“Nobody’s got back in touch except one of Shimmings’ sons, who seems worried that we’re journalists trying to pin Margot’s disappearance on his father. I’ve written a reassuring email back. Hope it works.”
Strike, who had paused in his steady demolition of the roll to drink half a mug of tea, said,
“I’ve been having similar problems. That ‘two women struggling by the phone boxes’ sighting is going to be nigh on impossible to check. Ruby Elliot, who saw them, and the Fleury mother and daughter, who almost certainly were them, are all dead as well. But they’ve both got living descendants, so I’ve fired off a few messages. Only one response so far, from a Fleury grandson who doesn’t know what the hell I’m talking about. And Dr. Brenner doesn’t seem to have a single living relative that I can see. Never married, no kids, and a dead sister who didn’t marry, either.”
“D’you know how many women there are out there called Amanda White?” sighed Robin.
“I can imagine,” said Strike, taking another large bite of roll. “That’s why I gave her to you.”
“You—?”
“I’m kidding,” he said, smirking at her expression. “What about Paul Satchwell and Gloria Conti?”
“Well, if they’re dead, they didn’t die in the UK. But here’s something really weird: I can’t find a single mention of either of them after ’75.”
“Coincidence,” said Strike, raising his eyebrows. “Douthwaite, he of the stress headaches and the dead mistress, has disappeared as well. He’s either abroad, or he’s changed his identity. Can’t find any address for him after ’76, and no death certificate, either. Mind you, if I were in his shoes, I might’ve changed my name, as well. His press reviews weren’t good, were they? Crap at his job, sleeping with a colleague’s wife, sending flowers to a woman who then disappears—”
“We don’t know it was flowers,” said Robin, into her coffee cup.
Other kinds of presents are available, Strike.
“Chocolates, then. Same applies. Harder to see why Satchwell and Conti took themselves off the radar, though,” said Strike, running his hand over his unshaven chin. “The press interest in them died away fairly fast. And you’d have found Conti online if it was a simple case of a married name. There can’t be as many ‘Gloria Contis’ as there are Amanda Whites.”
“I’ve been wondering whether she went to live in Italy,” said Robin. “Her dad’s first name was Ricardo. She could’ve had relatives there. I’ve sent off a few Facebook inquiries to some Contis, but the only people who’ve responded so far don’t know a Gloria. I’m pretending I’m doing genealogical research, because I’m worried she might not respond if I mention Margot straight off.”
“Think you’re probably right,” said Strike, adding more sugar to his tea. “Yeah, Italy’s a good idea. She was young, might’ve fancied a change of scene. Satchwell disappearing’s odd, though. That photo didn’t suggest a shy man. You’d think he’d have popped up somewhere by now, advertising his paintings.”
“I’ve checked art exhibitions, auctions, galleries. It really is as though he dematerialized.”
“Well, I’ve made some progress,” said Strike, swallowing the last mouthful of his roll and pulling out his notebook. “You can get a surprising amount of work done, sitting around in a hospital. I’ve found four living witnesses, and one of them’s already agreed to talk: Gregory Talbot, son of Bill who went off his rocker and drew pentagrams all over the case file. I explained who I am and who hired me, and Gregory’s quite amenable to a chat. I’m going over there on Saturday, if you want to come.”
“I can’t,” said Robin, disappointed. “Morris and Andy have both got family stuff on. Barclay and I have got to cover the weekend.”
“Ah,” said Strike, “shame. Well, I’ve also found two of the women who worked with Margot at the practice,” said Strike, turning a page in his notebook. “The nurse, Janice, is still going by her first married name, which helped. The address Gupta gave me was an old one, but I traced her from there. She’s now in Nightingale Grove—”
“Very appropriate,” said Robin.
“—in Hither Green. And Irene Bull’s now Mrs. Irene Hickson, widow of a man who ran a successful building contractor’s. She’s living in Circus Street, Greenwich.”
“Have you phoned them?”
“I decided to write first,” said Strike. “Older women, both living alone—I’ve set out who we are and who’s hired us, so they’ve got time to check us out, make sure we’re kosher, maybe check with Anna.”
“Good thinking,” said Robin.
“And I’m going to do the same with Oonagh Kennedy, the woman waiting for Margot in the pub that night, once I’m sure I’ve got the right one. Anna said she was in Wolverhampton, but the woman I’ve found is in Alnwick. She’s the right age, but she’s a retired vicar.”
Robin grinned at Strike’s expression, which was a mixture of suspicion and distaste.
“What’s wrong with vicars?”
“Nothing,” he said, adding a moment later, “much. Depends on the vicar. But Oonagh was a Bunny Girl back in the sixties. She was standing beside Margot in one of the pictures the press used, named in one of the captions. Don’t you think the transition from Bunny Girl to vicar is fairly unlikely?”
“Interesting life trajectory,” Robin admitted, “but you’re speaking to a temporary secretary who became a full-time detective. And speaking of Oonagh,” she added, drawing her copy of The Demon of Paradise Park out of her handbag and opening it. “I wanted to show you something. There,” she said, holding it out to him. “Read the bit I’ve marked with pencil.”
“I’ve already read the whole book,” said Strike. “Which bit—?”
“Please,” Robin insisted, “just read where I’ve marked.”
Strike wiped his hand on a paper napkin, took the book from Robin and read the paragraphs next to which she had made a thick pencil line.
Shortly before her disappearance, Margot Bamborough booked herself into the Bride Street Nursing Home in Islington, a private facility which in 1974 provided discreet abortions.
The Bride Street Nursing Home closed its doors in 1978 and no records exist to show whether Bamborough had the procedure. However, the possibility that she allowed a friend to use her name is mooted by the author of Whatever Happened to Margot Bamborough?, who notes that the Irish woman and fellow Bunny Girl Bamborough was supposedly meeting in the pub that night might have had good reason for maintaining the pub story, even after Bamborough’s death.
Bride Street Nursing Home lay a mere eight minutes’ walk from Dennis Creed’s basement flat on Liverpool Road. The possibility remains, therefore, that Margot Bamborough never intended to go to the pub that night, that she told the lie to protect herself, or another woman, and that she may have been abducted, not from a street in Clerkenwell, but a short distance from Creed’s house near Paradise Park.
“What the—?” began Strike, looking thunderstruck. “My copy hasn’t got this bit. You’ve got an extra three paragraphs!”
“I thought you hadn’t read it,” said Robin, sounding satisfied. “Yours can’t be a first edition. Mine is. Look here,” she said, flicking to a place at the back of the book, while Strike still held it. “See there, the endnote? ‘Whatever Happened to Margot Bamborough? by C. B. Oakden, published 1985.’ Except it wasn’t published,” said Robin. “It was pulped. The author of this,” she said, tapping The Demon of Paradise Park, “must’ve got hold of an advance copy. I’ve been digging,” Robin went on. “All this happened pre-internet, obviously, but I found a couple of mentions of it online, in legal articles about suing for libel to stop publication.
“Basically, Roy Phipps and Oonagh Kennedy brought a joint action against C. B. Oakden and won. Oakden’s book was pulped and there was a hasty reprint of The Demon of Paradise Park, without the offending passage.”
“C. B. Oakden?” repeated Strike. “Is he—?”
“Dorothy-the-practice-secr
etary’s son. Exactly. Full name: Carl Brice Oakden. The last address I’ve got for him was in Walthamstow, but he’s moved and I haven’t managed to track him down yet.”
Strike re-read the paragraphs relating to the abortion clinic, then said,
“Well, if Phipps and Kennedy succeeded in suing to stop publication, they must have convinced a judge that this was partly or completely false.”
“Horrible thing to lie about, isn’t it?” said Robin. “Bad enough if he was saying Margot had the abortion, but hinting that Oonagh had it, and was covering up where Margot was that night—”
“I’m surprised he got it past lawyers,” said Strike.
“Oakden’s publisher was a small press,” said Robin. “I looked them up, too. They went out of business not long after he had his book pulped. Maybe they didn’t bother with lawyers.”
“More fool them,” said Strike, “but unless they had some kind of death wish, this can’t have been entirely invented. He must’ve had something to base it on. And this bloke,” he held up The Demon of Paradise Park, “was a proper investigative journalist. He wouldn’t have theorized without seeing some proof.”
“Can we check with him, or is he—?”
“Dead,” said Strike, who sat for a moment, thinking, then went on:
“The appointment must’ve been made in Margot’s name. The question is whether she had the procedure, or whether somebody used her name without her knowing.” Strike re-read the first few lines of the passage. “And the date of the appointment isn’t given, either. ‘Shortly before her disappearance’… weasel words. If the appointment had been made for the day she disappeared, the author would say so. That’d be a major revelation and it’d have been investigated by the police. ‘Shortly before her disappearance’ is open to wide interpretation.”
“Coincidence, though, isn’t it?” said Robin. “Her making an appointment so close to Creed’s house?”
“Yeah,” said Strike, but after a moment’s consideration he said, “I don’t know. Is it? How many abortion clinics were there in London in 1974?”
Handing the book back to Robin, he continued,
“This might explain why Roy Phipps was jumpy about his daughter talking to Oonagh Kennedy. He didn’t want her telling his teenage daughter her mother might’ve aborted her sibling.”
“I thought of that, too,” said Robin. “It’d be an awful thing to hear. Especially when she’s lived most of her life wondering whether her mother ran out on her.”
“We should try and get hold of a copy of Whatever Happened to Margot Bamborough?” said Strike. “There might still be copies in existence if they got as far as printing them. He could’ve given some away. Review copies and the like.”
“I’m already on it,” said Robin. “I’ve emailed a few different second-hand book places.”
This wasn’t the first time she had found herself doing something for the agency that made her feel grubby.
“Carl Oakden was only fourteen when Margot disappeared,” she continued. “Writing a book about her, milking the connection, claiming Margot and his mother were close friends—”
“Yeah, he sounds a common-or-garden shit,” Strike agreed. “When did he leave his address in Walthamstow?”
“Five years ago.”
“Had a look on social media?”
“Yes. Can’t find him.”
Strike’s mobile vibrated in his pocket. Robin thought she saw a flicker of panic in his face as he fumbled to find it, and knew that he was thinking of Joan.
“Everything all right?” she asked, watching his expression darken as he looked down at his mobile screen.
Strike had just seen:
Bruv, can we please talk this over face to face? The launch and the new album are a big deal for Dad. All we’re asking—
“Yeah, fine,” he said, stuffing the phone back in his pocket, the rest of the message unread. “So, you wanted to go to—?”
For a moment, he couldn’t remember the unlikely place Robin had told him she wanted to visit, and which was the reason they were currently sitting in this particular café.
“The National Portrait Gallery,” she said. “Three of Postcard’s postcards were bought in their gift shop.”
“Three of—sorry, what?”
He was distracted by what he’d just read. He’d been quite clear with his half-brother that he had no wish either to attend the party celebrating his father’s new album, or to feature in the photograph with his half-siblings which was to be their congratulatory gift to him.
“Postcard’s postcards—the person who’s persecuting our weatherman,” she reminded him, before mumbling, “it doesn’t matter, it was just an idea I had.”
“Which was?”
“Well, the last-but-one picture Postcard sent was of a portrait they said ‘always reminded’ them of our weatherman. So I thought… maybe they see that painting a lot. Maybe they work at the gallery. Maybe they secretly want him to know that, to come looking for them?”
Even as she said it, she thought the theory sounded far-fetched, but the truth was that they had absolutely no leads on Postcard. He or she had failed to turn up at the weatherman’s house since they’d been watching it. Three postcards bought in a single place might mean something, or perhaps nothing at all. What else did they have?
Strike grunted. Unsure whether this indicated a lack of enthusiasm for her theory about Postcard, Robin returned her copy of The Demon of Paradise Park to her handbag and said,
“Heading for the office after this?”
“Yeah. I told Barclay I’ll take over watching Twinkletoes at two.” Strike yawned. “Might try and get a couple of hours’ kip first.”
He pushed himself into a standing position.
“I’ll call you and let you know how I get on with Gregory Talbot. And thanks for holding the fort while I was away. Really appreciate it.”
“No problem,” said Robin.
Strike hoisted his kit bag onto his shoulder and limped out of the café. With a slight feeling of anti-climax, Robin watched him pause outside the window to light a cigarette, then walk out of sight. Checking her watch, Robin saw that there was still an hour and a half before the National Portrait Gallery opened.
There were doubtless more pleasurable ways of whiling away that time than in wondering whether the text that Strike had just received had come from Charlotte Campbell, but that was the distraction that occurred to Robin, and it occupied her for a surprising proportion of the time she had left to kill.
17
But thou… whom frowning froward fate
Hath made sad witnesse of thy fathers fall…
Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene
Jonny Rokeby, who’d been almost entirely absent from his eldest son’s life, had nevertheless been a constant, intangible presence, especially during Strike’s childhood. Parents’ friends had owned his father’s albums, had Rokeby’s poster on their bedroom walls as teenagers and regaled Strike with their fond memories of Deadbeats’ concerts. A mother at the school gate had once begged the seven-year-old Strike to take a letter from her to his father. His mother had burned it later, at the squat where they were then staying.
Until he joined the army, where, by his choice, nobody knew either his father’s name or his profession, Strike regularly found himself contemplated like a specimen in a jar, bothered by questions that under normal conditions would be considered personal and intrusive, and dealing with unspoken assumptions that had their roots in envy and spite.
Rokeby had demanded Leda take a paternity test before he’d accept that Strike was his son. When the test came back positive, a financial settlement had been reached which ought to have ensured that his young son would never again have to sleep on a dirty mattress in a room shared with near-strangers. However, a combination of his mother’s profligacy and her regular disputes with Rokeby’s representatives had merely ensured that Strike’s life became a series of confusing bouts of affl
uence that usually ended in abrupt descents back into chaos and squalor. Leda was prone to giving her children wildly extravagant treats, which they enjoyed while wearing too-small shoes, and to taking off on trips to the Continent or to America to see her favorite bands in concert, leaving her children with Ted and Joan while she rode around in chauffeured cars and stayed in the best hotels.
He could still remember lying in the spare room in Cornwall, Lucy asleep in the twin bed beside him, listening to his mother and Joan arguing downstairs, because the children had arrived back at their aunt and uncle’s in the middle of winter, without coats. Strike had twice been enrolled in private schools, but Leda had both times pulled him out again before he’d completed more than a couple of terms, because she’d decided that her son was being taught the wrong values. Every month, Rokeby’s money melted away on handouts to friends and boyfriends, and in reckless ventures—Strike remembered a jewelry business, an arts magazine and a vegetarian restaurant, all of which failed, not to mention the commune in Norfolk that had been the worst experience of his young life.
Finally, Rokeby’s lawyers (to whom the rock star had delegated all matters concerning the well-being of his son) tied up the paternity payments in such a way that Leda could no longer fritter the money away. The only difference this made to the teenage Strike’s day-to-day life had been that the treats had stopped, because Leda wasn’t prepared to have her spending scrutinized in the manner demanded by the new arrangement. From that point onwards, the paternity payments had sat accumulating quietly in an account, and the family had survived on the smaller financial contributions made by Lucy’s father.
Strike had only met his father twice and had unhappy memories of both encounters. For his part, Rokeby had never asked why Strike’s money remained unspent. A tax exile of long standing, he had a band to front, several homes to maintain, two exes and a current wife to keep happy, five legitimate and two illegitimate children. Strike, whose conception had been an accident, whose positive paternity test had broken up Rokeby’s second marriage and whose whereabouts were usually uncertain, came low on his list of priorities.
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