Robin, I can’t sleep for thinking about you. You don’t know how much I wish it hadn’t happened. It was a shitty thing to do and there’s no defense. I was 21 and I didn’t know then what I know now: that there’s nobody like you and that I could never love anyone else as much as I love you. There’s never been anyone apart from you since then. I’ve been jealous of you and Strike and you might say I don’t have the right to feel jealous because of what I did but maybe on some level I think you deserve better than me and that’s what’s been getting to me. I only know I love you and I want to marry you and if that’s not what you want now then I’ll have to accept that but please Robin just text me and let me know you’re OK, please. Matt xxxxxxx
Robin put the mobile back on the dressing table and continued dressing. She ordered a croissant and coffee from room service and was surprised how much better food and drink made her feel when they arrived. Only then did she read Matthew’s text again.
… maybe on some level I think you deserve better than me and that’s what’s been getting to me…
This was touching, and most unlike Matthew, who frequently expressed the view that citing subconscious motivation was no more than chicanery. Hard on the heels of that thought, though, came the reflection that Matthew had never cut Sarah out of his life. She was one of his best friends from university: embracing him tenderly at his mother’s funeral, dining out with them as part of a cozy foursome, still flirting with Matthew, still stirring between him and Robin.
After a brief inner deliberation, Robin texted back:
I’m fine.
She was waiting for Strike on the doorstep of Hazlitt’s, neat as ever, when the black cab drew up at five to nine.
Strike had not shaved, and as his beard grew with vigor his jaw looked grimy.
“Have you seen the news?” he asked as soon as she had got into the cab.
“No.”
“Media have just got it. Saw it on the telly as I left.”
He leaned forward to slide shut the plastic divider between themselves and the driver.
“Who is she?” asked Robin.
“They haven’t formally ID’d her yet, but they think she’s a twenty-four-year-old Ukrainian woman.”
“Ukrainian?” said Robin, startled.
“Yeah.” He hesitated, then said, “Her landlady found her dismembered in a fridge-freezer in what looks like her own flat. The right leg’s missing. It’s definitely her.”
The taste of Robin’s toothpaste in her mouth turned chemical; croissant and coffee churned in her stomach.
“Where’s the flat?”
“Coningham Road, Shepherd’s Bush. Ring any bells?”
“No, I—oh God. Oh God. The girl who wanted to cut off her leg?”
“Apparently.”
“But she didn’t have a Ukrainian name, did she?”
“Wardle thinks she might’ve been using a fake one. You know—hooker name.”
The taxi bore them down Pall Mall towards New Scotland Yard. White neoclassical buildings slid past the windows on both sides: august, haughty and impervious to the shocks of frail humanity.
“It’s what Wardle expected,” said Strike after a long pause. “His theory was that the leg belonged to a Ukrainian prostitute last seen with Digger Malley.”
Robin could tell that there was more. She looked at him anxiously.
“There were letters from me in her flat,” said Strike. “Two letters, signed with my name.”
“But you didn’t write back!”
“Wardle knows they’re fake. Apparently they’ve spelled my name wrong—Cameron—but he’s still got to get me in.”
“What do the letters say?”
“He wouldn’t tell me over the phone. He’s being pretty decent,” said Strike. “Not being a dick about it.”
Buckingham Palace rose up ahead of them. The gigantic marble statue of Queen Victoria frowned down on Robin’s confusion and her hangover, then slid out of view.
“They’re probably going to ask us to look at pictures of the body to see whether we can ID her.”
“OK,” said Robin, more stoutly than she felt.
“How are you?” Strike asked.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Don’t worry about me.”
“I was going to call Wardle this morning anyway.”
“Why?”
“Last night, walking away from Hazlitt’s, I saw a big guy in a black beanie hat lurking down a side street. There was something about his body language I didn’t like. I called out to him—I was going to ask him for a light—and he scarpered. Don’t,” said Strike, though Robin had not made a sound, “tell me I’m jumpy or imagining things. I think he followed us, and I’ll tell you something else—I think he was in the pub when I arrived. I didn’t see his face, just the back of his head as he left.”