He took out his notebook and contemplated his own spiky, hard-to-read handwriting, while Robin sat peacefully enjoying the quiet chatter of the beer garden. A lazy bee buzzed nearby, reminding her of the lavender walk at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, where she and Matthew had spent their anniversary. It was best not to compare how she felt now to the way she had felt then.
“Maybe,” said Strike, tapping the open notebook with his pen, “the Butcher brothers agreed to take on horse-slashing duties for Jimmy while he was in London? I always thought he might have mates back down here who could’ve taken care of that side of things. But we’ll let Izzy get Tegan’s whereabouts out of them before we approach them. Don’t want to upset the client unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“No,” agreed Robin. “I wonder… d’you think Jimmy met them when he came down here looking for Billy?”
“Could well have done,” said Strike, nodding over his notes. “Very interesting, that. From what they said to each other on that march, Jimmy and Flick knew where Billy was at the time. They were off to see him when my hamstring went. Now they’ve lost him again… you know, I’d give a hell of a lot to find Billy. That’s where all of this started and we’re still—”
He broke off as their food arrived: a burger with blue cheese on it for Strike, and a bowl of chili for Robin.
“We’re still?” prompted Robin, as the barmaid moved away.
“… none the wiser,” said Strike, “about the kid he claims he saw die. I didn’t want to ask the Chiswells about Suki Lewis, or not yet. Best not to suggest I’m interested in anyone but Chiswell’s death right now.”
He picked up his burger and took an enormous bite, his eyes unfocused, staring out over the road. After demolishing half of his burger, Strike turned back to his notes.
“Things to be done,” he announced, picking up his pen again. “I want to find this cleaning woman Jasper Chiswell laid off. She had a key for a bit and she might be able to tell us how and when the helium got into the house.
“Hopefully Izzy will trace Tegan Butcher for us, and Tegan’ll be able to shed some light on Raphael’s trip down there on the morning his father died, because I’m still not buying that story.
“We’ll leave Tegan’s brothers for now, because the Chiswells clearly don’t want us talking to them, but I might try and have a word with Henry Drummond, the art dealer.”
“Why?” asked Robin.
“He was an old friend, did Chiswell a favor hiring Raphael. They must’ve been reasonably close. You never know, Chiswell might’ve told him what the blackmail was about. And he tried to reach Chiswell early on the morning Chiswell died. I’d like to know why.
“So, going forwards: you’re going to have a bash at Flick at her jewelry shop, Barclay can stay on Jimmy and Flick, and I’ll tackle Geraint Winn and Aamir Mallik.”
“They’ll never talk to you,” said Robin at once. “Never.”
“Want to bet?”
“Tenner says they won’t.”
“I don’t pay you enough for you to throw tenners around,” said Strike. “You can buy me a pint.”
Strike took care of the bill and they headed back across the road to the car, Robin secretly wishing that there was somewhere else they needed to go, because the prospect of returning to Albury Street was depressing.
“We might be better off going back on the M40,” said Strike, reading a map on his phone. “There’s been an accident on the M4.”
“OK,” said Robin.
This would take them past Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons. As she reversed out of the car park, Robin suddenly remembered Matthew’s texts from earlier. He had claimed to have been messaging work, but she couldn’t remember him ever contacting his office at a weekend before. One of his regular complaints about her job was that its hours and responsibilities bled into Saturday and Sunday, unlike his.
“What?” she said, becoming aware that Strike had just spoken to her.
“I said, they’re supposed to be bad luck, aren’t they?” repeated Strike, as they drove away from the pub.
“What are?”
“White horses,” he said. “Isn’t there a play where white horses appear as a death omen?”
“I don’t know,” said Robin, changing gear. “Death rides a white horse in Revelations, though.”
“A pale horse,” Strike corrected her, winding down the window so that he could smoke again.
“Pedant.”
“Says the woman who won’t call a brown horse ‘brown,’” said Strike.
He reached for the grubby wooden cross, which was sliding about on the dashboard. Robin kept her eyes on the road ahead, determinedly focused on anything but the vivid image that had occurred to her when she had first spotted it, almost hidden in the thick, whiskered stems of the nettles: that of a child, rotting in the earth at the bottom of that dark basin in the woods, dead and forgotten by everyone except a man they said was mad.
45
It is a necessity for me to abandon a false and equivocal position.
Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm
Strike paid in pain for the walk through the woods at Chiswell House the next morning. So little did he fancy getting up out of bed and heading downstairs to work on a Sunday that he was forced to remind himself that, like the character of Hyman Roth in one of his favorite films, he had chosen this business freely. If, like the Mafia, private detection made demands beyond the ordinary, certain concomitants had to be accepted along with the rewards.
He had had a choice, after all. The army had been keen to keep him, even with half his leg missing. Friends of friends had offered everything from management roles in the close protection industry to business partnerships, but the itch to detect, solve and reimpose order upon the moral universe could not be extinguished in him, and he doubted it ever would be. The paperwork, the frequently obstreperous clients, the hiring and firing of subordinates gave him no intrinsic satisfaction—but the long hours, the physical privations and the occasional risks of his job were accepted stoically and with occasional relish. And so he showered, put on his prosthesis and, yawning, made his painful way downstairs, remembering his brother-in-law’s suggestion that his ultimate goal ought to be sitting in an office while others literally did the legwork.
Strike’s thoughts drifted to Robin as he sat down at her computer. He had never asked her what her ultimate ambition for the agency was, assuming, perhaps arrogantly, that it was the same as his: build up a sufficient bank balance to ensure them both a decent income while they took the work that was most interesting, without fear of losing everything the moment they lost a client. But perhaps Robin was waiting for him to initiate a talk along the lines that Greg had suggested? He tried to imagine her reaction, if he invited her to sit down on the farting sofa while he subjected her to a PowerPoint display setting out long-term objectives and suggestions for branding.
As he set to work, thoughts of Robin metamorphosed into memories of Charlotte. He remembered how it had been on days like this while they had been together, when he had required uninterrupted hours alone at a computer. Sometimes Charlotte had taken herself out, often making an unnecessary mystery about where she was going, or invented reasons to interrupt him, or pick a fight that kept him pinned down while the precious hours trickled away. And he knew that he was reminding himself how difficult and exhausting that behavior had been, because ever since he had seen her at Lancaster House, Charlotte had slid in and out of his disengaged mind like a stray cat.