The Hallmarked Man

69

So that was that, thought Robin: Strike had lied to her face. He who berated her for not immediately informing him of a minor incident (for the purposes of her present resentment, it suited Robin to minimise the impact on her of the gorilla-faced, dagger-waving stalker) was deliberately concealing a further risk to the agency of scandal and press intrusion (and it suited her to attribute all her rage and hurt to this, rather than investigate the weight in the pit of her stomach, which grew heavier every time she thought of Strike as a father).

As she and Barclay entered Wycliffe Road in the latter’s car early the following morning, Robin had yet another source of aggravation: a smarting right eye, from which tears kept leaking. The previous evening she’d chopped up a lot of very hot chilli peppers in her kitchen, and evidently she hadn’t washed her hands thoroughly enough afterwards, because in touching her eyelid she’d inflamed her tear ducts. The chilli-chopping had been part of a project she didn’t intend to tell Murphy about, firstly, because he still didn’t know about either the man in Harrods, or the one with the masonic dagger, and secondly, because it was illegal to carry or use pepper spray in the UK. Nevertheless, Robin felt a little safer this morning, knowing that she was carrying a potent mixture of chillies, cayenne pepper, garlic and vinegar in a clear plastic spray-bottle in her handbag. She’d worry about the legal consequences later, if she had to use it. The internet had advocated the spray as a way to repel garden pests, but she might be on flimsy legal ground should she claim she was carrying it around in her handbag for the benefit of three pot plants she’d left at home. Nevertheless, if Robin had any choice in the matter, no more men would seize her by the neck from behind without suffering consequences, nor would any of them get near enough to her to wave even blunt daggers in her face.

Barclay parked a short distance away from the maisonette where Fyola Fay, whose utility bills were addressed to Fiona Freeman, lived with her boyfriend, a very large, muscled and entirely bald porn director called Craig Wheaton, whose personalised number plate read, in part, GYM. Fiona used social media only to promote new films she’d been in, or tease her OnlyFans account. Her most recent post was an advertisement for a fleshlight modelled on her own genitalia, with the tagline Get Inside Your Favourite Star! Thus far, the agency’s surveillance hadn’t identified any times when Wheaton was regularly absent, and Fiona at home. Robin definitely didn’t want to attempt an interview until she was sure Wheaton was out of the way, because she’d once before spoken to a woman whose partner had returned unexpectedly, physically assaulting Robin in his fury at finding her in his house, and she didn’t want a repeat. The plan was that Barclay would keep an eye on Wheaton if he went out. If the couple stayed home all day, nothing would be attempted.

‘Poke me if I fall asleep,’ said Barclay, with a yawn. ‘Ah was on Mrs Two-Times till two this morning. Mind, it’s nice not tae be pukin’.’

‘When were you puking?’ asked Robin, mildly interested.

‘Did Strike not tell ye about the prawn?’

‘What prawn?’

‘Ate one, accidentally, coupla weeks ago, while I was watchin’ Plug’s mum’s house. Bought a sandwich from some shithole that doesnae label their stuff properly. You put seafood anywhere near me, I turn into a double-ended fuckin’ volcano. Strike had tae come an’ take over for me. It was that night you caught that cleaner upskirting.’

‘Oh,’ said Robin.

She looked back at Fiona Freeman’s front door, thinking of that night, and her conviction that Strike had been with Bijou Watkins, either for a clandestine hook-up, or to sort out the mess of Bijou’s baby’s paternity. So he hadn’t been with Bijou, after all. But did that change anything? Strike was still hiding the truth from her, wasn’t he? Still failing to admit that another explosion of sordid press might be about to jeopardise the agency?

‘Aye, aye,’ said Barclay, as the sitting room curtains opened in Freeman’s maisonette, and they caught a glimpse of Fiona wearing a lime green sports bra and leggings.

‘Shit,’ said Robin, as Fiona’s platinum head vanished. ‘Looks like she’s going to the gym.’

‘Could have a treadmill at home,’ said Barclay.

Twenty minutes passed, then the front door of Freeman’s house opened and Wheaton emerged alone, wearing a tracksuit. He jogged down the steps and got into his car.

‘I’m going to chance it,’ said Robin, opening the passenger door.

‘OK, good luck.’

‘Keep in touch,’ said Robin.

She loitered on the street for a further ten minutes to make sure Wheaton wasn’t going to double back for something he’d forgotten, then crossed the road, climbed the steps and rang the doorbell.

A few seconds later, Fiona opened up. From her online research, Robin knew that Freeman was twenty-three. She was a well-built young woman, literally every visible inch of whom had been embellished or enhanced to send one loud, crude signal: long platinum hair and a deep artificial tan; thick eyelash extensions and pointed, neon pink false nails; fake breasts, filler in her lips and cheekbones – even her toes were adorned with rings and nail varnish, and there was a chain tattooed around her right ankle.

‘Fiona, my name’s Robin Ellacott. I’m a private detective, I work with a man called Cormoran—’

Fiona made to slam the door. Robin shoved her foot in the gap and said, very fast,

‘We’re investigating the body in the silver vault. We know you think it was Dick de L—’

‘Get out. Get fucking out!’ panted Fiona, in a voice almost as deep as Pat’s.

‘Anything you say would be in complete confidence – nobody needs to know you spoke to me. It’ll be better for you if you talk—’

‘Fuck – OFF!’

In danger of having bones in her foot broken, Robin withdrew. The door slammed. Robin remained where she was, on the doorstep, now slightly dishevelled and breathless.

A minute later, Fiona appeared at the window beside the door.

‘FUCK OFF OUT OF HERE!’ she bellowed through the glass.

‘It’ll be better for you if you talk to me!’ Robin shouted back.

Fiona flipped her the finger and disappeared again. Robin remained where she was, hoping that her vague threats might work, once they’d had time to percolate.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw another flash of lime green. Fiona had returned briefly to the window to see whether Robin was still there, but whipped herself back out of sight again.

Five more minutes passed. Robin wondered whether Fiona was waiting for Wheaton to come home and deal with her. Then the front door opened a crack.

‘I told you to fuck off,’ said Fiona. ‘Fuck off.’

‘It’s either talk to me, in which case I can protect your identity, or you can explain in court why you wrote that note,’ said Robin. ‘That’s the choice.’

For a few more seconds the door remained open just a crack. Then, it opened six inches.

‘I dunno what you’re fucking talking about,’ said Fiona. ‘I never wrote no fucking—’

‘Yes, you did,’ said Robin. ‘You wrote an anonymous note in a masonic code and put it through our agency’s door.’

‘You’re out of your head. I never—’

‘You were caught on camera,’ Robin bluffed. ‘We can prove it was you.’

Fiona’s fake tan was too opaque to enable Robin to see whether she’d blanched, but a taloned hand flew to her mouth and the pupils of her light blue eyes dilated. She remained stock still, apparently robbed of speech, the other hand gripping the door.

‘Just tell me what you know, and I’ll leave,’ said Robin.

The neighbour’s front door opened.

‘Get in,’ whispered Fiona, backing away to allow Robin entrance, and clearly frightened of her neighbour knowing what was going on.

Fiona appeared to be close to hyperventilating. She led Robin towards the kitchen, one taloned hand still covering her mouth, her enormous, cosmetically enlarged buttocks undulating beneath the lime green Lycra. There was a butterfly tattooed just above her waistband. Robin took out her mobile, set it to record, and hid it in her bag again.

The kitchen was white-walled, with a white island in the centre, on which sat a clean ashtray, a pack of Marlboro Lights and an iPhone in a pink sparkly case. An expensive-looking exercise bike faced French windows overlooking a small backyard. The décor was dominated by a framed blown-up black and white photograph of Wheaton and Fiona from the waist up, both naked. He stood behind her, muscles oiled, bending to kiss her on the mouth, his hands over Fiona’s breasts.

Fiona started pacing in the tight space between kitchen island and bike. ‘Craig’s gonna kill me,’ she gasped, through the fingers still covering her mouth. ‘He’s gonna go fucking nuts.’

‘Craig’s your partner?’ said Robin, pretending she didn’t know.

‘Yeah.’

‘He doesn’t know about the note?’ Robin said.

‘No, he doesn’t know about the fuckin’ note, of course he fuckin’ doesn’t!’ said Fiona wildly.

‘You’ll probably just be confirming things we already know,’ said Robin.

‘Other people have talked?’ said Fiona, stopping in her tracks.

‘Yes,’ said Robin. It was semi-true. Shanker had talked.

‘And what’ve they said?’

‘That the man in the vault was killed because he had information on somebody rich and important.’

‘Oh fuck,’ moaned Fiona, starting to pace again.

‘I promise you, we can keep you out of this, if you tell us what you know.’

‘You can’t keep me out of it, I’m up to my fucking neck in it now, Craig’s gonna fucking kill me!’

A suspicion now crossed Robin’s mind, a suspicion she knew better than to voice at this early stage of the interview.

‘Do you know Dick de Lion?’ she asked.

‘His name’s Danny,’ said Fiona, her plump lips quivering. ‘Yeah, I know him. I’ve worked with him.’ She burst out, ‘I warned him not to get involved, I warned him!’

‘Involved in what?’ asked Robin.

Fiona snatched her cigarettes off the island top, crossed to the French windows, opened them and lit up. She took a deep drag and exhaled towards the garden, which was paved, with plants in pots, and a bright pink table and chairs.

‘What’s Danny’s surname?’ asked Robin.

‘Same. De Lion’s his real one.’

‘What was it you didn’t think he should get involved in, Fiona?’

Fiona took another drag on the cigarette and again exhaled towards the garden, waving her free hand to try and keep the smoke out. Robin decided to back off a little.

‘Where’s Danny from? London?’

‘No,’ said Fiona, ‘he comes from this, like, weird place – there aren’t any cars. I thought he was joking but it was for real. There was no cars there, just, like, horse-drawn carts and tractors. I think it’s an island. I thought he was bullshitting, but he wasn’t. He showed me pictures.’

‘What was the place called, can you remember?’

Fiona shook her head.

‘How old is Danny, d’you know?’

‘Twenty-five.’

‘Has he been in the adult industry long?’

‘Long as me, probably,’ said Fiona. ‘Two, three years.’

She threw a desperate glance at Robin.

‘I don’t know what the guy’s name is, the rich guy. Craig’s never told me. Just that he’s on the telly sometimes.’

Fiona was shivering slightly in the cold, but her craving for nicotine overrode her desire for warmth, because she took yet another deep drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke garden-wards.

‘How did Danny meet this man?’ said Robin, feeling her way. ‘Did Craig introduce them?’

Fiona nodded, not looking at Robin.

‘And Danny and the rich man entered a relationship?’

‘No,’ said Fiona, with a scornful laugh.

‘From what we already know,’ said Robin, taking a chance, ‘it sounds as though Danny was blackmail—’

‘No, he wasn’t,’ said Fiona quickly, turning back to Robin again, ‘he never black – it was a joke! Craig told me Danny and the rich guy had a row, and that the guy had, like, contacts and stuff… said he knew rough people, had the police in his pocket… and then Danny disappeared.’

‘When?’

‘I dunno… end of May last year?’

‘How does Craig know the rich man?’ asked Robin.

‘From when he was a kid,’ said Fiona. ‘I dunno exactly how.’

Robin’s phone buzzed. She took it out to see a text from Barclay.

Wheaton food shopping. I’ll alert when he gets back in the car.

Robin slid the still-recording phone back into her bag and said,

‘So Craig told you Danny was the body in the safe?’

‘Yeah,’ said Fiona, starting to cry. ‘He told me to… to stop bloody asking people where Danny was… unless I wanted to go the same way…’

‘Is Danny the only young man Craig’s introduced to the rich man?’

Fiona shook her head, still crying.

‘There are others?’

‘Yeah… girls as well… the rich guy’s bi. Craig told me he’s married to a woman, but he likes both.’

Fiona took another drag on her cigarette and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand.

‘How did you know we’re investigating that body, Fiona?’

‘’Cause I heard Craig on the phone to the rich guy… he always speaks different when he’s talking to him… an’ I heard him say “Cameron Strike” and that he hadn’t seen him around or anything… Craig sounded scared. So I Googled Strike and I saw he was a private detective.’

Fiona padded out into the garden in her bare feet, stubbed out her cigarette on a paving slab, flicked the stub into next door’s garden, closed the French windows and walked, still crying, to the kitchen island, where she sat down, supporting her forehead on her hand.

Robin’s phone buzzed again, and within seconds, Fiona’s pinged. Both reached for the mobiles, and Robin read,

Wheaton back in car with food shopping but stationary and texting.

‘It’s Craig,’ whispered Fiona, texting her partner back.

‘Is he coming home?’ asked Robin, trying to sound casual.

‘Not yet… wants to know what we need from the offie…’

Robin slipped her own phone back into her bag.

‘I thought,’ said Fiona, getting up again, and taking air freshener out of a drawer in the island, ‘I could tip this Strike off, with a note – ’cause Craig reads my emails and texts and everything…’

She sprayed the freshener liberally around the kitchen, then hid her cigarettes behind a mixer in a wall-mounted cupboard.

‘Danny just wanted a bit of money,’ she said croakily, returning to her seat. ‘That’s not a crime. He’d never had much. He thought he was on to a good thing with that rich guy, but he was pushing his luck. I warned him.’

‘How was he pushing his luck?’ asked Robin.

‘Well – like – the rich guy paid for Danny to get veneers done, right, because Danny had really bad teeth. And Danny added a bit – a little bit – to the bill. He kept doing stuff like that. Trying to squeeze a bit more out of the guy, you know? I said to him, “be careful”, but he said he was the guy’s favourite and…’

‘Is that what they rowed about?’ asked Robin. ‘The rich man realised Danny was trying to take more money than he’d agreed to?’

‘Yeah,’ said Fiona. ‘It was starting to add up. He sort of cornered Danny about it, and that’s when Danny said the – the thing he said – for a joke. It was just a joke. But the guy took it seriously. He told Danny what he’d just said was blackmail.’

‘But Danny and the man weren’t having sex?’

‘No,’ said Fiona.

‘Then what could Danny blackmail him about?’

‘Well… this guy likes secretly watching and filming. He gets off on them not knowing he’s there.’

‘But Danny knew the man was there?’

‘Well, yeah. All the – some of them knew, yeah.’

‘Where did the filming happen?’

‘The guy’s got a flat, with a two-way mirror. He had it all kitted out… Craig fronted for him, with the builders.’

‘Craig pretended it was his flat? That the alterations were for him?’

‘Yeah, exactly.’

‘D’you know where the flat is?’

‘No. I just know that’s where it all happened.’

‘So, the rich man hires adult actors to be in his private films?’

‘Yeah. He doesn’t want to use sex workers. He doesn’t trust them. He’s just making his own films, for private use. It’s all legal. He pays good money,’ said Fiona. ‘Really good. That’s why Danny kept going back.’

‘But only some of the people filmed know the man’s watching?’

‘Well, yeah,’ said Fiona huskily, looking at her neon pink nails rather than at Robin. ‘The pros all know, but not the… not the amateurs… Craig told me, there’s always someone there who didn’t know they were being filmed. One time it was a girl who works for the rich guy, she’s, like, an assistant, in his office. One of the pros chatted her up in a bar and he took her back to the flat, and she thought it belonged to him, and she was wasted and the rich guy watched this guy doing her, and filmed it. And he did the same thing to two young guys who’re part of some charity thing the rich guy runs. He got two pro boys to lure them back to the flat, and the rich guy filmed it all and watched. But the amateurs were all up for it,’ said Fiona quickly. ‘It wasn’t rape. They weren’t drugged or nothing. Nobody was underage. They were all consenting.’

But not to being watched and filmed, thought Robin. Even Fiona seemed to know what she’d just described wasn’t entirely innocent, because she added,

‘Craig told me the pros had to persuade the amateurs to take money, at the end. Like, for a taxi or whatever, but, like, more than they needed. So, you know, they were on film taking cash.’

Robin’s mobile buzzed again.

Wheaton back in car, looks like he’s heading home.

‘Does the rich man ever appear on camera himself?’ Robin asked.

‘No, never. He’s behind the mirror.’

‘So what did Danny say to the guy, that sounded like blackmail?’

‘The bloke was having a real go at him about the money, so Danny said, “I bet my indie films’d do well, if I give ’em more publicity.” And the guy went fucking apeshit. Danny was scared. He tried to pretend he wasn’t, but he was.’

‘Craig’s really never told you the man’s name?’

‘No, never. He says it’s more’n his life would be worth, telling people.’

‘Other than that he’s rich, and sometimes on TV, has he mentioned any other personal details about the man at all?’

‘Only that his wife doesn’t know about the flat.’

‘And he’s a Freemason,’ said Robin, as though she already knew beyond doubt that this was the case, and the unsuspecting Fiona nodded.

‘This is my card,’ said Robin, handing one over as she hoisted her bag back over her shoulder. ‘If you remember anything else about that man, please call me. Nobody else is going to know you’ve spoken to me, other than Strike.’

‘So… Danny was the guy in the safe?’ said Fiona tearfully, following Robin back up the hall.

‘I don’t know,’ said Robin. ‘But if you text me your number, I’ll let you know who it was, as soon as we’ve found out.’

Robin passed outside onto the top stone step and then turned to face Fiona again. Strike’s words, ‘we aren’t fucking social workers’, ran through her mind as she said,

‘You don’t have to stay with him. You could do something else.’

‘What?’ said Fiona.

‘I don’t… it doesn’t sound to me as though Craig treats you very well,’ said Robin. She was ten years older than Fiona, but felt ancient as she said it. ‘Men who read all your emails and texts – I was with a man who listened to my voicemail messages and didn’t pass them on. It ended badly. But,’ she added, ‘I know it isn’t any of my business.’

‘No,’ said Fiona, ‘it isn’t.’

Robin heard the front door slam behind her as she reached the pavement. Shortly before she reached the corner, she glanced back. Fiona was watching her from the front window; Robin expected her to raise her middle finger again, but the girl’s expression was simply blank.

70

On Tuesday morning, Strike sat down to eat breakfast beside an attic window fogged with condensation, and saw that Robin had emailed him overnight. Ever since she’d told him she wasn’t coming to Scotland with him to interview Jade Semple she’d chosen to email when, normally, she’d have phoned. He’d also noticed that these emails were never prefaced with a salutation.

Audio file of Fyola Fay interview attached. Important points: Dick de Lion’s real name is ‘Danny’, he comes from an island with no cars and disappeared end of May.

Fyola Fay’s partner knew the rich man ‘when he was a kid’. I’ve done some research: Craig Wheaton spent his teens in a boys’ care home partly funded by Oliver Branfoot’s trust.

Also attached, possible Land Rover.

R

Strike picked up his mobile and called her.

‘Just seen your email.’

‘Oh, right,’ said Robin coolly.

‘Bloody good work. You’ve found the link between Branfoot and de Lion.’

‘An indirect link, yes,’ said Robin, unfortunately reminded of the ‘weak link’ comment Strike had made in Ironbridge. Strike was speaking as though everything was normal between them, and even though she didn’t want any conversation in which she might become angry or, worse, tearful, his matter-of-fact tone grated. She was damned if she was going to apologise for anything she’d said at the Swan Taphouse, but she was riled by the fact that Strike didn’t seem to feel he ought to make any amends.

‘Well, I’ve just found Rupert’s friend Tish Benton, or her parents, anyway,’ said Strike.

Robin suspected this was supposed to show her he hadn’t forgotten about Decima.

‘Yes, I found her too,’ said Robin coolly. ‘She’s got an Instagram page, but it’s set to private. I’ve sent her a follower request.’

‘Great, because the parents were very suspicious when I told them who I was. I’ve left contact details and asked Tish to call me but I’m not hopeful.’

‘OK, well, there’s something else I wanted to say to you,’ said Robin. ‘I want to put surveillance on Albie Simpson-White. I don’t care how we bill for it, but I’m happy to give up free time to do it, or cover for the others while they do. I don’t feel right about spending Decima’s money to investigate all these other possible Wrights, if we’re not actively trying to get resolution for her, too.’

‘All right,’ said Strike, who sounded resigned, ‘we’ll start watching Simpson-White.’

‘Thank you,’ said Robin stiffly.

‘I had no luck with Powell’s friend Wynn Jones,’ said Strike. ‘He wasn’t at the farm. Allegedly he’s had some kind of accident with a tractor. They didn’t seem keen on telling me how to contact him, but I left a card. Don’t suppose Tyler Powell’s called you back?’

‘No,’ said Robin. She was now regretting leaving her real name on Tyler’s supposed phone. If he was alive but hiding away from persecutors in his home town, he’d almost certainly rather not speak to a private detective, especially if he suspected she’d been hired by the Whiteheads.

‘And we’ve had another one of those anonymous calls,’ said Strike.

‘The man or the Scottish woman?’

‘Man,’ said Strike. ‘Apparently he said, “Stop, or you’ll be refined like silver in the furnace of affliction.” Pat took it down in shorthand, so it’s accurate. I’ve looked it up, and it’s a rough approximation of a quote from the Bible, about Elijah.’

‘Right,’ said Robin.

Strike now clicked on the link to a second-hand Land Rover she’d sent him with her email.

‘The Defender 90 looks good,’ he said. ‘Want to go and see it?’

‘Yes, OK,’ said Robin. ‘I could go on Sunday afternoon. Is that everything?’

‘Yeah, I think so.’

Robin hung up without saying goodbye. Strike set down his mobile, feeling slightly more depressed than he had before phoning her.

He’d barely settled back to work when his phone rang. Wardle was calling to say that their planned curry in town that night would have to be postponed, because Wardle’s ex-wife had unexpectedly required him to look after their eighteen-month-old son. The policeman intimated that the few bits of information he had for Strike could just as easily be told by phone, but Strike chose not to take the hint, announcing that he’d bring a takeaway curry round at seven that night, to discuss Wardle’s findings in person.

Friends though they were, this would be the first time Strike had ever visited Wardle at home. Their mutual liking, which had been fostered in spite of initial mutual suspicion, had grown through the years, but they’d rarely had a conversation that could be called truly personal; indeed, Strike couldn’t offhand think of any men with whom he had deeply personal conversations. However, he was well-enough acquainted with Wardle to know that things must be bad indeed for him to admit to being off work with depression, and knew, too, that the man’s recent misfortunes – the death of his brother, the departure of his wife, the move into a bachelor flat, shared custody of his small son, all on top of a highly demanding job – had given him ample cause. The memories of two suicides he’d investigated in the military hovered in the back of Strike’s mind. Both the men had seemed to be coping until suddenly they were dead, and so he made the trip into Brixton that evening, sore as his leg was, and in spite of his own troubles.

As he left the curry house at six with his takeaway in his hand his mobile rang and, with strong misgivings, he saw Bijou’s number.

‘Oh, thank God,’ she said when he answered, a tinge of hysteria in her voice. ‘Look, I’m sorry, but you’ve got to take a DNA test. You’ve got to.’

‘Have I, now?’

‘Andrew’s daring me to take him to court, but he says, if I do’ – Bijou started sobbing again – ‘he’ll go straight to some journalist called Colin Pepper and say he’s sure she’s yours!’

‘So he’ll break his own super-injunction?’ said Strike, who was having the not unfamiliar sensation that a hot wire was tightening around his head.

‘He’s being awful, he’s convinced Ottolie’s yours – if I can just show him proof – PLEASE!’ she wailed. ‘This is for you as much as for me!’

Strike, who had the horrible feeling she was right, watched an oncoming double decker speeding towards him and, for a fraction of a second, imagined stepping out in front of it, and erasing himself and every problem along with him, of being lost in black nothingness, in a state of blissful non-being, but the bus passed, and Strike limped on, and he couldn’t even muster anger as he said,

‘All right. D’you want me to get a kit?’

‘No, I’ll buy them, but we’ll have to meet so I can get the sample from you, and I’ll take mine and Ottolie’s at the same time.’

‘You’re being watched,’ Strike reminded her.

‘I haven’t seen anyone—’

‘Because they’re good at what they do, not because they’re not bloody there,’ said Strike. ‘This needs thinking about. I’ll call you back when I’ve got a plan.’

He hung up and walked on, trying to shove aside his own multitude of problems, the better to concentrate on Wardle’s.

The policeman’s flat was in a modern block on Brixton Water Lane. Strike buzzed the intercom and climbed two flights of stairs, which did his aching stump little good, and found Wardle waiting in the doorway with his sleepy, pyjama-ed eighteen-month-old son in his arms. This sight gave Strike an extremely unwelcome vision of himself trying to entertain a daughter in his attic flat, so as to enable Bijou to go out on the town, in pursuit of another wealthy potential husband.

‘He’ll go down soon,’ said Wardle and, slightly to Strike’s surprise – his experience of small children was that their bedtimes were haphazard and often involved a lot of protests and grizzling – Wardle’s son did indeed settle quickly in the spare bedroom, while Strike was in the kitchen, prising lids off plastic tubs of curry. The jingling music of a cartoon was issuing from the sitting room.

The kitchen was as clean and tidy as Strike would have expected, but Wardle had made no effort to make the place homely or to change what Strike guessed was pre-existing décor, because he doubted the policeman would have chosen tiles patterned with root vegetables.

‘Cheers for this,’ said Wardle, sitting down at the table. ‘How much do I owe you?’

‘It’s on me,’ said Strike. ‘Payment for information soon to be received.’

‘Well, you’ve pissed the murder investigation team off, big time.’

‘How’ve I done that?’ said Strike, helping himself to naan bread.

‘Those witnesses, Wright’s neighbours. Daz and someone.’

‘Mandy, yeah. What about them?’

‘They’re denying they told you anything.’

‘Ah,’ said Strike.

He wasn’t surprised. Daz and Mandy’s immediate, reflexive reaction to being called on by police a second time would, he was certain, be to deny everything, without pausing to consider that they could be storing up far more serious trouble for themselves in continuing to deny that they’d hidden evidence from the police.

‘And one of them let it slip that you’d given them money.’

‘Which they took, in exchange for the information. Does the Met think I shower banknotes on people with nothing to tell me?’

‘I’m just warning you,’ said Wardle, ‘that’s the line the team’s taking, that you’re trying to build up your rep by pretending to have found stuff they didn’t.’

‘So nobody’s following up Oz and Sofia Medina?’

‘I didn’t say that,’ said Wardle. ‘One of the women on the team – name’s Iverson – thinks Daz and Mandy told you the truth and that it’s worth looking into the Oz bloke. Murphy knows Iverson,’ he added. ‘Knows her bloody well, actually.’

Strike felt a flicker of interest unrelated to the case.

‘Yeah?’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ said Wardle. ‘They had a good grope in the pub a while back.’

‘How long ago was this?’ asked Strike, trying to sound casual.

‘Back when he was splitting up with his wife,’ said Wardle, and the tiny shoot of – not exactly hope, but something resembling it – withered and died inside Strike. ‘I told you before, he was a proper arsehole when he was drinking, nothing in a skirt was safe. He’s been in a bloody bad mood lately, apparently. Iverson says, if she didn’t know better, she’d think he was drinking again. Mind, he’d have good reason.’

Much as Strike would have liked to believe Murphy had fallen off the wagon he thought that was too much to hope for.

‘Why’d he have good reason?’ he asked.

‘He was on that gangland shooting, with the kids.’

‘So I heard.’

‘Well, he was the one who fucked it up. He arrested the mother’s boyfriend, who’s admittedly a violent, vengeful fucker with a record, but Murphy had sod all evidence.’

Strike, who assumed Robin already knew all this, knew that even if she didn’t, he’d only make himself look like a prick if he brought any of it up, so he didn’t pursue the subject.

‘Anyway, I checked out that Calvin Osgood’s alibi for you,’ said Wardle. ‘It’s sound. He really was in Manchester when he said he was.’

‘Thought so, but wanted it confirmed,’ said Strike, shoving one of the plastic containers towards Wardle. ‘Have some, it’s good.’

The policeman helped himself to chicken Madras. He looked as though he’d lost weight recently, and, unlike Strike, he hadn’t had much to spare in the first place. Wardle had been boyishly good-looking when he and Strike first met, but he seemed to have aged far more than the seven years that had passed since, and was now very grey around the temples.

‘This Iverson,’ said Strike, ‘has she looked at Oz’s Instagram account? Because Robin found out a missing girl was in communication with him, name of Sapphire Neagle.’

‘Dunno,’ said Wardle. ‘She probably thinks I’m too matey with you to give me much. I know the team’s seriously fucked off at Truman, though. Did you know he’s a Freemason?’

‘I did, yeah,’ said Strike, glad Robin wasn’t present to hear this.

‘There’s a lot of muttering that Truman wanted that body to be Knowles, to turn attention away from where the killing happened. Nobody needs a bloody Freemasonry-in-the-Met story… Did you know they’ve ruled out those four blokes in Wild Court?’

‘I did, yeah.’

‘So now they’re trying to work out how Wright and his killer got to the shop, because there doesn’t seem to be camera footage of them anywhere.’

‘A Peugeot was involved, wasn’t it?’

‘That the silver car they think picked up the killer at three in the morning?’

‘Yeah. I assume they’ve tried to trace it?’

‘Yeah, but no dice. They’re combing through camera footage, but it disappeared into a residential area and got lost.’

Strike had just picked up his knife and fork again when his mobile rang and, seeing that it was Robin calling, answered at once.

‘Hi, are you free to talk?’ she said. Cheered by the fact that she’d called him instead of emailing, Strike said,

‘Yeah, of course, give me a minute.’

He got up from the table and pointed at the front door, signalling to Wardle that he needed privacy for this conversation.

‘Right,’ said Strike, who’d now let himself onto the landing outside Wardle’s flat, ‘fire away.’

‘I’m in casualty – I’m fine,’ she added quickly. ‘Plug’s here, with his son. The son’s been injured, badly, on his face. Bitten. Strike, I think I know what’s going on.’

‘What?’

‘Dogs. Dangerous dogs. The boy was bitten in that house in Carnival Street where they put whatever animal was in that allotment shed. They were both unmarked when they went in. Twenty minutes later, Plug half-carried his son out, with blood all over his face.’

‘Fuck,’ said Strike, thinking of the compound outside Ipswich. ‘Dog fights. That’s it, isn’t it? The cash is for bets, or buying dogs… OK, good work, now we know what we’re dealing with. With luck, a doctor might call in the police once they see what the injury is.’

‘Plug looks absolutely furious. I’ll bet you anything he’s going to pressure the boy not to say what really happened – say it was a stray dog, or something.’

‘Yeah, he probably will, in which case it’ll be on us to nail him. Easier now we know what we’re trying to prove. Have you done anything about that Land Rover, by the way?’ Strike asked, keen to keep fostering this slightly more amicable atmosphere.

‘Yes, I’ve made an appointment to go and see it Sunday afternoon. I’d better go, the boy’s been taken away to get stitched up.’

‘OK, bye,’ said Strike, and he returned to Wardle, who was opening his second lager.

‘Robin,’ Strike said.

‘Ah,’ said Wardle.

‘Listen, I’m grateful for the info,’ Strike said, sitting down again. ‘Good to know there’s still someone in the Met who doesn’t think I’m an arsehole.’

‘They’ve got their own share of arseholes,’ said Wardle, and Strike noticed the use of ‘they’, as opposed to ‘we’.

‘Were you serious,’ he asked, ‘about leaving?’

Wardle drank more lager before answering.

‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘My mum’s just died.’

‘Shit,’ said Strike, who’d had no idea of this. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Yeah. Last month. She was never right, after my brother,’ said Wardle. ‘Broke her heart.’

His words were coming as though each adhered to his throat, and needed to be pulled up, with effort.

‘She chose not to go for a second round of chemo… raised us both as a single mum. We were her life. Terry dying half-killed her, and then April left me, and she didn’t see nearly as much of Liam any more.’

‘Liam?’

‘My son,’ said Wardle, with a faint smile. ‘The kid you just saw me put to bed.’

‘Oh, yeah, of course.’

‘Anyway… Mum left a lot more money than I expected. She came into an inheritance herself, right before she died… never got to enjoy it. Before she went, I kept telling myself I’d be mad not to hang on at work for the pension, but with what she left, I could still see Liam right.’

The policeman sighed, then said,

‘Shall we go and sit on better chairs? I spend all night in here on my laptop, sometimes, getting a numb arse…’

The sitting room held a three-piece suite, a television and little else. As Strike passed over the threshold, a distant wail of ‘Daddy!’ was heard.

‘Shit,’ muttered Wardle, and he left for the spare bedroom.

Strike sat down on the sofa, lager in hand, eyes on the television screen, thinking of that wailed word, ‘daddy’. He’d never used the word to address any man in his life, because the nearest thing he’d ever had to a father had been Ted. A very long time ago, as a boy, he’d longed to be able to say it to Rokeby, to be able to talk about him as ‘dad’, but he never had. Strike had been a stickler for accuracy, even as a child. You didn’t call a man you’d met for ten minutes your dad. He imagined the baby girl to whom Bijou had recently given birth calling him ‘daddy’, and drank more lager.

The cartoon Wardle’s son had been watching had finished. Some kind of comedy news quiz had taken its place, and Strike suddenly realised he was looking at Lord Oliver Branfoot, who sat hunched behind a lit-up podium beside a young comedian.

Large, overweight and round-shouldered, Branfoot was wearing a suit that looked as though he’d slept in it. His dark hair was either badly cut or messed up to seem that way, while his large, fleshy nose and droopy eyes gave him the droll look of a giant garden gnome.

The quiz host was speaking.

‘Of what did President Trump say this week, “the enemies keep saying it’s terrible”?’

Branfoot hit the buzzer first.

‘His hair?’ he said, in a plummy voice, which got an easy round of laughter. ‘Weally,’ said Branfoot, straight-faced, blinking at the studio audience as though surprised by their reaction. ‘Sewiously. It must be that.’

‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ said the comedian sitting next to Branfoot, which earned another round of cheap laughter.

‘I’m afwaid I take sewious offence at that wemark,’ said Branfoot, mock-dignified. He always seemed to step up his usage of words with ‘r’s in them when on television, milking the comedy value of his speech impediment. ‘I may not be Wichard Gere, but I don’t walk about with what appears to be Shwedded Wheat on my head.’

‘The answer,’ said the host, over the audience’s renewed mirth, ‘is his Twitter account.’

‘’S’all right, he just called out in his sleep,’ said Wardle, reappearing in the room. ‘Oh Christ, not that Branfoot prick. Why do they keep inviting him on these things?’

‘Because he’s happy to play the jackass,’ said Strike.

‘I’m not sure that’s an act,’ said Wardle.

‘It’s a great act,’ said Strike, staring stonily at the screen. ‘That fucker knows exactly what he’s doing.’

71

Notwithstanding Robin’s offer to forfeit her own free time so that they didn’t have to sacrifice their own, adding Albie Simpson-White to the roster of people who needed following by the agency caused a degree of exasperation among the subcontractors. Robin knew they felt that trying to keep an eye on Plug, the house in Carnival Street where they believed a dangerous dog or dogs were being kept, and Plug’s dog-breeding and -fighting associates in London and in Ipswich, while also watching Mrs Two-Times and filling the gaps in the silver vault case the two partners couldn’t cover alone was quite enough work to be getting on with.

Predictably, Kim Cochran was the person most open about her disdain for the new job. Robin suspected Strike must have told the subcontractors that following Albie was Robin’s particular wish, because she’d overheard Kim saying to Shah, ‘So we’re just traipsing around after this Simpson-White in case he leads us to his missing mate?’ Then, catching sight of Robin in the inner office, Kim had given yet another of her little laughs and said,

‘Well, stranger things have happened. Maybe I’ll win the lottery this week, too.’

I wish you would win the bloody lottery. Then maybe you’d leave, thought Robin angrily on Sunday at midday, while following Albie from his flat to the Tube. She was supposed to be passing the job to Kim in a couple of hours’ time, and if there were any more supposedly funny comments during the handover, she thought she might well be putting the woman firmly in her place.

Fortunately, the weather remained as cold as ever, which made Robin’s choice of a beanie and a scarf in which she was hiding most of her face seem perfectly natural. As she’d already met Albie, she was also wearing a black wig and a pair of glasses. Albie hadn’t even looked at her; he was listening to music on his headphones, one of his large feet tapping along in time. Robin was therefore temporarily free to think about the two-bedroomed house she and Murphy had viewed on Wednesday.

It stood at the end of a terrace – which meant it received plenty of light – would need little renovation and was convenient for the Tube. Murphy still had misgivings about the size, but when Robin reminded him of how much above their maximum budget the three-bedroomed house in Wood Green had gone for, he agreed to put in an offer on this one, which had been accepted that Friday.

Robin was relieved the decision had been made, and told herself that this feeling was happiness. She’d even phoned her mother and told her that she and Murphy were moving in together, and Linda had been predictably delighted, although after expressing her pleasure she’d confided that Martin and Carmen were rowing non-stop, which Linda thought was the cause of baby Dirk’s fretfulness. This hadn’t helped Robin’s now almost constant state of anxiety and guilt. She still hadn’t sent either of her new nephews presents.

Ever since the man in the green jacket and gorilla mask had threatened her, she’d been jumpy, constantly checking behind her for any sign of being followed. The number of things she wasn’t telling Murphy was also weighing heavily on her conscience. Strike’s theory about Malcolm Truman interfering in the investigation to protect the Freemasons was starting to look worryingly credible, and Robin could only imagine what Murphy’s reaction was likely to be, should they manage to prove that it had been Danny de Lion in the silver vault, and that the lead investigator had deliberately tried to obfuscate his identity at the urging of a masonic friend.

Albie got off the Tube at Notting Hill Gate station, and Robin followed him up Pembridge Road and round a corner, where he entered a pub called the Sun in Splendour, which had a curved, bright yellow frontage. Robin texted Kim her location, then entered the pub to see Albie sitting alone at a table, drinking a pint.

Robin didn’t dare get too close to him, so she ordered herself a tomato juice and remained at the bar, intermittently watching Albie in a mirror, and looking at her phone to bolster the impression of a woman waiting for a tardy friend.

On opening WhatsApp, Robin saw she’d just received a new and very long message from an unknown number.

Hello this is Chloe Griffiths, Ian Griffiths’ daughter. Dad’s asked me to get in touch with you as like a character witness for Tyler Powell. I wasn’t going to but my boyfriend thinks I should tell you the truth, even if Dad doesn’t want to hear it.

I know Dad’s told you Tyler definitely didn’t have anything to do with that car crash and I’m not saying he did, but I know for a fact Tyler isn’t the nice sweet guy Dad thinks he is. Dad thinks anyone who likes Steely Dan and wants to learn the guitar must be a good guy, but Tyler isn’t.

He gets really pushy with girls when he’s drunk, he’s done it to lots of friends of mine. Dad feels sorry for him, he thinks Tyler’s desperate for love or something, because his parents aren’t very nice to him, so he thinks it’s all harmless but it isn’t. Anne-Marie only went out with Tyler a couple of times, and he started talking about them getting married. Dad thought that just showed Tyler wants a proper family of his own, but Anne-Marie was really freaked out by him being so intense and possessive when they’d only dated twice and Tyler was really angry she dumped him and was talking all kinds of shit about her.

Another girl I know called Zeta had a bad experience with Tyler as well but she never went to the police about it, even though a bunch of us said she should, but she said she had no proof. I don’t want to say what happened because she might not want to talk about it but you can try and talk to her. Her number’s 07700 942369.

Tyler and me were sort of friends when we first moved in opposite, because I used to feel sorry for him and my mum had just died and he was nice about that. He’s a bit slow, and I could tell he was unhappy at home, but then he started making excuses to come over to our house all the time and I think he only took guitar lessons with Dad so he could try and flirt with me. Tyler’s the type that thinks if a girl’s nice to him she wants to get with him. When I told him I had a boyfriend he turned really nasty and stopped coming for guitar lessons and his gran started being horrible to me.

Anne-Marie was one of my best friends though and honestly half the reason I wanted to go interrailing was so I didn’t have to think about her dying all the time and also people were kind of ganging up on me too, because Dad was going round defending Tyler to everyone and people thought I must think the same because Tyler and I used to be friends.

I can’t prove Tyler did anything to the car that night, but him packing up and leaving Ironbridge is really weird, because he never wanted to live anywhere else before. Dad can’t complain I’ve told you the truth, just because he doesn’t want to hear it.

Seconds after Robin had finished reading this message, Strike called her.

‘Hi, where are you? Can you talk?’

‘Yes, I’m in a pub,’ said Robin, checking Albie in the mirror.

‘My old SIB mate, Hardy, is going to be in town for a family wedding next week and he thinks he can wangle us a private tour of Freemasons’ Hall. Want to come and see Temple Seventeen?’

Robin hesitated. She had a great curiosity to see inside Freemasons’ Hall, especially on a private tour, but she remained angry at Strike.

‘No, we’re overstretched as it is. You stick with Semple and I’ll keep going on Tyler Powell. I’ve actually just had a message from Chloe Griffiths, Tyler’s ex-neighbour. I’ll forward it to you.’

‘OK,’ said Strike, who was disappointed about Freemasons’ Hall; he’d been certain she’d want to see it. ‘You’re seeing the new Land Rover this afternoon, right?’

‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘I’d better go, I’m handing over to Kim in a minute.’

As she said it, she saw the subcontractor enter the pub.

‘Bye,’ Robin said to Strike, and hung up.

‘Albie’s the blond guy sitting on his own,’ Robin told Kim without looking at her, as both stood facing the bar, though apparently unconnected to each other. ‘You’ll be able to get nearer to him than I c – ah,’ said Robin, watching the mirror. A good-looking young woman with shiny, near-black hair had just entered the pub and waved at Albie.

‘We’re very interested in a girl called Tish Benton,’ said Robin quietly to Kim, as the newcomer bought herself a drink at the far end of the bar. ‘That could be her. If you can get near enough to hear her name, that’d be great.’

‘Yes, I think that’ll be within my capabilities,’ said Kim.

‘Glad to hear it,’ said Robin tartly, and she left.

72

Unbeknownst to Robin, Strike was currently preoccupied with an investigative problem he considered even more pressing than the identity of the body in the silver vault.

Having racked his brains for the best way to throw off the surveillance under which Bijou’s former lover had placed her, and for a discreet venue suitable for the provision of DNA swabs, he’d decided to call again on his extensive knowledge of London’s five-star hotels. On the same cold, damp morning he’d arranged to meet his old friend Graham Hardacre for a tour of Freemasons’ Hall, Strike hung around in his attic flat until ten past nine, by which point he thought it reasonable to suppose that Bijou would be awake but still at home, without eavesdroppers or passers-by to listen in. He reached for Ted’s fisherman’s priest and sat weighing it in his hand as he waited for her to answer, which she did within a few rings.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s me,’ said Strike. ‘I’ve got a plan for the DNA test.’

‘Oh, thank God,’ said Bijou fervently. ‘Today?’

‘Day after tomorrow,’ said Strike. ‘But you cannot tell anyone—’

‘I won’t!’ said Bijou shrilly. ‘For God’s sake, do you think I want people knowing?’

‘Right, well, I’ve booked a room at the Savoy,’ said Strike.

‘The hotel?’

‘No, the cabbage,’ said Strike irritably. ‘Of course the bloody hotel.’

‘We can’t meet at a hotel, that’ll look—’

‘Listen,’ said Strike, who’d anticipated her quibbles and was in no mood to humour them. ‘It’s the hardest bloody hotel in London to find your way around, it’s a maze in there. It’s got two entrances, front and back, and three different lifts going to different parts of the building. They’re discreet and professional, and they’re used to celebrities, so they won’t let themselves get tricked into giving out any booking information. Nobody’ll be able to tail you to the room, or prove who you met or what you did in there, as long as you follow my instructions.’

‘But—’

‘What’s the likelihood of us meeting to fuck in an expensive hotel, in the city where both of us have flats, when you’ve got a baby with you? You’re there to meet an old American friend who’s only in town for twenty-four hours, on business, but wants to meet the baby. You’re having coffee in her room at four o’clock. That’s what you say, if you need a story.’

‘OK,’ said Bijou uncertainly.

‘Have you got a pen?’

‘Yes,’ she said, and he heard her rummaging. ‘Go on.’

‘You’re going in the front. No furtiveness, you’ve got nothing to hide. Go straight through the lobby, down the steps, turn left and then right. That takes you to the red lift.’

‘Red lift,’ repeated Bijou, who was clearly making notes.

‘If anyone’s following you, it’ll be obvious, because they’ll have no choice but to get into the lift with you. If anyone does get in – and I don’t care how innocent they look – get out. Fake having forgotten something, or realising you’re at the wrong lift – there’s a green and blue one, too. If whoever got in the lift with you gets out when you do, you stop dead and make it clear you think their behaviour’s odd.’

‘How?’

‘Stare at them. Make it clear you’re suspicious. They need to know they’ve blown their cover, that they’re risking you confronting them or reporting them to a hotel worker for following you.’

‘What if they ask where I’m going? What if they confront me?’

‘Then you either tell the story you’re meeting an American girlfriend upstairs, or ask why that’s any of their business. Do not get in a lift with anyone, all right?’

‘All right,’ said Bijou.

‘Once you’re in the lift alone, press the sixth-floor button. That’s not where you’re getting out, but we want them scurrying up to the top while you’re going back down to the fourth. I’ll already be in the room waiting for you. We do the swabs, and I leave immediately via the back of the hotel. You stay in the room for at least a couple of hours, to make the coffee with the friend story stick. Then you go back out through the lobby at the front.’

‘All right,’ said Bijou, ‘but it’s going to be really expensive, taking a room at the Savoy, and I’m not getting paid at the—’

‘It’s fine, I’ve already paid for it,’ said Strike.

‘Oh,’ said Bijou. ‘Well, I’ll pay half, if you—’

‘There’s no need. I just want this sorted out.’

Having given her the room number, Strike hung up.

He replaced the priest on the windowsill and got to his feet, trying not to think about the likely press massacre should Dominic Culpepper realise there was a story combining Strike, a gorgeous brunette, an accidentally conceived baby and a well-known barrister who was the scourge of the tabloids, nor to imagine that story’s effects on Robin and the rest of the agency. Strike had detected a definite lack of warmth in his recent interactions with Shah, and had a nasty feeling this might be because Shah knew Bijou had called the office.

He was heading downstairs without intending to enter the office, because he wanted to be in good time to meet Hardacre, when Pat, seeing him pass, called out to him from behind the glass-panelled door.

‘What’s up?’ asked Strike, looking in.

‘That Scottish Gateshead’s just called again,’ she said, looking cross. ‘Bloody rude.’

‘The woman who wants to meet me in the Golden Fleece?’ said Strike.

‘Yeah,’ said Pat. ‘Very angry you haven’t called her back. Swearing.’

‘I haven’t got her number,’ said Strike. ‘What was she saying this time?’

‘Something about an engineer and people are out to get her. Swearing her head off.’

‘OK, well, if she calls again, try and get contact details.’

He was about to set off downstairs again when he changed his mind and walked through into the inner office instead, where he made a note and pinned it on the corkboard beneath the picture of Niall Semple. Scottish woman. Engineer. People out to get her.

‘If that woman does call back,’ he told Pat on his way back to the glass door, ‘ask if she’s blonde and has got anything tattooed on her face.’

‘On her face?’ said Pat.

‘Yeah, you know, the thing on the front of your head,’ said Strike, and left.

Hardacre had suggested meeting in a pub called the Freemasons’ Arms, which lay a short distance from Freemasons’ Hall, because, as he’d told Strike by text, ‘we might as well do the thing properly’. However, as Strike saw when he entered, the pub was disappointingly free of masonic emblems, placing an emphasis instead on old football photographs.

Hardacre was already at the bar. Barely five foot eight, the SIB man had become tubbier since Strike had last seen him, and lost more of his mousy hair, though his amiable, nondescript face was far less lined than Wardle’s. The pair exchanged their usual half-hug, half-handshake.

‘You’re thinner, Oggy.’

‘Not thin enough,’ said Strike, whose knee and hamstring had resented the ten-minute walk. ‘You look well. How’s the family?’

‘All good, yeah,’ said Hardacre. ‘Quick pint before we get you initiated?’

‘Yeah, go on,’ said Strike. ‘But they take all money and metal off you first, don’t they?’

‘Been reading up?’ said Hardacre, with a grin.

‘Just wondering whether alcohol’s a good idea when I’m about to be hopping around in the dark,’ said Strike.

‘Think they’d make an exception for your leg, unless you habitually use it as a weapon.’

‘Not often,’ said Strike, ‘but it’s been known.’

They took their pints to a table near the window.

‘So,’ said Hardacre, ‘what’re we looking for?’

‘Museum and Temple Seventeen,’ said Strike.

‘Museum won’t be a problem, but they don’t usually let the public into temples, other than the Grand Temple. Why’re we interested in number Seventeen?’

‘William Wright was interested in it, or so my informant says,’ said Strike.

‘Very specific, wanting to see just one temple.’

‘Said informant isn’t overly trustworthy. I’m checking it out on the off-chance. Don’t suppose you’ve got anything else on Niall Semple for me?’

‘A bit,’ said Hardacre, dropping his voice, ‘but you need to keep this on the down low, Oggy. I’ll be deep in the shit if they find out I’ve passed it to you.’

‘There’ll be no publicity,’ said Strike, considerably more sympathetic to this request than he’d been to the almost identical one made by Ryan Fucking Murphy.

‘Name Ben Liddell familiar to you?’

‘No,’ said Strike, ‘but I know Semple’s best mate was called Ben and I know he got killed in the same operation where Semple sustained his traumatic brain injury.’

‘That’s him. Well, Semple seems to have been very fucking angry about that, and from what I heard – I shouldn’t know any of this, Oggy – he showed extreme animosity to the Regiment once he was compos mentis again and even made noises about press exposure regarding the botched operation where Liddell died.’

‘That’d explain a lot,’ said Strike, thinking of Ralph Lawrence, the alleged MI5 operative, and his obvious preference for Strike giving up attempts to find Semple. ‘What d’you know about the operation?’

‘Nothing,’ said Hardacre, ‘and frankly, I don’t want to know.’

‘Has this Ben Liddell got any next of kin?’

‘No idea.’

‘OK… can I ask you a couple of masonic questions?’

‘Yeah, go on.’

‘Wouldn’t happen to know what gow-too is, would you?’

‘Gow-too?’ said Hardacre. ‘How’re you spelling it? G – A – O – T – U?’

‘Haven’t seen it written down,’ said Strike. ‘What would it mean if it’s that?’

‘Masonic acronym. Great Architect Of The Universe.’

‘God, in other words?’

‘Yeah. Why?’

‘We’ve got an anonymous caller who’s allegedly got GAOTU on their side. I thought Freemasonry wasn’t supposed to be a religion?’

‘It’s not,’ said Hardacre.

‘But you believe in God.’

‘You’ve got to believe in a single higher power to be a mason. Doesn’t have to be any particular God.’

‘This, in spite of the fact that most of the symbolism is Christian and weighs towards the Crusades?’

‘Still only symbolism,’ said Hardacre. ‘We aren’t aiming to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem any more. Just to erect it in our own pure hearts.’

Strike snorted, then said,

‘Ever read any A. H. Murdoch?’

‘Not much,’ said Hardacre. ‘The language is pretty flowery and obscure. I prefer Bridge to Light.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Popular introduction to the Scottish Rite.’

‘Bridges are a thing in Freemasonry, are they?’

‘What d’you mean, “thing”?’

‘Bridges have cropped up a bit,’ said Strike.

‘How?’

‘Semple freaked out about crossing a masonic bridge on a run, and I’ve got some Scottish woman calling the office, who thinks something’s hidden under a bridge.’

Hardacre drank some beer, eyed Strike thoughtfully for a moment or two, then said,

‘There’s a bit in Morals and Dogma, another key text on the Scottish Rite, about a bridge. “The retreating general may cut away a bridge behind him, to delay pursuit and save the main body of his army, though he thereby surrenders a detachment to certain destruction.” It says such action isn’t unjust, but “may infringe some dreamer’s ideal rule of justice”.’

‘Interesting,’ said Strike. ‘That might chime with Semple being angry his mate Liddell had been sacrificed.’

‘Yeah. And when you’re inducted into the fifteenth degree, there’s a bridge, too.’

‘What, literally?’

‘They don’t generally hammer one together out of wood in the middle of the temple, no,’ said Hardacre, ‘but there’s a symbolic representation of one.’

‘What happens – troll jumps out and gets you, if you get the password wrong?’

‘Ha ha,’ said Hardacre. ‘You cross the bridge, over a river in which body parts are floating—’

‘Body parts?’

‘It’s symbolic, Oggy,’ said Hardacre.

Slightly to Strike’s surprise, his old friend seemed half-embarrassed, half-defiant, so he decided to leave off flippant comments about Freemasonry, for the moment.

‘How highly would you say masons prize the medals—’

‘Jewels,’ Hardacre corrected him.

‘—jewels they get for achieving the degrees?’

‘Well, they probably wouldn’t want to lose them. Why?’

‘Because Semple seems to have either taken something valuable, or something he thought was valuable, with him to London – or picked it up here, I suppose. He had a briefcase handcuffed to him, last time he was seen.’

‘If he’d got obsessive about Freemasonry, he might’ve thought it was important to keep his regalia with him,’ said Hardacre.

‘What would regalia comprise? Sash? Apron? Medals – jewels, I mean?’

‘All of the above, probably,’ said Hardacre. ‘I had a look for any masonic connection with the name William Wright, by the way. A Captain William Wright of Ardwick Lodge died in the First World War.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘East Lancashire. The lodge is still active.’

‘Was he well known, this Wright? Would most Freemasons have heard of him?’

‘Doubt it,’ said Hardacre. ‘The only claim to fame I found is that he drowned at sea. How’s the case going, in general?’

Strike treated Hardacre to a succinct précis of recent events, including the anonymous calls to the office and Robin’s encounter with a masked, dagger-waving man, though omitting any mention of gorillas.

‘Shit,’ said Hardacre. ‘But this all points one way, surely?’

‘Heavy-handed misdirection?’

‘Well, obviously,’ said Hardacre, with a laugh. ‘Brandishing a masonic dagger in the street – you think a genuine mason would do that?’

‘Could be a masonic nutter,’ said Strike. ‘But I agree, the masonic touches are probably a smokescreen.’

‘Got to be,’ said Hardacre.

‘Can’t imagine a Freemason committing murder, then?’

‘Wouldn’t go that far,’ said Hardacre. ‘Never forget what Albert Pike said.’

‘You’ll have to remind me.’

‘“Masonry does not change human nature, and cannot make honest men out of born knaves.”’

Pints finished, they headed out into the bright sun. Ten minutes later, Hardacre was speaking in a low voice to a woman at the front desk in the marble lobby of Freemasons’ Hall, which was high-ceilinged, with a gilded cornice.

‘You’re in luck,’ said Hardacre, rejoining the detective, ‘give it half an hour and we can have a look at Temple Seventeen. There are people in there right now. Museum first?’

So they climbed the broad staircase to visit the first-floor museum.

There were several pieces of masonic silverware on display, though exactly what benefit would have accrued to William Wright from peering at them remained mysterious to Strike.

‘Look here,’ said Hardacre, beckoning Strike over to a small oil painting on the wall. ‘That’s your bloke. Alexander Hughson Murdoch.’

The painting showed a stern-looking, grey-haired Victorian gentleman with mutton-chop sideburns and eyebrows of the kind that suggested sagacity, dressed in the ornate robes of a Grand Master, complete with apron embroidered in gold, and a gold chain around his neck. Painted in the background was the silver nef that had been stolen from Ramsay Silver, a miniature replica of the ship that had taken the first Freemason to America. The short biography beside the picture covered Murdoch’s birth in Edinburgh, his emigration to America, and his triumphant journey from pauper to multimillionaire.

While Strike continued to browse the contents of the glass cabinets, Hardacre visited the shop opposite the museum, returning a few minutes later.

‘Woman on the till says the museum was interested in bidding on some of the Murdoch silver, but they missed out to your Ramsay bloke.’

Strike glanced over Hardacre’s shoulder at the shop.

‘Do they sell daggers in there?’

‘Didn’t see any,’ said Hardacre. ‘But you can get them easily enough. They’re for sale online.’

‘And anyone can buy one, can they? You don’t need to give a password or show your All-Seeing Eye tattoo?’

‘I usually send ’em a picture of my Prince Albert, but just for a laugh,’ said Hardacre. ‘No, anyone can buy them.’

He checked his watch.

‘We can probably get into Seventeen now.’

‘How common would it be for a mason to change lodges, in your experience?’ asked Strike, as they left the museum to walk along a marble-floored passage.

‘Not that unusual,’ said Hardacre. ‘People move to different towns. You might just find one you like better, or you’d rather not see someone you’ve fallen out with.’

‘I imagined the brethren would be in such a state of fraternal goodwill that would never happen.’

‘Just told you, masonry doesn’t change human nature. Why’re you interested in people switching lodges?’

‘Idle thought. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about the Winston Churchill? It meets here.’

‘So do about a thousand other lodges,’ said Hardacre. ‘There’s a rumour one of them uses actual human skulls in their rites. Norwegian, if the rumour can be believed, but don’t quote me. I don’t want to be excommunicated.’

A suited man was walking towards them holding a long staff topped with a cross of Salem. Strike let the man move out of earshot before saying,

‘Does the Pope mind you wandering around with stuff like that?’

‘He’s not keen on us generally. Too many non-Christian gods allowed.’

A few minutes later they arrived at a wooden door bearing the number Seventeen, which Hardacre opened. The room was panelled in dark oak, with enough chairs set around the chequerboard floor to seat eighty. Behind a thronelike seat was a large chained swan carved onto the wall.

‘Symbol of Buckinghamshire,’ said Hardacre, pointing. ‘This temple was funded by Freemasons from the county. It’s where three of the oldest – pre-1717 – lodges meet.’

‘And what’s all this?’ said Strike, turning to point at the strange assemblage of objects in the middle of the chequerboard floor.

‘Now, there, I’d have to kill you if I told you,’ said Hardacre.

Ten banners hung from poles faced each other on the black and white carpet, and Strike’s eye was drawn immediately to the lion beneath the word Judah. On the floor lay tools including a spade and a pickaxe, an aged book that was embossed with the lodge’s name, and a group of three-dimensional geometric objects carved out of white stone.

‘This is set up for some rite, is it?’ he asked Hardacre. ‘This stuff wouldn’t usually be here?’

‘No,’ said Hardacre.

Strike glanced around the rest of the chamber. He noted the ‘rough’ and ‘perfect’ ashlars – cubes of stone representing the uninitiated and educated masons – sitting beside chairs that evidently belonged to masons having some elevated ceremonial role.

‘Can’t say it’s obvious what William Wright wanted to see in here,’ he said at last, after giving the place a comprehensive look, ‘but that’ll do me.’

As they left the temple Strike asked,

‘D’you still maintain masons aren’t allowed to use membership to advance their personal interests?’

‘It’s right there in the rules, Oggy,’ said Hardacre. ‘We’re not allowed to discuss politics or religion during meetings, or do business deals.’

‘But, as you’ve already pointed out, masonry doesn’t change human nature.’

‘Have it your own way,’ said Hardacre, good-humoured as ever.

As they emerged from the hall into the sunlight, the conversation shifted easily to mutual military friends, and Strike mentally filed away GAOTU, the chained swan and the symbolic significance of bridges to be pondered later, when he had the time.

73

At eight o’clock the following evening, Robin, who’d been informed by Two-Times that his wife would be celebrating a female friend’s birthday at Coya, a Latin American restaurant in Mayfair, sat down to watch his so far blameless spouse drinking and eating with seven other women. Loud music pounded in the dimly lit basement room, which was swathed in lush greenery to suggest the rainforest. Robin, who’d been home to change, was wearing an old blue dress, the opal pendant her parents had bought for her thirtieth birthday and the matching earrings Murphy had given her for Christmas. On checking her reflection before leaving her flat she’d remembered the night when she’d worn exactly the same outfit, and Strike, she was certain, had come close to kissing her on the pavement outside the Ritz.

As she’d thought it might look conspicuous to eat alone, Robin had asked Midge to join her, but the latter hadn’t yet arrived, so Robin sat writing in her notebook while casually keeping a covert eye on Mrs Two-Times’ party, who were all around Robin’s own age, in high spirits and clearly intent on getting as drunk as possible, as quickly as possible.

Robin had just looked up from her notes for a third time in hopes of seeing Midge when she saw a suited Strike walking towards her instead, and experienced an electric shock in the pit of the stomach.

‘Midge and I swapped,’ he said, sitting down opposite her. ‘Thought we should have a catch-up on the silver vault case, because I’ve had a very good twenty-four hours on the information-gathering front.’

‘Yes, I read your file note about Temple Seventeen,’ said Robin.

‘I got a bit further on Semple last night. His best friend Ben Liddell, who was also Scottish, and was killed in the operation where Semple got his brain injury, has only one living relative: a sister called Rena. I’m starting to wonder whether she isn’t our Scottish Gateshead.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. She might even be the woman Jade Semple overheard Semple planning to meet. The Gateshead called again yesterday, babbling about an engineer to Pat. The pub where Jade overheard Niall arranging to meet the woman was called “The Engineer”. The Gateshead seems worried about going back there, which is why she wants to meet me in the Golden Fleece instead.’

‘Right,’ said Robin, deliberately unenthusiastic. Apparently indulging in speculation about Swedish Reata Lindvall was pointless, but it was fine for Strike to make assumptions about an unknown woman because she was Scottish.

‘But I’ve got a load more than that,’ said Strike, unaware that he’d just annoyed Robin even further. ‘Look at this.’

He handed Robin his phone and she looked down at a news story dated 2010, topped by a picture of Jim Todd staring sullenly at the camera, captioned ‘Todd Jameson’. The cleaner had had more hair in the photograph, but the wide mouth and tiny eyes were unmistakeable. The headline read: BATTERSEA RAPIST JAILED.

‘Category two rape, seventeen-year-old girl, sentenced to ten years, out in five,’ said Strike.

‘How on earth did you find this?’ said Robin, momentarily forgetting her antagonism.

‘Told you I thought Todd might be using a fake name. Started searching variations on Todd and James and that came up. Surprising how often people stick close to their birth names when choosing a fake one.’

Robin handed Strike back his phone. Strike, who’d recognised both the dress and the pendant Robin had worn to the Ritz on the night he’d almost kissed her, was reminded how recently he’d hoped for a situation like this – both of them dressed up, alone in a restaurant – to make the declaration he was now certain would have been fruitless.

‘There’s more,’ he said, trying to dispel this miserable thought. ‘Once I got Todd’s real name, it wasn’t too hard to find out he’s got a brother who’s a Conservative borough councillor. I rang the guy up. He wasn’t best pleased to hear from a private detective who’s interested in his pervert brother, but he became a lot friendlier when I asked him how old his grandmother is.’

‘He’s a mason?’

‘Certainly is. He jumped to the conclusion that we’ve been hired by Kenneth Ramsay to quash all masonic rumours around the murder. Needless to say, I didn’t correct him.

‘Bottom line: when Todd got out of jail after the Battersea rape, he went to his brother looking for money. His brother told him to sling his hook, and Todd threatened to spill a lot of family secrets to the local press, including the fact that their mother used to be on the game. Big brother caved and managed to get Todd a couple of cleaning jobs with some fellow masons, to keep him in gambling money. By the sounds of it, all Todd cares about is cards and girls.

‘Anyway, the brother assumed I already knew that Todd’s sex offending goes back years. I played along, probed a bit, and Todd was arrested in Belgium in ’97.’

‘Belgium?’ said Robin, shocked.

‘Yep. He was working as a coach driver, moving young Eastern European girls between brothels and abuse rings, and he was doing it under the name “Jim Philpott”, which was his mother’s maiden name. Look at this.’

Strike brought up a fresh article on his phone and handed it to Robin. There, among seven other mugshots dating from 1997, were Todd’s familiar tiny eyes and wide mouth, though back when the picture had been taken Todd had a full head of dull brown hair. Bruising to his upper cheek suggested he’d put up a fight when Belgian police had cornered him. He’d been arrested as part of a pan-European grooming and trafficking gang that lured young women with promises of modelling careers, or jobs as housekeepers for wealthy people in the UK.

Todd, Robin saw, had served twelve months for his crimes, receiving the shortest term of any of the men arrested. None of the girls rescued had accused him of physical abuse, only that he’d knowingly moved them around between brothels and groups of abusers in France, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium. Robin was sceptical that Todd’s role had been confined to chauffeur: there was no guarantee that every single victim had been found, and his subsequent conviction for rape in the UK suggested he’d been lucky to escape a longer sentence. However, as Robin saw, Jim Todd had been in jail when Reata Lindvall and her daughter vanished, so he definitely couldn’t have killed them.

‘Interesting,’ she said, passing Strike back his phone.

Still hoping for an improvement in the atmosphere, Strike said,

‘I’ve also found out what that text was, that made Pamela leave the shop early.’

‘How?’ said Robin, failing to repress a note of professional rivalry. She considered Pamela her own witness, and had been proud of getting so much information out of the woman.

‘Tracked down her husband and talked to him this afternoon. They’re separated. Pamela chucked him out, because he shagged an old girlfriend he found on Facebook.’

‘So what did the text say?’

‘It was supposedly from the old girlfriend, telling Pamela that she and the husband were having an affair and were deeply in love, and asking Pamela to meet her at Debenhams café on Oxford Street to discuss the matter. However—’

‘It wasn’t really from the girlfriend?’

‘Precisely. Burner phone. Pamela got home on Friday after waiting in Debenhams café alone until closing time. She let rip at her husband, who panicked and gave himself away by saying “it was only once”, before realising the text had been sent from an unknown number. So, someone knew enough about Pamela and Geoffrey’s private life to know exactly how to lure Pamela out of the shop – Geoffrey says she was already suspicious about the true nature of his reinvigorated friendship before she got the fake text. I asked Geoffrey who might have known about all this, and he said he and Pamela had a couple of rows about it, back when he was running Bullen & Co and she was working at Ramsays.’

‘So anyone in either shop might have overheard?’

‘Exactly. The other thing Geoffrey told me was that it was definitely the genuine Oriental Centrepiece in the crate that arrived at Bullen & Co, which he opened to check the contents. He’s an expert on antique silver, so I think we can take his word for it.’

‘Right,’ said Robin, trying not to feel aggrieved that Strike had found all this out, rather than her. ‘Well, I’ve spoken to Ivor Powell, Tyler’s father, in Florida.’

‘And?’

‘He said he’s had a few texts from Tyler and that he’s working in a pub. He seemed annoyed I was bothering him with what he called Dilys’s “rubbish” and refused to send me Tyler’s texts. I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t had any at all. He gave the impression he simply didn’t care about Tyler.’

A waiter arrived at the table to take Strike’s drinks order. When he’d departed, Strike said,

‘That message from Griffiths’ daughter about Powell was interesting.’

‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘It certainly paints a different picture of Tyler to the one her father was pushing.’

‘Pat hasn’t found Powell in any pubs called “the silver something” yet. ’Course, he might be doing a Todd and going under a different name. A different different name to William Wright, I mean.’

‘I’ve also looked into the car crash that killed Anne-Marie Morgan and Hugo Whitehead,’ said Robin. ‘It really does look like Hugo just lost control of the car in the storm. The Mazda’s anti-lock braking system failed and it skidded into the back of an articulated lorry, the airbags failed to deploy and the car went up in flames. I assume people in Ironbridge latched onto the anti-lock brakes failing, but in those conditions it was likely, especially if Hugo was driving too fast.’

‘So we don’t think Powell fled Ironbridge because he had a guilty conscience?’

‘He might not’ve caused the crash,’ said Robin, ‘but I’d still like to hear what that other girl, Zeta, who had a bad experience with him has to say.’

Strike’s beer arrived, served by a waiter asking if they were ready to order food. Strike ordered beef, Robin chicken, and the waiter retreated again. Mrs Two-Times’ group erupted into shrieks of laughter; Robin glanced over to their table to see Mrs Two-Times flicking her expertly coloured hair out of her eyes, talking to a very handsome, dark-eyed waiter.

‘I’d imagine it’s occurred to you that we’ve got an unusual number of sex offenders congregating around this crime?’ Strike asked Robin. ‘McGee felt up a workmate on a previous job, Todd’s a rapist and trafficker, Oz appears to groom young women—’

‘You probably won’t like my answer to that,’ said Robin.

‘Which is?’

‘That men perennially underestimate how many of their fellow men are perverts and predators. You know what they say: “all women know a rape victim, no man knows a rapist”.’

Strike decided to retreat to slightly safer territory.

‘This feels like a pro job, not a first kill. There aren’t many people cold-blooded enough to spend a couple of hours with a fresh corpse, carving it up and dissecting it, late at night in an underground vault. That took strong nerves.’

‘You think Oz is Shanker’s hired hitman?’

‘If it was a hit, Oz must be the guy, yeah, but I’ve still got questions. If I was hiring an assassin,’ Strike said, lowering his voice, ‘I wouldn’t go anywhere near a sex offender. Look at Todd. He’s on the sex offenders’ register, he knows what he’s risking if he gets arrested, and he still can’t control himself. A man whose life’s dominated by impulses like that can’t be trusted to keep his mind on the job, and the few mistakes Oz made during the commission of this crime are all sex- and woman-related.’

‘Using the same persona twice, you mean?’

‘For starters, yeah, that was sloppy. I imagine he took the view it worked great on Medina and he’d got clean away with it, so why not use “Oz” again, as he’d put work into it. But it was bloody over-optimistic thinking fourteen-year-old Sapphire Neagle’s going to keep her mouth shut about a bloke showering her in rubies.’

‘She never told anyone his name, though,’ said Robin.

‘She still blabbed that she’d met an exciting older man who’d promised she was going to be a backing singer. And that’s not the only reckless thing he’s done. Why visit Medina at home? I think he likes the risk, the thrill, the getting as close to them as he can. It was the height of bloody stupidity to press for pictures of Gretchen and Medina together. He might’ve thought that’d give him a hold over Gretchen, but it was always just as likely to make her keener to see him arrested. Biggest mistake of all: using Medina in the burglary when she was clearly a blabbermouth. Why use her, specifically? If you need a woman for the job, why not pick someone steady and reliable who’d keep their mouth shut?’

‘Maybe he didn’t know any other women who’d be happy to drive a getaway car?’ said Robin.

‘Or maybe he couldn’t resist using a girl he knew he was going to end up raping and murdering. Medina was a cherry on top of the cake. A self-awarded bonus. That’s where Oz’s self-control fails: girls.’

There was another silence, during which both partners followed their own trains of thought, until Strike said,

‘There are still anomalies, though. Shanker told me the hitman was a “mouthy nutter”, but barring the sex stuff, Oz seems efficient and controlled. Clearly an arch-manipulator. A good actor. Even if he got careless around Medina, when all’s said and done, we’re still no closer to finding out who owns the curly hair and sunglasses than we were when we first heard about them.’

‘I think that curly hair’s a wig,’ said Robin, ‘chosen to mimic the real Osgood.’

‘Think you could well be right about that,’ said Strike.

‘But Mandy’s denying she ever saw the curly haired man and the girl with long black hair,’ said Robin, who’d read Strike’s note in the file.

‘Yeah, and the trouble is, without a sighting of a girl matching Medina’s description and a bloke matching Oz’s in Wright’s house, the working assumption that Oz is the killer falls apart.’

‘There’s still the email sent to Osgood from Ramsay Silver,’ said Robin, ‘and there’s Gretchen’s testimony that Sofia was dating an older man called Oz, and the total strangers who emailed the real Osgood about a van for sale, and a problem, and a prank involving a girl.’

‘You don’t need to convince me, I’m already convinced,’ said Strike. ‘I’m certain Oz and Medina emptied Wright’s room and I’m certain they were the couple in the getaway car, but the murder investigation team are taking the line that Mandy cooked up her story on the spot because I’d paid them for an interview and she wanted to give value for money.’

Their food arrived. As Strike picked up his knife and fork he said,

‘Kim told me the girl Albie Simpson-White met in the pub wasn’t Tish Benton. Her name’s Clarissa and all she talked about was her upcoming holiday to Sicily. One funny thing, though: the girl’s living in Pembridge Gardens, almost opposite a lodge for female Freemasons.’

‘Did Kim put a note in the file?’ said Robin, who hadn’t had a chance to check. ‘Or did she just call you with this news?’

‘She called me, I don’t know about the file,’ said Strike. ‘Why?’

‘Because it seems to be my line of enquiry when she wants to bitch about it, but your line of enquiry when she’s got news,’ said Robin acidly, and immediately regretted it. She went on in a less combative tone: ‘I’m going to try and talk to Cosima Longcaster this week. Find out why Rupert crashed that birthday party.’

‘Great,’ said Strike. ‘That’d help, because Decima’s agitating for another update.’

There was yet another silence, both partners now thinking of Bar Italia, and their row about their responsibilities to Decima, but naturally, neither gave any sign of this.

‘The new Land Rover’s great,’ said Robin.

‘Good,’ said Strike. ‘How’s the house hunting going?’

‘We’ve found one we like. Our offer’s been accepted.’

‘Ah,’ said Strike, with the same old feeling of being punched in the solar plexus. ‘Congratulations.’

‘Thanks,’ said Robin, her eyes on her food.

74

The knowledge that Robin and Murphy were definitely moving in together was still lying like lead in Strike’s stomach when he entered the Savoy Hotel from the Thames-facing side of the building at half past three the following afternoon. He collected his key card from the reception desk in the grand green and cream lobby, then proceeded upstairs in the red lift, the walls of which were lacquered and patterned in gold. He was confident he hadn’t been tailed, yet as the small red and gold box moved upwards, he felt as he imagined guilty men did, walking into court for sentencing.

The long, deserted corridor into which he emerged was carpeted in eau-de-nil and lilac, muffling his footsteps. He turned, unobserved, into the ‘Superior Queen’ he’d booked, which overlooked a chilly courtyard. The room was vaguely Art Deco in style and had cost Strike several hundred pounds.

He sat down in the upright chair at the desk and turned on the television, seeking distraction, but a few minutes spent watching President Trump justify his decision to curtail the emigration of Muslims to the States caused him to turn it off again. He opened emails on his phone and saw a long, miserable one from Decima Mullins, repeating every similarity between Wright and Fleetwood she’d already shared with him. Having skimmed this, he put his mobile aside in favour of the only available reading material in the room, a thick magazine catering to those who either bought, or coveted, luxury goods.

The cover showed a very beautiful young blonde wearing a large amount of diamonds, and the tagline beneath the picture caught Strike’s eye.

Strike flicked past advertisements for men’s watches, crocodile-skin handbags and platinum fountain pens until he found four pages of pictures of Cosima modelling further diamond necklaces and rings, her blonde hair flying in a wind machine. On the fifth page was something loosely resembling an interview.

Strike threw the magazine back down again.

There was a knock on the door. He got up and opened it. Bijou was standing outside, looking harried, her hands on the handle of an expensive-looking pushchair.

‘Anyone follow you?’ said Strike, backing away to let her enter.

‘I think, maybe, a dark woman, but she didn’t get in the lift with me.’

‘Did you go up to the sixth floor before coming here, like I told you?’

‘Yes, I did everything you said,’ she snapped.

Strike glanced up and down the corridor outside. It was empty. He closed the door, locked it and turned to see Bijou divesting herself of her coat. She was slightly heavier than she’d been during their extremely brief liaison, but she still looked good, her brunette hair glossy, her blue eyes bright against her olive skin. Instead of the figure-hugging dresses he associated with her, she was wearing a thick cream sweater and jeans.

The baby in the pushchair was fast asleep; Strike could see tightly closed eyes beneath a pale pink hat. He’d wondered whether he’d know, on seeing the child, whether they were genetically linked, but it looked like a bald monkey and he felt nothing except antipathy tinged with apprehension.

‘I’ve got the kit in here,’ said Bijou, rummaging in her bag and bringing out a cardboard box. ‘You just have to swab the inside of your cheek and put it in this liquid. I’ll do ours now, as well.’

For no real reason he could think of, Strike retreated to the black and white bathroom so that she couldn’t watch him taking the swab. Once done, he returned to the bedroom, where Bijou sat staring blankly at the parchment-coloured walls and gold, flowered carpet.

‘There you go.’

Her fingers brushed his as she took the sample; he withdrew his hand as though burned.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let me know as soon as you’ve got the results.’

‘And that’s it, is it?’ said Bijou in a tearful voice.

‘What did you expect?’ asked Strike, his hand on the door handle.

‘There’s just – there’s no need to be so foul about all this!’

‘You’ve led a bloody sheltered life if you think this is foul,’ said Strike, and he left.

75

Robin was standing outside the Longcaster house in Belgravia the next day when Strike called her.

‘News,’ he announced baldly. ‘Kenneth Ramsay just called to tell me Jim Todd’s disappeared. He didn’t turn up to work at Ramsay Silver on Thursday, didn’t go to the Kingsway office on Friday, isn’t answering his phone and nobody’s answering the door at his flat. I’m wondering whether he recognised you on the Tube and got the wind up. There are pictures of you online. He could’ve connected you to me.’

‘Oh,’ said Robin, with a sinking feeling. She really didn’t want to be the reason Todd had disappeared. She could just imagine the witticisms Kim would make about that.

‘S’pose he might’ve quietly snuffed it in his flat, like McGee, but if he has, that seems a major coincidence. I’m going to try and speak to Todd’s neighbours when I’ve got time.’

When Strike had hung up, Robin was left feeling professionally inadequate, in addition to all her other worries. Todd gone, possibly because of her; Albie Simpson-White hadn’t led them any closer to Rupert Fleetwood; and her efforts to speak to Cosima Longcaster still hadn’t borne results.

Cosima, as Robin had already discovered, wasn’t an easy person to engage in conversation. The twenty-one-year-old lived with her parents in a large house in Belgravia, five minutes’ walk from her father’s club, Dino’s. Judging by Cosima’s Instagram account, which had twenty thousand followers, her primary occupation was socialising and taking selfies, with occasional modelling jobs on the side. Thin, with long, baby-fine blonde hair, a peaches-and-cream complexion and colt-like legs, Cosima posted pictures to her Instagram at least twice a day, sometimes trying on different outfits in her walk-in wardrobe, but usually posing with friends in various trendy restaurants and clubs. She also spent a lot of time at Dino’s.

The primary difficulty in getting within questioning distance of Cosima was the thick cordon of people constantly surrounding her. The girl was either at home, surrounded by uniformed staff, or amusing herself with large groups of friends in places where entrance required a great deal of money, or membership. When she travelled, it was by Uber or in one of the family’s cars, with a chauffeur, so she was free to drink. She never seemed to walk anywhere, unlike her father, whose invariable routine was to leave his house at precisely midday, stride briskly to Dino’s for lunch, and stay there until the early hours of the following morning.

Dino Longcaster was a tall, heavy man, always impeccably suited, with a dark complexion and pronounced eyebags. His unusually large, round head, with its slicked-back dark grey hair, resembled a cannonball, and his default expression was one of boredom bordering on disdain. Knowing how he’d bullied Rupert Fleetwood, Robin found it almost pleasurable to dislike the man to whom she’d never spoken, seeing superciliousness in everything from the cast of his face to his perfectly knotted half-Windsor.

Robin spent the next few hours waiting for Cosima to emerge, but was finally forced to leave without having glimpsed her, for her evening off with Murphy.

He’d booked them a table at his favourite gastropub in Wanstead, the Duke, which at least meant Robin didn’t need to go home first to change. She touched up her make-up on the Tube, and emerged into the chilly night, checking regularly behind her that she wasn’t being followed, as she now did every time she was alone in the dark.

She’d gone only twenty yards when her mobile rang. It was her mother again. Robin suspected she was about to hear news that wouldn’t cheer her up.

‘Hi Mum.’

‘Oh, Robin,’ groaned Linda.

‘What’s happened?’ said Robin in panic.

‘We think they’ve split up. Martin and Carmen. He won’t talk about it, but he’s slept here the last three nights.’

‘Oh God,’ said Robin, again glancing over her shoulder; the street was empty. ‘So Carmen’s alone at home with an ill baby?’

‘He’s not really ill, but yes, she’s all alone with him. I don’t know what to do. She’s never seemed very keen on us, and I called this afternoon to offer help, but she didn’t pick up.’

There was nothing Robin could say or do to fix this situation, but she listened patiently until a beeping in her ear told her another caller was waiting.

‘Mum, I’m really sorry, I’ve got to go. I’ll ring tomorrow.’

Switching calls, she said,

‘Robin Ellacott.’

‘Hello,’ said a timid, girlish voice. ‘This is Zeta.’

For a few steps, the exhausted Robin couldn’t for the life of her recall who Zeta was.

‘I… I don’t understand how you got my number,’ said the girl.

‘Oh,’ said Robin, as the realisation hit her: Zeta, the girl to whom Tyler Powell had allegedly done some harmful thing in Ironbridge. ‘Your friend Chloe Griffiths gave it to me.’

‘Oh,’ squeaked Zeta. ‘I… I wish she hadn’t.’

‘I was only calling for background,’ said Robin, trying to sound reassuring. ‘Nothing you tell me will be passed on.’

‘What do you want to know?’ Zeta asked in trepidation.

‘Chloe told me you’d had a bad experience with Tyler,’ said Robin.

‘I don’t want you to tell the police!’

‘I won’t,’ Robin reassured her hastily.

‘Because I haven’t got any proof! He’ll just say he didn’t!’

‘I understand. I’d still like to know what happened.’

‘Well… I was really drunk in the Jockey & Horse. The pub. And I was talking about Anne-Marie, and Hugo, and the crash – you know about that?’

‘Yes,’ said Robin.

‘I don’t want trouble. I don’t want Tyler coming back to… to get me, or anything.’

‘I won’t tell the police,’ Robin reassured her again.

‘Well, Tyler was there and I didn’t realise. Someone must have told him what I was saying and he came up to me, and he was really angry. And a week after, when I was walking home up Wellsey Road, in the dark, a car came up onto the pavement. It missed me by, like, a few centimetres.’

‘Could you see who was driving?’

‘No, the headlights were too bright.’

‘But you think it was Tyler?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Did you recognise his car?’

‘No, but he works in a garage. He could’ve borrowed any of them cars.’

‘Right,’ said Robin. ‘What exactly had you been saying about the crash, Zeta?’

‘The same everyone was saying. Tyler used to boast about sato – sabotaging cars if he didn’t like the people who brought them in his garage. Everyone knew.’

‘I see,’ said Robin.

‘Don’t tell the police,’ said Zeta.

‘I won’t,’ said Robin. ‘D’you—?’

‘Bye then.’

Zeta hung up.

A great listlessness rolled over Robin as she walked on. She was sick of bullying, callous, deviant men, but she had to show Murphy a cheerful face when she arrived in the pub for what was supposed to be a celebration of their offer on the house being accepted, because it wasn’t Murphy’s fault if Tyler Powell used his driving prowess to terrify young women, or if Lord Oliver Branfoot and Dino Longcaster enjoyed humiliating those less rich and influential than themselves, or if Craig Wheaton policed his girlfriend’s emails and texts. It couldn’t be laid at Murphy’s door that Niall Semple had abandoned his new bride shortly after her miscarriage, or that Jim Todd had raped a schoolgirl, that Larry McGee was so addicted to porn he couldn’t stop watching it, even at work, or that an unidentified man, or men, were using Robin’s own rape to intimidate her. Checking over her shoulder yet again, and touching the homemade pepper spray in her bag for reassurance, Robin reminded herself that millions of males, Murphy, her own father and brothers among them, weren’t depraved, violent or sadistic, but kind and decent people. The trouble was that kind and decent men rarely cropped up in criminal cases. Her job, she knew, was in danger of warping her worldview, and she thought how nice it would be to take some time off, to get away from bitterly cold and dark London, and not have to think about the grubby underbellies of men’s lives – but not yet. Not now. There was too much to do.

Murphy was already sitting at a wooden table with a pint in front of him when Robin entered the pub.

‘You look gorgeous,’ he told her.

‘You’re a liar,’ said Robin, kissing him. ‘I look like I feel. Wrecked.’

Having been on her feet all day it was a relief to sit down, and Robin ordered a glass of wine hoping, as with the whisky on Christmas Eve, that it would make her feel more celebratory.

‘Listen,’ said Murphy, once they’d toasted the new house, and Robin had taken a large gulp of wine, ‘I’m not having a go here, all right?’

Oh God, now what? thought Robin.

‘Why didn’t you tell me they’ve ruled out Jason Knowles as the body in the silver vault?’ said Murphy. His tone was light, but his gaze was searching. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, I knew,’ said Robin, too tired to lie. They were moving in together; she needed to be honest with him, at least wherever honesty was practicable. ‘Kim Cochran told us the team working the case had ruled him out. I didn’t tell you because I know you didn’t want us to investigate the body in the first place, and you said that thing about “showing up the Met”, so I felt awkward about mentioning it.’

‘Right,’ said Murphy. ‘So, d’you know who it was, in the vault?’

‘No,’ said Robin, with a slight ripple of guilt as she thought, again, of Dick de Lion and Lord Oliver Branfoot.

‘Would you tell me if you did?’

‘Ryan, come on. You think we’d hide information like that from the police?’

‘No,’ said Murphy, ‘I don’t think you’d hide it from the police, but I wondered whether you’d tell me, specifically.’

‘Well, of c—’

‘Because I know I’ve been an arsehole about it,’ said Murphy.

Robin reached for his hand and squeezed it.

‘I understand how you felt,’ she said. ‘I know why you didn’t want us barging in. The case was really sensitive. I get it.’

Murphy took a sip of his beer, then said,

‘I heard Strike tipped them off that Knowles’ body went to “Barnaby’s”.’

‘Yes,’ said Robin.

‘Have you found out what Barnaby’s is? Or who it is?’

‘No,’ said Robin, reminded yet again that she still hadn’t bought her new nephews presents.

‘Who’s this contact Strike’s got, who knows all this inside stuff?’

‘I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to. I don’t know his real name.’

‘He’s clearly well informed,’ said Murphy.

‘Yes,’ said Robin.

‘A crim, obviously.’

‘Yes,’ said Robin again. She drank more wine, still holding Murphy’s hand.

‘Well, I’ve got some info for you, if you want it,’ said Murphy. ‘About that Peugeot. The getaway car.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah. It’s going to be made public – their first step in admitting Truman fucked up. But you can have it early.’

Robin released Murphy’s hand to dig in her bag for her notebook. Murphy laughed.

‘What?’ said Robin.

‘Whenever you get a sniff of intel, you get the same look on your face…’

‘What look?’

‘I saw it the day I first drove you home, when I told you we’d arrested Phillip Ormond. Like a dog seeing a rabbit. Concentrated. Intense.’

‘Oh,’ said Robin.

‘I like it,’ said Murphy.

A waitress arrived to take their food order. When she’d left, Murphy lowered his voice and said,

‘The Peugeot was hired from a car rental in Reading, late on the Thursday.’

‘Who hired it?’ said Robin.

‘A young blonde.’

‘A blonde?’ said Robin, thinking of Sofia Medina.

‘Yeah. Why?’

‘Because…’ They were moving in together. She needed to be honest with him, where honesty was practicable. ‘There’s a girl called Sofia Medina, a Spanish student, who we think might have had something to do with the man in the vault’s killing.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, but she had long black – oh,’ said Robin, struck by a sudden thought.

‘“Oh”, what?’

‘Sofia had wigs. She wore them for her OnlyFans videos, a witness told m – no, wait. Were the blonde and brunette the same size?’

‘What?’ said Murphy, understandably confused.

‘Same height, I mean,’ said Robin, thinking of tall, skinny Sapphire Neagle, who’d been nicknamed ‘Olive Oyl’.

‘No idea,’ said Murphy.

‘OK, forget that,’ said Robin. ‘Go on about the blonde.’

‘She presented a fake driving licence at the hire place.’

‘D’you know the name on it?’

‘No,’ said Murphy. ‘Anyway, the team have had to trawl through hundreds and hundreds of hours of footage to try and piece together what the vehicle did, and it wasn’t easy, because the plates were changed and it went in and out of areas where there’s no CCTV.

‘She left the car rental and turned off the M4 towards Whistley Green – it’s a village – and was lost from view overnight. Late Friday morning, she reappeared on the M4 with fake plates and drove to Dalston.’

‘Dalston,’ repeated Robin, who was scribbling. ‘She’s still alone in the car at this point?’

‘Yeah,’ said Murphy. ‘She disappeared off camera in Dalston, but they’re pretty sure she entered this semi-derelict line of garages that are due for demolition. Then there’s a period of hours during which the car’s not seen, but the blonde’s caught on camera, on foot.’

‘Going where?’

‘She enters Dalston Junction station. They still haven’t pinned down where or when she got out. But a girl with long dark hair comes out of Dalston Junction around six o’clock in the evening, wearing different clothes—’

‘Ah,’ said Robin, still scribbling.

‘—and drives the car to Newham.’

Though she gave no outward sign, Robin felt an inward shiver. If the murder investigation team had disbelieved Mandy at first, they must have changed their minds now. Aloud, she asked,

‘Did it go to St George’s Avenue in Newham?’

‘I don’t know, maybe. Then it’s spotted in Holborn, late at night. Blonde back at the wheel. Shortly after three a.m., it picks up a man from the end of Wild Court. The couple drive off through camera-free areas again but they’re caught briefly back on film in Newham,’ (yes, thought Robin, the police would definitely have changed their minds about Mandy’s story now) ‘round five in the morning, then head off towards Orpington in the direction of Petts Wood, where they’re lost from sight again, but put the original plates back on. The car reappears on the M4, and the blonde returns the car to the Reading hire place in good nick. She’s just visible on the edge of the car park camera, getting into a van afterwards, but the plates aren’t visible. Van leaves – and if they know what happened next, my contact hasn’t told me.’

‘What make was the van?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Has anyone searched Petts Wood for the silver?’

‘Probably, I’m not sure.’

‘Is your contact the same woman who—?’

‘The one I spoke to before, yeah.’

‘She didn’t try and seduce you in return for the info, did she?’

Robin said it because she knew it would give pleasure. He grinned.

‘You’ve got no competition there, trust me. What happened in the pub that night – she was there. That was it. She was just – there.’

Reminded of Strike and Nina Lascelles, Robin drank more wine, then said,

‘Thanks, Ryan. I really appreciate this.’

‘No bother,’ said Murphy. ‘So, we should have the survey back tomorrow.’

‘Survey?’ said Robin blankly, and then, ‘Oh, on the house, yes, of course.’

‘It’d better not have bloody dry rot.’

‘It looked in really good repair,’ said Robin. ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine.’

They talked about the house until their food arrived, at which point Murphy sipped his pint, then lowered his voice again.

‘So, listen… I don’t need an answer or anything tonight, all right? There’s no pressure. I’m just trying to learn from my mistakes.’

‘What mis—?’

‘I should’ve had a conversation with Lizzie, before we got married. About kids.’

Robin suffered a plummeting sensation in her stomach.

‘I mean, seeing as we’re moving in together and everything,’ said Murphy. ‘I just want to know what you’re thinking. After what happened.’

An unpleasant thought flashed through Robin’s head: that he’d just given her the intel on the Peugeot to soften her up for this conversation; that he thought receipt of information would make her more willing to talk about frozen eggs.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘Well, I… don’t know. That’s the truth. I just don’t know.’

Murphy looked expectant, so Robin said,

‘I used to think I wanted children. Or maybe I just expected to have them, I don’t know. Then I got this job, which I love more than any – well, I don’t love it more than you,’ she said hastily, because that was what you had to say, wasn’t it, sitting opposite the man you were going to live with? ‘But I can’t imagine doing this job and trying to raise a family, with the hours and the stress and – not the risk, I’m not looking for risk,’ said Robin, her homemade pepper spray in her bag, the masonic dagger hidden in her sock drawer, ‘but yes, I’d probably be more risk-averse if I had children, too… maybe there’ll come a time when I do really want kids, but I – I can’t guarantee that. I can’t promise it’ll happen. I just don’t know. So if it’s a deal-breaker…’

‘It’s not,’ said Murphy. ‘I just wish I’d had this conversation with Lizzie before we got hitched, because I didn’t know she definitely didn’t want them, and I did.’

Wondering whether he’d looked up the odds of a live birth with IVF, Robin said,

‘I know I need to make a decision about egg freezing. I know time’s not on my side.’

The feeling of constriction she’d experienced back in that sea captain’s house in Deptford, which she’d thought she’d left behind for ever, had returned.

76

Strike’s anxiety about the results of the DNA test had become acute by the fourth afternoon without news, so he called Bijou while walking towards the shabby street in Holborn where the vanished Jim Todd, or Todd Jameson, as Strike now knew him to be, had lived until very recently.

‘I haven’t heard anything yet,’ Bijou snapped. ‘I’ll let you know when I do!’

‘You’re sure the samples got there, are you?’

‘Yes, I had an acknowledgment email!’

‘Some of these places get back to you within a couple of days,’ said Strike.

‘There’s been a weekend,’ said Bijou, with what Strike considered a deplorable lack of concern. ‘I told you, I’ll be in touch when I hear anything.’

He walked on, hamstring aching, his mood dark. Not only was he on tenterhooks about the DNA results, relations with Robin continued to be icy. Her latest communication was a long email detailing the movements of the hired Peugeot used in the Ramsay Silver theft and murder, crediting Murphy for the information in a way that suggested, passive-aggressively, that Strike ought to pass on his thanks to the CID officer. Strike had simply responded ‘very interesting, let’s discuss’. He’d followed this up with a brief text telling her he wanted to put surveillance on Lord Oliver Branfoot to try and find out the location of the flat where the covert filming was taking place. Robin hadn’t responded, probably, Strike thought, because she was still angry he was trying to prove the Freemasonry connection between Oliver Branfoot and Malcolm Truman.

He arrived outside the busy Lebanese restaurant above which Todd had been living and rang each of the bells beside a grubby grey-painted side door without any response. He therefore took up a position in a doorway opposite, watching and waiting.

The restaurant operated a takeaway service as well as seated dining, and appetising smells trailed after those who passed Strike with their recently purchased dinners. Dusk had fallen when, at last, a short young brown-skinned man, wearing a stained white tunic that suggested he was a kitchen worker, rounded the corner of the street and approached the grey door. Strike crossed the road at once, reaching his target just as the man put his key in the lock.

‘Evening,’ said Strike. ‘Would you happen to know if Jim Todd’s in?’

‘Todd?’ repeated the young man, blinking tired, bloodshot eyes. He had thick black brows, and a faint but perceptible Punjabi accent. ‘You know him?’

‘Not well.’

‘Where is he?’

‘That’s what I was hoping to find out,’ said Strike.

‘He’s your friend?’

‘No,’ said Strike. ‘Just looking for him.’

‘He owe you money?’

‘No,’ said Strike. ‘Why?’

‘He owes me money. Fifty quid,’ said the young man. ‘Tell him that, when you find him.’

‘Lent him cash, did you?’

‘Won it off him.’

The young man turned his key in the lock, which was stiff.

‘How did you win it?’ asked Strike.

‘Poker,’ said the other, as the door opened.

‘You wouldn’t happen to be one of the people who were playing poker overnight with Todd on the night of June the seventeenth to eighteenth last year?’

The young man looked taken aback and not a little wary at this question.

‘I’m a private detective,’ said Strike, pulling out a card. ‘I’m investigating a murder. Did you have to talk to the police about Todd? Confirm an alibi?’

‘Yeah,’ said the young man.

‘He was definitely playing cards with you that night?’

‘Yeah,’ said the other.

‘Until what time?’

‘Four. He wanted to keep the game going. Wasn’t even winning.’

‘When did you last see Todd?’

‘I dunno… week, maybe? Why’re so many people after him?’

‘There’s been someone else?’ said Strike. ‘Apart from me and the police?’

‘Yeah. ’Nother guy came looking.’

‘When?’

‘Dunno,’ said the young man vaguely. ‘Wednesday?’

‘White guy?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Curly hair?’ said Strike.

‘I don’t know,’ said the kitchen worker. ‘He was wearing a hat.’

‘Wasn’t wearing sunglasses indoors, by any chance?’

‘Yeah,’ said the young man, mildly surprised by what he clearly thought was a lucky guess.

‘Did you talk to him?’

‘Yeah. He was banging on Todd’s door. I was trying to sleep. I went outside and said, “Todd’s gone. Fuck off making that noise.” He said, “where’s Todd gone?” I said, “I don’t know, but he owes me fifty quid.” He said, “you’ll never see that”, and he left.’

Strike pulled out his wallet and extracted five tenners.

‘Your help could be very valuable to me,’ he said. ‘Can you remember anything else about the man who came looking for him? Facial features? Build? Clothing? Accent?’

Eyes on the tenners, the young man said,

‘He wasn’t as big as you.’

‘OK. Anything else?’

‘When he walked away… it was funny.’

‘A limp?’

‘Kind of.’

‘Is Todd’s room still empty?’

‘No, my friend’s taken it.’

‘Would your friend mind me having a look?’

‘I can ask him.’

He led Strike into a stairwell that smelled worse than Daz and Mandy’s, back in Newham. There was a slight suspicion of stale urine. A fluorescent light overhead was flickering.

Strike hauled himself up by the banister behind the kitchen worker. The building had clearly been adapted so as to house as many tenants as possible, and Strike doubted the alterations had been done with planning permission. A door ahead stood ajar, revealing a grubby shower room. Four more doors had been crammed in. His guide knocked on the second.

‘Gagandeep?’

After a minute’s conversation in Punjabi through the flimsy door, a second brown-skinned man opened up. He was tall, bearded, equally exhausted-looking and wearing nothing but boxer shorts. Understandably suspicious, he turned to his housemate and another conversation in rapid Punjabi ensued, at the end of which Gagandeep permitted Strike to enter.

The room, the dusty window of which looked straight on to the brick side of a building opposite, was small and contained a few pieces of very old, cheap furniture. The narrow bed, Strike thought, must have been uncomfortable for the almost spherical Todd. There was flaking paint on the walls, a naked overhead bulb and a much-stained carpet.

‘Did Todd leave anything behind?’ asked Strike.

‘Yeah,’ said Gagandeep.

He crossed to the wardrobe and opened it to reveal his clothes lying partially piled beneath an inadequate number of wire hangers. After a few seconds’ digging, Gagandeep retrieved an old hardbacked book, which he held out to Strike: Know When To Hold ’Em: Win Big Every Time.

‘I’d like to buy that from you,’ said Strike, pulling more cash from his wallet before handing five tenners to his first helper. ‘And if either of you see the man who was banging on Todd’s door again’ – he pointed at the card in the kitchen worker’s hand – ‘call me. There’s more money in it, if you can give me a lead on him.’

77

Robin’s Valentine’s Day started badly. Murphy had stayed over at her flat. In addition to a card, he’d bought her a plush dog with a heart in its mouth, in allusion to his previous offer to buy her a puppy. After Robin had laughed and kissed him, he said,

‘You can take him with you on surveillance or whatever you’re doing tonight. Valentine’s date by proxy.’

Robin chose to ignore this broad hint that Murphy was still annoyed she had to work that evening, but the residual guilt and annoyance it had caused was still with her that afternoon, while watching Mrs Two-Times, who was shoe shopping alone. When Robin’s mobile rang, she was relieved to see the office number rather than her boyfriend’s.

‘Hi, Pat.’

‘A man called Wynn Jones called,’ said Pat. ‘Friend of that Tyler Powell’s.’

‘Oh, good,’ said Robin, who’d phoned the farm at which Jones worked and left a message, asking him to call her. ‘What did he say?’

‘That he doesn’t want to talk to you. He says he knows who’s hired you.’

‘Did he say who?’

‘“Fucking Faber Whitehead”,’ quoted Pat sniffily.

‘That’s the father of the boy who crashed Tyler’s car,’ said Robin. ‘I don’t suppose you saved Jones’ number?’ she added hopefully.

‘I did, yeah,’ said Pat.

‘Please could you send it to me?’ said Robin, as a beeping in her ear told her she had a call waiting.

‘Will do,’ said Pat, and she rang off, leaving Robin to check the screen of her mobile. When she saw Murphy’s name, she had a strange sense of foreboding. Sure enough, when she answered, his first words were:

‘We’ve been fucking gazumped.’

‘What?’

‘Some bastard’s offered the seller another five grand. The estate agent’s just called me.’

‘Oh, shit,’ said Robin.

But she was shocked by the relief that had just washed over her.

‘You don’t sound exactly upset,’ said Murphy.

‘Of course I’m upset, but I’m in the middle of Selfridges, Ryan, I can’t burst into tears without attracting attention,’ said Robin quietly, while Mrs Two-Times tried on a pair of emerald green stilettos. ‘What’s the estate agent’s advice?’

‘Offer more, obviously.’

‘OK, well – d’you want to? Or shall we look for something el—?’

‘I don’t fancy another twelve months of this. I’ve had to virtually drag you just to see three bloody houses.’

‘That isn’t true,’ said Robin, taken aback by his sudden aggression, and certain he was pushing for an argument to vent his frustration about the gazumping. ‘I like this one, I was the one who argued for getting it, remember?’

‘But you’re happy to let it go and keep looking.’

‘I’m not happy, I’m just asking whether we can afford another five thousand!’ said Robin, as Mrs Two-Times admired herself in a full-length mirror.

‘What’s the end game, finish up with something even smaller?’

‘I haven’t got an “end game”, I’d just rather we didn’t bankrupt—’

‘Well, it’s not like you need to save for a new car, now Strike’s bought you a Land—’

‘He didn’t buy me a Land Rover, it’s owned by the business of which I’m a partner,’ said Robin, keeping her voice low with immense difficulty, because she’d now lost the struggle not to become openly angry, ‘and if you’ve got something you want to say about the smallness of houses, go right ahead and say it.’

‘I’m not—’

‘Oh, aren’t you?’ said Robin in a loud, furious whisper. ‘Don’t tell me “no pressure”, then hint that I don’t want space for kids!’

‘That’s in your head, not mine!’

‘Don’t gaslight me, Ryan, I’m not a fool. I’ve got to go.’

She hung up.

A few minutes later, Murphy called her back. Robin didn’t pick up, because she was still feeling anxious and upset, not only about this fresh burst of temper from Murphy, but by her own feeling of relief, which she knew was telling her something that she’d been suppressing and denying ever since she’d first agreed to move in with him.

For the second time in a few days, Robin imagined fleeing somewhere warm and light, where she’d have space to decide what she really wanted. Distance, she felt, might give her perspective; unfamiliar surroundings might jolt her out of this pattern of agreeing because she felt she ought to agree, because when you said ‘I love you’, certain obligations ensued. She reminded herself yet again about how kind and considerate Murphy had been after the ectopic pregnancy, and following her long stay at Chapman Farm, not to mention how open and upfront he’d been in the discussion about children. She thought – knew – she loved him, but when he phoned her a third time, she let him go to voicemail again.

Robin handed over surveillance of Mrs Two-Times to Midge at four o’clock, then set out for the garage where the new Land Rover was parked, because she was supposed to be taking over from Strike, who was watching the house in Carnival Street where Plug Junior had received his dog bites, and which Plug Senior was currently visiting. She’d just put the key in the ignition when a text arrived from Murphy.

Seeing as you’re not answering my calls, I’m texting. This isn’t how I wanted Valentine’s Day to go. I hoped you’d be as disappointed as I was about being gazumped, but you didn’t sound it, that’s all I was saying. I said the thing about small places because we both like a bit of space. It wasn’t anything to do with kids.

Bullshit, thought Robin, and she typed back,

You talked about me having an ‘end game’. What ‘end game’? I don’t appreciate the remark about the car, either. I’d have thought you’d be glad I didn’t have to lay out thousands of my own money when we’re trying to buy a house together, but any chance to drag Strike into an argument, you take it.

Robin’s phone buzzed several more times while she was driving to Haringey, but she ignored the new texts. A tight knot of anxiety and fear had lodged behind her rib cage, though of what she was afraid she couldn’t have said. Being honest with herself? Being honest with Murphy? The fallout that was likely, if she expressed the slightest reservation about moving in together? Why had she let herself get pulled along into this situation? Hadn’t she learned anything about listening to her own doubts, from the calamity that had been her short-lived marriage?

But this isn’t the same, she argued against herself. He’s not Matthew.

Carnival Street comprised a terrace of dilapidated houses on one side and a scrapyard running the length of the other. Robin arrived to see Strike’s BMW parked just a few spaces ahead of her. Assuming he’d leave now he’d seen her arrive, Robin parked, took out her mobile and saw a text from her mother.

Martin and Carmen back together xxx

Great, Robin texted back, before turning to Murphy’s latest messages.

I don’t take every chance to drag Strike into arguments, because I know what happens when I mention him. You go off on one.

The next text read:

I wanted us to get a place we could live in long-term, not somewhere that starts feeling cramped within months. I get the impression you’d rather keep everything as temporary as possible, as if we’re students who might move on within a year. And I don’t think it’s a hanging offence to want spare bedrooms.

The last said:

Just because I wanted an open conversation about it the other night, you make this all about kids. I’m not pressuring you, but I’m not going to apologise for wanting them, either. All I want is two-way honesty.

The passenger door opened. Robin jumped, her hand moving instinctively for her bag and the pepper spray before she registered that it was Strike climbing into the car.

‘Got a few things to tell you.’

‘OK,’ said Robin, putting her mobile down and trying to focus.

‘Plug’s mate in Ipswich who got done for animal cruelty headed for the compound an hour ago, with a dog in the back of his van that, and I quote Barclay verbatim, “looks like a fucking tiger”. Apparently a lot of other blokes have rolled up since, all in vans, and on an unrelated subject – shit.’

Plug and a friend had just emerged from the house, dragging a gigantic dog that looked to Robin the kind of creature that might guard the gates of hell: a muzzled, snarling, jet black, heavily muscled cross between a Rottweiler and a giant Bulldog. It took the combined efforts of both men to force it into the back of Plug’s van.

‘Don’t you want to—?’ Robin began, as she turned on the engine.

‘No,’ said Strike, pulling on his seatbelt, ‘I’m coming.’

78

‘Fucking typical it kicks off the night Barclay’s on them,’ said Strike, pulling his phone out of his pocket. ‘He needs to clear out. The blokes who dragged him off that roof are probably there.’

He called Barclay, informed him that he and Robin were on their way, and that he should leave before he was spotted.

‘Strange night to have a dog fight, Valentine’s Day,’ commented Robin, once Strike had hung up.

‘I don’t think we’re dealing with born romantics here.’

‘At least he hasn’t brought his son along,’ said Robin. ‘God, I feel sorry for that boy.’

‘Yeah, I can’t imagine it’s much fun having Plug as a father… did you read my email about the bloke in sunglasses who went looking for Todd after he moved out?’ asked Strike.

‘Yes, I’ve read all your emails,’ said Robin, a little more snappily than she’d meant to.

‘Everything all right?’

‘Yes, fine,’ said Robin quickly. The last thing she wanted right now was a discussion about her mood. ‘You were going to say something else before he came out of the house. “On an unrelated subject…”’

‘Oh yeah,’ said Strike. ‘I think I’ve identified Danny de Lion.’

‘You’re kidding?’

‘Nope. Still don’t know whether he’s dead or alive, but there’s a record of him on Sark, which fits everything you got out of Fay: no cars, only tractors or horse-drawn carts, small island. If I’ve got the right bloke, his real surname’s de Leon with an ‘e’, not an ‘i’. He’s the right age and there are a couple of old photos floating around online that look like him, before he got into peroxide and fake tan, and he’s still got a mother and brother living on Sark. D’you know what the Sark flag looks like?’

‘No,’ said Robin.

‘Cross of St George with two lions passant in the upper left quadrant.’

‘Oh God,’ said Robin, unable to help herself. The agency proving Malcolm Truman had conspired to hush up the facts around William Wright’s killing certainly wasn’t going to help the strain on her relationship with Murphy, although admittedly she was currently so angry with him this was troubling her slightly less than it would before he’d called about the gazumping.

‘I can’t find a landline number for de Leon’s mother or brother,’ Strike continued, ‘but Sark’s so small, I’m considering going out there to bang on their front doors. I won’t bill Decima,’ he added, before Robin could protest. ‘I’ve got the cash from Ted and Joan’s house, I’ll pay out of my own pocket.’

‘You think de Leon was Wright, don’t you?’ said Robin.

‘I wouldn’t bet on it yet,’ said Strike, ‘but he’s the only one I can find a coherent narrative for: he was a blackmailer and got polished off in the vault because it gave Branfoot maximum control over the investigation. However, we’re a long way off proving that, which is why I want to go to Sark. If de Leon’s family have had contact with him since June the seventeenth last year, we can rule him out. If they haven’t, I’ll go to Fyola’s boyfriend and try and scare him into telling me where Branfoot’s doing his secret filming. Finding out the address of the flat where he keeps his camera and two-way mirror will scare off his goons, if anything does.’

Robin’s mobile rang and connected at once to Bluetooth, revealing Murphy’s name.

‘Ignore that,’ she said, as the phone continued to ring. ‘So you’re inclined to rule out Semple and Powell?’

‘Not yet,’ said Strike, who was far more interested in the fact that Robin was ignoring Murphy’s call on Valentine’s Day than he was in Niall Semple or Tyler Powell. ‘Must admit, since I met Hardy I’ve been rethinking Semple a bit.’

‘In what way?’

‘It was just… seeing Freemasons’ Hall and listening to Hardy. I maybe… projected too much of my own stuff on to Semple.’

Murphy rang off. The ensuing silence seemed particularly loud.

‘What d’you mean, you projected…?’ asked Robin.

‘I haven’t got much use for religion or mysticism, so I s’pose it made far more sense to me that an ex-member of the SAS would’ve tried to get back to active service on his own, rather than that he went down a masonic rabbit hole. But he was brain injured, and that bridge thing’s nagging at me a bit…

‘I downloaded a book Hardy mentioned to me, Bridge to Light. It’s an introduction to the masonic degrees.’

Strike opened Kindle on his phone to look at the passages he’d marked the previous evening.

‘Hardy told me there’s a bridge in the ceremony of induction into the fifteenth degree, when you become a Knight of the East. Jade Semple told me whatever degree Niall had reached was called “Knight of something”. During initiation, the candidate has to cross a bridge over a river with “bodies and human limbs and heads floating in it”. The candidate finally reaches “the treasure chamber of King Cyrus, which contains the sacred treasures… the Ark of the Covenant, golden candlesticks, the altar and the gold and silver vessels”.

‘I s’pose I’ve been assuming it was either/or for Semple, that he had a binary choice between war or Freemasonry, but this,’ said Strike, indicating the book on his phone, ‘is crammed with references to being a spiritual soldier. In fact, when you become a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret, you become “God’s soldier to war against fanaticism, intolerance, bigotry and all the evils which have made a hell of earth”, which isn’t a million miles away from:

‘What’s that?’ asked Robin.

‘Poem by James Elroy Flecker,’ said Strike. ‘Adopted as a kind of mission statement by the SAS. It’s carved into their mess bar at the base in Hereford and it’s on the clock tower, which is inscribed with the names of men killed in service. One poor bastard survived commando operations, then got killed in a bloody hit and run in America.’

‘You’ve been inside the SAS base?’ asked Robin, with some curiosity.

‘Once. Part of an investigation in the SIB. Have to say, their haul would give Kenneth Ramsay a run for his money.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘They’ve got entire glass cases full of silverware, and let’s just say a few valuable souvenirs formerly belonging to dictators might’ve found their way into SAS pockets while surrenders were being taken. They’ve got Uday Hussein’s personal pistol in a case on the wall. Took it from beside his dead body. The general feeling on the keepsakes is, “you want ’em, come and get ’em”. Doubt anyone fancies their chances.

‘What bothers me about Semple as Wright, though, is that I can’t see who’d want to bump him off. Murdering him discreetly in the basement of a silver shop without claiming responsibility doesn’t really seem Islamic State’s style.

‘With Tyler Powell, it’s the other way round. We’ve got a clear motive for revenge, because people believed he was responsible for two deaths himself, but we still come back to: why kill him in the vault? Powell sounds the reverse of Semple: a fairly blunt instrument. Why go through all the levels of deception, with all the things that could go wrong, just to get him undercover in a silver shop and murder him somewhere so inconvenient?’

‘Especially when they could just have fed him a peanut,’ said Robin, and Strike laughed. ‘What about Fleetwood?’

‘He’s still tied with Powell as highly unlikely, as far as I’m concerned,’ said Strike, ‘but I haven’t forgotten him. Kim’s on Albie again tonight. Finding Tish Benton would help…’

Another silence fell and Robin felt compelled to break it.

‘Has Pat made any progress on Hussein Mohamed?’

‘Yeah, there are three of them registered as living in the Forest Gate area. I think it’s going to come down to old-fashioned shoe leather and door-knocking.’

‘I think he is going to Ipswich,’ Robin said, as they followed Plug’s van onto the M11.

‘I’ve been looking at Todd’s poker book, the one he left behind,’ said Strike. ‘There are pencilled notes in the margins that are interesting.’

‘Saying what?’

‘It’s not what he wrote, he was only jotting down bits of his own poker wisdom. It’s how he writes. I’ll lay you odds Todd’s dyslexic. The spelling’s all over the place, and that’s even with correctly spelled text to guide him.’

For a second or two, Robin didn’t understand why this was significant.

‘Oh,’ she said, as the realisation hit her. ‘William Wright’s CV?’

‘Exactly. Full of misspellings, Pamela said.’

‘You think Todd wrote it?’

‘I think it’s a strong possibility. Todd would’ve known exactly what Kenneth Ramsay was looking for, and could have tailored Wright’s CV to fit – the jujitsu, previous work in an antiques shop and so on. Somebody helped Wright learn enough about silver to pass the interview, as well. Todd worked at Ramsay Silver for two years before Wright showed up, and I’d imagine anyone in sustained contact with Kenneth Ramsay would end up knowing more about masonic silverware than they ever wanted to.’

‘You think it was Todd who put Wright’s email address on the “for interview” list?’

‘I do, yeah. Then he panicked when he heard Pamela didn’t like the CV, and added Wright’s name to the interview list without her noticing. I didn’t buy his claim that he didn’t know how to get on the computer when I spoke to him. I think Todd helped Wright get that job, and I think he knew exactly what was happening at Ramsay Silver on the night of June the seventeenth, which is why he insisted on continuing to play poker until four in the morning, to make sure he had a rock-solid alibi.

‘Anyway, I’m currently trying to track down Todd’s ex-hooker mother to see if she knows where he is… Did you see, Patterson’s been sentenced?’

‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘Two years.’

‘Not nearly fucking long enough for me,’ said Strike. When Robin didn’t respond, he said,

‘I see they’ve put out a request for information on that silver Peugeot.’

‘Yes,’ said Robin, who’d seen blurry pictures of the car online that morning. In spite of the new appeal, there’d been no admission as yet that the police had rethought their identification of Jason Knowles.

‘If both the blonde and the brunette drivers were Medina,’ said Strike, ‘I’m not sure why she didn’t keep the wig on throughout.’

‘I’d imagine a wig would be very hot and itchy, with the amount of real hair she had,’ said Robin.

‘Or perhaps a blonde was supposed to be doing part of the job, and a brunette doing the rest, and nobody was ever supposed to put them together,’ said Strike.

The sun was setting and Plug had just put on the lights of his white van when Strike’s mobile, which was still in his hand, buzzed. Out of the corner of her eye, Robin saw him read something. He remained completely motionless for nearly thirty seconds. Glancing sideways, Robin saw his apparently stricken face.

‘What’s happened?’

‘I… nothing,’ said Strike.

‘Don’t give me that,’ said Robin. ‘Is it more Culpepper stuff?’

‘No, it’s…’

Dazed with relief, Strike could think of nothing to say but the truth.

‘Just found out I’m not a father.’

‘What?’ said Robin faintly.

‘I didn’t want to tell you—’

Strike felt almost drunk with the release of tension, and his mouth appeared to be acting independently of his brain. He’d only known this sensation a couple of times before in his entire life: arriving through flooded countryside at the old house in St Mawes, in time to reach his aunt’s deathbed; finding Charlotte alive, at last, in hospital, forty-eight hours after he’d found her torn-up dress.

‘—until I was sure.’

‘About what?’

‘Bijou Watkins had Honbold’s baby early,’ said Strike, ‘and he thought it might be mine. I did a DNA test, she’s just forwarded me the results, and it’s nothing to do with me. Jesus fucking Christ,’ said Strike, running a hand over his face before reading out Bijou’s text. ‘“I’ve only just seen this, sorry for the delay” – fuck’s sake – but she knew all along it wasn’t mine, so I assume she wasn’t shitting herself about the results.’

He glanced sideways at Robin, whose gaze was fixed on Plug’s tail-lights.

‘I know I should’ve told you,’ said Strike. ‘I just – after all the other Culpepper shit – I wanted to know for certain what I was dealing with.’

Almost against her will, the vice-like grip of anger and anguish that had been with Robin ever since Ilsa had told her about Bijou’s baby was loosening.

‘When did you take the test?’

‘Thursday. Met her at the Savoy. Cheek swab. Handed it all back to her and if I never see her again, it’ll be too fucking soon.’

He glanced at Robin’s profile.

‘You can say it.’

‘What?’

‘I’m a stupid, reckless fucker who’d have deserved it, if it had been mine.’

‘I wasn’t going—’

‘I’ll say it, then. I’m a stupid, reckless fucker and I’d’ve deserved—’

‘Accidents happen,’ said Robin, who wanted to know how much Strike would tell her.

‘It wouldn’t have been an accident, not from her end. Ilsa told me she’s adept at waste-bin salvage. Christ,’ said Strike again, running his hand through his hair as he looked around. ‘Why isn’t there booze in here? We should keep a bottle handy.’

‘So you can celebrate every time you find out you’re not a father?’

‘There won’t be another time, I can promise you that,’ said Strike. ‘No more women who’re walking red flags. I had no excuse for not seeing trouble when it’s right in front of me, I had sixteen years’ fucking experience.’

‘So, then,’ said Robin, ‘why disregard the red flag?’

‘Because sometimes,’ said Strike, all caution gone, ‘if you can’t get what you want, you take what you can get.’

Confusion and trepidation flooded Robin. What did he mean? What, or who, did he want? Was there yet another woman she didn’t know about, for whom he yearned? Was he talking about the dead Charlotte, now forever beyond hope of reform or reunion? Or was he hinting…? But she couldn’t make herself ask. She was scared of taking a step that might put her in possession of information that would have ramifications way beyond deciding whether she and Murphy should put in a higher bid on a house.

Beside her, Strike was thinking, ask me. Ask me what I mean and I’ll bloody say it. Ask.

Neither spoke. They drove on in silence.

79

Over an hour later, Plug’s white van indicated left and turned up the road that led to the compound on waste ground, north of Ipswich.

‘What’s the plan?’ said Robin, peering through the darkness ahead, Plug’s tail-lights the only things clearly visible.

‘If at all possible, gain admittance by trying to look as if we’ve got our own dangerous dog in the back,’ said Strike. ‘This is where a Land Rover comes in handy.’

‘OK,’ said Robin, ‘but – shit – I don’t think this is going to work, Strike, I think they’re taking names…’

A bearded man holding a flashlight was standing at the end of the dirt track that led to the compound. Plug wound down his window; he and the sentinel exchanged a few brief words, and the latter waved him on. Robin glanced in her rear-view mirror and saw another van creeping closer, this one blue.

‘Worth a try,’ said Strike. ‘Keep going.’

The burly man was looking past the Land Rover to the blue van. He grinned, waved, indicated casually that the Land Rover should proceed, and strolled past it, presumably to speak to a friend.

‘Good job,’ said Strike, as Robin accelerated up the track.

The sound of distant, low-pitched shouts grew louder as they approached a patch of rough ground on which many cars and vans were parked. Over to the left they could see a crowd of men in silhouette, all surrounding something unseen that was illuminated by the headlights of three parked vans.

Robin parked. Twenty yards away, Plug had got out of his van, barely discernible in the darkness. Outbuildings surrounded them, and wire pens behind which enormous barking dogs scrambled.

‘After I get out, turn the car round,’ said Strike.

‘What d’you mean, “get out” – we can film from here!’ said Robin. She didn’t like the look of the crowd, nor was she enjoying the growls, yelps and howls issuing not only from the arena, but from surrounding vehicles.

‘If I can get footage of faces, we’ve got a prosecution, but I want the car facing the road in case I need a quick getaway. Stay here and keep the doors locked.’

Before Robin could protest further, Strike had got out of the car. Robin watched him walking away towards the crowd, moving carefully over the rough ground. As far as Robin could see, she was the only woman present.

She turned the Land Rover around so that its nose was pointing back towards the road. Only then did she remember that Murphy had texted her while driving, so she took out her mobile.

This is a great fucking Valentine’s Day.

‘Whose fault’s that?’ said Robin angrily, throwing her mobile down and craning around to watch the mass of silhouetted men that Strike had now joined.

Given his height, Strike had no difficulty seeing what was going on in the centre of the baying crowd. Two enormous dogs, one grey, one brindle, both bandy-legged with blunt noses, were locked together in the dirt, rolling and snarling and already bleeding. Many of the men watching were filming. Strike took out his own mobile and switched to record.

The visibility was poor, because the headlights were angled to shine on the dogs, not the men, but he thought he recognised the shadowy face of Plug’s friend from the train. The man who’d had the ledger in Ipswich was accepting cash from a couple of latecomers. By shifting position, Strike isolated his target and zoomed in on Plug while the latter cheered and punched the air, goading the dogs on. Strike could see two knots of men in the crowd, fighting to control the pair of dogs who were due to fight next, both of them muzzled and almost too powerful to hold.

In the middle of the ring, the grey, which had a torn face, was now gripping the brindle dog by the neck. As Strike watched, life and blood started to drain from the brindle, its legs twitching ever more feebly as blood flooded from its jugular. At last, a shaven-headed man entered the ring, making a boxing referee’s ‘it’s over’ slashing motion with his arms. Half the crowd, including Plug, roared their approval, while the other half booed. The owner of the grey dog ran forwards with two other men; they prised the animal’s jaws off the corpse, succeeded, after some difficulty, in muzzling it, and pulled it out of the makeshift ring by a heavy chain lead.

Strike kept filming as the dead dog was dragged out of the arena by two more men. Plug was bantering with friends on either side of him. One of the owners of the dogs who’d be next to fight was kicking his animal in the ribs, laughing as it became steadily more enraged.

‘Who’re you?’ demanded a voice beside Strike.

‘Fuck’s it got to do with you?’ said Strike, deliberately aggressive, looking down at a broad, much-tattooed man with face piercings.

But he thought it might be time to leave. Slipping his mobile back into his pocket, he set off back across the dark and uneven ground, squinting to try and make out the Land Rover.

‘Oi! You!’

Strike sped up as best he could, yet trying to exercise caution; he didn’t want to trip, not with dogs that dangerous behind him. There was more confused shouting, but he thought he heard,

‘Get his fucking phone!’

Robin spotted Strike in silhouette, moving as fast he dared over the rough ground. She flung open the car door, but as she did so, she saw a gigantic bulldog-like creature, illuminated by the flashlights of an oncoming group of men, which had been unmuzzled and released, and was heading straight for Strike.

‘Gawn, Lennon!’ said one of the pursuant men, urging the dog on, and Robin knew the now staggering Strike wasn’t going to reach the car before it reached him. She plunged her hand into her bag, but too late; the dog had leapt from behind, hitting Strike in the back of the knees; he buckled and the animal sank its teeth into his thigh.

‘FUCK!’

Robin scrambled out of the car. The shadowy figures of the sprinting men were growing larger, but she aimed the pepper spray at the mauling dog’s face and squeezed at short range. With a frantic yelp, the half-blinded dog released its grip.

‘GET IN, GET IN!’ Robin shouted, but Strike had not only been bitten, he’d taken a lot of pepper spray to his face, with the result that he couldn’t see. Groping blindly towards the place he thought the car was, he managed to drag himself up and inside. The giant dog was howling and wiping its face frantically on the ground to try and relieve the burning, but the threat now came from the men who were mere yards from Robin. Holding her breath and closing her eyes, Robin sprayed the air thickly in front of her, then jumped back inside the car after Strike, slamming the door as one of the closest men let out a yell of pain, clutching his eyes in the noxious vapour.

Fists rained down upon the car’s windows, but Robin had already started the engine. She slammed her foot flat to the floor, and the Land Rover hurtled off down the dirt track, leaving a choking, coughing knot of men in its wake.

80

‘Jesus fucking Christ – what was in that bottle?’ gasped Strike, who hadn’t put on his seatbelt, being unable to see, tears flooding from his eyes.

‘Pepper spray, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, it was the only way—’

Robin took the turn into the road at speed, then looked sideways at Strike, one of whose hands was pressed to his inner thigh, blood seeping through his fingers.

‘Oh God, Strike – d’you need casualty?’

‘No – ’m fine—’

‘There are tissues in the glove compartment.’

Strike groped blindly for the catch, his rapidly swelling eyes burning.

‘We need a hospital,’ said Robin, looking back at his crotch.

‘No we don’t,’ Strike said through gritted teeth, pressing a wad of tissues against his inner leg. ‘Mind you, if the fucker had been an inch higher, I wouldn’t’ve had to worry about fathering anyone ever again. It nearly had both my bollocks off.’

He dug his free hand into his pocket and was relieved to find his mobile in it. If he’d dropped it, he’d have lost his sight for no reason.

‘I’m really, really sorry,’ said Robin, fighting the hysterical impulse to laugh, ‘it was the only way to get that dog off—’

‘I know. I’ll be more grateful once I’m sure I’ve still got eyeballs… the UN should know about that bloody spray,’ Strike gasped, wiping his wet face with the sleeve of his free arm. ‘If Saddam had had that, nobody would’ve blamed us for going in.’

‘We’ll find somewhere to stop – get some milk—’

‘Milk?’

‘It’s the best thing for chillies in your eyes. I had to look it up when I touched mine after making the spray.’

At last, Robin spotted a garage and pulled in. The bored-looking teenager at the kiosk window didn’t question her urgent request for milk, but handed over a couple of cartons, along with another box of tissues.

Robin got back into the Land Rover, poured some milk on tissues and put them into Strike’s hands. He pressed the two wads on his eyes and after a while mumbled,

‘Feels a bit better.’

‘Good. How’s your leg?’

‘Fine. I’ve got blood on the seat, though, sorry.’

‘The car’s both of ours, not just mine,’ said Robin.

Strike leaned his head back, pressing milk-soaked tissues to his eyes.

‘Pity the fucker didn’t go for the prosthesis, like that Jack Russell, remember? It’d have broken its bloody teeth.’

A few minutes passed, Strike still leaning back in the passenger seat, eyes covered. After a while, Robin poured milk onto new tissues.

‘Here,’ she said, pulling one of his hands from his face and putting the new pads into it.

‘Thanks,’ he muttered.

They continued to sit on the otherwise empty forecourt, cars swishing past in the dark, and Robin, watching Strike, who couldn’t see her, felt suddenly and strangely as though he’d come back into focus. He was infuriating, stubborn and secretive when she wished he’d be open, but he was also funny and brave, and he’d been honest tonight when she’d expected him to lie. He was, in short, her imperfect best friend.

‘Listen,’ said Strike, milk-sodden tissues still clamped over his smarting eyes. ‘I’ve never thought you’re a weak link.’

Robin laughed, though she was glad Strike couldn’t see her, because her eyes had filled with tears.

‘That was a very poor choice of fucking words. You’re not the only one with shit in their past. Some bloke could come up behind me and yell “bang” in my ear, couldn’t they? All I meant was…’

‘I know what you meant,’ said Robin.

‘I’ve been worried, that’s all.’

‘I know,’ said Robin quietly.

‘Want to come to Sark with me?’

‘What?’

‘It’s a very small place. We can cover it twice as quickly if we go together.’

He’d noticed that the strain between them had lifted. He was in too much pain to analyse why the change had happened, but he intended to make the most of it.

Robin imagined getting on a plane and flying to Sark. Perspective, light, the sea…

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘OK.’

She restarted the car. Strike’s eyes were still stinging and swollen, his thigh wound was becoming progressively more painful, he probably needed a tetanus shot, but he was suddenly happier than he’d been in months.