Robin had replayed the conversation several times in her head since. There had been an unmistakably proprietorial note in Lorelei’s voice as she talked about Strike. It had been Lorelei whom he had called when he was in trouble (well, of course it was. What was he going to do, call you in Oxfordshire?), Lorelei in whose flat he had spent the rest of the weekend (they’re dating, where else was he going to go?), Lorelei who was looking after him, consoling him and, perhaps, uniting with him in abuse of Robin, without whom this injury might not have happened.
And now she had to call Strike and tell him that, five days on, she had no useful information. Winn’s office, which had been so conveniently accessible when she had started work two weeks ago, was now carefully locked up whenever Geraint and Aamir had to leave it. Robin was sure that this was Aamir’s doing, that he had become suspicious of her after the incidents of the dropped bangle, and of Raphael calling loud attention to her eavesdropping on Aamir’s phone call.
“Post.”
Robin whirled around to see the cart trundling towards her, pushed by a genial gray-haired man.
“I’ll take anything for Chiswell and Winn. We’re having a meeting,” Robin heard herself say. The postman handed over a stack of letters, along with a box with a clear cellophane window, through which Robin saw a life-size and very realistic plastic fetus. The legend across the top read: It Is Legal To Murder Me.
“Oh God, that’s horrible,” said Robin.
The postman chortled.
“That’s nothing compared to some of what they get,” he said comfortably. “Remember the white powder that was on the news? Anthrax, they claimed. Proper hoo-hah, that was. Oh, and I delivered a turd in a box once. Couldn’t smell it through all the wrapping. The baby’s for Winn, not Chiswell. She’s the pro-choice one. Enjoying it here, are you?” he said, showing a disposition for chat.
“Loving it,” Robin said, whose attention had been caught by one of the envelopes she had so rashly taken. “Excuse me.”
Turning her back on Izzy’s office, she hurried past the postman, and five minutes later emerged onto the Terrace Café, which sat on the bank of the Thames. It was separated from the river by a low stone wall, which was punctuated with black iron lamps. To the left and right stood Westminster and Lambeth bridges respectively, the former painted the green of the seats in the House of Commons, the latter, scarlet like those in the House of Lords. On the opposite bank rose the white fa?ade of County Hall, while between palace and hall rolled the broad Thames, its oily surface lucent gray over muddy depths.
Sitting down out of earshot of the few early morning coffee drinkers, Robin turned her attention to one of the letters addressed to Geraint Winn that she had so recklessly taken from the postman. The sender’s name and address had been carefully inscribed on the reverse of the envelope in a shaky cursive: Sir Kevin Rodgers, 16 The Elms, Fleetwood, Kent, and she happened to know, due to her extensive background reading on the Winns’ charity, that the elderly Sir Kevin, who had won a silver at the hurdles in the 1956 Olympics, was one of the Level Playing Field’s trustees.
What things, Robin asked herself, did people feel the need to put in writing these days, when phone calls and emails were so much easier and faster?
Using her mobile, she found a number for Sir Kevin and Lady Rodgers at the correct address. They were old enough, she thought, to still use a landline. Taking a fortifying gulp of coffee, she texted Strike back:
Following a lead, will call asap.
She then turned off caller ID on her mobile, took out a pen and the notebook in which she had written Sir Kevin’s number and punched in the digits.
An elderly woman answered within three rings. Robin affected what she was afraid was a poor Welsh accent.
“Could I speak to Sir Kevin, please?”
“Is that Della?”
“Is Sir Kevin there?” asked Robin again, a little louder. She had been hoping to avoid actually claiming to be a government minister.
“Kevin!” called the woman. “Kevin! It’s Della!”
There was a noise of shuffling that made Robin think of tartan bedroom slippers.
“Hello?”
“Kevin, Geraint’s just got your letter,” said Robin, wincing as her accent wobbled somewhere between Cardiff and Lahore.
“Sorry, Della, what?” said the man feebly.
He seemed to be deaf, which was both help and hindrance. Robin spoke more loudly, enunciating as clearly as she could. Sir Kevin grasped what she was saying on her third attempt.
“I told Geraint I’d have to resign unless he took urgent steps,” he said miserably. “You’re an old friend, Della, and it was—it is—a worthy cause, but I have to think of my own position. I did warn him.”
“But why, Kevin?” said Robin, picking up her pen.
“Hasn’t he shown you my letter?”
“No,” said Robin truthfully, pen poised.
“Oh dear,” said Sir Kevin weakly. “Well, for one thing… twenty-five thousand pounds unaccounted for is a serious matter.”
“What else?” asked Robin, making rapid notes.
“What’s that?”
“You said ‘for one thing.’ What else are you worried about?”
Robin could hear the woman who’d answered the phone talking in the background. Her voice sounded irate.
“Della, I’d rather not go into it all on the phone,” said Sir Kevin, sounding embarrassed.
“Well, this is disappointing,” said Robin, with what she hoped was a touch of Della’s mellifluous grandeur. “I hoped you’d at least tell me why, Kevin.”
“Well, there’s the Mo Farah business—”
“Mo Farah?” repeated Robin, in unaffected surprise.
“What was that?”
“Mo—Farah?”
“You didn’t know?” said Sir Kevin. “Oh dear. Oh dear…”
Robin heard footsteps and then the woman came back on the line, first muffled, then clear.
“Let me speak to her—Kevin, let go—look, Della, Kevin’s very upset about all this. He suspected you didn’t know what’s been going on and, well, here we are, he was right. Nobody ever wants to worry you, Della,” she said, sounding as though she thought this a mistaken protectiveness, “but the fact of the matter is—no, she’s got to know, Kevin—Geraint’s been promising people things he can’t deliver. Disabled children and their families have been told they’re getting visits from David Beckham and Mo Farah and I don’t know who else. It’s all going to come out, Della, now the Charity Commission’s involved, and I’m not having Kevin’s name dragged through the mud. He’s a conscientious man and he’s done his best. He’s been urging Geraint to sort out the accounts for months now, and then there’s what Elspeth… no, Kevin, I’m not, I’m just telling her… well, it could get very nasty, Della. It might yet come to the police as well as the press, and I’m sorry, but I’m thinking of Kevin’s health.”
“What’s Elspeth’s story?” said Robin, still writing fast.
Sir Kevin said something plaintive in the background.
“I’m not going into that on the phone,” said Lady Rodgers repressively. “You’ll have to ask Elspeth.”
There was more shuffling and Sir Kevin took the receiver again. He sounded almost tearful.
“Della, you know how much I admire you. I wish it could have been otherwise.”
“Yes,” said Robin, “well, I’ll have to call Elspeth, then.”
“What was that?”
“I’ll—call—Elspeth.”
“Oh dear,” said Sir Kevin. “But you know, there might be nothing in it.”
Robin wondered whether she dared ask for Elspeth’s number, but decided not. Della would surely have it.
“I wish you’d tell me what Elspeth’s story is,” she said, her pen poised over her notebook.
“I don’t like to,” said Sir Kevin wheezily. “The damage these kinds of rumors do to a man’s reputation—”
Lady Rodgers came back on the line.
“That’s all we’ve got to say. This whole business has been very hard on Kevin, very stressful. I’m sorry, but that’s our final word on the matter, Della. Goodbye.”
Robin set her mobile down on the table beside her and checked that nobody was looking her way. She picked up her mobile again and scrolled down the list of The Level Playing Field’s trustees. One of them was called Dr. Elspeth Curtis-Lacey, but her personal number was not listed on the charity’s website and appeared, from a search of directory inquiries, to be unlisted.
Robin phoned Strike. The call went straight to voicemail. She waited a couple of minutes and tried again, with the same result. After her third failed attempt to reach him, she texted:
Got some stuff on GW. Call me.