked me whether our client has been pregnant or had a kid recently.’

Robin’s hand flew to her mouth, exactly as Fiona Freeman’s had, when Robin had told her she’d been caught on camera putting the cipher note through the agency’s door.

‘Apparently,’ Strike continued, ‘Wright told one of the upstairs neighbours that his girlfriend was expecting.’

‘Oh no,’ Robin whispered, through her fingers.

‘He could’ve been bullshitting,’ said Strike, who’d expected this reaction.

‘But—’

‘He might’ve been trying to paint a picture of himself as a man with something going for him, for the benefit of his new neighbours.’

‘I know, but—’

‘I got a fuck of a shock when she said it,’ Strike admitted, ‘but this still doesn’t make Fleetwood Wright. For all we know, Powell or Semple might’ve knocked – been expecting kids themselves,’ Strike corrected himself quickly, because after what Robin had told him on Sark, he didn’t want to sound glib about pregnancy. ‘Anyway, I’m even keener to find Hussein Mohamed now, and Shah thinks he’s found the right house.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, just saw it in the file. The wife opened the door to Shah and he saw a wheelchair behind her in the hall. The wife says her husband’s working as an Uber driver. She seemed panicky about getting the knock on the door and shut it in Shah’s face before he could ask about Wright. I think we need to keep an eye on the house and see if we can catch Hussein going in and out between shifts.’

‘Do we tell Decima what Wright said?’

Strike chewed a mouthful of sausage, thinking.

‘I’d rather not,’ he said. ‘Not unless we get something else, something concrete. There was that bloke who called claiming to be Fleetwood, remember?’

‘Has Decima got back to you about that?’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘Predictable answer. “Everyone heard me calling Rupert ‘Bear’, that man could have been faking a deep voice” – note the tacit admission that Fleetwood has got a deep voice – and “everyone who worked at Dino’s knew about the nef being stolen”. She thinks it was someone impersonating him, either for a macabre joke or because they were involved in his killing and are trying to throw us off the scent. Frankly, I think we could frogmarch the living Fleetwood right up to her at this point and she’d still insist he was dead.’

‘Tish Benton’s back from Sardinia,’ said Robin, taking out her phone and bringing up Tish’s Instagram account. ‘I don’t think it was a holiday, or not entirely. She’s got a new job, which is going to mean a lot of travel. We might be lucky to catch her in London, going forwards.’

Strike took the phone from her. A pretty girl with shiny black hair beamed out of the most recent picture, standing in front of a sign that read Hotel Serenità, with the caption:

‘Ah,’ said Strike. ‘Well, we’ll have to try and doorstep her between flights.’

Robin really did look exhausted and miserable, Strike thought, as he passed her back her phone. He couldn’t attribute it all to shock about the increased likelihood that Wright had been Fleetwood, because she’d arrived looking pale and sad.

‘You sure you’re all right?’ he asked, remembering her previous admission that she hadn’t been able to sleep.

‘Yes,’ said Robin automatically, ‘fine.’

But the desire to unburden herself, if not of everything, then of something, made her add,

‘Ryan’s… going through a rough time.’

‘Ah,’ said Strike, who regretted asking, because he wasn’t particularly cheered by the thought of Robin sitting up all night to console or counsel her boyfriend. ‘I wasn’t going to tell you this, but his name came up, in last night’s interview.’

‘How?’ said Robin, in sudden panic.

‘They asked if he’d been feeding us information – I denied it, obviously. Said he’d never told either of us anything.’

They sat in silence for a minute. Then Robin said,

‘What if he was having some kind of mental crisis?’

‘Who, Murphy?’

‘No!’ said Robin quickly. ‘Rupert Fleetwood!’

‘Oh,’ said Strike, depressed by her protective tone.

‘I know you think I’m too soft on Rupert,’ she went on, ‘but hear me out, please. He’s being horribly bullied at work. Longcaster’s taunting him about his parents’ death in front of guests. He’s being chased for cash by a dealer. Everyone’s against his relationship. Decima announces she’s pregnant. Say Rupert had some kind of – some kind of meltdown – and stole that nef and only then realised how much worse he’d made his situation. That’s a lot of stress. Just say he took the job at Ramsay Silver to prove something; that he could make it on his own, that he wasn’t afraid of getting his hands dirty, telling himself he’d return to Decima like a hero and—’

‘And get arrested for the theft of the nef,’ said Strike.

‘But if he wasn’t thinking rationally?’

Strike swallowed a large mouthful of black pudding before saying,

‘I’m not denying Fleetwood’s moved up the table of possible Wrights, but answer me this. If he was genuinely happy about the pregnancy, why did he rip up the “lucky T-shirt” he was wearing when she told him?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Robin. ‘But if Wright had a pregnant girlfriend, and he wasn’t Fleetwood, it seems really strange that no other woman has come forward looking for the father of her child. Decima’s the only recent mother we know of who thinks Wright might’ve been her partner.’

‘Possibly the woman in question thinks she’s just been abandoned,’ said Strike. ‘The anti-Decima.’

‘I still want to know why Rupert went to Sacha Legard’s party,’ said Robin. ‘It’s the last known sighting of him and it’s really strange he gatecrashed it, given everything that was going on at the time. I’m going to speak to Cosima this week, I’ll force her to talk to me, somehow… have you heard from Kim since yesterday?’

‘No. Why?’

‘I wouldn’t have expected her to go quietly. I thought she might’ve come back to you, to persuade you to keep her on.’

‘Not after what I said to her in that bar,’ said Strike. ‘No, I left a message on Pat’s desk this morning to pay her the balance of what we owed her, so hopefully that’s the end of her.’

‘What’ll she do now?’

‘Join Farah Navabi’s new agency, probably.’

‘When can Wardle start, d’you know?’

‘Wednesday. He wants to get straight on the job and he had some leave in hand. Apparently when he said he was resigning, they weren’t overkeen on him hanging around. He thinks they suspect he’s joining us.’

Robin glanced around at the rapidly filling café, and dropped her voice.

‘So… Todd.’

‘Extremely dead Todd,’ said Strike, ‘yeah. Exactly the same m.o. as Wright’s murder, minus dismemberment and mutilation. Blow to the back of the head and multiple knife wounds. The mother took a single stab to the stomach. She wouldn’t have taken much effort. Small and skinny.’

‘This is appalling,’ said Robin.

‘It’s not good,’ agreed Strike. ‘I think Oz has committed four murders in eight months, which puts us in serial killer territory, but I don’t think these are thrill killings – not all of them, anyway. I think he enjoyed Medina, but I doubt he got a kick out of Todd and his mother. Todd had simply become a liability, so he had to go.’

‘Because of the upskirting?’

‘I think so, yeah. He knew Todd might’ve made himself of interest to the police again, and I imagine one of the last things Oz would want is Todd in an interview room. What if Todd decided to give up Oz in some kind of plea deal?’

‘Todd must have been implicated in the murder of Wright himself, then?’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike, ‘and I think the police are leaning that way too; they’ve connected the dots on Todd and McGee, though I don’t think they know much more than we do. They asked me why they both went to Dalston at the same time.’

‘But Todd had a cast-iron alibi for the actual killing.’

‘He did, yeah, but I’d lay odds Todd wrote Wright’s CV and coached him to scrape through the interview. And another thought occurred to me after I left the police. If Todd found that shithole room in St George’s Avenue for Wright, he might’ve had keys at some point. Could have had spares cut and passed them to Oz. As for all the stuff he fed me about a man in sunglasses watching the shop and Temple Seventeen, and Wright being camp, I think it was all bullshit and attempted misdirection.’

‘So… Oz,’ said Robin. ‘We’re looking at a violent sex offender who kills people who become dangerous to him?’

‘A violent sex offender who shows no mercy to accomplices who can’t refrain from sex offending, even though all the evidence shows his self-restraint could use some work.’

‘He hasn’t been caught for any of these murders, though,’ said Robin, ‘which suggests brains.’

‘Agreed,’ said Strike. ‘Brains, and what I suspect is practice. A genuinely unhinged man might erupt into a sudden killing spree, but Oz isn’t unhinged. He’s methodical and controlled – except where girls are concerned. But even there, he hasn’t been caught yet.’

‘And you say four murders in eight months,’ said Robin, ‘but it might be five. We still don’t know what’s happened to Sapphire Neagle.’

‘I wouldn’t hold your breath on finding out, because the police are playing catch-up where Oz is concerned,’ said Strike. ‘I don’t think they connected Medina’s murder and Neagle’s disappearance until I mentioned it this morning and they didn’t seem to know the real Osgood was emailed by a stranger about a van, from which I deduce that they haven’t been back to the real Osgood or tried to retrieve the mystery messages he’s received. On the other hand, they’ve clearly reconsidered their position that the Oz and Medina sightings in St George’s Avenue were made up by Mandy for money—’

‘Finding out the silver Peugeot visited Newham twice probably did that,’ said Robin.

‘My thoughts exactly. They seemed thoroughly pissed off we know Malcolm Truman’s a mason, and even more pissed off at my suggestion that he refused to consider evidence that the body might not be Jason Knowles, which, needless to say, I made sure I said on tape.’

A yawn overtook Strike. When he’d finished, he raised his hand to the waiter to request more coffee.

‘I imagine you’ve noticed,’ he said, once his mug had been topped up, ‘there’ve been no press stories about Lord Oliver Branfoot’s private porn movies? The de Leon brothers aren’t upholding their side of the bargain.’

‘It’s only been a few days. We did agree they could prepare their mother first.’

‘I want Branfoot neutralised,’ said Strike. ‘We’re vulnerable in more ways than one while he’s skulking around, sending thugs to intimidate us. “We think you might have a flat where you make dirty films” isn’t a solid enough basis for a counter-attack. We need proof. An address.’

‘You still think the man who threatened me was Branfoot’s?’

‘Nobody else connected to this case has got blokes at their fingertips who’d be happy to break the law in exchange for a wad of cash, and while the fucker’s got a hotline to Culpepper, we’re still at risk of more bullshit press stories. I got a snide remark from DCI Northmore about the way I conduct business. I’d say he’d be fucking delighted to see me done over in the tabloids again. It’d help a lot if we could rule out Powell or Semple. How was Wynn Jones?’

Robin gave a short summary of her talk with Jones, concluding,

‘If I had to bet, I’d say he knows where Tyler is, and has promised not to tell. He claims to be convinced Tyler didn’t tamper with the car, but Tyler’s alibi for that night is really feeble – feeling ill and staying at home in his parents’ empty house. But on the other hand, it really does stretch credulity that Tyler followed them all the way to Birmingham to fiddle with the ABS in the car park.’

‘It does, yeah,’ said Strike. He ran a hand over his unshaven jaw, then said, ‘Did you believe Jones, when he said Powell never mentioned silver to him?’

‘He kind of scoffed at the idea,’ said Robin. ‘Maybe they were talking about Sylvain Deslandes. Do we keep Pat calling all pubs called the Silver Something? We’re running up a lot of man hours for Decima to pay.’

‘Yeah, but as we’ve got fuck-all else on Powell… incidentally, I finally made direct contact with the Scottish Gateshead on Thursday. When I asked whether she was Rena Liddell she yelled “don’t say my name” or words to that effect and hung up, so I think it’s safe to assume she is. I’ve left messages on all her old social media accounts, asking her to get back in touch. Christ knows where she is. Not London, from what she’s said. I thought she might’ve gone back to Scotland, but I had a look overnight and I can’t find a single Scottish pub called the Golden Fleece. Unless I’ve missed one, it’s a name that only appeals to the English and Welsh…

‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I’m going to visit Holborn Library this morning.’

‘To find out why Scots don’t have pubs called “the Golden Fleece”?’ said Robin, nonplussed.

‘No, because I want to see if they’ve got any old plans of Freemasons’ Hall and Wild Court. I can’t find anything online, but the library might have old stuff in a file.’

‘What d’you want plans of Wild Court for?’

‘Because I still can’t fathom how Wright and Oz got to the shop that night. You said before there must be CCTV footage of them heading towards the shop, but if the police had found it, they’d have released it by now. The only people spotted going into Wild Court around the right time were those four students they’ve ruled out. So how the hell did two men manage to materialise in Wild Court without being seen by anyone, or captured on camera?’

‘I don’t know, but how would plans—? Wait,’ said Robin, unsure whether to be amused or not. ‘You’re not suggesting some kind of—?’

‘Secret passage between the hall and the shop it backs on to? I grant you it sounds far-fetched, but I want to check when that shop was built, and find out whether any part of the hall was converted to make it. If there’s a connection between the two buildings, we’d potentially be looking for two men who entered Freemasons’ Hall on the evening after Wright got on the Tube at Covent Garden.’

‘But the hall would be closed – oh. You mean to attend a masonic meeting?’

‘Possibly. I’m trying to find out which lodges met there that night. If Oz and Wright were both masons, it might explain Wright trusting Oz, even though he knew someone might be coming for him.’

‘But if Wright trusted Oz because they were both masons, Oz could have lured him anywhere,’ said Robin. ‘Why meet him at Freemasons’ Hall, with loads of fellow masons as witnesses, then lead him away from the meeting just so he could be killed at Ramsay Silver?’

‘Why did it have to be done in the vault,’ said Strike, frowning. ‘Yeah. Right back where we started.’

96

News of the murders of Jim Todd and his mother hit the London Evening Standard the following day. To Strike’s relief, his presence at the scene wasn’t mentioned. For once, his own and the Met’s interests seemed to have coincided: they didn’t want publicity about the fact that the Strike and Ellacott Detective Agency might be ahead of them in investigations into the silver vault murder, and Strike had no wish to encourage journalists back into Denmark Street. The papers didn’t seem to have spotted the connection between the murder of Wright and those of Todd and his mother, for which Robin, too, was grateful. She needed no further complications in her severely strained relations with Murphy.

She and her boyfriend met at last on Tuesday evening, back in the Duke pub. Murphy looked as though he’d lost weight in the two days since they’d last seen each other. Slightly hunched and red-eyed, he listened as Robin delivered the speech she’d planned.

‘I’m not leaving you,’ she began, and tears started in Murphy’s eyes; he reached out and grabbed her hand, but Robin pulled it away. ‘But we can’t pretend everything’s fine and normal, Ryan, because it really isn’t. I can’t move in with you until we’ve rebuilt some trust.’

‘That’s fair,’ said Murphy. ‘That’s completely fair. I thought I’d fucking lost you for good,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘I love you so fucking much, Robin.’

‘I love you too,’ said Robin, ‘but we do need honesty this time. I need you to tell me exactly what’s going on, at work, and with your drink—’

‘I went back to AA yesterday,’ said Murphy. ‘I’d stopped going to meetings. There was so much pressure at work I told myself I couldn’t afford the time – but that comes first, now. If this bloody investigation was only over—’

‘Why are you being investigated? Drinking?’

‘No, it’s just the first guy I arrested for the gang shooting,’ muttered Murphy, who very clearly didn’t want to elaborate, but Robin pressed him.

‘But why are they investigating you for that?’

‘He… claims I roughed him up.’

‘Did you?’

There was a short pause. Then Murphy nodded.

‘He’s got plenty of previous and his break-up with the kids’ mother was fucking toxic. I wasn’t the only one who thought he’d done it. I lost it. I’d seen the younger boy with half his head blown off,’ Murphy said, knuckles white around his glass of sparkling water. ‘Word was, he didn’t think the little one was his. I know I shouldn’t’ve… the mother’s fucking taken him back, as well, and she’s egging him on to sue, because she fucking hates coppers as much as he does.’

‘Ryan, I’m sorry, that’s terrible. But going forwards, you’ve got to tell me what’s going on with you. You can’t just bury it all.’

‘I know,’ said Murphy, reaching again for her hand, and this time Robin didn’t pull away. ‘I will.’

Standing in the chilly rain on Wednesday afternoon, watching the front of Dino’s, Robin told herself she was doing the right thing. She and Murphy had been through a lot together and she truly cared about him. Walking out on him at this point would be wanton cruelty. She’d decide later, when he was back on an even emotional keel, whether… but this was a thought she kept refusing to finish. Charlotte Campbell, in a blood-filled bath; Kim’s ex-boyfriend, in his carbon monoxide-filled car. She couldn’t leave Murphy now.

Work wasn’t proving much of a distraction today. Robin doubted she was going to get much out of shivering beneath her umbrella for hours, even though she’d concluded that her only realistic possibility of speaking to Cosima face to face was when the girl was either entering or leaving Dino’s, which was the only place she ever seemed to go without a posse of friends. The trouble was that there were only a few short steps between the street and the club’s front door, over which a doorman in a burgundy tail coat and top hat stood guard. Nevertheless, experience had taught Robin that a sudden, unexpected approach sometimes surprised answers out of interviewees, and the agency’s lack of progress in discovering Rupert Fleetwood’s whereabouts had decided her on this last-ditch effort.

As she stood there, scanning the rainswept road for some sign of her quarry, the hypervigilant Robin noticed a middle-aged man sitting in a parked Honda Accord a short distance from her Land Rover. He seemed to have been watching her, because he turned his head quickly when Robin looked at him. He had thick greying hair and an unusually small nose, which resembled a button mushroom in the middle of a large, square face. Robin continued watching him, wondering whether she should be worried. He looked larger and softer than the man who’d brandished the masonic dagger at her. She shifted position slightly, hoping to see his number plate, but then spotted Dino Longcaster’s chauffeured Mercedes gliding down the road, and recognised Cosima, sitting alone in the back seat.

She almost ran to the opposite pavement. By the time the car pulled up, Robin was waiting, ready for Cosima to get out. The girl took her time about it, first brushing her long hair and reapplying lip gloss while looking in a flip-down mirror in the car’s ceiling, and typing out what appeared to be a text before finally putting her belongings in her bag and opening the passenger door.

‘Cosima,’ said Robin at once, as the doorman came rushing towards the pair, holding a large burgundy umbrella.

The girl looked at Robin in surprise.

‘My name’s Robin Ellacott. I’m a private detective. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about Rupert—’

‘What?’ said Cosima, staring at Robin, while the doorman sheltered her from the rain with his umbrella.

‘—Rupert Fleetwood. What did he say to you at Sacha Legard’s birthday party?’

‘I – what?’ said Cosima again, but colour had flooded her pale face. ‘I don’t – leave me alone!’

‘Cosima, you must know Rupert’s gone missing,’ said Robin, hurrying alongside the girl as she strode towards the entrance of Dino’s. ‘Your sister’s incredibly worried about him, and—’

‘Leave me alone!’ repeated Cosima shrilly, and ducking out from beneath the umbrella, she ran through the revolving door and disappeared from sight.

The doorman, who was a tall man in his fifties, said,

‘You’ve had your orders. Get out of here.’

‘This is a public pavement,’ Robin replied coldly.

She retreated into a doorway a short way from Dino’s, wondering what her next move should be. She supposed there was a remote possibility that Cosima, like Fyola Fay, might come back to find out what Robin already knew, but she wasn’t banking on it.

Robin’s eye fell again on the parked Honda Accord containing the man with the nose like a button mushroom. Once again, he turned his head away hastily when Robin looked at him. She couldn’t see the Accord’s number plate at all from this position. Wondering whether it mightn’t be a good idea to move so as to make a note of it, she was distracted by the sound of heavy footsteps to her left, and turned to see Dino Longcaster approaching, large and beautifully suited, with his dully gleaming cannonball of a head.

‘I hear you’ve been pestering my daughter,’ he drawled.

‘Not pestering,’ said Robin, forcing herself to sound unruffled, because Longcaster was intimidating both in size and manner. ‘Just asking a question.’

‘Could you spare me five minutes?’ said Dino Longcaster, looking at her down his long nose. ‘Inside the club?’

‘Of course,’ said Robin.

‘Thank you, Joshua,’ said Longcaster, as they passed the doorman.

‘Mr Longcaster, sir,’ muttered the attendant, touching his top hat, and he looked away as Robin passed him, revealing his earpiece and microphone.

A delicious warmth met Robin as she stepped into an opulent hallway full of artfully tarnished mirrors. The walls were covered in midnight blue fabric patterned in gold with stylised 1920s women and greyhounds, the air smelled of amber and sandalwood, and a staircase wound upwards past a multitude of paintings, many of them of dogs. A real white canine Robin recognised as a Pyrenean Mountain Dog was waiting for Longcaster just inside the door, wagging its tail; it thrust its nose into Longcaster’s hand, and he patted it.

‘We’ll go upstairs,’ said Longcaster, and he turned to a gorgeous black girl who wore her hair in a chignon and a tightly fitting burgundy dress. ‘Montagu’s empty, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, Mr Longcaster, sir.’

‘This way,’ Longcaster told Robin, and he set off upstairs, the Pyrenean Mountain Dog padding after him.

There were more burgundy-clad staff on the upstairs landing, all of them good-looking, all straightening like elegant meerkats at Longcaster’s approach. Robin was busy telling herself that she absolutely refused to be intimidated by this man or by his club, because she’d met far more frightening people than Dino Longcaster during her detective career, but the increase in alertness and nerves that seemed to touch every member of staff they passed told her that it might take a certain degree of gumption not to be frightened of Dino Longcaster.

He led Robin past a couple of doorways bearing the name plates ‘Amarillo’ and ‘Dostoevsky’, finally leading her into an empty room even more opulent than the hallway, which managed to be simultaneously grand and cosy. The walls were covered in a swirling red paisley fabric; there were many more oil paintings, mostly of dogs and horses; a log fire was burning in the grate; scarlet roses were arranged in large crystal bowls; the velvet armchairs were deep and looked welcoming. A backgammon board and a chess set were laid out on small tables, and the impression of a private home was reinforced by the few pictures that stood in silver frames or hung on the walls, some of them black and white, mostly featuring Longcaster himself, or his most photogenic daughter. In one of these pictures, Longcaster was collecting a silver racing trophy from the Queen; in another, he stood in black tie, greeting the Aga Khan at the doorway of his club.

‘Please,’ said Longcaster to Robin, gesturing to a pair of armchairs beside the fire.

He hitched up his trousers at his knees before sitting down opposite her. The dog immediately placed its huge white head in his lap, and Longcaster began to massage it with long, spatulate fingers.

‘May I have the pleasure of knowing who’s been harassing my daughter?’

‘My name’s Robin Ellacott, I’m a private detective, and there was no harassment.’

Still stroking the dog, Longcaster extended his free hand to press a small brass bell on a side table. A uniformed waiter appeared so quickly Robin thought he must have been standing in readiness right outside the door.

‘Martini,’ said Longcaster.

‘Yes, Mr Longcaster, sir. Madam?’

‘No, thank—’

‘Bring her a Majesty,’ Longcaster told the waiter, who smiled and left the room. Longcaster turned back to face Robin. His deep-set grey eyes raked her from head to foot and back up again, before he said,

‘So, you’re trying to track down the jellyfish.’

‘Who’s “the jellyfish”?’ asked Robin disingenuously.

‘Genus Fleetwood,’ said Longcaster. ‘Species Rupert.’

He reached out a long arm towards a humidor sitting on another low table, opened it and extracted a cigar and a cutter. The dog peered reproachfully up at his master at the cessation of stroking, then, with a kind of low groan, settled down at his feet, head on its paws. Longcaster now set about trimming the end of a cigar, glancing up at Robin to say,

‘You shouldn’t wear black.’

‘What?’

‘Black. It ages you. You can’t be more than, what – thirty-five?’

‘Don’t you think that’s quite a rude thing to say to someone you’ve only just met?’ said Robin, forcing herself to sound amused.

‘Nothing rude about it. I’m giving you good advice.’

‘But I didn’t ask for any.’

‘Presumably because you weren’t aware you needed it. S’pose you think black makes you look thin, do you?’

‘No,’ said Robin, ‘it’s just easy.’

‘Good taste has nothin’ to do with easy,’ said Longcaster with asperity, now reaching for a large malachite lighter. ‘Black looks elegant on Asian women, on most black women, and on some dark-haired Caucasians, but there’s nothin’ cheaper lookin’ than black on a blonde.’

‘Well, thanks for your input,’ said Robin. ‘Isn’t it illegal to smoke in clubs these days?’

‘Yerse,’ said Longcaster, puffing energetically on his cigar.

The door opened and the waiter reappeared. He set a martini bearing an olive on a stick at Longcaster’s elbow, and put a champagne cup full of some virulently ruby-coloured concoction beside Robin.

‘What is this?’ Robin asked Longcaster, looking down at her drink as the door swung closed behind the waiter.

‘Dubonnet and gin. We call it the Majesty because it’s the Queen’s favourite. Always bothers me, thinkin’ of her drinkin’ something that common.’

Longcaster sipped his martini, his dark eyes fixed on Robin, then said,

‘Drink it. I’m hardly likely to bloody poison yeh, am I? Or are you scared I’ll jump on yeh? Needn’t worry about that. I get more excited about a morning piss these days than I do about women.’

‘I prefer to keep a clear head when I’m working,’ said Robin, and she thought how prissy she sounded.

‘I doubt Decima would begrudge you a solitary Majesty.’

Robin chose to ignore this comment.

‘Do you know where Rupert Fleetwood is, Mr Longcaster?’

‘No.’

‘His aunt thinks he’s got a job in New York.’

‘I think that staggeringly unlikely.’

‘Why?’

‘Jellyfish aren’t noted for their ability to catch flights to New York. Drink your bloody drink.’

Robin picked up the glass and took a sip.

‘Like it?’ said Longcaster.

‘Yes,’ said Robin honestly.

‘Thought you would,’ said Longcaster. He blew out cigar smoke, then said,

‘I doubt Fleetwood’s gawn far, unless he’s hit a strong prevailin’ current. S’pose he could be beached somewhere… small children poking him with plastic spades…’

‘Are you at all worried he might have killed himself?’

‘No,’ said Longcaster, ‘no, I can truthfully say I haven’t had a single second’s worry on that score.’

‘He seems to have been under a lot of pressure, before he disappeared,’ said Robin.

‘I don’t know about pressure,’ drawled Longcaster. ‘He staggered out of here under the weight of a prime piece of seventeenth-century Dutch silverware. Would you say that’s suicidal? Or is it the behaviour of a young man who fails to comprehend, as Wodehouse puts it, “the nice distinction between meum and tuum”?’

‘You called the police, didn’t you?’ said Robin.

‘Naturally, but our brave boys in blue aren’t overly interested in recovering property for the likes of me. “You’re insured, aren’t you?” is the burden of their song. You can tell Decima, though, that as soon as I get wind of where the jellyfish is, I’ll prod the police in the right direction. I’m sure by now he’s realised the thing’s impossible to sell. No reputable dealer’s going to touch it, not without proof of legal ownership. It’s a particularly fine and distinctive example of its type and, unfortunately for the jellyfish, it features in photographs of the Dostoevsky room.’ Longcaster took another pull on his cigar, then said, ‘Didja know I won it from his father?’

‘I did, yes,’ said Robin.

‘Peter and I were at Eton together. ’S’a matter of fact, that nef wasn’t Peter’s to gamble with in the first place, it was his wife’s. She was bloody livid when she found out what he’d done. Peter didn’t have a pot to piss in before he married Veronica. The jellyfish is just like him, hopin’ to marry money.’

Longcaster pointed a long finger at a photograph on the wall, which featured two men, one recognisable as a younger Longcaster, the other having a thin, raffish face, and three women. One of the women, who also looked around forty, wore glasses and looked rather stern. The other two were younger, one dark, one fair, and both very beautiful. All five were posing, the women in ballgowns, the men dinner jackets, in front of a gigantic castle over which a yellow flag bearing a black lion flew.

‘That’s Peter and Veronica, there,’ said Longcaster. ‘The woman in glasses is Anjelica, Peter’s sister – the jellyfish’s aunt. She doesn’t like me, as I’m sure she’ll’ve told you, if you’ve spoken to her.’ Longcaster stared dispassionately at the picture for a few more seconds, before saying, ‘I’m not sure, but I think I might’ve screwed her that weekend. And the dark woman there’s an ex-girlfriend of mine. I was resisting her broad hints I should make an honest woman of her at the time, but I was enjoying being between wives.’

‘Is that the Fleetwoods’ home?’ said Robin, staring up at the medieval castle in the background.

‘’Course it’s bloody not, that’s Gravensteen,’ snorted Longcaster.

He drained his glass, then leaned over and pressed the brass bell again. The waiter opened the door within seconds.

‘’Nother Martini. Nothing for her, she’s dawdlin’.’

When the door had closed again, Robin said,

‘I’ve been told by someone who saw the relationship up close that Rupert genuinely loved Decima. That person didn’t believe Rupert was with her for her mon—’

‘Bullcrap,’ barked Longcaster. ‘Nobody’s going to attach themselves to Decima for her beauty or her charm. The pair of ’em looked like Tweedledum and Tweedledee together – just imagine the moon-faced children. What?’ he said, in response, Robin knew, to the expression on her own face.

‘Just thinking, what horrible things to say about your own daughter.’

‘I reserve the right to speak as I please about my children,’ said Longcaster harshly. ‘Decima’s spiritual home’s a semi-detached in Basingstoke. She likes second-rate things and second-rate people. Now she’s made a bloody fool of herself again and doesn’t want to admit it, which is why she’s hired you.’

‘Rupert’s your godson, isn’t he?’ said Robin.

‘What’s that got to do with anything? You think I should coddle him, because I once knew his parents? The world’s full of godsons. What I need are decent bloody bar staff. I did the jellyfish a favour, givin’ him a job, and all I got in return was an attempt to drain m’ daughter’s bank accounts, and brazen bloody theft. If he thinks he’s hard done by now, it’s nothing compared to what’ll happen when I bloody well catch up with him.’

‘Did you know Rupert gatecrashed Sacha Legard’s birthday party after stealing your nef?’ asked Robin. ‘That he argued with Valentine, and said something to Cosima that made her cry?’

She was certain, by the very slight rise of Longcaster’s eyebrows, that he hadn’t known this. Removing the cigar from his mouth, he said,

‘I think it highly unlikely the jellyfish would have sought out members of my family, after stealing my property.’

‘Well, he did,’ said Robin. ‘It was right before he disappeared. There were a lot of witnesses to the argument. That’s what I wanted to talk to your daughter about.’

The waiter returned with Longcaster’s second martini. Just as he reached the door, Longcaster said,

‘Oliver, tell Mimi to come here.’

‘Yes, Mr Longcaster, sir.’

Hoping ‘Mimi’ meant Cosima, Robin took another sip of her cocktail, which she had to admit was as welcome as the fire, after standing for two hours in the rain.

‘You wouldn’t be bad-looking if you made an effort,’ Longcaster said, raking Robin up and down with his bored eyes again. ‘Did something better with your hair. Scraping it back like that’s doing you no favours.’

‘D’you tell everyone how they should look and dress, Mr Longcaster?’

‘Only people who need it,’ said Longcaster.

He seemed genuinely frustrated, almost pained, that Robin wasn’t better groomed and attired. She remembered Albie’s description of the man as one who wanted to live in a completely controlled world, that he thought it a sin to be badly dressed or overweight, and she thought of Decima, and what it would mean to grow up with this man as a father.

Cosima now entered the room. Neglecting to thank the waiter who’d held open the door for her, she sat down in a chair between Robin and her father, facing the fire. Robin could tell the girl was extremely ill at ease, though pretending not to be so. She threw back her long blonde hair, smoothed down the skirt of her short red dress, crossed her legs, smiled at her father and said,

‘Hi, Daddy.’

‘I’ve just been informed,’ said Longcaster, ‘that the jellyfish gatecrashed Sacha Legard’s birthday party.’

Cosima gave a forced laugh at the word ‘jellyfish’, but her father didn’t look amused.

‘And I hear you and Valentine spoke to him there.’

‘Only a bit,’ said Cosima. ‘It was nothing.’

‘Why didn’t you alert the police to his whereabouts?’ asked Longcaster. ‘Or call me, so I could do so?’

‘He just – he was there one moment, and then he left,’ said Cosima. ‘There wouldn’t have been time for the police to get him. He just sort of walked in and walked straight out again.’

Her right hand was playing with a set of gold rings on her left. She re-crossed her legs.

‘Sacha told my partner Rupert said or did something to make you cry,’ said Robin.

‘That’s—’

Robin could tell Cosima wanted to deny it, but that meant calling the famous, handsome actor a liar.

‘I think I actually – I wasn’t crying about Rupert.’

‘Sacha says you were,’ said Robin. ‘He says Rupert upset you.’

‘No, he didn’t,’ said Cosima, her colour mounting. ‘You weren’t there, you don’t know what happened. I was upset because he’d just, like, burst in on Sachy’s party, OK?’

‘You just said you weren’t crying about Rupert,’ said Robin.

She expected Longcaster to intervene, to protect his favourite child from her questions, but on the contrary, the club owner was staring at Cosima with a none-too-friendly look on his jowly face.

‘I wasn’t – there was a ton of drama going on that night, OK, I just felt kinda overwhelmed and then Rupert turning up was, like, the final straw, I thought there was gonna be a scene—’

‘What kind of scene?’ asked Robin.

‘Just, you know, that security would be involved and, like, people would think Val and I had invited Rupert or something—’

‘Why would anyone think you’d invited him?’ asked Robin. ‘Neither of you were friends with him, were you? He just worked here for a bit. Wouldn’t people be much more likely to think Sacha had invited Rupert, given that they’re cousins?’

‘Look,’ said Cosima, who’d flushed a deeper red, ‘I was just upset that night, OK, and I was, like, disgusted he showed up, after he stole Daddy’s silver thing—’

‘But not disgusted enough to call the police,’ said Longcaster.

‘It was so quick, Daddy, one minute he was there and the next—’

‘He was there long enough to argue with Valentine, wasn’t he?’ said Robin.

‘I think Val just, um, like, he saw Rupert, and I think he tried to get him to leave,’ said Cosima, still flushed.

‘Again, that’s not what Sacha Legard says,’ said Robin. ‘He says Rupert arrived there looking for a fight. He sought out Valentine, rather than the other way round.’

‘Well, I don’t – I didn’t see everything, it was really crowded, I don’t know what happened. God, what’s the big deal?’ said Cosima, with a false laugh. ‘Why d’you even care?’

‘I told you why, outside,’ said Robin. ‘Your sister’s very worried about Rupert. He’s disappeared.’

‘That’s not my fault,’ said Cosima, but a curious look of panic crossed her lovely face. ‘That’s not on me. I didn’t know – it’s not my fault.’

‘You “didn’t know” what?’ said Robin.

‘I meant, I didn’t make him steal the ship thing, it’s not my fault he went off.’

‘That’ll do,’ said Longcaster, as Robin opened her mouth to reply. He pressed the brass bell beside him again. ‘I think we’ve heard enough from you, Miss—’

‘Ellacott,’ said Robin.

The waiter who’d previously brought their drinks now reappeared.

‘Miss Ellacott’s leaving, Oliver.’

Longcaster got to his feet, waking the Pyrenean Mountain Dog, which stretched and wagged its tail.

‘Goodbye,’ said Longcaster, holding out a hand to shake Robin’s. ‘Interesting visit.’

‘Goodbye,’ said Robin. ‘Thank you for the drink.’

She caught Cosima’s eye once more as she left the room. The girl looked mutinous, but also, Robin thought, scared.

97

On the rainy evening of the first of March, Strike, tired after an afternoon’s tedious surveillance of Mrs Two-Times, which he’d just handed over to Wardle, made a detour to House of Computers on Tottenham Court Road to buy a new laptop. He then dropped in at the Flying Horse, where he called the agency’s usual tech man, and received instructions on installing an anonymising browser on to the new device. It seemed foolish not to enjoy a couple of pints and a burger since he was there, so it was half past eight before he finally headed home.

On entering Denmark Street he was surprised to see a light on in the office window, because Robin had the evening off, and Pat was the only other member of the agency who had keys. He climbed the metal staircase to the second floor and entered through the engraved glass door.

Robin was sitting in her usual seat at the partners’ desk, a half-eaten pizza at her elbow and a wide variety of research materials spread before her, including the plans of Wild Court and Freemasons’ Hall Strike had procured from Holborn Library. She had personal reasons for wanting to stay at the office instead of going home, and one of them was that her anxiety about being followed or threatened remained acute. Absorbed in everything she was reading and examining, she’d lost track of the time and jumped when she heard Strike’s key in the lock. Seeing it was him, though, her heart lifted far more (as she instantly and guiltily realised) than it ought to have done.

‘Sorry,’ she said automatically, before realising this was nonsensical.

‘No need to apologise, it’s your office too,’ said Strike. ‘What’re you doing here so late? Thought you had the night off.’

‘Ryan had to work, so I thought I might as well keep at it,’ said Robin.

This wasn’t entirely true. Murphy was indeed busy, but the second reason Robin hadn’t wanted to go home too early was that she feared her boyfriend might drop in at her flat ‘as a surprise’. He was currently alternating between neediness and tetchiness. The latter was undoubtedly down to the pain of withdrawal after an abrupt cessation of drinking, but he kept trying to pin Robin down with plans, to pepper the calendar with future commitments, seeking guarantees that they’d still be together in six, eight, twelve weeks’ time. The previous evening he’d suggested spending his rapidly approaching thirty-fourth birthday in San Sebastián, where his sister lived. Robin had said she’d think about it. She was currently resistant to any arrangement that couldn’t be easily cancelled.

Depressed by the implication that, for Robin, there was no point going home if Murphy wasn’t there, Strike set down the new laptop on the desk.

‘Your old one playing up?’ she asked, noticing that Strike was wearing the blue shirt she liked.

‘No,’ said Strike, heading towards the kitchen area. ‘I don’t want to leave any trace of what I’m about to look up on the office PC. Dark web. Can’t be too careful, with MI5 keeping an eye on us.’

He took the whisky Robin had given him for his birthday out of a cupboard.

‘Want a drink?’ he called through to her.

‘Can’t, I’m driving,’ said Robin, trying to sound matter of fact. Both of them here, alone, after dark: she was remembering the night they’d spent together on Sark, and also that night when they’d eaten a takeaway curry here together, before she and Murphy had even met, when Strike had told her she was his best friend. She oughtn’t to be thinking about those things. She shouldn’t be noticing Strike’s shirt.

‘Dev just texted me,’ she called out. ‘He wants a week off over Easter if we can manage without him.’

Strike returned to the office with his whisky and glass and sat down opposite her.

‘A whole week’s going to be a stretch unless we’ve got rid of this bloody silver vault case,’ he said. ‘Is there something up with him, by the way?’

‘Who, Dev? No, I don’t think so. Why?’

‘He’s been fairly brusque with me lately, and I notice he’s coming to you with queries about leave, not me.’

‘He hasn’t said anything,’ said Robin. ‘Um… I might have worked out what that note Niall Semple left for his wife means.’

‘What?’ said Strike, thoroughly taken aback.

‘I’ve been reading that book you downloaded. Morals and Dogma of the Ancient—’

‘—and Accepted Whatever of Bollocks, yeah,’ said Strike. ‘How did that help?’

Robin looked at her computer screen and read aloud:

‘“Question: What is the most occult number?

‘“Answer: 5, because it is enclosed in the centre of the series.

‘“Question: What is the most salutary number?

‘“Answer: 6, because it contains the source of our spiritual and corporeal happiness.

‘“Question: What is the most fortunate number…” You get the idea,’ she said. ‘If I’m right, Niall was leaving Jade an eight-figure code: two, five, zero, six, two, zero, one, six. I suppose it’s too much to hope that opens the Ramsay silver vault?’

‘Doubt it,’ said Strike, as Robin passed a Post-it note to him across the desk and he looked down at the string of numbers. ‘There are no nines. The most worn key on that pad was nine… could be a date, though. Twenty-fifth of June 2016.’

‘Oh God, I didn’t spot that! What happened on the twenty-fifth of June 2016?’

Strike Googled it.

‘Five new species of orchid were discovered in the Philippines.’

‘I was thinking more of what was happening in Semple’s life,’ said Robin, amused.

‘That date’s three weeks after the last confirmed sighting of him alive, so your guess is as good as mine.’

Strike opened his notebook to the page with Spanner’s instructions on how to install the anonymising browser. He wasn’t thinking about Sark, or of the night they’d eaten curry at the office, or of sharing a bed with Robin after she’d escaped Chapman Farm; he was thinking about how this kind of situation had been exactly what he’d hoped would naturally arise in the course of the silver vault case, and how bloody pointless it had been to take on the damn investigation, in the end.

‘I’ve got another bit of news,’ said Robin. ‘Hugo Whitehead’s father called me earlier.’

‘Remind me?’

‘His son Hugo crashed Tyler Powell’s car.’

‘Oh yeah. What did he say?’

‘I told him we’re trying to trace Tyler Powell and he says he’s happy to speak to me, as long as his wife doesn’t find out, because it upsets her too much to discuss the car crash, so I’m going to their house on Monday evening, when she’ll be at a friend’s.’

The office landline rang.

‘Could be Rena Liddell again,’ said Strike, and he grabbed the receiver.

He could hear traffic.

‘Aye… it’s me again…’

Strike gave Robin a thumbs-up.

‘Hi,’ he said, and trying not to panic her, as he had done last time, he asked, ‘how are you?’

‘Ah need tae meet ye. Ah’m scared.’

She started to cry.

‘What are you scared of?’ asked Strike.

‘Ah know they’re watchin’ me.’

‘I want to meet,’ said Strike carefully, ‘but you’re going to have to tell me which Golden Fleece you’re talking about.’

‘Have ye got people listenin’?’ she said, suddenly suspicious.

‘No,’ said Strike.

‘Have ye got a gun?’

‘No,’ said Strike. ‘Why?’

‘Ah want one.’

‘That’s a bad idea,’ said Strike firmly.

‘Aye, mebbe… I was gonnae… but it’s no’ righ’, not even if they’re Muslims, is it? It’s no’ righ’… jus’ come tae the Golden Fleece, all righ’? It’s where he was, Ah can’t say more ’n that, can Ah?’

He heard beeping and knew she was in a call box. Possibly she had no more coins, because the line went dead. Strike hastily started pressing 1471 to retrieve the number she’d been calling from when the phone rang again.

‘Shit – yes?’ he said, answering.

‘It’s me,’ said Midge, who appeared to be in a bar or restaurant. ‘Big news on Plug.’

‘Hang on,’ said Strike, switching to speakerphone, ‘I’m with Robin. Go on about Plug.’

‘He and a few mates are in the Stapleton Tavern in Haringey and they’re planning a stabbing.’

‘What?’ said Robin.

‘You know he was keeping his black killer dog with a mate in Carnival Street?’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike.

‘The mate’s had it put down. He obviously doesn’t want to get nicked for being part of the dog-fighting ring. Plug’s doing his nut. The dog was a champion killer, apparently.’

‘Shit,’ said Strike again. ‘Is the revenge attack planned for tonight?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Midge, ‘but I’ve asked Shah to come and back me up, just in case. I’ve got pictures of all of them.’

‘Great,’ said Strike. ‘But be careful.’

‘Will do,’ said Midge, and she hung up.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ said Strike, wiping his face with his hand. ‘Talk about it never rains…’

‘Speaking of that,’ said Robin reluctantly, ‘I think I’m being followed again. Nothing’s happened,’ she said quickly, in response to Strike’s expression, ‘but twice now, I’ve seen the same man in a Honda Accord. He was outside Dino’s on Wednesday and he was behind me when I was driving into the office this morning. When I slowed down to park he just drove on, but I’ve got a partial number plate and a good look at his face. He’s definitely not the man who threatened me with the dagger – he’s older and fatter. Very small nose, big face, thick grey hair.’

‘Shit,’ said Strike.

‘You might think this is mad,’ said Robin, who was trying to make sure no hint of her ever-present fear made it into her voice, ‘but the way he looked – very neat and respectable, clean-shaven – I don’t see him as one of Branfoot’s young men, and I couldn’t help wondering…’

‘Police?’

‘Well, we know the team working the silver vault case aren’t exactly happy with us. Could they be trying to catch us interfering?’

‘I wouldn’t put it past the couple I met to try and get us for something,’ admitted Strike.

‘Of course,’ said Robin hesitantly, ‘there’s also the possibility he’s—’

‘MI5?’

‘Well, maybe,’ said Robin.

‘Christ, we’ve fucked off a lot of people over this case,’ said Strike. ‘Have you circulated the Accord bloke’s description to the others?’

‘Yes, and the bit of the number plate I got.’

‘Good,’ he said, and took a swig of whisky. Eyes on the plans of Wild Court and Freemasons’ Hall that lay in front of Robin, he asked,

‘Had any luck with those? I haven’t had time to look properly.’

‘Nothing that’s going to help us,’ said Robin. ‘The shop was created out of a couple of storage rooms at the back of Freemasons’ Hall in 1958. There were two doors in the back walls, but they were bricked up when the rooms became a shop.’

‘There was a door on the basement level, was there?’

‘Yes, when it was a downstairs cupboard.’

‘Where exactly was the door?’

‘At the back of the vault, but as I say, it’s gone, bricked up. There’s also a bit of dead space behind the basement wall where the cupboards are, but to get into that you’d have to tunnel through brick as well.’

‘Is it a big enough space to accommodate a lurking murderer?’

‘Maybe a child on their hands and knees,’ said Robin, ‘but the child would have had to walk in through the front door of the shop first, go downstairs into the basement and break their way through the wall to get into it.’

‘And even Kenneth Ramsay might’ve noticed that happening,’ said Strike. ‘So Wright and Oz can’t have got into the basement that night via Freemasons’ Hall?’

‘No,’ said Robin.

‘Then how the hell did they get back there without being seen?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ admitted Robin, reaching for another slice of cold pizza. ‘What do you want to look at on the dark web, anyway?’ she said, watching Strike still tinkering with his new laptop.

‘Couple of long shots,’ said Strike, ‘but I’m ready to try almost anything at this point. One thing I wouldn’t mind seeing is Sofia Medina’s OnlyFans account.’

‘It’s gone,’ said Robin, ‘I looked.’

‘Yeah, gone from the surface web, but it occurred to me that it might still be floating around in the cesspit beneath.’

‘Looking for Oz?’

‘Yeah. I know he won’t have been calling himself “Oz” on OnlyFans, but people often adopt usernames that leave clues, even people a damn sight more intelligent than Jim Todd. Rodolphe Lemoine. Sidney Reilly. Laurel Rose Willson – though, admittedly, she was off her rocker.’

‘Who are Rodolphe Lemoine, Sidney Reilly and – who?’

‘Lemoine,’ said Strike, bending down to plug in the new laptop, ‘was a French spymaster in World War Two whose real name was Stallmann, but took his wife’s maiden name for espionage purposes.’

‘Like Todd taking his mother’s maiden name for trafficking purposes.’

‘There you go. Sigmund Rosenblum, otherwise known as the Ace of Spies, presumably liked his initials—’

‘Like Fyola Fay,’ interposed Robin.

‘—exactly – because he rechristened himself Sidney Reilly. And Laurel Rose Willson wrote an invented memoir of her life in a Satanic abuse cult under the name Lauren Stratford, made a load of money out of it before she was exposed as a fraud, then re-emerged as a Holocaust survivor, which she also wasn’t, under the name Laura Grabowski.’

‘Where’s Wardle this evening?’ asked Robin.

‘On Mrs Two-Times,’ said Strike. ‘Thought I’d give him an easy one to get started.’

Robin’s mobile rang. Her heart sank when she saw it was Murphy.

‘Hi,’ she said, getting up and moving into the outer office to stop Strike saying anything to her, because she didn’t want Murphy to know she and Strike were alone at the office together.

‘You’re not home,’ he said.

‘No, I’m still at the office. As you were working I thought I’d take care of some paperwork. How d’you know I’m not home?’ she added, wondering whether he was sitting outside her flat.

‘I swung by on the off-chance, just a coffee or something. I’m heading back into town now.’

‘Oh,’ said Robin. ‘If I’d known you had a free hour, I’d have come home.’

‘So you’re still at the office? Strike there?’

‘No,’ she lied again, with the familiar, gnawing sense of guilt. ‘He’s on surveillance.’

Her call with Murphy terminated, Robin returned to the inner office. She felt guiltier than she had before he’d called, and even though she’d have preferred to stay and talk about the silver vault case with Strike, she said,

‘I’d better get going.’

‘Right,’ he said.

When she’d gone, Strike, well aware he was slipping into a pattern of drinking alone, something he’d guarded against for years, poured himself more whisky before returning to his PC, selecting Tom Waits’ album Blue Valentine and pressing ‘shuffle’. He always appreciated the blunt solace offered by his gravel-voiced favourite. Waits sang of desperation, drugs and drunkenness, of unmourned deaths and lives spent in poverty and hopelessness; love, to Waits, was generally doomed or dirty, and death came early, randomly and brutally. Strike had discovered the singer for himself in his teens, and found him a blessed antidote to the guitar-driven seventies rock bands his mother played incessantly.

Twenty minutes and one long piss later, Strike returned to his newly configured laptop, ready to enter the badlands of the internet, where the buying and selling of drugs, weapons and stolen data were commonplace, where fake documents could be bought and hackers hired, and where videos of dreadful acts were viewable, for those who found them exciting.

It took him nearly an hour to find an archived version of Sofia Medina’s OnlyFans page, on a website headed DEAD SLAGS, which was devoted to providing fodder for men who liked their masturbatory material to feature women who’d provably died from male violence, rather than those who were pretending.

He scrolled down through the names and comments of subscribers. Could Oz be ‘Fat_Hard_Cock’? ‘Bucket O’Jism’? He doubted it. Oz had been seeking real-life contact, and a man pretending to be a wealthy music producer would be unlikely to open the conversation with ‘fist yourself’. SkunkB, on the other hand, had posted, ‘you’re beautiful. I hope you’ve got a man who’s treating you the way you should be treated’, to which Medina had replied with three heart emojis. However, if SkunkB had pursued this promising exchange, it wasn’t publicly visible.

Tom Waits was still singing.

The whisky was driving Strike deeper into his depressive trough, but he kept mindlessly scrolling through the cyber swamps, perusing sites offering forged documentation and credit cards from countries as diverse as Ukraine and Thailand, or else what Strike strongly suspected was human merchandise. One heavily encrypted site with the name Nursery was peppered with flower emojis. From the context, he suspected this was a substitute for the words ‘little girl’.

Telling himself Interpol had enough experts trying to track down forgers and paedophiles without his assistance, he now searched for Daesh execution videos, thinking of the secret mission that had cost Niall Semple his best friend.

Each of the films Strike began methodically opening carried the black and white flag of Islamic State in the corner, bearing a white circle containing, in Arabic, ‘There is no God but Allah, and Mohamed is his messenger’. Strike was reminded of the captured Daesh flag he’d seen at the SAS headquarters in Hereford, which was framed, and facing a captured WW2 swastika on the opposite wall. In Strike’s view, there was nothing to choose between the two groups. The Nazis had visited unspeakable atrocities on their own people, as well as non-Germans; Daesh murdered many more Muslims than Westerners, and both groups were sadistic beyond the imagination of most human beings. Death was insufficient punishment in their eyes: opponents must also suffer extreme indignity, humiliation, terror and pain before the job was considered done.

He watched, blank faced, as men were burned, shot, beheaded and drowned. The filming was expert: Daesh wanted the world to know precisely how terrifyingly devoid of human empathy they were. Corpses were thrown by jeering masked men into a deep natural abyss in north Syria called al-Hota. Strike’s Arabic was too rudimentary to understand what they were saying, but they appeared to be making a game of it, trying to dislodge a corpse stuck on a ledge with a second man’s body. He’d seen al-Hota once, many years before. Local legends were told of the monster that lived in its depths.

Feeling vaguely sickened, he closed down his laptop at exactly the moment his mobile rang. Wardle was calling him.

‘Heads-up,’ said the ex-policeman, who sounded rather perplexed. ‘She’s about to ring the office doorbell.’

‘Who is?’ said Strike, confused.

The bell rang in the outer office.

98

‘I’m sure she hasn’t clocked me,’ said Wardle, who sounded worried.

Strike turned off Tom Waits, headed out of the inner office, closing the dividing door behind him so as to conceal the whisky, the books and the plans of Wild Court.

‘How did she get here?’ he asked.

‘Cab,’ said Wardle. ‘Got out on Charing Cross Road – I thought it might be coincidence, but—’

The doorbell rang a second time.

‘I might need you to follow her after she’s left,’ said Strike, ‘so hang around.’

He ended the call, then pressed the button on the intercom.

‘Strike,’ he said.

‘I know,’ said a female voice. ‘I want to talk to you.’

‘All right,’ he said, ‘buzzing you in now.’

He turned on the light in the outer office. While waiting for his unexpected guest to appear, Strike saw movement out of the corner of his eye: the ugly black goldfish with the knobbly growth on its head was floating at the water’s surface, flapping its fins helplessly, belly upwards.

The silhouette of Mrs Two-Times appeared on the landing. Strike opened the glass door.

‘Have a seat,’ he said.

‘Thanks,’ she said in a tight voice, walking past him and sitting down on the sofa.

As might have been expected from a woman who spent most of her days shopping for clothes, having manicures and blow dries, she was immaculately dressed and groomed, wearing a coat made of what looked like satin, a form-fitting cream dress and high, strappy black heels. Yet she wasn’t quite as good-looking up close as she appeared at a distance. Her features were small and undistinguished, but she was living testimony to what money, skill and good taste can do for a woman’s appearance: her figure disciplined through diet, her expensively streaked, caramel-coloured hair flattering her skin, her eyes expertly made up to appear twice their natural size.

‘I found out this morning he’s paying you to follow me,’ she said, still in a tight little voice. ‘I recognised the bank account number.’

‘Really?’ said Strike, who could tell denials would be pointless. ‘How?’

‘I used to be his PA. He made me check the standing order to you, once. I made a note of the bank account number. That was when he was with that foreign girl.’

‘The Russian,’ said Strike. ‘Yes.’

‘I wondered whether he’d do it to me, too. Does he really think I’m playing around?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Strike, which was true, as far as it went. He wasn’t about to mention his theory about her husband’s sexual peculiarities. ‘I’ve assured him you haven’t given any sign of infidelity.’

‘Hm,’ she said, her eyes travelling over the office before coming back to rest on Strike, her gaze calculating. ‘OK, well, I’ve been trying to think what to do.’

Strike, who detected a threatening undertone in these words, moved behind Pat’s desk and sat down in her computer chair.

‘I know he’s playing around on me,’ said Mrs Two-Times.

‘Ah,’ said Strike.

‘Escorts,’ she said. ‘I recognise that bank account, too. There’s a place he’s always liked; he’s been using it for years. That’s why he’s always happy for me to go out with my friends.’

The question of why she’d married such a man had barely surfaced in Strike’s mind before he answered it himself. The designer clothes, the immaculate hair, the long lunches, the giggling exchanges with handsome waiters: presumably these sweetened the strange deal she’d made.

‘He’s kind of well known in his field,’ she said, now examining her perfectly manicured nails. ‘I could cause a lot of trouble for him, if I dragged you into it. It’d mean loads of publicity and he wouldn’t be able to use you to spy on his girlfriends any more, would he?’

Strike’s feeling of foreboding intensified.

‘Or,’ she said, looking up, ‘you could start watching him for me, instead. Get proof of the escorts. I wouldn’t tell him I’d used you and I quite like the idea of him footing the bills for me to get evidence for a nice fat divorce settlement.’

‘That’d certainly be a neat solution,’ said Strike.

‘You agree, then?’ she said.

‘Yeah, I think we could shake on that.’

She got up, took a pen out of the pot on Pat’s desk and wrote her mobile number on a Post-it note.

‘I’d like weekly updates,’ she said, tearing it off and handing it to him.

‘Fine,’ said Strike.

They shook hands. Hers was cold.

‘I didn’t think it’d last,’ she said. ‘Men don’t change, do they?’

‘Well… not often,’ said Strike.

She glanced over at the aquarium.

‘I think your fish is dying.’

Strike waited on the landing until he heard the street door open and close, then called Wardle.

‘Let her go,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t your fault. She’s smarter than him, that’s all. Come up and have a drink if you want one, I’ve got whisky open.’

Five minutes later, Wardle arrived in the outer office, to which Strike had already brought his bottle of Arran Single Malt.

‘Does that happen often?’ Wardle asked, when Strike had told him what Mrs Two-Times had said.

‘First time for me,’ said Strike.

‘Nah, I won’t,’ said Wardle, waving away the offer of whisky as Strike raised the bottle. ‘I was doing a bit too much of that, alone, a few months back. I’ve knocked it on the head for a while.’

‘Ah,’ said Strike, pouring himself a treble. ‘Good for you.’

‘Is that fish all right?’ said Wardle, looking at the gasping black lump at the surface of the tank.

‘No,’ said Strike.

‘Mash up a pea,’ said Wardle.

‘What?’

‘It’s probably gulped down too much air at the top. Greedy little bastards, goldfish. Scoop it out and feed it a mashed pea. Sometimes works.’

‘The hell d’you know that?’

‘My niece keeps fish. Three different tanks in her bedroom. Just got on to Bettas.’

Having no idea what Bettas were, and zero interest, Strike sat back down in Pat’s computer chair and said,

‘So how long’ve you been off the booze?’

‘Since the night after you came over for that curry. Funnily enough, it was you mentioning me working here. Made me think about… you know… making some changes. I could do a coffee, though,’ said Wardle. ‘Got any decaff?’

‘If we have, it’ll be in one of those cupboards,’ said Strike, who’d never knowingly drunk decaffeinated coffee in his life. As he gulped down more whisky, his mobile buzzed and he looked down to see a text from Midge.

Plug’s gone home. No stabbing tonight.

‘What?’ he said, under the vague impression that Wardle had just said something.

‘I said, “did you hear Murphy’s fallen off the wagon?”’

Wardle had found some decaffeinated coffee and was now making it. Strike, whose heart rate had just increased as though he’d broken into a sprint, said, trying to mask the interest in his voice,

‘You told me someone thought he might be drinking again.’

‘Yeah, well, they were right, he is. He was caught necking vodka at his desk. He’s in a shitload of trouble, one way or another. Probably smarm his way out of it, though,’ said Wardle with a curling lip. ‘Iverson still thinks he’s fucking misunderstood.’

‘Iverson,’ repeated Strike. His brain felt sluggish.

‘The woman on the silver vault case. The one he groped a few years back.’

‘Oh. Yeah. I met her. Redhead.’

‘Yeah,’ said Wardle, as the kettle came to a boil. ‘What’re you going to say if Murphy gets kicked out and wants to come and work here?’

‘Cross that bridge when I get to it,’ said Strike.

‘Probably try and persuade Robin to leave and set up Ellacott and Murphy, Inc with him, if you don’t take him on,’ said Wardle, his back still to Strike. ‘Or Murphy and Murphy, if he gets his way.’

‘What?’ said Strike again.

Wardle headed back to the sofa holding his coffee.

‘He’s gonna propose.’

‘That a guess?’ said Strike sharply. ‘Or d’you know?’

‘He told Iverson the other week, and she told me, when I told her I was starting work here,’ said Wardle. ‘He probably told her he was going to pop the question to get her to back off. Looked like she was gonna cry when she told me.’

‘Right,’ said Strike, who felt as though he’d turned to ice from the neck downwards. ‘Ring bought and everything, is it?’

‘Dunno,’ said Wardle, taking a sip of coffee.

Mainly because he was afraid his expression might give away his thoughts, Strike turned back to his phone. Midge had texted a second time.

got pictures of his co-conspirators

Strike, who had a blank whine in his ears, typed back great, then had to say ‘what?’ again, because Wardle had definitely just spoken.

‘That Kim Cochran. Heard something very interesting about her the other day. Reason she left the force.’

‘Yeah?’ said Strike, still thinking about Murphy and Robin. ‘Well, she’s not my concern any more.’

Whether because Wardle had noticed his colleague’s abstraction or not, he said,

‘So what d’you want me to do, start following Two-Times tomorrow?’

‘Need to think it through,’ said Strike, forcing himself to concentrate. ‘We’ll have to maintain a pretence of following the wife, because he’ll ask me if he doesn’t see anyone around when he joins her.’

They discussed the ramifications of this double-agent job until Wardle, coffee finished, said he might as well get an early night. Strike, desperate to be alone, told him to leave his mug; he’d wash it with his whisky glass.

When Wardle had left, Strike remained sitting where he was. As he was now forced to recognise, he’d retained a slender hope that in spite of Robin’s talk of egg freezing, something might yet happen to prise her and Murphy apart. But if a proposal was in the offing…

He remembered the sapphire ring that had adorned Robin’s third finger when she’d first started work for him, when she’d occupied the space Pat did now. The ring had represented a hard, blue full stop: nothing doing. She’d married Matthew, in spite of his previous infidelity and what Strike privately thought of as his general cuntery, and it had taken a second, still more blatant, infidelity to blow the marriage apart, but Murphy, alas, seemed faithful… he’s been great… I can’t fault him… he wants me, whether or not I can have kids… he’s been really kind since it happened…

Strike got to his feet, realising he wasn’t quite steady on them any more, and returned to the inner office. In shutting down various open tabs on his computer he accidentally turned Waits back on.

He slapped the music off, shut down his computer, turned out the light, then returned to the outer office, where he washed Wardle’s mug and his own glass.

He was on the point of turning out the second light when his eye fell again on the gasping black goldfish at the top of the tank, flailing and gulping pathetically, belly up, its sufferings, if Wardle was to be believed, entirely self-inflicted. Finger on the light switch, swaying slightly where he stood, Strike stared at it, imagining finding it dead and motionless in the morning, floating where it was now fighting for life. Its two tank mates, one silver, one gold, drifted serenely below, indifferent to its plight. The black fish was exceptionally ugly; close to an abomination. It was an added insult that it bore his name.

‘Fine, you stupid little fucker,’ he muttered, and he headed none too steadily towards the stairway to the attic, unsure whether he had any frozen peas, but prepared – nonplussed to find himself doing it, yet with a vague desire to set something to rights, even as everything else turned to shit around him – to check.

99

Several things happened in quick succession the following morning to thoroughly destabilise Robin.

Firstly, she was woken at six a.m. by a call from Barclay to tell her she needn’t bother tailing Mrs Two-Times, because the woman was spending the day at a spa with some girlfriends, which Two-Times had forgotten to tell the agency. Robin was delighted to have an unexpectedly free Saturday, which she intended to spend on sleep and laundry.

Unfortunately, she was woken again, shortly before nine, by Murphy, who called to inform her that his parents were unexpectedly in town, and to ask her over to his place for lunch.

‘I wasn’t expecting them, they just turned up,’ he said, sounding harassed. ‘For a “surprise”, because I haven’t been in touch enough. So can you come over, because they really want to meet you? I’ll cook. Dad wants to watch the football. They’re not staying overnight, thank Christ, they’re at Mum’s sister’s.’

It so happened that even though Robin and Murphy were now into the second year of their relationship, Robin had never yet met any of his family. His retired parents lived in Ireland, where his father had been born. Robin had once answered the phone to his mother, who was English, and had made pleasant small talk with her while Murphy was finishing a shower, but this was the sum total of their direct contact. Robin therefore felt refusing lunch was impossible, so dragged herself reluctantly out of bed and began looking for something suitable to wear among her small stock of clean clothes.

She’d just started running a bath when her phone rang yet again. This time it was Strike. After a brief explanation of the surprise visit to the office from Mrs Two-Times the previous evening, he asked whether Robin could possibly forfeit her day off to cover Two-Times, because literally every other detective at the agency was busy, either keeping watch over Plug and his possibly murderous cronies, who hadn’t yet attacked the man who’d had Plug’s monstrous dog put down, tracking the movements of Lord Branfoot, trying to catch Uber driver Hussein Mohamed at home or following Albie Simpson-White. Robin thought she heard a note of exasperation when Strike mentioned the last of the names, and assumed she was being reminded, none too subtly, that she was the one who’d added this extra burden to the rota.

When Robin explained that she really couldn’t get out of lunch with Murphy’s parents five minutes after agreeing to it, Strike said shortly,

‘Fine. Better hope Mrs Two-Times doesn’t get pissed off we’re not doing as she asked, and go to the press, then.’

As this was the first time in years that Robin had declined a job for personal reasons, and as she’d been bearing a heavier workload than all subcontractors lately, she considered Strike’s impatient tone quite unwarranted, but before she could say so, he’d hung up.

Now cross in addition to exhausted (whose fault was it that the agency was currently vulnerable to bad press?) Robin took her bath. Once dried and dressed, she opened her bedroom curtains and saw – her eye was drawn to him instantly, as if she’d been expecting him – a man in a green jacket standing on the opposite pavement. He’d turned quickly as the curtains opened, as though to hide his face, even though she couldn’t have seen it from this distance without binoculars. Her conscious mind tried to tell her she couldn’t be sure, but her gut instinct told her a different story: same green jacket, same build, same height as the man who’d worn the gorilla mask to threaten her with the masonic dagger.

Heart pounding, Robin watched as he sloped away, keeping his face averted. She was certain he’d been watching her windows.

The repeated wearing of the jacket in which she’d already seen him up close didn’t argue a very bright man. Nevertheless, Robin knew very well that stupid males could be just as dangerous as intelligent ones. She went to check her bag for her rape alarm and pepper spray, telling herself he wouldn’t dare do anything on such a busy street, by daylight, and reminding herself that it was a very short walk from the building’s front door to the Land Rover. She considered calling Strike, but decided against, given how grumpy he’d just been on the phone. In any case, there was nobody free at the agency to come and give her assistance. Now she wished, for the second time in as many months, that she didn’t live alone, before reminding herself that if she’d been living with Murphy, she’d be in an even bigger quandary. He still knew nothing about the man in the green jacket, nor about the small rubber gorilla or the masonic dagger hidden in her sock drawer.

Did Green Jacket have a car? Would he follow her to Murphy’s? Had he done anything to the Land Rover while she’d been asleep, or having her bath? She’d need to check it before she got in, but her pepper spray would be in her hand as she did so. Thus resolved, Robin put on her coat, re-checked the contents of her bag, and left her flat.

The day was cool, clouds sliding across the sun. Robin looked all around and behind her as she walked briskly to her car, but there was no sign of the man in the green jacket. Pepper spray in hand, she bent low to check the underside of the Land Rover, but saw nothing, nor were there scratches on any of the paintwork. She got inside quickly and locked the doors. Now feeling safer, she left her bag open on the passenger seat, pepper spray within easy reach, and set off, checking her rear-view mirror constantly.

The trouble with Blackhorse Road was that it was always very busy. Robin knew that Green Jacket would have had time, if he had his wits about him, to get into a car and follow her, especially if he knew where Murphy’s flat was. She had no idea what car Green Jacket might own, whereas she didn’t doubt he knew exactly which Land Rover to follow.

Robin arrived at Murphy’s flat shortly before midday, still unsure as to whether she’d been tailed. Murphy’s flat door was opened by his beaming mother, a well-dressed, attractive beige-blonde in her early sixties from whom Murphy had clearly got his good looks; she had the same bone structure and full upper lip.

‘How lovely to meet you at last!’ she said, and Robin responded as effusively as she could manage, with her mind half on Green Jacket.

If Murphy’s good looks were owed to the maternal line, he’d got his height and hair from his father, a burly Irishman with a deep voice, who also expressed delight at meeting Robin, and said Murphy had been keeping her hidden far too long. Murphy seemed slightly on edge, which Robin attributed to the unexpectedness of his parents’ arrival, and the necessity of cooking for them. He was stuck in the kitchen, so Robin and the two older Murphys sat down together and chatted easily enough, about their relocation to Galway after long years in London, about Murphy’s older sister’s third pregnancy and about Robin’s recent acquisition of two more nephews. Robin noticed that neither of them asked about her job at all, which was odd, because it was how she and Murphy had met. She wondered whether he’d told his parents not to bring up the agency.

Lunch was pleasant enough, although the food could have been tastier; Murphy’s steaks were rubbery and the potatoes slightly underdone. There was wine on the table, of which Murphy’s father partook liberally, cracking jokes, some of them funny.

Robin couldn’t help being reminded of her former in-laws. Matthew’s father, too, had been garrulous, whereas his late mother had been quieter, more polished and watchful, and Robin had always felt that the latter didn’t much like her. Murphy’s mother was far friendlier than her Cunliffe counterpart, yet Robin still detected signs that she was being covertly assessed.

‘We were sorry to hear the house fell through,’ she told Robin.

‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘It was a shame.’

The longer lunch went on, the more certain Robin became that Murphy’s parents had no idea about his recent alcoholic relapse. Mrs Murphy’s searching look suggested she’d sensed there might be more to the story than that they’d been gazumped for a second time. Perhaps (a dart of unease shot through Robin) Murphy’s parents knew about the ectopic pregnancy. Robin had made her boyfriend promise not to tell her parents, but had extracted no guarantees about his.

Over lunch, she learned for the first time why the London-born Murphy supported Liverpool: his father had spent most of his teens in the city and remained a passionate supporter; he couldn’t have tolerated his son supporting anyone else, he told Robin, who laughed politely. Liverpool was playing Arsenal that afternoon, kick-off at five thirty, which was why Mr Murphy senior hadn’t wanted to go out to lunch – you never knew how long these fancy London restaurants would string out a meal. Robin was told repeatedly by both parents how proud they were of Murphy, and the latter looked strained as they said it. Robin found herself longing for match kick-off, because ‘we won’t be allowed to talk once it starts’, said Murphy’s mother, with a humorous eye roll. ‘I’ve brought my knitting.’

‘Her business partner supports Arsenal,’ said Murphy, nodding towards Robin, who felt a very faint sting of animosity in this remark, and it led to a certain amount of good-humoured chaff from his father about how the office was bound to be an uncomfortable place on Monday, then, because Arsenal was about to be thoroughly trounced.

At five o’clock, the three Murphys removed to the sofa and armchair in plenty of time for the start of the game, Mr Murphy sprawling so much that there was very little room for Robin, so she remained at the table where they’d eaten.

Once the match was underway, Robin surreptitiously took out her phone. She’d have preferred her laptop, but she could hardly have brought that with her. Murphy and his father, who were apparently allowed to talk all they wanted, criticised and eulogised various plays and players, while Mrs Murphy concentrated mostly on knitting what looked like a baby’s sweater in pink angora.

Robin first checked to see whether Tish Benton (currently at a five-star hotel in Paris, judging by her most recent Instagram photo) had responded to the request for a chat Robin had sent via the Clairmont chain, but there was no response.

‘GET IN!’ bellowed Murphy and his father in unison, and Robin jumped. Both men were fist-pumping; Firmino had scored for Liverpool. Robin hastily made celebratory noises and affected a broad smile until the Murphys’ attention had returned to the TV.

She’d just closed Instagram when a text arrived from her brother Martin.

Could I come stay for a couple of days?

Robin stared at this message, wondering whether Martin had sent it to the wrong person. Not only had her second brother never come to visit her in London, he was, by some distance, the family member to whom she was least close. She loved him, of course, but as she’d told Strike on Sark, they had very little in common. He’d been insecure in their youth about his siblings’ better academic records, and meted out a low but sustained level of persecution to Robin, purely on the basis that she was the only girl. Their friends, habits and life choices could hardly have been more divergent.

Thinking that a simple question ought to make him realise he’d texted the wrong person, she replied:

With Carmen and the baby, you mean?

There was no immediate response, so Robin returned to the line of investigation she’d been pursuing until exhaustion had defeated her in the early hours of the morning.

Shortly after midnight, she’d stumbled across the information that Rupert’s paternal aunt, Anjelica, was a historian who’d once been affiliated with the University of Ghent, in Belgium. She’d remained professionally attached to the Belgian university long after she’d moved to Switzerland with her husband, a fellow academic, and shuttled between the two countries while Rupert was growing up. The decision to put Rupert into boarding school seemed to have been made to allow his child-free aunt and uncle to pursue their separate, intellectually distinguished careers.

‘Shouldn’t have left Sánchez on the bench, should you, Wenger, you wanker?’ said Murphy. Murphy senior roared with laughter. Robin ploughed on with her research.

Anjelica had ended her professorship at the University of Ghent in the year 2000, when Rupert was nine years old.

I fink ’e said… didn’ ’e say ’e knew what ’appened to ’er? An’ din’ ’e say we’d see it on the news?

Was it possible that Rupert had heard something, or known something, about the murders of Reata Lindvall and her daughter, relayed to him by his Belgium-based aunt, or one of her colleagues?

‘YEEEEES! FUCKING GET IN!’ bellowed Murphy while his father roared his approval. Liverpool had scored again, just before half time.

Hastily hitching a smile onto her face, Robin said,

‘Anyone want another tea? Coffee?’

But Murphy’s mother was already heading for the kitchen, her fluffy pink knitting left in her armchair. Mr Murphy senior went for a loudly announced pee.

Robin took out her notebook and wrote: Rupert’s aunt worked in Belgium until he was nine. She had to admit, the information didn’t look much of a breakthrough when written down. As she closed the notebook, Mr Murphy senior re-entered the room, his hand still on his fly.

‘Your Strike’s not gonna be happy, is he?’ he said to Robin, dropping back onto the sofa and taking up two seats with ease. ‘Two-nil already!’

‘No,’ said Robin, forcing another smile. ‘He’s not.’

So you do know something about my work. You know my partner’s name.

‘They’re gonna get Sánchez off the bench,’ said Murphy.

‘Yeah, well, no choice now,’ said his father.

Robin accepted a coffee from Murphy’s mother with a smile and thanks; the latter picked up her knitting and settled back in the armchair. When the football match restarted, and the others’ attentions were once again turned yet again towards the television, Robin stood up casually, ostensibly to stretch, but in reality to look out of the window.

She could see no trace of Green Jacket, although there were parked cars in which he might be lurking.

She sat down again and reopened Instagram, now following a different train of thought. Robin had already found two Instagram accounts for Chloe Griffiths. The older account showed various Ironbridge landmarks; the new, many pictures of her and her boyfriend interrailing.

As far as Robin was concerned, the most interesting of the pictures Chloe had posted before Tyler’s disappearance was that of her birthday in April, which she’d celebrated with a party at home: Robin recognised the poster of the dope-smoking Jesus in the background.

The picture was crammed with young people, but the photo centred four of them. There was goofily grinning, large-eared Tyler Powell, whose arm was slung around Anne-Marie’s shoulders, the latter recognisable from press pictures: an insipid-looking girl whose pale face wasn’t flattered by what looked like home-dyed pink hair. Anne-Marie looked perfectly happy and at ease. However, Chloe, who was standing on Tyler’s other side, was wearing a smile that appeared forced. A young man whose face wasn’t visible, but who had a shock of ginger hair, had his arm slung around Chloe’s neck. He was falling forwards, apparently laughing, dragging her with him as his plastic cup of beer spilled. Wynn Jones stood in shadow behind the pair, smirking, whereas Ian Griffiths, beside Jones, and perhaps anticipating spilled beer on his carpet, didn’t look very happy.

‘SHIT!’ bellowed Murphy, and Robin jumped again, hastily affixing a smile to her face before registering that Murphy wasn’t celebrating, and that it was Arsenal who’d scored, not Liverpool.

‘Language,’ said Mrs Murphy softly, and Robin was reminded again of her late mother-in-law, who’d always urged a certain po-faced gentility on her family, even at times of celebration or crisis.

Robin returned to the picture of Chloe’s birthday party. The young woman was wearing a bracelet of what looked like enamelled violets, and Robin assumed this had been Tyler’s birthday gift, worn, perhaps, out of politeness, because it didn’t really chime with Chloe’s plain black dress. She wondered why Chloe hadn’t done as various angry comments had demanded, and taken down pictures of Tyler, although there was a clue in one of her replies.

The last post on the old account, which had appeared a few weeks after Chloe’s birthday, was a quotation by Sylvia Plath.

‘I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I’m here.’

An odd quotation, Robin thought, exhibiting the sort of nihilism she’d have expected of a teenager rather than a young woman in her early to mid-twenties. Was it an expression of grief for her friend Anne-Marie? The old account had been left up, perhaps as an act of defiance towards the censoriousness of Ironbridge, but the new account appeared to represent a conscious turning of a leaf, because this opened with a Plath quotation, too.

‘I felt my lungs inflate with the inrush of scenery – air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, “This is what it is to be happy”.’

The new photos showed Chloe’s travels through Europe with a notably good-looking young man. There were arty photos of cities and the food the couple were eating, some selfies taken alone with picturesque backgrounds, others with her boyfriend. Then, following another train of thought, Robin left Chloe’s page for that of Oz.

The account had acquired another thirty followers since Robin had last looked at it, which angered her. It had been used to groom two girls, one of whom was dead. Was the Met taking any action at all, or was it so determined not to take the agency’s word for anything that the fake account had been assigned low priority?

Oz’s most recent pictures were views of Nashville, with the usual non-specific, intriguing hashtags: #TS6, #SecretProject. One girl in the replies had replied excitedly:

To which Oz had replied with a winking emoji.

Another bellow from the sofa announced Liverpool’s third goal.

‘That’s it!’ shouted Mr Murphy senior. ‘We’re done!’ He turned and said to Robin, ‘send Mr Strike my condolences’, in a tone, and with a gloating expression, that convinced Robin Strike had been a topic of conversation between Murphy père et fils, and that Murphy had told his father plainly how little he liked Robin’s business partner.

Right, thought Robin, and using the Instagram account in the name of Venetia Hall, which she reserved for work, she typed into the comments beneath Oz’s most recent post:

The match finished, Mr and Mrs Murphy at last made moves to leave, gathering up their things, now intent on getting to Murphy’s aunt’s on time.

‘It’s been lovely meeting you,’ said Robin, with every bit of enthusiasm she could muster. ‘Really lovely.’

She was caught off-guard by Murphy’s mother’s embrace.

‘We’re so happy to know you, at last.’

But the embrace felt forced, the older woman’s body stiff, rather than yielding.

‘You want to take the odd weekend off, girl,’ said Murphy’s father, winking at her. Apparently he’d guessed she’d been working while they were watching the game. Had Murphy complained about her workaholic tendencies, too?

The three Murphys left at last, their son walking his parents down to their car. Robin returned to the window to check for Green Jacket again, but saw no sign of him. The Murphys talked for five minutes at the front of the building, then the parents departed and Murphy headed back inside.

Robin knew as soon as he re-entered the sitting room that she was in trouble. Nevertheless, she tried to defuse the atmosphere he’d brought back into the room with him.

‘They’re really ni—’

‘If you don’t want to be here,’ said Murphy in a low voice, ‘just say so.’

Robin stared at him.

‘What d’you mean, “if I don’t want to be—?”’

‘You couldn’t have acted more bloody bored if you’d tried.’

‘Hang on,’ said Robin. ‘I was told we weren’t allowed to talk while the football was on.’

‘She didn’t mean it literally! You couldn’t even come and sit with—’

‘Your father was taking up two thirds of the sofa!’

‘You could’ve asked him to move!’

‘I’ve only just met him, I’m not telling him where to sit in a flat I don’t own,’ retorted Robin.

She, too, was suddenly angry. Exhausted though she was, she’d chatted through a lengthy lunch, laughed at all his father’s jokes, answered all his mother’s questions and stacked the dishwasher single-handedly, so Murphy’s parents could have him to themselves over coffee. She’d forfeited her Saturday at a moment’s notice to keep him happy. She’d made every effort to act as though she wanted Liverpool to win the game.

But the real problem, she was sure, wasn’t that she’d remained on her hard seat in the background, but that instead of taking out knitting – especially of a baby’s sweater – she’d taken out a notebook and phone. Possibly Murphy thought her perusal of the internet had, in fact, been surreptitious texting of Strike, of which he’d accused her on Christmas Eve. Can you not forget about work for two minutes?

‘I need fresh air,’ said Murphy. He turned, and the front door slammed, leaving Robin standing in shock.

Fresh air? Like all the runs you were taking, and the gym sessions you were enjoying?

With stony-faced efficiency, Robin began her search, firstly of the kitchen cupboards. She found no alcohol there, nor in the tiny airing cupboard with the boiler, nor under the sofa or hidden behind Murphy’s sparse collection of books. The bathroom was alcohol free; she even sniffed his shampoo and aftershave to make sure. This left the bedroom.

There were no bottles under the bed or in the bedside cabinets. Once again she rifled through Murphy’s clothes, taking out the box of charging leads and change, feeling all round the top shelf where he’d hidden the vodka before, but there were no bottles there now, nor was there anything in his gym bag except trainers and a tracksuit.

There was, however, a briefcase at the very back of the wardrobe. Delving into it, her fingers closed over what felt like a small cardboard bag.

She lifted it out and saw that it bore the imprimatur of a high street jewellers. She looked inside to see a small black velvet box, also clearly brand new, with a receipt coiled beside it. With a shock far worse than that she’d felt at seeing the door slam, Robin was suddenly sure what she’d see if she opened the box.

Sure enough, when she lifted the lid, she saw a small diamond solitaire winking up at her, set on a white gold or platinum band.

A wave of sweat passed down her body.

Oh God, no.

She lifted out the receipt, not to see the price, but the date. He’d bought it days before she’d discovered the vodka, before they’d agreed to let the new house go.

Robin replaced the ring and receipt carefully back in their bag and returned it to the old briefcase, then closed the wardrobe door and set about gathering her things. If Murphy really hadn’t run off to the pub or the off licence, he’d probably be back soon, full of contrition, wondering whether this time he’d blown everything.

So flustered was Robin when she left the flat that she forgot all about Green Jacket. However, she arrived safely at the Land Rover and set off, even more frightened than she’d been on arrival: not of sudden physical attack, but of the silver-coloured band hidden in the depths of Murphy’s wardrobe: a tiny, sparkling shackle.

100

At half past eight on Monday morning, Strike set off for a journey to the West Country in his BMW. He hadn’t needed to set off so early, but he didn’t want to run into Robin at the office, nor had he replied to the email she’d sent him about what he considered Rupert Fleetwood’s very flimsy family connection to Belgium. Convinced that Murphy had proposed and been accepted, and that Robin’s uncancellable lunch on Saturday had been with her future in-laws, Strike required longer than forty-eight hours to build himself up to the congratulatory expression and tone he’d need when they next spoke.

At a quarter to nine Strike received a call from Midge.

‘I’ve got the address of Branfoot’s flat,’ she said triumphantly.

‘Fantastic,’ said Strike, his mood very slightly improved by this news, because scaring off Branfoot and his henchmen was one of his top priorities. ‘Where is it?’

‘Black Prince Road, Lambeth, second floor of smart block,’ said Midge. ‘Tailed him there last night. He went in around eleven, an hour later a black guy in leather and a drunk girl went in. Lights went on on the second floor and stayed on for about three hours.

‘At four, Branfoot creeps outside again. At six, the girl staggers out onto the pavement to get into a taxi, looking rough as hell. Half an hour later, the porn sleaze comes out. Got pictures of all of them.’

‘Excellent work,’ said Strike.

‘Cheers,’ said Midge. ‘Right, well, I’m supposed to be catching that Hussein Mohamed between his Uber shifts. Need coffee. Speak to you later.’

Strike drove on down the M40 for half an hour, then Robin called him, as he’d half-expected she would. Steeling himself, he answered.

‘Pat says you’re driving to Hereford,’ she said. ‘Why—?’

‘I’m meeting Rena Liddell. She responded to me last night on one of her old Twitter accounts: “Hereford, 2pm tomorrow” – and Hereford’s got a Golden Fleece.’

‘Wow, great,’ said Robin. ‘Well, Midge has found—’

‘I know, she just called me,’ said Strike, ‘so when I get to Hereford I’m going to call de Leon and warn him I’m about to go to Branfoot myself and tell him I know what he’s up to in that flat, and if de Leon wants to sit on his arse and wait for the story to break without putting a decent spin on his own involvement, that’s his problem.’

‘Well, I’ve got other news,’ said Robin, who was currently in the inner office, and Strike’s stomach clenched.

‘Or rather, Pat has,’ Robin continued. ‘She’s found a pub in Yeovil called the Quicksilver Mail that had a barman for a couple of weeks last June who called himself Dave. He was short and had big ears. They let him go because he wasn’t very good.’

‘Ah,’ said Strike. ‘Well, I’ll be in the rough vicinity of Yeovil in a couple of hours. I could head there after Hereford and show them Tyler Powell’s picture.’

‘That’s a lot of driving in one day,’ said Robin. ‘Hereford and Yeovil aren’t that close to each other.’

‘Sure I’ll manage. Anything else?’

Robin, who didn’t much appreciate the spikiness of Strike’s tone, said,

‘No, I just dropped in to file some receipts, but I’m interviewing Faber Whitehead this evening, as I told you.’

‘OK, I’ll let you go,’ said Strike.

‘Strike,’ said Robin sharply.

‘What?’

‘If you’re still pissed off about Saturday, say so. You gave me literally no notice, and it’s not as if I haven’t forfeited a lot of free time late—’

‘I’m not pissed off about Saturday, I know it was short notice. I was worried Mrs Two-Times was making veiled threats about press, that’s all.’

‘Well, as I’m not the one who’s made us a target for the tabloids—’

‘Tabloid attention’s an occupational risk,’ said Strike. ‘Ask your boyfriend.’

As he’d half-hoped to provoke her into doing, Robin hung up.

She stood in fury beside the partners’ desk, staring at her mobile as though she could see Strike glaring back at her. You total prick. Robin wrenched open the dividing door so forcefully that Pat looked round, startled.

‘Everything all right?’

‘Fine,’ said Robin. ‘I’ve got some receipts for filing.’

She was halfway to the filing cabinet when she noticed a large margarine tub full of water set beside the fish tank. It contained the black fish called Cormoran, which was swimming lazily around its limited space.

‘Why’s that fish out of its tank?’

‘He’s got me feeding it bloody peas,’ said Pat grumpily.

A card was propped against the tank, carrying instructions in Strike’s hard-to-read handwriting. Diverted in spite of herself, Robin picked this up to read it.

‘It is the right way up now,’ Robin told Pat.

‘Is it?’

Pat joined Robin, both of them peering down at the fish with the knobbly growth on top of its head, stout body waggling, double tail fin wafting behind it as it circled the tub. Long strings of goldfish excrement swirled beneath it.

‘Shall I tip it back in?’ said Pat.

‘I would,’ said Robin. ‘It hasn’t got a lot of space in there.’

Meanwhile the black fish’s reluctant saviour was heading along the M40 while castigating himself for what he’d just said to Robin. A really smart move, he told himself, to behave like a dick in the immediate aftermath of her engagement. It was as though he was determined to push her into leaving and setting up Murphy and Murphy, Inc.

101

Strike deposited his BMW in a multi-storey car park close to the middle of Hereford and set off in search of an early lunch, because breakfast felt a long way behind him. A short walk brought him within sight of a restaurant called the Beefy Boys, which he chose out of an angry self-sabotaging impulse, because what was the point of trying to compete with Murphy in the leanness stakes now? Having settled himself at a table outside so that he could vape and ordered the house speciality, the Dirty Boy Burger, he called Danny de Leon, who didn’t pick up. Strike therefore left a voicemail message warning de Leon that the detective agency had now identified the flat where Branfoot was covertly filming oblivious drunks being screwed by porn stars, and that he would shortly be confronting Branfoot with the information. Danny would therefore have to suffer the consequences of not having spoken to the press, which would have mitigated the risk to himself of Branfoot’s revenge.

Strike then reached into his coat pocket for Jim Todd’s book, Know When To Hold ’Em: Win Big Every Time, which he’d brought with him to complete his perusal of Todd’s scribbled notes. Opening it at a fresh page, he examined a list of nicknames for various pairs of pocket cards.

King-King – Cowboys

King-Queen – Marriage

King-Jack – Kojak

King-Nine – Canine

He was about to turn this page, on which Todd had only written poket 8s without explanation, when a tiny ripple in his subconscious told him not to be so hasty.

77 – walking sticks… (‘I even got it in army green so nobody’ll think you’re a big girl’s blouse.’)

4-4 – sailboats… (‘Eyes on the horizon if you feel ill…’ )

Fuck’s sake, was everything going to remind him of Robin? He kept reading until he heard his phone buzz, and took it out in the hope that Robin had sent him an irate text, which would provide him with an opportunity to make a low-effort, typed apology for having been snide about Murphy. However, it was only Barclay, informing him that Two-Times had just ducked into a hotel looking furtive.

Strike sat, phone in hand, wondering whether he should apologise to Robin even in the absence of a first text from her. He knew perfectly well that punishing her for not reciprocating feelings he’d never voiced was the behaviour of a total arsehole. He was still trying to formulate a message that didn’t seem to carry an obvious undertone of ‘I just hate you being with Murphy’ when his burger arrived and he set his phone aside with relief.

The ingestion of a huge cheeseburger, complete with bacon and fried onions, gave Strike’s spirits a slight boost. Having eaten his last chip, he picked up his phone and texted Robin.

I’m sorry about what I said. I’m knackered but that’s no excuse.

He sat watching his phone for a minute, hoping to see the three dots that meant Robin was typing, but nothing appeared.

Having drunk a coffee, paid his bill and had a pee in the Beefy Boys’ bathroom, Strike set off for what Google Maps told him would be a short walk to the Golden Fleece.

On entering the pub Strike found a narrow, cramped and corridor-like interior, and a large television screen showing Sky Sports. Strike bought himself a zero-alcohol beer and was about to take a seat when the barman leaned forwards and said,

‘You Cameron Strike?’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike.

‘You’re to go up there,’ said the barman, pointing towards the door at the rear of the pub.

It transpired that the barman had meant ‘up there’ literally. A very small external paved area contained no tables, but a steep metal staircase leading up to the roof. Strike assumed that Rena Liddell wasn’t aware he had a false leg. He hauled himself upwards with the aid of the handrail, his pint slopping over his hand.

He emerged onto a rooftop space where a few tables and plastic palm trees in square tubs stood on artificial grass. Cross of Saint George bunting wound around the railings, beyond which Strike could see the tall spire of St Peter’s church.

Only one table was occupied. Facing Strike with a half-smile on his lips was the tall, salt-and-pepper-haired, square-jawed Ralph Lawrence, allegedly of MI5. He wasn’t wearing a suit today, but jeans and an open-necked shirt beneath a dark green cashmere sweater, and his blue eyes were concealed behind a pair of Aviator sunglasses.

Strike knew his expression had betrayed both surprise and displeasure, and he also saw that this gave Lawrence satisfaction. With a long drive behind him, an aching knee and hamstring, a forced climb up the stairs at the connivance of a man who knew he had half a leg missing, and a wet sleeve where beer had slopped over it, Strike was hard put to conceal his resentment. As he sat down opposite Lawrence, a kind of Rolodex of theories whirled inside his head, and it halted on the most obvious question.

‘Rena invite me here, or was that you?’

‘She did,’ said Lawrence smoothly, ‘but we were watching.’

‘Where is she?’

‘She’s been sectioned.’

‘Why?’

‘She’s been trying to get hold of a gun.’

‘What for?’

‘You’ve found her social media. You tell me which group of people she might think deserves shooting.’

Strike wasn’t about to fall into that trap. Lawrence sipped what looked like water and, while pulling out his vape, Strike entertained himself for a moment by imagining slapping it out of the man’s hand.

‘This is the kind of thing people assume spooks do, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Get people locked up for being crazy if they know too much?’

‘What makes you think Rena Liddell knows anything?’

‘She knows something,’ said Strike, ‘or you wouldn’t be sitting here. You’d’ve let me think she’d just stood me up if you weren’t worried she’d already told me something.’

‘Maybe I’ve got questions for you.’

‘Go on, then,’ said Strike.

‘You’ve clearly had contact with her, other than over social media.’

‘Have I?’

‘First contact didn’t happen there. Who approached who?’

‘It’s all a bit hazy now,’ said Strike.

‘Angela told me you think you’re funny,’ said Lawrence.

‘No, she didn’t,’ said Strike calmly.

‘Look,’ said Lawrence, and Strike was happy to see he hadn’t liked the fact his snide comment had glanced off Strike without leaving a mark, ‘I’m doing you a favour here, little though you seem to realise it. You’ve had online contact with a mentally ill Islamophobe who was trying to get herself a gun.’

‘You aren’t going to intimidate me by hinting I’ve had contact with a terrorist,’ said Strike. ‘I know full well why you’re here, and it’s got fuck-all to do with guns. You fucked up, warning Rena not to give me the time of day. That’s what gave her the idea of contacting me in the first place. If she’s become a liability, that’s your fault, not mine.’

‘Mr Strike, I’m asking for your cooper—’

‘And I might’ve given it, if you hadn’t forced me to walk up onto the fucking roof and spill my pint.’

Strike pushed himself back into a standing position.

‘There are still civil liberties in this country. You’ll have your work cut out, keeping her in a psychiatric facility indefinitely. I can wait.’

He turned and, doing his absolute best not to hobble, set back off down the steep metal staircase. As he’d rashly committed to driving to the Quicksilver Mail pub in Yeovil, he supposed he should get going.

102

Robin was currently too angry at Strike to accept his texted apology. Work was supposed to be the one place in her life where she wasn’t subject to men taking out their bad moods on her and she saw no reason to show a good grace Strike himself rarely displayed.

Plug still hadn’t been arrested, which irrationally compounded Robin’s anger at Strike: she connected his bad behaviour with the breeder of dangerous dogs, who still remained unpunished. Yet again running surveillance on Plug’s mother’s house that afternoon, it gave Robin no solace whatsoever to tell herself that her tiredness and misery were nothing compared to the exhaustion she’d endured while undercover at the Universal Humanitarian Church. She was sleeping very poorly, and today had awoken at four a.m., convinced she was back in the church dormitory from which she’d had to sneak once a week, to send Strike a report. She’d then lain awake brooding about Murphy until her alarm went off.

He’d called her before she’d even reached home on Saturday, apologising for storming out on her after lunch. As Robin had suspected, his parents had no idea about his recent relapse, nor about the investigation he was facing at work. He’d told Robin that he always found his father’s garrulity and boozing hard to take, and that his mother had been interrogating him remorselessly about the cancelled purchase of their joint house before Robin had arrived for lunch. Robin was certain her suspicions about Mrs Murphy’s feelings had been correct; that she thought Robin wasn’t the devoted girlfriend he deserved.

She hadn’t asked her boyfriend whether his parents knew about the ectopic pregnancy, because she didn’t want to hear the answer, but she was certain they did. She also suspected they knew about the diamond solitaire hidden inside Murphy’s wardrobe. They’d come over to London to meet Murphy’s soon-to-be fiancée, and the possible mother of future grandchildren, while in total ignorance of the things their son had done to make Robin afraid of making long-term plans with him.

She’d accepted Murphy’s apology where she hadn’t accepted Strike’s, because the former had sounded distraught on the phone and she still felt the responsibility of supporting him in sobriety. If there was one good thing to come out of their most recent row, she thought, it was that he’d been left in no doubt that now was a very bad time to propose. She’d have preferred to believe he’d abandoned the idea entirely, but the fact that the ring and its receipt hadn’t been returned suggested that he was still hoping that a suitable opportunity might yet present itself.

Plug remained at home until half past five, at which time Robin handed over surveillance to Midge. She ate a sandwich in the Land Rover, then headed off for Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire, where she was to interview the father of Hugo Whitehead, who’d crashed Tyler Powell’s car. As she knew from her online research, the Whiteheads had packed up and left Ironbridge for good shortly after Hugo’s funeral.

Robin arrived in Tilsworth Road shortly before seven o’clock. The Whiteheads’ house was large, made of red brick and had a double garage. As Mrs Whitehead wasn’t supposed to know Robin had visited, she drove the Land Rover a little way up the road to a parking space outside the range of street lights, then walked back to the house.

The front door was opened almost as soon as she’d rung the bell, and there stood Faber Whitehead, who Robin knew to be an award-winning architect. An odd-looking man who reminded her of a beluga whale in glasses, having very pale skin, small eyes and a massive domed, bald forehead, he was wearing a baggy black sweater and jeans, and the lenses of his glasses, which had bright red frames, were so thick they reduced his eyes to small points.

‘Miss Ellacott?’

‘Yes,’ said Robin, holding out her hand, which he shook.

‘Come in,’ said Whitehead, and after taking her coat and hanging it up for her, he led Robin through the hall into a large sitting room with walls of fashionable dark greige, a coffee table made of glass and a long, low, black and steel sofa with such a deep seat that Robin had the choice of perching on the edge, or sitting back and holding her legs out straight in front of her.

‘Could I get you anything?’ Whitehead asked Robin. ‘Tea, coffee…?’

‘A glass of water would be great,’ said Robin. ‘Thank you.’

While Whitehead was fetching it, Robin glanced around and saw a digital photo frame sitting on a cabinet of black wood. It was displaying a slowly changing succession of family photos and Robin’s eye fell on it as it showed a picture of red-headed Hugo, familiar to her from Chloe Griffiths’ birthday photo. Hugo had died, she knew, at the age of twenty, but here he looked around fourteen and was wearing a rugby strip while pointing at his own mouth, apparently laughing at the absence of a tooth.

‘So,’ said Whitehead, after handing Robin her water and sitting down in an armchair that matched the sofa, holding a glass of red wine, ‘you’re investigating Tyler.’

‘Not exactly,’ said Robin. ‘As I told you in my email, we’ve been hired to try and identify the body in the silver vault. Tyler was considered a possible victim by the police, so we’ve been looking into him. If we find out where he’s gone, we’ll obviously be able to rule him out as William Wright.’

‘Right,’ said Whitehead. He gulped some wine, then said, ‘I know you’ve already spoken to Ian Griffiths and Dilys Powell.’

‘We have, yes. You’re in touch with them?’

‘I’ve made it my business to keep in touch with Griffiths,’ said Whitehead. ‘He reassured me you and your partner were above board.’

‘Oh, good,’ said Robin.

‘Griffiths and I both want Tyler found, though for rather different reasons.’

With a glance towards the darkening window Whitehead said,

‘We must keep this fairly brief, because I’m not sure how long we can count on Lucinda staying out. She nearly cancelled dinner, but I persuaded her to go. I think it’ll do her good. She’s on a maximum dose of antidepressants, but she’s still… and our elder son, Harvey, he’s having to re-do his final year at university. Fell apart completely after what happened to Hugo. Got a compassionate deferral for his finals.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Robin. ‘This must be incredibly painful to talk about.’

‘It’s less painful to talk about it than to think about it, all day, every day,’ said Whitehead. ‘Lucinda wants me to “move on”. We can’t discuss it, it upsets her too much. Harvey, though, he’s on my side. He knows I’m meeting you tonight. He agrees that the guilty person has got clean away with it.’

‘Tyler, you mean?’

‘Oh no,’ said Whitehead. ‘No, no, not Tyler. Chloe Griffiths.’

Robin was so taken aback she couldn’t think of anything to say.

‘You’re surprised,’ said Whitehead, watching her intently. ‘But when I’ve explained… you know who Chloe Griffiths is?’

‘Yes,’ said Robin slowly, ‘Ian Griffiths’ daughter…’

‘Exactly, yes,’ said Whitehead. He took another gulp of wine. ‘Now, you see, there was something the police never made public – CCTV footage. The police ultimately decided it wasn’t conclusive enough to use, but there was footage of somebody getting inside that Mazda in the car park in Birmingham.’

‘Really?’ said Robin, thinking of the poor quality CCTV footage that had already done nothing but confuse this case. ‘Would you mind if I take notes?’

‘No, no, carry on…’

As Robin took out her notebook and pen Whitehead said,

‘The police looked into it before discounting it as irrelevant. We were told it was very blurry, and there was thick rain that night, which didn’t help, but a figure that looked female moved between the Mazda and the next car, then ducked down out of sight, and the police thought they might have entered the Mazda, but then they decided the person must be just doing up a shoe or something.’

‘What made them check the car park footage?’ asked Robin.

‘They’d got wind of all the rumours that had started up in Ironbridge, about Tyler having tampered with the car, and of course, if it was done anywhere, it must have been in the car park, because they crashed on the way back. Now, Tyler couldn’t have done it. Not only could nobody mistake Tyler for a female, blurred footage or not, he was on the phone over the exact period that person entered the Mazda in Birmingham. The mobile signal confirmed he was speaking from Ironbridge.’

‘D’you know who he was talking to?’ asked Robin.

‘No, but I’m sure the police checked. I know people in Ironbridge said Tyler took off because of the crash, but I know for a fact he’d been thinking about clearing out well before then. I heard him talking to Hugo about leaving.’

‘Did he say he wanted to go to London?’

‘No, just that he wanted a change, but he had transferable skills, you know, he was a good mechanic. Anyway, it clearly can’t have been Tyler who messed with the ABS,’ said Whitehead. ‘Somebody else must have turned it off. We all knew that storm was coming. It was an undetectable way to hurt them. Anyone would have known the journey back was going to be hazardous, especially for a recently qualified driver.’

Robin, who was making notes, was glad of a reason not to look Whitehead in the eye. She hadn’t needed this encounter to learn that even the most intelligent people may be blinded by their passionate desire not to look facts in the face. Hugo had been refused the use of the family Range Rover on the night of his fatal accident. His family must have wondered whether he mightn’t have survived, had he only been driving that.

‘I can see why people were saying Tyler did something to the car, that he’d faked being ill that night, because, of course, it was his Mazda – he’d have keys. But Chloe and Tyler were friends – she could have pinched them, or had a second set cut without his knowledge. She hung around with him at his garage sometimes, so she could have asked how to fiddle with an ABS system.’

Robin opened her mouth to speak, but Whitehead ploughed on.

‘Now, Tyler’s friends and his grandmother thought we were the ones who started the rumour that Tyler sabotaged the car, but not a bit of it. In the immediate aftermath of the crash, Lucinda and I were at Hugo’s bedside around the clock – we had no idea what was being said in Ironbridge. It was only later that we heard what people were saying, and about the CCTV footage. But I could never see why Tyler would have done it, never.’

‘I’ve been told,’ said Robin cautiously, ‘that he was jealous, that Anne-Marie was his former girlfriend?’

‘No, no, that was years previously,’ said Whitehead, waving the idea away with a large white hand. ‘When they were both sixteen or something. There was no question of him being angry about that. But when the police realised that it couldn’t have been Tyler tampering with the car in Birmingham, they seemed to rule out any possibility of sabotage. Yet there was still that figure on film.’

Who might have been doing up their shoe.

‘Nobody stopped to ask why Chloe Griffiths had suddenly gone off abroad,’ said Whitehead. ‘She’d shown no interest in leaving Ironbridge before the crash – and what the police never took seriously was, she’d actually made threats to kill Hugo and Anne-Marie.’

‘Really?’ said Robin.

‘Yes. She had a terrible row with the pair of them, really nasty. We didn’t hear about it until weeks after the crash, but there were plenty of witnesses. She literally screamed “I’ll fucking kill you if you don’t stop it,” at both of them.’

‘If they didn’t stop what?’ asked Robin.

‘They’d made a joke, a simple joke, about her two-timing her boyfriend in Telford with Tyler. There was no malice about it. They were only teasing her. Tyler had given Chloe a bracelet – that’s what triggered the row. Hugo came home quite shaken. He said he and Anne-Marie were calling her “Shrinking Violet” because this bracelet had violets on it, and she was getting more and more irate, and then they hinted that she was two-timing her boyfriend with Tyler, and I can only assume she was afraid the boyfriend would get to hear about it, because she became absolutely furious and screamed at them. A huge overreaction, but everyone in the Horse & Jockey heard it – but nobody told the police about her becoming so aggressive and threatening, on such a slim pretext. I asked other people in the pub that night to speak up. Harvey urged them to. But the police didn’t want to listen. “Oh, it was just a silly little row” – but to say, to literally say she’d kill them – Lucinda and I never liked the girl much,’ said Whitehead. ‘One felt a little sorry for her: no mother, juvenile father, hardly surprising she didn’t have many social graces. She was rather quiet and sulky, but then she’d suddenly turn nasty. I think she’s been rather used to thinking of herself as a victim, and has been indulged and humoured by her father, and she expects the rest of the world to treat her the same way. Very pretty, but you always felt there was something unpleasant there, underneath. And now she’s buggered off abroad, with immensely convenient timing. That’s why I’m keen not to lose touch with Griffiths. I want to know when Chloe’s back in the country.’

‘I see. Did—?’ Robin began, but Whitehead spoke over her.

‘The consensus among the young people, before the crash, was that Chloe was leading Tyler on. He was very obviously smitten with her, but she treated him like a dogsbody, putting him down and so on. He’s not the brightest, but a good-natured lad, and unhappy at home. His father, Ivor, is a mean man, so Tyler was always over at the Griffithses’ house and he was useful to Chloe, you know. Lifts and so on. And I think it flattered her ego to have this lapdog always around. But the night she threatened Hugo and Anne-Marie she said some very nasty, degrading things about Tyler. She made it quite clear he wasn’t good enough for her, and Hugo was shocked – he liked Tyler, really liked him. And after that, Hugo told me Chloe would barely speak to him, it was as though she had a vendetta against him and Anne-Marie. Hugo tried to reason with her, but she told him to fuck off. Incredible anger, for something so small.’

‘Chloe told me—’

‘You’ve spoken to her?’ said Whitehead, with almost unnerving excitement.

‘Only by WhatsApp. As a matter of fact, she told me she didn’t like Tyler, that she’d been friendly towards him because she felt sorry for him, and she did suggest it was possible he’d tampered—’

‘There you are, you see, she’s still trying to pin it on him! Who fanned the flames, about Tyler? Who kept the rumours going? I think it was Chloe. Tyler was disposable to her, a useful patsy. I’m one hundred per cent certain that she encouraged the rumours about Tyler having messed with the car. Griffiths himself admitted to me that he first heard the rumour from Chloe. “It’s just what the kids are saying, I’m sure there’s no truth in it.”’

‘D’you know whether Chloe had an alibi for that night?’ asked Robin.

‘The police wouldn’t tell us,’ said Whitehead. ‘They simply didn’t want to listen.’

‘Did you know a girl called Zeta in Ironbridge?’ asked Robin.

‘Zeta? No, I don’t think so. Unless she was in Harvey and Hugo’s friendship groups, I wouldn’t have. Why?’

‘She alleges that Tyler did something threatening to her, after he heard her repeating the rumour about him sabotaging the Mazda.’

‘I don’t really blame him,’ said Whitehead stoutly. ‘Being accused of something like that…’

‘She alleges that he almost ran her over.’

‘Oh, I’m sure that’s not true,’ said Whitehead at once. ‘No, no, that wouldn’t be like Tyler. His friend Wynn Jones, now, I’d believe it of him, he’s a proper lout – but not Tyler. You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if he suspected Chloe was behind the crash himself. I’m very, very keen on finding him, and getting some answers, and helping him clear his name… I think we’re going to have to wrap this up soon,’ said Whitehead, with a now nervous glance at the dark sky outside the un-curtained window. ‘If Lucinda comes back early—’

‘Of course,’ said Robin. ‘Just got one more question. If Chloe was using Tyler for lifts, does that mean she didn’t have her own car?’

‘No, but she could have borrowed her father’s, couldn’t she? It was when she didn’t have access to it that she relied on Tyler.’

‘Right,’ said Robin. ‘Well, thank you so much for your time.’

‘You know,’ said Whitehead, leading Robin back into the hall, ‘Hugo did like speed, nobody’s pretending he didn’t – he was a young man – but never in those conditions, and not with a passenger. And,’ he added, taking Robin’s coat off its hook and handing it to her, ‘he knew the storm was on its way. We all did.’

‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ said Robin, unable to think of anything else to say.

‘You’ll let me know, if you find Tyler?’

‘If we find him, I’ll ask him whether he minds us letting you know,’ promised Robin.

It was chilly outside. She walked briskly up the street to the Land Rover and got inside, thinking about all she’d just heard. Then she took out her phone and typed out a new message for Chloe Griffiths.

Hi Chloe, this is Robin Ellacott. I’m sorry to contact you again, but I’ve got a few more questions and I think you’re the only person who can answer them. I do understand how difficult this is for you, and I wouldn’t disturb you again if I didn’t think it was important.

Having sent this message, Robin sat thinking. For some reason, the name ‘Horse & Jockey’ ran through her mind, but she wasn’t sure why. She’d just opened Google to look at the place when the door beside her was wrenched open. Before she could scream, a hand closed around her throat.

103

He was on top of her, forcing her backwards onto the passenger seat; she felt the handbrake pressing into her back; she couldn’t cry out, because of his hands around her throat; he was crawling on top of her, pinning her down; and she felt her handbag slide into the footwell—

He was trying to force her further into the car and she knew his plan was to drive off with her; she heard her phone fall with a clunk; saw his face in strangely cubic light and shadow, the ferocity, the thick eyebrows—

She managed to free her right hand from beneath him and seized his wrist, trying to drag it from her throat, but with her left, she was groping on the floor, in darkness; it was there, she knew it was there, she’d checked before leaving the flat that morning—

Her fingers closed on the plastic, felt for the nozzle, and now black spots were popping in front of her eyes, but she had it—

The first spray didn’t hit him – she felt the sting of it in the air—

The second covered the side of his head and Robin closed her eyes—

She heard him choke, splutter and gasp; the grip on her neck loosened; she sprayed again and again and heard him swear – now he was trying to evade the spray but still kneeling on her—

With every bit of strength she could muster she punched blindly upwards with her right hand and heard the thud of knuckle on bone—

She opened her eyes; they began to water from the noxious vapour now thick in the air, but she knew where to aim, now—

Another spray and another, directly to his face—

She drew breath and her lungs burned, too, but no matter: she screamed as loudly as she’d ever screamed in her life, now hanging on to fistfuls of his curly hair.

104

Strike was currently on the M4, heading back towards London. His detour to Yeovil and the Quicksilver Mail had been pointless: nobody at the pub had recognised Tyler Powell’s picture.

‘Nah, Dave was quite, you know – porky,’ one of the barmaids had told him, sketching an invisible hula hoop around her own middle to demonstrate the sizeable girth of the vanished Dave.

Tempting though it was to believe that Tyler Powell had packed on the pounds to become ‘Dave’, Strike thought it unlikely he could have gained that substantial a belly in a month, so having thanked them all he returned to his BMW and headed off for London. In spite of his touchily defiant statement to Robin that he’d cope just fine with another few hours’ driving, his right leg was cramping. He was also extremely hungry; his Beefy Boys’ Dirty Boy Burger now a distant memory. The anger he continued to feel towards Ralph Lawrence kept recurring, like heartburn.

Ten miles from the city, his phone rang.

‘It’s me,’ said a panicky voice. ‘Danny de Leon.’

‘Got my message, did you?’ said Strike. Too tired, sore and hungry for any social niceties, he said, ‘I warned you when we met I’d have to go ahead without you if you left it too long to spill the beans.’

‘I didn’t know who to contact,’ said the agitated voice. ‘OK? I didn’t know how you do something like this—’

‘Then you should’ve called and asked me,’ said Strike. ‘I’ll send you the contact details for a journalist called Fergus Robertson, who’s already interested in Branfoot, but you need to make the call now if you’d rather not live the rest of your life known as Branfoot’s predator-for-hire, and make sure you act bloody contrite about what you did.’

‘Make sure I what?’

‘Act contrite,’ said Strike loudly. ‘Ashamed. Guilty. If you don’t want to be charged, and you want to avoid his retaliation, expose the fucker now.’

Strike ended the call and drove on, wondering whether it mightn’t be a good idea to stop at the next services to eat, rather than waiting until he reached the heart of London.

Ten minutes later, at Heston services, Strike texted Danny de Leon Fergus Robertson’s contact details, noting as he did so that there was still no response from Robin to his texted apology. He then visited the bathroom and, having peed, headed to get some food, thinking of nothing except his own depression and the appropriate noises he was going to have to make when Robin announced her engagement.

When his mobile rang yet again, and he saw it was Fergus Robertson, he let the call go to voicemail. Presumably de Leon had just contacted the journalist and Robertson wanted confirmation from Strike that the man was legit, but as Strike had just reached the front of the queue for food, he ignored the call.

Strike was mildly surprised when Robertson called again while he was waiting for his coffee, and for a third time as Strike was about to take a seat to eat his sandwich.

‘What?’ said Strike, answering at last.

‘I’m trying to do you a favour,’ came Robertson’s impatient voice.

‘Been in touch already, has he?’

‘What?’

‘De Leon. About Branfoot.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I… never mind. What favour are you doing me?’

‘Culpepper’s about to run a fucking massive piece on you. I heard from a mate. He’s got a new source.’

It was as though a frozen snake had slithered down Strike’s oesophagus. He’d thought it was over, done, finished with, but he knew instantly who the new source was likely to be.

‘Kim Cochran?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What kind of piece is it?’ he said, but he already knew.

‘Apparently you’ve been in a love triangle with a hot brunette and Andrew Honbold. Honbold took out a super-injunction to stop the papers printing that he didn’t know whether the mistress’s baby is his or yours. It’s just been overturned. Public interest: family values crusader cheating on his wife.’

‘The baby’s his,’ said Strike. ‘I’m not the father.’

‘OK, well, if you’ve got proof, now would be the time to sling it at a lawyer,’ said Robertson. ‘It’s probably too late to stop the piece running, but you’ll be able to get it amended.’

‘All right,’ said Strike, marvelling at how calm his own voice was. ‘Thanks for the heads-up.’

He stood up, leaving his sandwich unwrapped and his coffee undrunk, and limped back to his BMW, where he sat for a minute, staring ahead into darkness. If the piece ran, he was fucked. Journalists would descend on Denmark Street yet again. Every insinuation Culpepper had so far made about him would be magnified a hundred times. He’d be That Guy who did all the stuff with those women: Candy the sex worker, Nina, who he’d screwed and spurned, Charlotte, dead in a bath, Bijou, her illegitimate baby and her tabloid-bashing lover. His business would be finished. Everyone who worked with him would be tainted.

He called Bijou. She answered on the second ring.

‘You’ve heard?’ she said, sounding just as panicked as he felt.

‘I have, yeah. Tell me the truth: did you admit to Honbold we’d screwed?’

‘No, never! I said I hinted we had to people at work, to try and make him jealous! I’ve shown him the DNA tests and he actually said, yesterday, he was sorry he’d doubted me, but now—’

‘Right. You stick to the story we never had more than drinks, and so will I,’ said Strike. ‘No one can prove otherwise. I’m going to try and sort this. Got to go.’

He hung up. He could see only one possible solution to his dilemma, and nothing but this extremity could have brought him to it. Strike took a lungful of nicotine and called his half-sister Prudence.

105

The townhouse outside which Strike arrived half an hour later was tall and white, with columns either side of the glossy black front door. When he got close enough to see it, he saw that instead of the standard lion’s head, the brass door knocker was in the shape of an electric guitar. Strike chose to ring the bell.

He heard footsteps and had just put his hand in his pocket for a business card, anticipating a housekeeper or perhaps even a butler, when the door opened to reveal a tall, grizzled Jonny Rokeby in person, wearing a black suit and an open-necked blue shirt.

‘Ah,’ he said, grinning as he stood back to allow Strike to pass. ‘Come in.’

In youth, Strike knew, Rokeby had been exactly as tall as his oldest son, though he was now a little shorter. Rokeby had allowed his thick mane of shoulder-length hair to go grey, after years of dyeing it a purplish brown. His walnut-coloured face was deeply lined, doubtless due to long sojourns in his holiday home in the Caribbean, as much as from years of drug-taking and drinking. Unlike his eldest son, he was very thin.

‘In ’ere,’ he said, and he led Strike into a huge drawing room that was furnished in shades of chocolate brown and gold. It felt vaguely familiar, but in his distracted state, Strike didn’t know why.

‘Pru says you need ’elp.’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike. Every particle of him revolted at having to say it, but it was this, or the certain annihilation of the agency. ‘I need a lawyer who can act fast. I’m paying, but I imagine you’ll be able to get hold of a good one quicker than I can.’

‘No problem,’ said Rokeby.

He took his mobile phone out of his pocket and pressed a number.

‘Denholm, it’s Jonny. Urgent. I’m at ’ome, call me…’E’ll ring soon as ’e picks that up,’ said Rokeby, placing his mobile on the coffee table. ‘Wanna drink?’

‘I’m driving,’ said Strike.

‘Wanna no-alcohol beer? I’m off the booze meself. Doctor’s orders. Sit down.’

Strike did as he was bidden, on a large brown sofa at right angles to Rokeby’s chair. The latter pressed a small bell on the glass table beside him, and a middle-aged Filipino woman wearing a silver-grey uniform appeared.

‘Can we ’ave a coupla those not-real beer fings, Tala?’

She left, and Rokeby turned back to Strike.

‘What d’you need a lawyer for?’

‘Dominic Culpepper’s trying to run another story on me,’ said Strike.

‘What’s ’is fuckin’ problem wiv you? Why—?’

Rokeby’s mobile rang. He picked it up.

‘’I, Denholm, sorry to ring so late… no, it’s me son… no, Cormoran… no, ’e’s the one ’oo needs you… yeah… ’e’s wiv me now. I’ll ’and you over.’

Strike took his father’s phone.

‘Evening,’ said Strike.

‘Good evening,’ said a dry, upper-class voice on the end of the phone.

‘I need help with a story Dominic Culpepper’s about to run.’

‘On what subject?’

‘A super-injunction taken out by Andrew Honbold QC. He wanted to stop the papers printing that he didn’t know whether he or I fathered a kid with a woman called Bijou Watkins. I never had a sexual relationship with her, as she’ll confirm, and I’ve got a DNA test that proves the kid’s not mine, which Honbold’s seen. I can forward you the information immediately, if needed.’

‘Very good,’ said Denholm. ‘Culpepper, you said?’

‘That’s right.’

‘All right, I’ll get back to you in—’

‘Gimme the phone,’ said Rokeby loudly, gesturing at Strike. ‘Gimme.’

Strike handed it over.

‘Denholm? Make the fucker apologise for that bullshit about the ’ooker as well.’

‘There’s no—’ began Strike.

‘Tell fuckin’ Culpepper,’ said Rokeby, waving Strike down, ‘’e takes all of it back, or Cormoran’ll see ’im in court. All of it. I want the prick shitting himself… yeah… exactly… yeah. All righ’.’

Rokeby hung up and said,

‘’E’ll be back to us soon as ’e’s contacted ’em.’

‘I didn’t want the other thing dragged into this,’ said Strike, keeping a rein on his temper with difficulty.

‘Why?’ said Rokeby. ‘Z’it true?’

‘No, but—’

The smiling housekeeper reappeared with a tray, which she sat down on the highly polished mahogany table. Once she’d poured out two beers and left, Strike said,

‘I can’t afford years of litigation.’

‘Won’t be years. Denholm’ll sort it. ’E scares the shit out of the fuckers, ’cause they know ’is clients can rinse them.’

‘But I’m not in that financial bracket, so—’

‘I’ll p—’

‘I don’t want you paying for anything, I already told you that. I came here for your contacts, not your money.’

‘Fuck’s sake, lemme do this.’

‘No,’ said Strike.

‘Pride, is it?’ said Rokeby, speaking as though Strike had a sexually transmitted disease.

‘Something like that, yeah,’ said Strike.

‘Then take it out of your money. It’s still just fucking sitting there for you.’

‘I don’t want it.’

‘Why?’ said Rokeby, but before Strike could speak he said, ‘Revenge for your mum? Because you fink I cut ’er off, forced ’er to live poor? I’ll tell you why I stopped her gettin’ it direct, it was ’cause your Auntie Joan called my office an’ said Leda was spunkin’ the money up the wall on boyfriends an’ drugs an’ you didn’t ’ave proper shoes. Leda could’ve ’ad wha’ever she wanted if she could prove it was for you, but she never bovvered askin’ after I put a few safeguards in place. Too much effort. Anyway, you borrowed some of it before, din’t you?’

‘If I wanted to work, I had no choice. Nobody thought a one-legged man who’d never had a mortgage was a good business risk,’ said Strike. ‘And I paid it all back, in case your accountant never—’

‘I know you fuckin’ paid it back, but what was the fuckin’ point? It’s your money. It’s legally yours. What’re you gonna do when I die, burn it? Give it to a fuckin’ donkey sanctuary?’

‘RNLI, probably,’ said Strike. He drank some beer.

‘For your uncle, right? What was ’is name?’

‘Ted,’ said Strike.

There was an awkward silence in which Strike, who preferred not to look at Rokeby, directed his attention at the gigantic David Bailey portrait of the Deadbeats hanging over the fireplace.

‘Listen, I never knew Gillespie was badgering you to give the money back,’ said Rokeby. ‘’E din’t like what you said about me, when you borrowed it, but I never knew ’e was chasin’ you for it. ’E’s gone now. Retired. I was glad to see the back of ’im, to tell ya the truth… I spent forty years off my fuckin’ face, I let people ’andle fings for me. I’m not fuckin’ proud of it.’

‘I don’t care about Gillespie,’ said Strike. ‘I was always going to give it back. I said so when I borrowed it.’

There was another short pause.

‘You and Pru see a bit of each other now, I ’ear,’ said Rokeby.

‘Yeah,’ said Strike.

‘Funny. You two are the most like me of all of ’em.’

‘I’m just like Ted,’ said a furious sixteen-year-old Cormoran Strike through the mouth of his forty-two-year-old self, and wished he hadn’t.

‘I don’ mean personality,’ said Rokeby, who didn’t seem offended. ‘I mean, self-starters. D’you know what my old man was?’

‘Policeman,’ said Strike.

‘Yeah. Fuckin’ policeman! ’E’d’ve loved you, army and medals and shit. Shame he died before ’e knew I’d produced a proper man. We ’ated each ovver. Chucked me out on the fuckin’ street when I was fifteen. I ’ad to go an’ kip at Leo’s. You know ’oo Leo is?’

‘Your drummer,’ said Strike.

‘Yeah,’ said Rokeby. ‘So I made it out of nuffin’. Same as you.’

‘I didn’t make it out of nothing,’ Strike contradicted him. ‘Not everyone’s got a pool of money they can borrow from, to start a business.’

‘Not everyone’s got a mate called Leo ’oo stops ’em livin’ rough,’ said Rokeby. ‘Shit ’appens an’ luck ’appens. Thass life. You deal wiv the shit an’ make the most of your luck when you can get it, ’cause it don’t come round too often. The ’ole band started ’cause Leo’s mum an’ dad let me go live there, an’ now look. I got so many places to sleep, I forget I’ve got ’alf of them… you’ve ’ad enough shit out of me bein’ your farver, might’s well get somefing good out of it for a change. You know what ’olding on to fuckin’ resentment does? Gives ya fuckin’ cancer.’

Strike forced himself to ask,

‘How are you? I heard—’

‘What, me prostate?’ said Rokeby dismissively. ‘They say it’s all right. Gotta ’ave checks an’ that.’

Another, longer pause followed. Strike drank some beer.

‘Listen,’ said Rokeby. ‘That day at the studio—’

‘I don’t want to talk about that,’ said Strike, willing the fucking lawyer to call back.

‘I know I acted like a cunt. I’d been up all night fuckin’ drinkin’, an’ I’d just done a load of coke to try an’ wake up, ’cause we ’ad to record. Know why I was in a fuckin’ state? ’Cause the night before, Jimmy told us ’e ’ad fuckin’ AIDS. Dirty needles at the Chelsea, the stupid fucker. Then Leda shows up, no fuckin’ warning, dragging you—’

‘I told you, I don’t want to—’

‘I be’aved like a cunt, I’m fuckin’ admittin’ it, all right? I felt bad, after. I wasn’ proud of meself. Should I ’ave done better? ’Course I fuckin’ should. You never done nuffing you’re ashamed of?’

‘Plenty,’ said Strike. ‘I didn’t come here to discuss the past, I don’t need apologies. You were the only one who could help me with this, or I wouldn’t be here.’

‘You’ve got ’air jus’ like Eric Bloom,’ said Rokeby, eyeing it. ‘You know ’oo—?’

‘Lead singer of Blue Oyster Cult, yeah, and I got this hair from my Cornish grandfather,’ said Strike.

‘Well, ’ow was I s’posed to fuckin’ know that?’ said Rokeby. ‘I don’t wanna disrespect ’er, but she put it around, Leda, an’ Eric was the one she ’ad the real fing for, so you can see ’ow I fort, when you was born—’

‘I can see how all of it happened,’ said Strike, through clenched teeth. ‘Forget it. It doesn’t matter.’

‘She give you the middle name “Blue”, for fuck’s sake. What was I supposed to fink? You listen to Blue Oyster Cult?’

‘When Mum was around,’ said Strike. ‘Not since.’

‘I don’t rate it. But they were fuckin’ unbeatable, live. ’Mazin’ live, I gotta give ’em that, an’ Leda loved the gigs. She used to say to me—’

‘What d’you mean, “used to say to you”?’ said Strike, drawn in against his will. ‘It was once, right?’

‘’Course it wasn’t only fucking once,’ said Rokeby impatiently. ‘Twenny times, probably. More. ’Appened every time she was around. She told you it was on’y once, did she?’

Strike didn’t answer. All Leda had ever told him about his conception was that it had happened during the ‘best fucking party’ she’d ever attended, clearly imagining that he’d see it as a matter of pride that he’d come into existence in a New York loft, while surrounded by seventies rock stars and their myriad hangers-on. Her subsequent anger at Rokeby for his refusal to admit paternity until forced into it by a DNA test meant she’d rarely mentioned his name during Strike’s childhood, except to rail against him.

‘It wasn’ on’y once, an’ it wasn’ in the middle of the fuckin’ room on no bean bag, neiver,’ said Rokeby irritably. ‘It’s like Marianne Faithfull and that fuckin’ Mars Bar. People make up bullshit and wanna believe it. It was in a side room an’ nobody was fuckin’ watchin’, ’cause I wasn’t into that and nor was she. An’ I was s’posed to be gettin’ married to fuckin’ Carla a monf later, so obviously I ’ad to say it never ’appened, din’ I? An’ that party was one night after Leda ’ad been at a Blue Oyster Cult gig, so when you come out wiv ’air like Eric’s—’

‘OK if we stop discussing who my mother might or might not have fucked?’ said Strike through clenched teeth.

‘All righ’,’ said Rokeby, with a shrug. He swigged more beer, then said, ‘Fing about your mum was, she was funny, proper funny. I always liked that. I like a woman wiv a sense of humour. Fuck knows why I married fuckin’ Carla, she’s abou’ as funny as gettin’ your foreskin caught in your zip. Where’d Leda get “Strike” from, anyway?’

‘He was a kid who came to town with the fair,’ said Strike. ‘She left him a week after she married him.’

‘Huh,’ said Rokeby. ‘I always fort she made it up. So you use the name of a bloke you never met?’

‘I use it because it was my mother’s,’ said Strike. ‘Can we drop—?’

‘Listen, I ’ear fings, from the others,’ said Rokeby, leaning forwards. ‘I know you fink I wanna look good to the press, sayin’ we’re in touch, but you’re wrong. I bin tryin’ to keep the papers off your fuckin’ back, ’cause if they fink you might sell me out, they’ll be after you like fuckin’ jackals… wanna sandwich or somefing? I was s’posed to be goin’ out to dinner before Pru called and said you was comin’. I could do wiv somefing.’

Strike’s dislike did brief battle with his extreme hunger, because he’d left his damn sandwich at Heston uneaten, thanks to this business.

‘Yeah, I could do with something,’ he said reluctantly.

Rokeby hit the bell by his side again, then said,

‘Pru says you don’ wan’ kids.’

‘No,’ said Strike.

‘I was too young when I ’ad me first. Didn’ understand what it was. Then, the later ones, I spoiled ’em. Ed’s in fuckin’ rehab again,’ sighed Rokeby. ‘So, why’s that Culpepper fucker after you, anyway?’

‘I proved his wife was having an affair.’

‘Huh,’ said Rokeby, sipping his beer. ‘You wiv anyone? Got a woman?’

‘No,’ said Strike.

‘I was sorry to ’ear abou’ that Charlotte.’

‘Yeah, well,’ said Strike.

‘Gorgeous but crazy,’ said Rokeby. ‘Been there meself. Carla was like that. One day you wake up an’ fink, yeah, great tits an’ beau’ful face, but fuckin’ ’orrible person. I got it righ’ in the end, though. Jenny an’ me bin togevver since ’81, didja know tha’?’

‘I did, yeah,’ said Strike, choosing not to mention that some might not consider Rokeby’s third marriage an unqualified triumph, given his multiple, well-publicised infidelities.

‘She’s left me free times, then come back,’ said Rokeby. ‘We b’long togevver, simple as. She’s in Australia righ’ now, producin’ some film…’

Strike’s own mobile rang and, seeing Robin’s name, he answered.

‘Hi, everything all right?’

‘I’m… OK,’ she said, but he could hear the strain in her voice. ‘I’m fine, but I’m at a police station.’

‘Wh—?’

‘That man who threatened me with the masonic dagger—’

‘What?’ He stood up and walked towards the drawing room door, unable to sit still while listening to this.

‘Please – please – don’t start shouting at me,’ said Robin, and Strike could tell she was crying. ‘Please. I know I fucked up. I didn’t see anyone behind me on the way to Beaconsfield, but I should have checked the car – he’d put a tracking device on it.’

‘You sure you’re all right?’ said Strike, though plainly she wasn’t all right, and he wasn’t sure why he was saying something so stupid.

‘Yes, he didn’t use a knife, he was trying to – to abduct me, or something, he got in the car—’

‘How d’you know it was the same bloke?’

‘He was wearing the same green jacket,’ said Robin, who was fighting sobs. ‘But I used the spray and that’s how I got him off me, and there was a man coming down the street who heard me scream and he helped, he dragged him off me and held him down and called the police.’

‘Jesus Chr—’

‘I’ve just finished giving my police statement and he’s being interviewed… I s’pose this could end up being a good—’

‘How the fuck’s it a good thing?’

‘Please do not shout at me!’ shouted Robin.

‘Sorry – sorry, I’m just—’

‘At least he’s in custody – and Strike, he’s got curly hair. He could be Oz. This might be it. His driving licence says he’s Wade King, but that’s all I know so far. I’ll call you back once I know more. They want me to wait here until they’ve heard what he’s got to say.’

‘All right,’ said Strike. ‘Which station are you at? I’ll come and pick you up.’

‘It’s OK, Ryan’s coming to get me,’ said Robin.

‘All right, well – keep me posted… thank fuck for that spray.’

‘I’ll probably need to explain why I had it in my bag,’ said Robin distractedly. ‘God knows what I’m going to say. Speak to you later.’

She hung up, leaving Strike standing in the wood-panelled hall, staring at a Damien Hirst butterfly mandala without seeing it. Recalling himself, he headed back into the drawing room.

‘Everyfing all right?’ said Rokeby.

‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘That was my partner.’

‘Robin?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Pru likes ’er. Says she’s a good person.’

‘She is, yeah.’

‘Pru finks you two should be togevver.’

‘Really,’ said Strike.

‘Yeah. She finks you’re in love wiv ’er. Don’ tell Pru I told you that, though, she’ll be pissed off at me.’

The drawing room door opened and the housekeeper entered carrying a second tray, this time laden with two triple-decker sandwiches and fresh beers.

‘’Ow did you—?’ began Rokeby.

‘I started making them when I heard you weren’t going to dinner,’ she said, smiling.

‘Worf your fuckin’ weight in gold, you are, Tala,’ said Rokeby. ‘Fanks, darlin’.’

‘You could still go to dinner,’ said Strike. ‘Don’t let me stop you.’

‘Din’t wanna go in the first place,’ said Rokeby, through a mouthful of sandwich, as the housekeeper departed again. ‘Can’t fuckin’ stand me son-in-law. Danni’s new ’usband, but don’ tell Danni I said that.’

‘We’re not in touch,’ said Strike.

‘’E’s a PR ’otshot,’ said Rokeby. ‘An’ a tosser.’

Strike’s sandwich was very good. The two men ate for a minute, and Strike suddenly realised where it was that Rokeby’s drawing room reminded him of: the Ritz bar outside which he and Robin had almost kissed. Then Rokeby said,

‘Want some advice?’

‘No,’ said Strike, and Rokeby laughed.

‘I ’ate fuckin’ advice, an’ all. That’s why I don’t like Danni’s fuckin’ ’usband. Keeps givin’ me ’is PR perspective, then saying “that’s for free, Jonny”. One of these days I’m gonna ask ’im ’ow much ’e charges to keep ’is fuckin’ mouf shut. I was only gonna say, all that counts, in the end, is if you’re wiv a good person. I learned that the ’ard way. An’ there ain’t as many good people around as you fink. Not proper good.’

For a moment, Strike was transported back to Ted’s wake, and Polworth raising his pint to the ceiling. Proper man, Ted.

‘Don’t let Robin go, if that’s what you want,’ said Rokeby. ‘Life’s too fuckin’ short.’

The mobile on the table rang and he picked it up.

‘Denholm,’ said Rokeby, passing Strike the phone again.

‘Strike here,’ said the detective.

‘I’ve informed the paper you can provide cast-iron proof you’re not the father,’ said the upper-class voice on the end of the phone.

‘I’ll send it to you now.’

‘No need, he took me at my word,’ said Denholm, ‘which he knows from experience is the wisest, cheapest course. I’ve also told them you never slept with the woman and will take legal action if you’re named. On the other matter, the journalist is going to be spoken to before they decide whether to back down. I gather Culpepper insisted the woman’s story was genuine, but, by the amount of blustering I’ve just heard, I think his superior might have had suspicions at the time. I’ve made it clear, of course, that the damages you’re owed will be mounting for every day they refuse to make an apology, given the harm done to your reputation, and consequences for your livelihood.’

‘Thank you,’ said Strike. ‘I want you to bill me for this. Not my father.’

‘I’m not cheap,’ said Denholm, sounding faintly amused.

‘Sounds as though damages might help cover the bill.’

‘They should,’ agreed Denholm. ‘I’ll be back in touch once I’ve got their decision on the Candy girl, but the baby story is definitely quashed. Withdrawn from the website and a hasty reprint is underway.’

For the second time in as many weeks, Strike felt a wave of almost dizzying relief. He handed Rokeby back his phone.

‘’E sorted it?’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike.

‘An’ what abou’ the prostitute fing?’

‘He’s working on it,’ said Strike. With some difficulty, he added, ‘I appreciate this. Thank you.’

‘I ain’ done nuffing ’cept make a phone call,’ said Rokeby. ‘S’not much. Can I ’ave a favour back?’

‘What?’

‘I wanna keep in touch. Not for me fuckin’ image, not for any of that shit. I don’t like not knowin’ ya. You’re my flesh an’ fuckin’ blood. I know I was an arsehole, all right? I know I can’ go back an’ be daddy now, but I’m old. You never fink you’ll get there, if you’ve lived a life like I ’ave, I should be fucking dead, but I’m old and I don’t wanna die wivvout knowin’ ya. You fink I ’aven’t got the right to be proud, maybe, but I am. I’m proud of ya.’

Rokeby’s bloodshot eyes had filled with tears.

‘You don’t ’ave to take nuffing, I’m not tryna buy ya, I know you didn’ like me offerin’ money, before. I jus’ wanna know you. Jus’ a beer or somefing, not nowhere public. Anuvver beer, when there ain’t some fuckin’ journo after you. One beer.’

Strike looked at him for a few conflicted seconds, then said,

‘Yeah, all right. We’ll have a beer.’