“They seemed so out of place for Chiswell.”
“Well, it was a good call. Nobody else seems to have asked questions about them. So what does the psychologist make of Raphael denigrating his dead father?”
Robin shook her head, smiling, as she usually did when Strike referred to her in this way. She had dropped out of her psychology course at university, as he well knew.
“I’m serious,” said Strike, grimacing as his false foot skidded on fallen leaves and he saved himself, this time with the aid of Robin’s stick. “Bollocks… go on. What d’you make of him putting the boot into Chiswell?”
“Well, I think he’s hurt and furious,” said Robin, weighing her words. “He and his father were getting on better than they ever had, from what he told me when I was at the House of Commons, but now Chiswell’s dead, Raphael’s never going to be able to get properly back on good terms with him, is he? He’s left with the fact he was written out of the will and no idea of how Chiswell really felt about him. Chiswell was quite inconsistent with Raphael. When he was drunk and depressed, he seemed to lean on him, but otherwise he was pretty rude to him. Although I can’t honestly say I saw Chiswell ever being nice to anybody, except maybe—”
She stopped short.
“Go on,” said Strike.
“Well, actually,” said Robin, “I was going to say he was quite nice to me, the day I found out all about the Level Playing Field.”
“This was when he offered you a job?”
“Yes, and he said he might have a bit more work for me, once I’d got rid of Winn and Knight.”
“Did he?” said Strike, curiously. “You never told me that.”
“Didn’t I? No, I don’t suppose I did.”
And like Strike, she remembered the week that he had been laid up at Lorelei’s, followed by the hours at the hospital with Jack.
“I went over to his office, as I told you, and he was on the phone to some hotel about a money clip he’d lost. It was Freddie’s. After Chiswell got off the phone, I told him about the Level Playing Field and he was happier than I ever saw him. ‘One by one, they trip themselves up,’” he said.
“Interesting,” panted Strike, whose leg was now killing him. “So you think Raphael’s smarting about the will, do you?”
Robin, who thought she caught a sardonic note in Strike’s voice, said:
“It isn’t just money—”
“People always say that,” he grunted. “It is the money, and it isn’t. Because what is money? Freedom, security, pleasure, a fresh chance… I think there’s more to be got out of Raphael,” said Strike, “and I think you’re going to have to be the one to do it.”
“What else can he tell us?”
“I’d like a bit more clarity on that phone call Chiswell made to him, right before that bag went over his head,” panted Strike, who was now in considerable pain. “It doesn’t make much sense to me, because even if Chiswell knew he was about to kill himself, there were people far better placed to keep Kinvara company than a stepson she didn’t like who was miles away in London.
“Trouble is, the call makes even less sense if it was murder. There’s something,” said Strike, “we aren’t being t—ah. Thank Christ.”
Steda Cottage had just come into view in a clearing ahead of them. The garden, which was surrounded by a broken-down fence, was now almost as overgrown as its surroundings. The building was squat, made of dark stone and clearly derelict, with a yawning hole in the roof and cracks in most of the windows.
“Sit down,” Robin advised Strike, pointing him towards a large tree stump just outside the cottage fence. In too much pain to argue, he did as she instructed, while Robin picked her way towards the front door and gave it a little push, but found it locked. Wading through knee-length grass, she peered one by one through the grimy windows. The rooms were thick with dust and empty. The only sign of any previous occupant was in the kitchen, where a filthy mug bearing a picture of Johnny Cash sat alone on a stained surface.
“Doesn’t look as though anyone’s lived here for years, and no sign of anyone sleeping rough,” she informed Strike, emerging from the other side of the cottage.
Strike, who had just lit a cigarette, made no answer. He was staring down into a large hollow in the woodland floor, around twenty feet square, bordered with trees and full of nettles, tangled thorn and towering weeds.
“Would you call that a dell?” he asked her.
Robin peered down into the basin-like indentation.
“I’d say it’s more like a dell than anything else we’ve passed,” she said.
“‘He strangled the kid and they buried it, down in the dell by our dad’s house,’” quoted Strike.
“I’ll have a look,” said Robin. “You stay here.”
“No,” said Strike, raising a hand to stop her, “you’re not going to find anything—”
But Robin was already sliding her way down the steep edges of the “dell,” the thorns snagging at her jeans as she descended.
It was extremely difficult to move around once she reached the bottom. Nettles came up almost to her waist and she held up her hands to avoid scratches and stings. Milk parsley and wood avens speckled the dark green with white and yellow. The long thorny branches of wild roses curled like barbed wire everywhere she trod.
“Watch yourself,” said Strike, feeling impotent as he watched her struggle along, scratching or stinging herself at every other step.
“I’m fine,” said Robin, peering at the ground beneath the wild vegetation. If anything had been buried here, it had long since been covered by plants, and digging would be a very difficult business. She said as much to Strike, as she bent low to see what lay underneath a dense patch of bramble.
“Doubt Kinvara would be happy with us digging, anyway,” said Strike, and as he said it, he remembered Billy’s words: She wouldn’t let me dig, but she’d let you.
“Wait,” said Robin, sounding tense.
In spite of the fact that he knew perfectly well she could not have found anything, Strike tensed.
“What?”
“There’s something in there,” said Robin, moving her head from side to side, the better to see into a thick patch of nettles, right in the center of the dell.
“Oh God.”
“What?” Strike repeated. Although far higher up than her, he could make out nothing whatsoever in the nettle patch. “What can you see?”
“I don’t know… I might be imagining it.” She hesitated. “You haven’t got gloves, I suppose?”
“No. Robin, don’t—”
But she had already walked into the patch of nettles, her hands raised, stamping them down at the base wherever she could, flattening them as much as possible. Strike saw her bend over and pull something out of the ground. Straightening up, she stood quite still, her red-gold head bowed over whatever she had found, until Strike said impatiently:
“What is it?”
Her hair fell away from a face that looked pale against the morass of dark green in which she stood, as she held up a small, wooden cross.
“No, stay there,” she ordered him, as he moved automatically towards the edge of the dell to help her climb out. “I’m fine.”
She was, in fact, covered in scratches and nettle stings, but deciding that a few more would hardly count, Robin pushed her way more forcefully out of the dell, using her hands to pull herself up the steep sides until she came close enough for Strike to reach out a hand and help her the last few feet.
“Thanks,” she said breathlessly.
“Looks like it’s been there years,” she said, rubbing earth from the bottom, which was pointed, the better to stick into the ground. The wood was damp and stained.
“Something was written on it,” said Strike, taking it from her and squinting at the slimy surface.
“Where?” said Robin. Her hair grazed his cheek as they stood close beside each other, staring at the very faint residue of what looked like felt tip, long since washed away by rain and dew.
“That looks like a kid’s writing,” said Robin quietly.
“That’s an ‘S,’” said Strike, “and at the end… is that a ‘g’ or a ‘y’?”