Part Five
Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.
Lucky is he who has been able to understand the causes of things
Virgil, Georgics, Book 2
1
“I’D HAVE THOUGHT,” SAID ERIC Wardle slowly, looking down at the will in its plastic pocket, “you’d have wanted to show this to your client first.”
“I would, but he’s in Rye,” said Strike, “and this is urgent. I’ve told you, I’m trying to prevent two more murders. We’re dealing with a maniac here, Wardle.”
He was sweating with pain. Even as he sat here, in the sunlit window of the Feathers, urging the policeman to action, Strike was wondering whether he might have dislocated his knee or fractured the small amount of tibia left to him in the fall down Yvette Bristow’s stairwell. He had not wanted to start fiddling with his leg in the taxi, which was now waiting for him at the curb outside. The meter was eating steadily away at the advance Bristow had paid him, of which he would never receive another installment, for today would see an arrest, if only Wardle would rouse himself.
“I grant you, this might show motive…”
“Might?” repeated Strike. “Might? Ten million might constitute a motive? For fuck’s—”
“…but I need evidence that’ll stand up in court, and you haven’t brought me any of that.”
“I’ve just told you where you can find it! Have I been wrong yet? I told you it was a fucking will, and there,” Strike jabbed the plastic sleeve, “it fucking is. Get a warrant!”
Wardle rubbed the side of his handsome face as though he had toothache, frowning at the will.
“Jesus Christ,” said Strike, “how many more times? Tansy Bestigui was on the balcony, she heard Landry say ‘I’ve already done it’…”
“You put yourself on very thin ice there, mate,” said Wardle. “Defense makes mincemeat of lying to suspects. When Bestigui finds out there aren’t any photos, he’s going to deny everything.”
“Let him. She won’t. She’s ripe to tell anyway. But if you’re too much of a * to do anything about this, Wardle,” said Strike, who could feel cold sweat on his back and a fiery pain in what remained of his right leg, “and anyone else who was close to Landry turns up dead, I’m gonna go straight to the fucking press. I’ll tell them I gave you every bit of information I had, and that you had every fucking chance to bring this killer in. I’ll make up my fee in selling the rights to my story, and you can pass that message on to Carver for me.
“Here,” he said, pushing across the table a piece of torn paper, on which he had scribbled several six-figure numbers. “Try them first. Now get a fucking warrant.”
He pushed the will across the table to Wardle and slid off the high bar stool. The walk from the pub to the taxi was agony. The more pressure he put on his right leg, the more excruciating the pain became.
Robin had been calling Strike every ten minutes since one o’clock, but he had not picked up. She rang again as he was climbing, with enormous difficulty, up the metal stairs towards the office, heaving himself up with the use of his arms. She heard his ringtone echoing up the stairwell, and hurried out on to the top landing.
“There you are! I’ve been calling and calling, there’s been loads…What’s the matter, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he lied.
“No you’re…What’s happened to you?”
She hastened down the stairs towards him. He was white, and sweaty, and looked, in Robin’s opinion, as though he might be sick.
“Have you been drinking?”
“No I haven’t been bloody drinking!” he snapped. “I’ve—sorry, Robin. In a bit of pain here. I just need to sit down.”
“What’s happened? Let me…”
“I’ve got it. No problem. I can manage.”
Slowly he pulled himself to the top landing and limped very heavily to the old sofa. When he dropped his weight into it, Robin thought she heard something deep in the structure crack, and noted, We’ll need a new one, and then, But I’m leaving.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I fell down some stairs,” said Strike, panting a little, still wearing his coat. “Like a complete tit.”
“What stairs? What happened?”
From the depths of his agony he grinned at her expression, which was part horrified, part excited.
“I wasn’t wrestling anyone, Robin. I just slipped.”
“Oh, I see. You’re a bit—you look a bit pale. You don’t think you could have done something serious, do you? I could get a cab—maybe you should see a doctor.”
“No need for that. Have we still got any of those painkillers lying around?”
She brought him water and paracetamol. He took them, then stretched out his legs, flinched and asked:
“What’s been going on here? Did Graham Hardacre send you a picture?”
“Yes,” she said, hurrying to her computer monitor. “Here.”
With a shunt of her mouse and a click, the picture of Lieutenant Jonah Agyeman filled the monitor.
In silence, they contemplated the face of a young man whose irrefutable handsomeness was not diminished by the overlarge ears he had inherited from his father. The scarlet, black and gold uniform suited him. His grin was slightly lopsided, his cheekbones high, his jaw square and his skin dark with an undertone of red, like freshly brewed tea. He conveyed the careless charm that Lula Landry had had too; the indefinable quality that made the viewer linger over her image.
“He looks like her,” said Robin in a hushed voice.
“Yeah, he does. Anything else been going on?”
Robin seemed to snap back to attention.
“Oh God, yes…John Bristow called half an hour ago, to say he couldn’t get hold of you, and Tony Landry’s called three times.”
“I thought he might. What did he say?”
“He was absolutely—well, the first time, he asked to speak to you, and when I said you weren’t here, he hung up before I could give him your mobile number. The second time, he told me you had to call him straightaway, but slammed down the phone before I could tell him you still weren’t back. But the third time, he was just—well—he was incredibly angry. Screaming at me.”
“He’d better not have been offensive,” said Strike, scowling.
“He wasn’t really. Well, not to me—it was all about you.”
“What did he say?”
“He didn’t make a lot of sense, but he called John Bristow a ‘stupid prick,’ and then he was bawling something about Alison walking out, which he seemed to think had something to do with you, because he was yelling about suing you, and defamation, and all kinds of things.”
“Alison’s left her job?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say where she—no, of course he didn’t, why would he know?” he finished, more to himself than to Robin.
He looked down at his wrist. His cheap watch seemed to have hit something when he had fallen downstairs, because it had stopped at a quarter to one.
“What’s the time?”
“Ten to five.”
“Already?”
“Yes. Do you need anything? I can hang around a bit.”
“No, I want you out of here.”
His tone was such that instead of going to fetch her coat and handbag, Robin remained exactly where she was.
“What are you expecting to happen?”
Strike was busy fiddling with his leg, just below the knee.
“Nothing. You’ve just worked a lot of overtime lately. I’ll bet Matthew will be glad to see you back early for once.”
There was no adjusting the prosthesis through his trouser leg.
“Please, Robin, go,” he said, looking up.
She hesitated, then went to fetch her trench coat and bag.
“Thanks,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”
She left. He waited for the sound of her footsteps on the stairs before rolling up his trouser leg, but heard nothing. The glass door opened, and she reappeared.
“You’re expecting someone to come,” she said, clutching the edge of the door. “Aren’t you?”
“Maybe,” said Strike, “but it doesn’t matter.”
He mustered a smile at her tight, anxious expression.
“Don’t worry about me.” When her expression did not change, he added: “I boxed a bit, in the army, you know.”
Robin half laughed.
“Yes, you mentioned that.”
“Did I?”
“Repeatedly. That night you…you know.”
“Oh. Right. Well, it’s true.”
“But who are you…?”
“Matthew wouldn’t thank me for telling you. Go home, Robin, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
And this time, albeit reluctantly, she left. He waited until he heard the door on to Denmark Street bang shut, then rolled up his trouser leg, detached the prosthesis and examined his swollen knee, and the end of his leg, which was inflamed and bruised. He wondered exactly what he had done to himself, but there was no time to take the problem to an expert tonight.
He half wished, now, that he had asked Robin to fetch him something to eat before she left. Clumsily, hopping from spot to spot, holding on to the desk, the top of the filing cabinet and the arm of the sofa to balance, he managed to make himself a cup of tea. He drank it sitting in Robin’s chair, and ate half a packet of digestives, spending most of the time in contemplation of the face of Jonah Agyeman. The paracetamol had barely touched the pain in his leg.
When he had finished all the biscuits, he checked his mobile. There were many missed calls from Robin, and two from John Bristow.
Of the three people who Strike thought might present themselves at his office this evening, it was Bristow he hoped would make it there first. If the police wanted concrete evidence of murder, his client alone (though he might not realize it) could provide it. If either Tony Landry or Alison Cresswell turned up at his offices, I’ll just have to…then Strike snorted a little in his empty office, because the expression that had occurred to him was “think on my feet.”
But six o’clock came, and then half past, and nobody rang the bell. Strike rubbed more cream into the end of his leg, and reattached the prosthesis, which was agony. He limped through into the inner office, emitting grunts of pain, slumped down in his chair and, giving up, took the false leg off again and slid down, to lay his head on his arms, intending to do no more than rest his tired eyes.