Half past four the following morning found Strike awake after virtually no sleep. His tongue ached from the amount of smoking he had done overnight at the Formica table in his kitchen, while contemplating the decimation of his business and his prospects. He could barely bring himself to think about Robin. Fine cracks, like those in thick ice during a thaw, were starting to appear in what had been implacable fury, but what lay beneath was scarcely less cold. He could understand the impulse to save the child—who couldn’t? Hadn’t he, as she had so injudiciously pointed out, knocked Brockbank out cold after viewing Brittany’s taped evidence?—but the thought of her heading off with Shanker, without telling him, and after Carver had warned them not to go anywhere near the suspects, made rage thunder through his veins all over again as he upended his cigarette pack and found it empty.
He pulled himself to his feet, picked up his keys and left the flat, still wearing the Italian suit in which he had dozed. The sun was coming up as he trudged down Charing Cross Road in a dawn that made everything look dusty and fragile, a gray light full of pale shadows. He bought cigarettes in a corner shop in Covent Garden and continued to walk, smoking and thinking.
After two hours spent walking the streets, Strike reached a decision about his next move. Heading back towards the office, he saw a waitress in a black dress unlocking the doors to the Caffè Vergnano 1882 on Charing Cross Road, realized how hungry he was and turned inside.
The small coffee shop smelled of warm wood and espresso. As Strike sank gratefully onto a hard oak chair he became uncomfortably aware that for the past thirteen hours he had smoked ceaselessly, slept in his clothes and eaten steak and drunk red wine without cleaning his teeth. The man in the reflection beside him looked crumpled and grimy. He tried not to give the young waitress any opportunity to smell his breath as he ordered a ham and cheese panini, a bottle of water and a double espresso.
As the copper-domed coffee maker on the counter hissed into life, Strike sank into a reverie, searching his conscience for a truthful answer to an uncomfortable question.
Was he any better than Carver? Was he contemplating a high-risk and dangerous course of action because he really thought it the only way to stop the killer? Or was he inclining to the higher-stakes option because he knew that if he brought it off—if he were the one to catch and incriminate the murderer—it would reverse all the damage done to his reputation and his business, restoring to him the luster of a man who succeeded where the Met failed? Was it, in short, necessity or ego that was driving him towards what many would say was a reckless and foolish measure?
The waitress set his sandwich and coffee in front of him and Strike began to eat with the glazed stare of a man too preoccupied even to taste what he was chewing.
This was as well-publicized a series of crimes as Strike had ever come into contact with: the police would currently be flooded with information and leads, all of which needed following up and none of which (Strike was prepared to bet) would lead anywhere near the real devious and successful killer.
He still had the option of trying to make contact with one of Carver’s superiors, although he was now in such poor odor with the police that he doubted he would be allowed direct speech with a superintendent, whose first loyalty would of course be to his own men. Trying to circumnavigate Carver would do nothing to diminish the impression that he was trying to undermine the head of the investigation.
What was more, Strike did not have evidence, merely a theory about where the evidence was. While there was a remote chance that somebody at the Met might take Strike seriously enough to go looking for what he promised they would find, Strike feared that further delay might cost another life.
He was surprised to find that he had finished his panini. Still extremely hungry, he ordered a second.
No, he thought, with sudden resolve, this is the way it’s got to be.
This animal needed to be stopped as soon as possible. It was time to get out ahead of him for the first time. However, as a sop to his conscience, as a proof to himself that he was motivated primarily by catching a killer rather than by glory, Strike took out his mobile again and called Detective Inspector Richard Anstis, his oldest acquaintance on the force. He was not on the best terms with Anstis these days, but Strike wanted to be certain in his own mind that he had done all he could to allow the Met the chance to do the job for him.