One short walk took Strike much further than simple physical distance. This, he thought as he smoked his first cigarette of the day, was London: you started in a quiet, symmetrical Nash terrace that resembled a sculpture in vanilla ice-cream. Elin’s pin-striped Russian neighbor had been getting into his Audi, and Strike had received a curt nod in response to his “Morning.” A short walk past the silhouettes of Sherlock Holmes at Baker Street station and he was sitting on a grimy Tube train surrounded by chattering Polish workmen, fresh and businesslike at 7 a.m. Then bustling Paddington, forcing a path through commuters and coffee shops, holdall over shoulder. Finally a few stops on the Heathrow Connect, accompanied by a large West Country family who were already dressed for Florida in spite of the early morning chill. They watched the station signs like nervous meerkats, their hands gripping their suitcase handles as though expecting an imminent mugging.
Strike arrived at West Ealing station fifteen minutes early and desperate for a cigarette. Dropping the holdall by his feet he lit up, hoping that Robin would not be too prompt, because he doubted that she would want him smoking in the Land Rover. He had only taken a couple of satisfying drags, however, when the box-like car rounded the corner, Robin’s bright red-gold head clearly visible through the windscreen.
“I don’t mind,” she called over the running engine as he hoisted his holdall back onto his shoulder and made to extinguish the cigarette, “as long as you keep the window open.”
He climbed inside, shoved his bag into the back and slammed the door.
“You can’t make it smell worse than it already does,” said Robin, managing the stiff gears with her usual expertise. “It’s pure dog in here.”
Strike pulled on a seatbelt as they accelerated away from the pavement, looking around at the interior of the car. Shabby and scuffed, a pungent fug of Wellington boot and Labrador certainly pervaded. It reminded Strike of military vehicles that he had driven across all terrains in Bosnia and Afghanistan, but at the same time it added something to his picture of Robin’s background. This Land Rover spoke of muddy tracks and plowed fields. He remembered her saying that an uncle had a farm.
“Did you ever have a pony?”
She glanced at him, surprised. In that fleeting full-face look he noted the heaviness of her eyes, her pallor. She had clearly not slept much.
“What on earth do you want to know that for?”
“This feels like the kind of car you’d take to the gymkhana.”
Her reply had a touch of defensiveness:
“Yes, I did.”
He laughed, pushing the window down as far as it would go and resting his left hand there with the cigarette.
“Why is that funny?”
“I don’t know. What was it called?”
“Angus,” she said, turning left. “He was a bugger. Always carting me off.”
“I don’t trust horses,” said Strike, smoking.
“Have you ever been on one?”
It was Robin’s turn to smile. She thought it might be one of the few places where she would see Strike truly discomforted, on the back of a horse.
“No,” said Strike. “And I intend to keep it that way.”
“My uncle’s got something that’d carry you,” said Robin. “Clydesdale. It’s massive.”
“Point taken,” said Strike drily, and she laughed.
Smoking in silence as she concentrated on navigating through the increasingly heavy morning traffic, Strike noted how much he liked making her laugh. He also recognized that he felt much happier, much more comfortable, sitting here in this ramshackle Land Rover talking inconsequential nonsense with Robin than he had felt last night at dinner with Elin.
He was not a man who told himself comfortable lies. He might have argued that Robin represented the ease of friendship; Elin, the pitfalls and pleasures of a sexual relationship. He knew that the truth was more complicated, and certainly made more so by the fact that the sapphire ring had vanished from Robin’s finger. He had known, almost from the moment they had met, that Robin represented a threat to his peace of mind, but endangering the best working relationship of his life would be an act of willful self-sabotage that he, after years of a destructive on-off relationship, after the hard graft and sacrifice that had gone into building his business, could not and would not let happen.
“Are you ignoring me on purpose?”
“What?”
It was just plausible that he had not heard her, so noisy was the old Land Rover’s engine.
“I said, how are things with Elin?”
She had never asked him outright about a relationship before. Strike supposed the confidences of two nights ago had moved them onto a different level of intimacy. He would have avoided this, if he could.
“All right,” he said repressively, throwing away his cigarette butt and pulling up the window, which marginally reduced the noise.
“She forgave you, then?”