“Where are you staying?”
“We’re going to go to the Travelodge,” said Robin. “In separate rooms, obviously,” she hastened to add.
“Have you spoken to Matthew since you left?”
“He keeps sending me texts telling me he loves me.”
As she said it, she realized that she had not read his last. She had only just remembered it.
“I’m sorry,” Robin told her mother. “The dress and the reception and everything… I’m so sorry, Mum.”
“They’re the last things I’m worried about,” said Linda and she asked yet again: “Are you all right, Robin?”
“Yes, I promise I am.” She hesitated, then said, almost defiantly, “Cormoran’s been great.”
“You’re going to have to talk to Matthew, though,” said Linda. “After all this time… you can’t not talk to him.”
Robin’s composure broke; her voice trembled with rage and her hands shook as the words poured out of her.
“We were at the rugby with them just two weekends ago, with Sarah and Tom. She’s been hanging around ever since they were at uni—they were sleeping together while I was—while I—he’s never cut her out of his life, she’s always hugging him, flirting with him, shit-stirring between him and me—at the rugby it was Strike, oh, he’s so attractive, just the two of you in the office, is it?—and all this time I’ve thought it just went one way, I knew she’d tried to get him into bed at uni but I never—eighteen months, they were sleeping together—and you know what he said to me? She was comforting him… I had to give in and say she could come to the wedding because I’d asked Strike without telling Matt, that was my punishment, because I didn’t want her there. Matt has lunch with her whenever he’s near her offices—”
“I’m going to come down to London and see you,” said Linda.
“No, Mum—”
“For a day. Take you out for lunch.”
Robin gave a weak laugh.
“Mum, I don’t take a lunch hour. It isn’t that kind of job.”
“I’m coming to London, Robin.”
When her mother’s voice became firm like that, there was no point arguing.
“I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“Well, you can let me know and I’ll book the train.”
“I… oh, OK,” said Robin.
When they had bidden each other good-bye she realized that she had tears in her eyes at last. Much as she might pretend otherwise, the thought of seeing Linda brought much comfort.
She looked over at the Land Rover. Strike was still leaning up against it, and he too was on the phone. Or was he merely pretending? She had been talking loudly. He could be tactful when he chose.
She looked down at the mobile in her hands and opened Matthew’s message.
Your mother called. I told her you’re away with work. Let me know whether you want me to tell Dad you’re not going to his birthday thing. I love you, Robin. Mxxxxxx
There he went again: he did not really believe that the relationship was at an end. Let me know whether you want me to tell Dad… as though it were a storm in a teacup, as though she would never take it so far as not to attend his father’s party… I don’t even like your bloody father…
Angry, she typed and sent the response.
Of course I’m not coming.
She got back into the car. Strike seemed to be genuinely talking on the phone. The road atlas lay open on the passenger seat: he had been looking at the Leicestershire town of Market Harborough.
“Yeah, you too,” she heard Strike say. “Yeah. See you when I get back.”
Elin, she thought.
He climbed back into the car.
“Was that Wardle?” she asked innocently.
“Elin,” he said.
Does she know you’ve gone away with me? Just the two of us?
Robin felt herself turn red. She did not know where that thought had come from. It wasn’t as though…
“You want to go to Market Harborough?” she asked, holding up the map.
“Might as well,” said Strike, taking another swig of beer. “It’s the last place Brockbank worked. Could get a lead; we’d be stupid not to check it out… and if we’re going through there…”
He lifted the book out of her hands and flicked over a few pages.
“It’s only twelve miles from Corby. We could swing by and see whether the Laing who was shacked up with a woman there in 2008 is our Laing. She’s still living there: Lorraine MacNaughton’s the name.”
Robin was used to Strike’s prodigious memory for names and details.
“OK,” she said, pleased to think that the morning would bring more investigation, not simply a long drive back to London. Perhaps, if they found something interesting, there would be a second night on the road and she need not see Matthew for another twelve hours—but then she remembered that Matthew would be heading north the following night, for his father’s birthday. She would have the flat to herself in any case.
“Could he have tracked her down?” Strike wondered aloud, after a silence.