A familiar roar and rattle made Strike look up. The ancient Land Rover that Robin had taken off her parents’ hands was trundling towards him. The sight of Robin’s bright gold head behind the wheel caught the tired and faintly depressed Strike off-guard. He experienced a wave of unexpected happiness.
“Morning,” said Robin, thinking that Strike looked terrible as he opened the door and shoved in a holdall. “Oh, sod off,” she added, as a driver behind her slammed on his horn, aggravated by the time Strike was taking to get inside.
“Sorry… leg’s giving me trouble. Dressed in a hurry.”
“No problem—and you!” Robin shouted at the driver now overtaking them, who was gesticulating and mouthing obscenities at her.
Finally dropping down into the passenger seat, Strike slammed the door and Robin pulled away from the curb.
“Any trouble getting away?” he asked.
“What d’you—?”
“The journalist.”
“Oh,” she said. “No—he’s gone. Given up.”
Strike wondered just how difficult Matthew had been about Robin giving up a Saturday for work.
“Heard about the Winns?” he asked her.
“No, what’s happened?”
“They’ve split up.”
“No!”
“Yep. In all the papers. Listen to this…”
He read aloud the blind item on the political website.
“God,” said Robin quietly.
“I had a couple of interesting calls last night,” Strike said, as they sped towards the M4.
“Who from?”
“One from Izzy, the other from Barclay. Izzy got a letter from Geraint yesterday,” said Strike.
“Really?” said Robin.
“Yeah. It was sent to Chiswell House a few days back, not her London flat, so she only opened it when she went back to Woolstone. I got her to scan and email it to me. Want to hear?”
“Go on,” said Robin.
“‘My very dear Isabella—’”
“Ugh,” said Robin, with a small shudder.
“‘As I hope you will understand,’” read Strike, “‘Della and I did not feel it appropriate to contact you in the immediate, shocking aftermath of your father’s death. We do so now in a spirit of friendliness and compassion.’”
“If you need to point that out…”
“‘Della and I may have had political and personal differences with Jasper, but I hope we never forgot that he was a family man, and we are aware that your personal loss will be severe. You ran his office with courtesy and efficiency and our little corridor will be the poorer for your absence.’”
“He always cut Izzy dead!” said Robin.
“Exactly what Izzy said on the phone last night,” replied Strike. “Stand by, you’re about to get a mention.
“‘I cannot believe that you had anything to do with the almost certainly illegal activities of the young woman calling herself “Venetia.” We feel it only fair to inform you that we are currently investigating the possibility that she may have accessed confidential data on the multiple occasions she entered this office without consent.’”
“I never looked at anything except the plug socket,” said Robin, “and I didn’t access the office on ‘multiple occasions.’ Three. That’s ‘a few,’ at most.”
“‘As you know, the tragedy of suicide has touched our own family. We know that this will be an extremely difficult and painful time for you. Our families certainly seem fated to bump into each other in their darkest hours.
“‘Sending our very best wishes, our thoughts are with all of you, etc, etc.’”
Strike closed the letter on his phone.
“That’s not a letter of condolence,” said Robin.
“Nope, it’s a threat. If the Chiswells blab about anything you found out about Geraint or the charity, he’ll go after them, hard, using you.”
She turned onto the motorway.
“When did you say that letter was sent?”
“Five, six days ago,” said Strike, checking.
“It doesn’t sound as though he knew his marriage was over then, does it? All that ‘our corridor will be poorer for your absence’ guff. He’s lost his job if he’s split with Della, surely?”
“You’d think so,” agreed Strike. “How handsome would you say Aamir Mallik is?”
“What?” said Robin, startled. “Oh… the ‘young helper’? Well, he’s OK looking, but not model material.”
“It must be him. How many other young men’s hands is she holding and calling darling?”
“I can’t imagine him as her lover,” said Robin.
“‘A man of your habits,’” quoted Strike. “Pity you can’t remember what number that poem was.”
“Is there one about sleeping with an older woman?”
“The best-known ones are on that very subject,” said Strike. “Catullus was in love with an older woman.”
“Aamir isn’t in love,” said Robin. “You heard the tape.”
“He didn’t sound smitten, I grant you. I wouldn’t mind knowing what causes the animal noises he makes at night, though. The ones the neighbors complain about.”
His leg was throbbing. Reaching down to feel the join between prosthesis and stump, he knew that part of the problem was having put on the former hurriedly, in the dark.
“D’you mind if I readjust—?”
“Carry on,” said Robin.
Strike rolled up his trouser leg and proceeded to remove the prosthesis. Ever since he had been forced to take two weeks off wearing it, the skin at the end of his stump had shown a tendency to object to renewed friction. Retrieving E45 cream from his holdall, he applied it liberally to the reddened skin.
“Should’ve done this earlier,” he said apologetically.
Deducing from the presence of Strike’s holdall that he had come from Lorelei’s, Robin found herself wondering whether he had been too pleasurably occupied to worry about his leg. She and Matthew had not had sex since their anniversary weekend.
“I’ll leave it off for a bit,” said Strike, heaving both prosthesis and holdall into the back of the Land Rover, which he now saw was empty but for a tartan flask and two plastic cups. This was a disappointment. There had always been a carrier bag full of food on the previous occasions they had ventured out of London by car.
“No biscuits?”
“I thought you were trying to lose weight?”
“Nothing eaten on a car journey counts, any competent dietician will tell you that.”
Robin grinned.
“‘Calories Are Bollocks: the Cormoran Strike Diet.’”
“‘Hunger Strike: Car Journeys I Have Starved On.’”
“Well, you should’ve had breakfast,” said Robin, and to her own annoyance, she wondered for the second time whether he had been otherwise engaged.
“I did have breakfast. Now I want a biscuit.”
“We can stop somewhere if you’re hungry,” said Robin. “We should have plenty of time.”
As Robin accelerated smoothly to overtake a couple of dawdling cars, Strike was aware of an ease and restfulness that could not be entirely ascribed to the relief of removing his prosthesis, nor even of having escaped Lorelei’s flat, with its kitschy décor and its heartsore occupant. The very fact that he had removed his leg while Robin drove, and was not sitting with all muscles clenched, was highly unusual. Not only had he had to work hard to overcome anxiety at being driven by other people in the aftermath of the explosion that had blown off his leg, he had a secret but deep-rooted aversion to women drivers, a prejudice he ascribed largely to early, nerve-wracking experiences with all his female relatives. Yet it was not merely a prosaic appreciation of her competence that had caused that sudden lifting of the heart when he had seen her driving towards him this morning. Now, watching the road, he experienced a spasm of memory, sharp with both pleasure and pain; his nostrils seemed to be full again with the smell of white roses, as he held her on the stairs at her wedding and he felt her mouth beneath his in the hot fug of a hospital car park.
“Could you pass me my sunglasses?” asked Robin. “In my bag there.”
He handed them over.
“Want a tea?”
“I’ll wait,” said Robin, “you carry on.”
He reached into the back for the thermos and poured himself a plastic cup full. The tea was exactly as he liked it.
“I asked Izzy about Chiswell’s will last night,” Strike told Robin.