“Whoever he is, he butchers women for pleasure,” said Strike quietly, “and he’s made it clear he’d like to do the same to you.”
“I’ve grasped that,” said Robin in a tight voice, her eyes on the screen, “but have you grasped the fact that if he knows where I work, he probably also knows where I live, and if he’s that determined he’ll follow me anywhere I go? Can’t you understand that I’d much rather help catch him than sit around waiting for him to pounce?”
She was not going to beg. She had emptied the inbox of twelve spam emails before he spoke again, his voice heavy.
“All right.”
“All right what?” she asked, looking around cautiously.
“All right… you’re back at work.”
She beamed. He did not return the smile.
“Oh, cheer up,” she said, getting to her feet and moving around the desk.
For one crazy moment Strike thought she might be about to hug him, she looked so happy (and with the protective ring back on her finger, perhaps he had become a safely huggable figure, a de-sexed noncompetitor), but she was merely heading for the kettle.
“I’ve got a lead,” she told him.
“Yeah?” he said, still struggling to make sense of the new situation. (What was he going to ask her to do that wasn’t too dangerous? Where could he send her?)
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve made contact with one of the people on the BIID forum who was talking to Kelsey.”
Yawning widely, Strike dropped down into the fake-leather sofa, which made its usual flatulent noises under his weight, and tried to remember whom she was talking about. He was so sleep-deprived that his usually capacious and accurate memory was becoming unreliable.
“The… bloke or the woman?” he asked, with the vague remembrance of the photographs Wardle had shown them.
“The man,” said Robin, pouring boiling water onto tea bags.
For the first time in their relationship Strike found himself relishing an opportunity to undermine her.
“So you’ve been going onto websites without telling me? Playing games with a bunch of anonymous punters without knowing who you’re messing with?”
“I told you I’d been on there!” said Robin indignantly. “I saw Kelsey asking questions about you on a message board, remember? She was calling herself Nowheretoturn. I told you all this when Wardle was here. He was impressed,” she added.
“He’s also way ahead of you,” said Strike. “He’s questioned both of those people she was talking to online. It’s a dead end. They never met her. He’s working on a guy called Devotee now, who was trying to meet women off the site.”
“I already know about Devotee.”
“How?”
“He asked to see my picture and when I didn’t send it, he went quiet—”
“So you’ve been flirting with these nutters, have you?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Robin impatiently, “I’ve been pretending I’ve got the same disorder they have, it’s hardly flirting—and I don’t think Devotee’s anything to worry about.”
She passed Strike a mug of tea, which was precisely his preferred shade of creosote. Perversely, this aggravated rather than soothed him.
“So you don’t think Devotee’s anything to worry about? What are you basing that on?”
“I’ve been doing some research into acrotomophiliacs ever since that letter came in addressed to you—the man who was fixated on your leg, remember? As paraphilias go, it’s hardly ever associated with violence. I think Devotee’s much more likely to be masturbating over his keyboard at the idea of all the wannabes.”
Unable to think of any response to this, Strike drank some tea.
“Anyway,” said Robin (his lack of thanks for his tea had rankled), “the guy Kelsey was talking to online—he wants to be an amputee too—lied to Wardle.”
“What do you mean, he lied?”
“He did meet Kelsey in real life.”
“Yeah?” said Strike, determinedly casual. “How do you know that?”
“He’s told me all about it. He was terrified when the Met contacted him—none of his family or his friends knows about his obsession with getting rid of his leg—so he panicked and said he’d never met Kelsey. He was afraid that if he admitted he had, there would be publicity and he’d have to give evidence in court.
“Anyway, once I’d convinced him that I am who I am, that I’m not a journalist or a policewoman—”
“You told him the truth?”
“Yes, which was the best thing I could have done, because once he was convinced I was really me, he agreed to meet.”
“And what makes you think he’s genuinely going to meet you?” asked Strike.
“Because we’ve got leverage with him that the police haven’t.”
“Like what?”
“Like,” she said coldly, wishing that she could have returned a different answer, “you. Jason’s absolutely desperate to meet you.”
“Me?” said Strike, completely thrown. “Why?”
“Because he believes you cut your leg off yourself.”
“What?”