“Huh,” said Barclay, hungrily eyeing the almost empty curry cartons, “what wus that? Compensation?”
“Exactly,” said Robin.
“Tha’ why neither of yiz have been answerin’ yer phones fer the last three hours?”
“Shit, sorry, Sam,” said Robin, pulling out her mobile and looking at it. She’d had fifteen missed calls from Barclay since muting her mother in the American Bar. She was also pleased to see that she’d missed a couple of texts from Morris, one of which seemed to have a picture attached.
“Beyond the call of duty to come in person,” said the slightly drunk Strike. He wasn’t sure whether he was more glad or annoyed that Barclay had interrupted, but on balance, he thought annoyance was uppermost.
“The wife’s at her mother’s wi’ the bairn overnight,” said Barclay. “So I thought I’d come deliver the good news in person.”
He helped himself to a poppadum and sat down on the arm of the sofa at the other end to Strike.
“I’ve found oot what SB gets up tae in Stoke Newington. All down tae Robin. You ready for this?”
“What?” said Strike, looking between Barclay and Robin. “When—?”
“Earlier,” said Robin, “before I met you.”
“Rang the doorbell,” said Barclay, “said I’d bin recommended by SB, wondered whether she could help me oot. She didnae believe me. I had to get a foot in the door to stop her slammin’ it on me. Then she says SB told her a Scottish guy talked him doon off Tower Bridge the other day.
“So I decide it’s cut our losses time,” said Barclay. “I said, yeah, that wuz me. I’m a friend. We know what ye’re up to in here. You’re gonnae wanna talk to me, if ye care aboot your client.
“So she let me in.”
Barclay ate a bit of poppadum.
“Sorry, starvin’. Anyway, she takes me in the back room, and there it all is.”
“There what all is?”
“Giant playpen she’s knocked up, out o’ some foam an’ MDF,” said Barclay, grinning. “Big old changin’ mat. Stack of adult nappies. Johnson’s baby powder.”
Strike appeared to have been struck momentarily speechless. Robin began to laugh, but stopped quickly, because it made her face hurt.
“Poor old SB gets aff on bein’ a baby. She’s only got one other client, that guy at the gym. Doesnae need any more, because SB pays her so much. She dresses ’em up. Changes ’em. Powders their fucking arses—”
“You’re having a laugh,” said Strike. “This can’t be real.”
“It is real,” said Robin, with the ice pack pressed to her face. “It’s called… hang on…”
She brought up the list of paraphilias on her phone again.
“Autonepiophilia. ‘Being aroused by the thought of oneself as an infant.’”
“How the hell did you—?”
“I was watching the old people being wheeled out of the nursing home,” said Robin. “Morris said they were like kids, that some of them were probably wearing nappies and it just… clicked. I saw her buying a ton of baby powder and dummies in the supermarket, but we’ve never once seen a child go in or out of that house. Then there was that patting on the head business, like the men were little kids…”
Strike remembered following the gym manager home, the man’s hand over his lower face as he left Elinor Dean’s house, as though he’d had something protruding from his mouth that he wanted to conceal.
“… and big boxes being delivered, of something really light,” Robin was saying.
“That’ll be the adult nappies,” said Barclay. “Anyway… she’s no’ a bad woman. Made me a cup of tea. She kens aboot the blackmail, but here’s something interestin’: she and SB don’t think Shifty knows what’s really goin’ on inside that hoose.”
“How come?”
“The gym manager let it slip tae Shifty he knew a big man at Shifty’s company. SB and the gym guy sometimes go in the playpen together, see. Like it’s a nurs—like it’s a nurser—”
Barclay suddenly broke into peals of laughter and Strike followed suit. Robin pressed the ice pack to her face and joined in. For a minute, all three of them roared with laughter at the mental image of the two men in nappies, sitting in their MDF playpen.
“—like it’s a nursery,” said Barclay in a falsetto, wiping tears out of his eyes. “Fuck me, it takes all sorts, eh? Anyway, the tit at the gym lets this slip, an’ Shifty, knowin’ old SB never went tae a gym in his life, an’ that he lives on the other side o’ London, probes a wee bit, and notices the other guy gettin’ uncomfortable. So Shifty follows SB. Watches him going in and oot Elinor’s place. Draws the obvious conclusion: she’s a hooker.
“Shifty then walks intae SB’s office, closes the door, gives him Elinor’s address, and says he kens what’s goin’ on in there. SB was shittin’ himself, but he’s no fool. He reckons Shifty thinks it’s just straight sex, but he’s worried Shifty might do more diggin’. See, SB found Elinor online, advertisin’ her services in some dark corner o’ the net. SB’s scared Shifty’ll go looking for whut she really does if he denies it’s sex, an’ if anyone finds oot whut really goes on in there, SB’s gonna be straight back up Tower Bridge.
“So, that bit’s no’ so funny,” said Barclay, more soberly. “The guy at the gym only came clean tae SB and Elinor a coupla months ago, about talking tae Shifty. He’s aboot ready tae kill himself, for what he’s done. Elinor’s taken her ad down, but the internet never forgets, so that’s no bloody use…
“The worst thing, Elinor says, is Shifty himself is a right cock. SB’s told her all aboot him. Apparently Shifty takes his coke habit tae work and he’s always feelin’ up his PA, but SB cannae do anything about it, for fear of retribution. So,” said Barclay, “what are we gonnae do, eh? Tell the board SB’s suit troosers dinnae fit him properly because he’s wearin’ a nappy underneath?”
Strike didn’t smile. The amount of whisky he’d consumed didn’t particularly help his mental processes. It was Robin who spoke first.
“Well, we can tell the board everything, and accept that’s going to ruin a few lives… or we can let them terminate our contract without telling them what’s going on, and accept that Shifty’s going to keep blackmailing SB… or…”
“Yeah,” said Strike heavily, “that’s the question, isn’t it? Where’s the third option, where Shifty gets his comeuppance and SB doesn’t end up in the Thames?”
“It sounds,” said Robin to Barclay, “as though Elinor would back SB up, if he claimed it was just an affair? Of course, SB’s wife mightn’t be happy.”
“Aye, Elinor’d back him up,” said Barclay. “It’s in her interests.”
“I’d like to nail Shifty,” said Strike. “That’d please the client no end, if we helped them get rid of Shifty without the company’s name getting splashed all over the papers… which it definitely will if it gets out their CEO likes having his arse powdered…
“If that PA’s being sexually harassed,” Strike said, “and watching him do coke at work, why isn’t she complaining?”
“Fear of not being believed?” Robin suggested. “Of losing her job?”
“Could you,” Strike said to Robin, “ring Morris for me? He’ll still have the girl’s contact details. And, Barclay,” Strike added, getting up from the sofa on the third attempt, and heading for the inner office, “come in here, we’re going to have to change next week’s rota. Robin can’t follow people looking like she just did three rounds with Tyson Fury.”
The other two went into Strike’s office. Robin stayed sitting at Pat’s desk for a moment, thinking not about what Barclay had just told them, but about the moments before he’d arrived, when she and Strike had been sitting in semi-darkness. The memory of Strike telling her she was his best friend made her heart feel immeasurably lightened, as though something she hadn’t realized was weighing on it had been removed forever.
After a moment’s pleasurable savoring of this feeling, she pulled out her mobile, and o
pened the texts Morris had sent her earlier. The first, which had the picture attached, said “lol.” The image was of a sign reading: “Viagra Shipment Stolen. Cops Looking For Gang of Hardened Criminals.” The second text said, “Not funny?”
“No,” Robin muttered. “Not funny.”
Getting to her feet, she pressed Morris’s number, and began to clear up the curry one-handed, while she held the phone to her ear.
“Evening,” said Morris, after a couple of rings. “Calling to tell me you’ve found a hardened criminal?”
“Are you driving?” asked Robin, ignoring the witticism.
“On foot. Just seen the old folks’ home locked up for the night. I’m actually right by the office, I’m on my way to relieve Hutchins. He’s outside the Ivy, keeping an eye on Miss Jones’s boyfriend.”
“Well, we need the details of Shifty’s PA,” said Robin.
“What? Why?”
“We’ve found out what he’s blackmailing SB about, but,” she hesitated, imagining the jokes she’d have to hear at SB’s expense, if she told Morris what Elinor Dean was doing for him, “it’s nothing illegal and he’s not hurting anyone. We want to talk to Shifty’s PA again, so we need her contact details.”
“No, I don’t think we should go back to her,” said Morris. “Bad idea.”
“Why?” Robin asked, as she dropped the foil tins into the pedal bin, suppressing her frown because it made her bruised face ache.
“Because… fuck’s sake,” said Morris, who usually avoided swearing to Robin. “You were the one who said we shouldn’t use her.”
Behind Robin, in the inner office, Barclay laughed at something Strike had said. For the third time that evening, Robin had a feeling of impending trouble.
“Saul,” she said, “you aren’t still seeing her, are you?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Robin picked up the plates from the desk and put them in the sink, waiting for his answer.
“No, of course I’m not,” he said, with an attempt at a laugh. “I just think this is a bad idea. You were the one who said, before, that she had too much to lose—”
“But we wouldn’t be asking her to entrap him or set him up this time—”
“I’ll need to think about this,” said Morris.
Robin put the knives and forks into the sink, too.
“Saul, this isn’t up for debate. We need her contact details.”
“I don’t know whether I kept them,” said Morris, and Robin knew he was lying. “Where’s Strike right now?”
“Denmark Street,” said Robin. Not wanting another sly joke about her and Strike being together after dark, she purposely didn’t say she was there, too.
“OK, I’ll ring him,” said Morris, and before Robin could say anything else, he’d hung up.
The whisky she’d drunk was still having a slightly anesthetic effect. Robin knew that if she were entirely sober, she’d be feeling still more incensed at yet another example of Morris treating her not as a partner in the firm, but as Strike’s secretary.
Turning on the taps in the cramped kitchen area, she began rinsing off the plates and forks, and as curry sauce dripped down the drain, her thoughts drifted again to those moments before Barclay had arrived, while she and Strike had still been sitting in semi-darkness.
Out on Charing Cross Road, a car passed, blaring Rita Ora’s “I Will Never Let You Down,” and softly, under her breath, Robin sang along:
“Tell me baby what we gonna do
I’ll make it easy, got a lot to lose…”
Putting the plug into the sink, she began to fill it, squirting washing-up liquid on top of the cutlery. Singing, her eyes fell on the unopened vodka Strike had bought, but which neither of them had touched. She thought of Oakden stealing vodka at Margot’s barbecue…
“You’ve been tired of watching me
forgot to have a good time…”
… and claiming that he hadn’t spiked the punch. Yet Gloria had vomited… At the very moment Robin drew breath into her lungs to call to Strike, and tell him her new idea, two hands closed on her waist.
Twice in Robin’s life, a man had attacked her from behind: without conscious thought, she simultaneously stamped down hard with her high heel on the foot of the man behind her, threw back her head, smashing it into his face, grabbed a knife in the sink and spun around as the grip at her waist disappeared.
“FUCK!” bellowed Morris.
She hadn’t heard him coming up the stairs over the noise of water splashing into the sink and her own singing. Morris was now doubled up, hands clamped over his nose.
“FUCK!” he shouted again, taking his hands away from his face, to reveal that his nose was bleeding. He hopped backward, the imprint of her stiletto imprinted in his shoe, and collapsed onto the sofa.
“What’s going on?” said Strike, emerging at speed from the inner office and looking from Morris on the sofa to Robin, who was still holding the knife. She turned off the taps, breathing hard.
“He grabbed me,” she said, as Barclay emerged from the inner room behind Strike. “I didn’t hear him coming.”
“It—was—a—fucking—joke,” said Morris, examining the blood smeared on his hands. “I only meant to make you jump—fuck’s sake—”
But adrenaline and whisky had suddenly unleashed an anger in Robin such as she hadn’t felt since the night she’d left Matthew. Light-headed, she advanced on Morris.
“Would you sneak up on Strike and grab him round the waist? D’you creep up on Barclay and hug him? D’you send either of them pictures of your dick?”
There was a silence.
“You bitch,” said Morris, the back of his hand pressed to his nostrils. “You said you wouldn’t—”
“He did what?” said Strike.
“Sent me a dick pic,” snapped the furious Robin, and turning back to Morris, she said, “I’m not some sixteen-year-old work experience girl who’s scared of telling you to stop. I don’t want your hands on me, OK? I don’t want you kissing me—”
“He sent you—?” began Strike.
“I didn’t tell you because you were so stressed,” said Robin. “Joan was dying, you were up and down to Cornwall, you didn’t need the grief, but I’m done. I’m not working with him any more. I want him gone.”
“Christ’s sake,” said Morris again, dabbing at his nose, “it was a joke—”
“Ye need tae learn tae read the fuckin’ room, mate,” said Barclay, who was standing against the wall, arms folded, and seemed to be enjoying himself.
“You can’t fucking fire me over—”
“You’re a subcontractor,” said Strike. “We’re not renewing your contract. Your non-disclosure agreement remains in operation. One word of anything you’ve found out working here, and I’ll make sure you never get another detective job. Now get the fuck out of this office.”
Wild-eyed, Morris stood up, still bleeding from his left nostril.
“Fine. You want to keep her on because you’ve got a hard-on for her, fine.”
Strike took a step forwards; Morris nearly fell over the sofa, backing away.
“Fine,” he said again.
He turned and walked straight out of the office, slamming the glass door behind him. While the door vibrated, and Morris’s footsteps clanged away down the metal stairs, Barclay pushed himself off the wall, plucked the knife Robin was still holding out of her hand and went to drop it into the sink with the dirty crockery.
“Never liked that tosser,” he said.
Strike and Robin looked at each other, then at the worn carpet, where a couple of drops of Morris’s blood still glistened.
“One all, then,” said Strike, clapping his hands together. “What say, first to break Barclay’s nose wins the night?”
PART SIX
So past the twelue Months forth, and their dew places found.
Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene
60
Fortune, the foe of famous cheuisa
unce
Seldome (said Guyon) yields to vertue aide,
But in her way throwes mischiefe and mischaunce,
Whereby her course is stopt, and passage staid.
Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene
What would have happened had Sam Barclay not opened the door that evening and switched on the light was a question that preoccupied both detective partners over the weekend, each of them re-running the conversation in their head, wondering what the other was thinking, and whether too much had been said, or given away.
Sober now, Strike had to be glad he hadn’t done what whisky had been urging him to do. Had he acted on that alcohol-fueled impulse, he might now be in a state of bitter remorse, with no way back to the friendship that was unique in his life. Yet in his free moments, he wondered whether Robin had known how dangerously close he’d come to pushing the conversation into territory that had previously been fenced around with barbed wire, or that, seconds before Barclay flicked the light switch, Strike had been trying to remember when he’d last changed his sheets.
Robin, meanwhile, had woken on Sunday morning with her face aching as though it had been trodden on, a slight hangover, and a volatile mixture of pleasure and anxiety. She went back over everything she’d said to Strike, hoping she hadn’t betrayed any of those feelings she habitually denied, even to herself. The memory of him telling her she was his best friend caused a little spurt of happiness every time she returned to it, but as the day wore on, and her bruising worsened, she wished she’d been brave enough to ask him directly how he now felt about Charlotte Campbell.
An image of Charlotte hung permanently in Robin’s head these days, like a shadowy portrait she’d never wanted hung. The picture had acquired shape and form in the four years since they’d passed on the stairs in the Denmark Street office, because of the many details Ilsa had given her, and the snippets she’d read in the press. Last night, though, that image had become stark and fixed: a darkly romantic vision of a lost and dying love, breathing her final words in Strike’s ear as she lay among trees.
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