In fact, Strike’s mind was temporarily elsewhere. The white railings glimpsed beyond the small marquee where the crowd queued for tickets, and the abundance of tweed and corduroy, were reminding him of the last time he had been at a racecourse. He had no particular interest in the sport. The one constant paternal figure in his life, his uncle Ted, had been a footballing and sailing man, and while a couple of Strike’s friends in the army had enjoyed a bet on the horses, he had never seen the attraction.
Three years previously, though, he had attended the Epsom Derby with Charlotte and two of her favorite siblings. Like Strike, Charlotte came from a disjointed and dysfunctional family. In one of her unpredictable effusions of enthusiasm, Charlotte had insisted on accepting Valentine and Sacha’s invitation, notwithstanding Strike’s lack of interest in the sport and his barely cordial feelings towards both men, who considered him an inexplicable oddity in their sister’s life.
He had been broke at the time, setting up the agency on a shoestring, already being chased by lawyers for repayment of the small loan he had taken from his biological father, when every bank had turned him down as a bad risk. Nevertheless, Charlotte had been incensed when, after losing a fiver on the nose on the favorite, Fame and Glory, who had come in second, he had refused to place another bet. She had refrained from calling him puritanical or sanctimonious, plebeian or penny-pinching, as she had done previously when he had refused to emulate the reckless and ostentatious spending of her family and friends. Egged on by her brothers, she had chosen to lay larger and larger bets herself, finally winning ￡2500 and insisting that they visit the champagne tent, where her beauty and high spirits had turned many heads.
As he walked with Robin up a wide tarmacked thoroughfare that ran parallel from the racetrack itself behind the towering stands, past coffee bars, cider stalls and ice cream vans, the jockeys’ changing rooms and owners’ and trainers’ bar, Strike thought about Charlotte, and gambles that came off, and gambles that didn’t, until Robin’s voice pulled him back to the present.
“I think that’s the place.”
A painted sign showed the head of a dark, winking filly in a snaffle bit hung on the side of a one-story brick bar. The outdoor seating area was crowded. Champagne flutes clinked amid a buzz of talk and laughter. The Crafty Filly overlooked the paddock where horses would shortly be paraded, around which a further crowd had begun to congregate.
“Grab that high table,” Strike told Robin, “and I’ll get drinks and tell Tegan we’re here.”
He disappeared into the building without asking her what she wanted.
Robin sat down at one of the tall tables with its metal bar-chairs, which she knew Strike preferred because getting on and off them would be easier on his amputated leg than the low wickerwork sofas. The whole outside area sat beneath a canopy of polyurethane to protect drinkers from non-existent rain. The sky was cloudless today, the day warm with a light breeze that barely moved the leaves of the topiary plants at the entrance to the bar. It would be a clear night for digging in the dell outside Steda Cottage, Robin thought, always assuming that Strike wasn’t about to cancel the expedition, because he thought her too unstable and emotional to take along.
That thought turned her insides even colder and she fell to reading the printed lists of runners they had been given, along with their cardboard entry tags, until a half-bottle of Mo?t & Chandon landed unexpectedly in front of her and Strike sat down, holding a pint of bitter.
“Doom Bar on draft,” he said cheerfully, tipping his glass to her before taking a sip. Robin looked blankly at the little bottle of champagne, which she thought resembled bubble bath.
“What’s this for?”
“Celebration,” said Strike, having taken a sizable gulp of his beer. “I know you’re not supposed to say it,” he went on, rummaging through his pockets for cigarettes, “but you’re well shot of him. Sleeping with his mate’s fiancée in the marital bed? He deserves everything that’s coming to him.”
“I can’t drink. I’m driving.”
“That’s just cost me twenty-five quid, so you can take a token swig.”
“Twenty-five quid, for this?” said Robin, and taking advantage of Strike lighting his cigarette, she surreptitiously wiped her leaking eyes again.
“Tell me something,” said Strike, as he waved his match, extinguishing it. “D’you ever think about where you see the agency going?”
“What d’you mean?” said Robin, looking alarmed.
“My brother-in-law was giving me the third degree about it, night the Olympics started,” said Strike. “Banging on about reaching a point where I didn’t have to go out on the street any more.”
“But you wouldn’t want that, would y—wait,” said Robin, panicking. “Are you trying to tell me I’ve got to go back to the desk and answering the phones?”
“No,” said Strike, blowing smoke away from her, “I just wondered whether you give the future any thought.”
“You want me to leave?” asked Robin, still more alarmed. “Go and do something el—?”
“Bloody hell, Ellacott, no! I’m asking you whether you think about the future, that’s all.”
He watched as Robin uncorked the little bottle.
“Yes, of course I do,” she said uncertainly. “I’ve been hoping we can get the bank balance a bit healthier, so we aren’t living hand to mouth all the time, but I love the—” her voice wobbled, “—the job, you know I do. That’s all I want. Do it, get better at it and… I suppose make the agency the best in London.”
Grinning, Strike clinked his beer glass against her champagne.
“Well, bear in mind we want exactly the same thing while I’m saying the next bit, all right? And you might as well drink. Tegan can’t take a break for forty minutes, and we’ve got a lot of time to kill before we head over to the dell this evening.”
Strike watched her take a sip of champagne before going on.
“Pretending you’re OK when you aren’t isn’t strength.”
“Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” Robin contradicted him. The champagne had fizzed on her tongue and seemed to give her courage even before it hit her brain. “Sometimes, acting as though you’re all right, makes you all right. Sometimes you’ve got to slap on a brave face and walk out into the world, and after a while it isn’t an act anymore, it’s who you are. If I’d waited to feel ready to leave my room after—you know,” she said, “I’d still be in there. I had to leave before I was ready. And,” she said, looking him directly in the eyes, her own bloodshot and swollen, “I’ve been working with you for two years, watching you plow on no matter what, when we both know any doctor would have told you to put your leg up and rest.”
“And where did that get me, eh?” asked Strike reasonably. “Invalided out for a week, with my hamstring screaming for mercy every time I walk more than fifty yards. You want to draw parallels, fine. I’m dieting, I’ve been doing my stretches—”
“And the vegetarian bacon, rotting away in the fridge?”
“Rotting? That stuff’s like industrial rubber, it’ll outlive me. Listen,” he said, refusing to be deflected, “it’d be a bloody miracle if you hadn’t suffered any after-effects from what happened last year.” His eyes sought the tip of the purple scar on her forearm, visible beneath the cuff of her shirt. “Nothing in your past precludes you from doing this job, but you need to take care of yourself if you want to keep doing it. If you need time off—”
“—that’s the last thing I want—”
“This isn’t about what you want. It’s about what you need.”
“Shall I tell you something funny?” said Robin. Whether because of the mouthful of champagne, or for some other reason, she had experienced a startling lift in mood that made her loose-tongued. “You’d have thought I’d have had panic attacks galore over the last week, wouldn’t you? I’ve been trying to find a place to live, looking round flats, traveling all over London, I’ve had loads of people coming up unexpectedly behind me—that’s a major trigger,” she explained. “People behind me, when I don’t know they’re there.”
“Don’t think we need Freud to explain that one.”
“But I’ve been fine,” said Robin. “I think it’s because I haven’t had to—”