“Did he admit to talking to Kelsey online?”
“Hard for him to deny it when we’ve got her laptop and all Tempest’s records. He asked Kelsey about her plans for her leg and offered to meet her and she brushed him off—online, anyway. Bloody hell, we’ve got to look into him,” said Wardle in response to Strike’s skeptical look, “he’s got no alibi, a motorbike, a thing for amputation and he tried to meet her!”
“Yeah, of course,” said Strike. “Any other leads?”
“That’s why I wanted to meet you. We’ve found your Donald Laing. He’s in Wollaston Close, in Elephant and Castle.”
“He is?” said Strike, genuinely taken aback.
Savoring the fact that he had surprised Strike for once, Wardle smirked.
“Yeah, and he’s a sick man. We found him through a JustGiving page. We got on to them and got his address.”
That was the difference between Strike and Wardle, of course: the latter still had badges, authority and the kind of power Strike had relinquished when he left the army.
“Have you seen him?” asked Strike.
“Sent a couple of guys round and he wasn’t in, but the neighbors confirmed it’s his flat. He rents, lives alone and he’s pretty ill, apparently. They said he’s gone home to Scotland for a bit. Friend’s funeral. Supposed to be back soon.”
“Likely bloody story,” muttered Strike into his pint. “If Laing’s got a friend left in Scotland I’ll eat this glass.”
“Have it your own way,” said Wardle, half amused, half impatient. “I thought you’d be pleased we’re chasing up your guys.”
“I am,” said Strike. “Definitely ill, is he?”
“The neighbor reckons he needs sticks. He’s been in and out of hospital a lot, apparently.”
The leather-padded screen overhead was showing last month’s Arsenal–Liverpool match with the sound turned down. Strike watched as van Persie sank the penalty that he had thought, watching back on his tiny portable at the flat, might help Arsenal to a desperately needed win. It hadn’t happened, of course. The Gunners’ fortunes were currently sinking with his own.
“You seeing anyone?” asked Wardle abruptly.
“What?” said Strike, startled.
“Coco liked the look of you,” said Wardle, making sure that Strike saw him smirking as he said it, the better to impress upon Strike that he thought this ludicrous. “The wife’s friend, Coco. Red hair, remember?”
Strike remembered that Coco was a burlesque dancer.
“I said I’d ask,” said Wardle. “I’ve told her you’re a miserable bastard. She says she doesn’t mind.”
“Tell her I’m flattered,” said Strike, which was the truth, “but yeah, I’m seeing someone.”
“Not your work partner, is it?” asked Wardle.
“No,” said Strike. “She’s getting married.”
“You missed a trick there, mate,” said Wardle, yawning. “I would.”
“So, let me get this straight,” said Robin in the office next morning. “As soon as we find out that Laing actually does live in Wollaston Close, you want me to stop watching it.”
“Hear me out,” said Strike, who was making tea. “He’s away, according to the neighbors.”
“You’ve just told me you don’t think he’s really gone to Scotland!”
“The fact that the door of his flat’s been closed ever since you’ve been watching it suggests he’s gone somewhere.”
Strike dropped tea bags into two mugs.
“I don’t buy the friend’s funeral bit, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he’d popped back to Melrose to try and beat some cash out of his demented mother. That could easily be our Donnie’s idea of holiday fun.”
“One of us should be there for when he comes back—”
“One of us will be there,” said Strike soothingly, “but in the meantime, I want you to switch to—”
“Brockbank?”
“No, I’m doing Brockbank,” said Strike. “I want you to have a bash at Stephanie.”
“Who?”
“Stephanie. Whittaker’s girl.”
“Why?” asked Robin loudly, as the kettle boiled in its usual crescendo of rattling lid and rambunctious bubbles, condensation steaming up the window behind it.
“I want to see whether she can tell us what Whittaker was doing the day Kelsey was killed, and on the night that girl got her fingers hacked off in Shacklewell. The third and the twenty-ninth of April, to be precise.”
Strike poured water on the tea bags and stirred in milk, the teaspoon pinging off the sides of the mug. Robin was not sure whether she was pleased or aggrieved by the suggested change to her routine. On balance, she thought she was glad, but her recent suspicions that Strike was trying to sideline her were not easily dispelled.
“You definitely still think Whittaker could be the killer?”
“Yep,” said Strike.
“But you haven’t got any—”