‘Not alone,’ he said, ‘but maybe you could get me in? How about this evening?’
‘Of course!’ she said, elated.
Hadn’t she and Matthew established new rules? This was the first time she had tested him, but she went to the telephone with confidence. His reaction when she told him that she did not know when she would be home that night could not have been called enthusiastic, but he accepted the news without demur.
So, at seven o’clock that evening, having discussed at length the tactics that they were about to employ, Strike and Robin proceeded separately through the icy night, ten minutes apart with Robin in the lead, to Stafford Cripps House.
A gang of youths stood again in the concrete forecourt of the block and they did not permit Robin to pass with the wary respect they had accorded Strike two weeks previously. One of them danced backwards ahead of her as she approached the inner stairs, inviting her to party, telling her she was beautiful, laughing derisively at her silence, while his mates jeered behind her in the darkness, discussing her rear view. As they entered the concrete stairwell her taunter’s jeers echoed strangely. She thought he might be seventeen at most.
‘I need to go upstairs,’ she said firmly as he slouched across the stairwell for his mates’ amusement, but sweat had prickled on her scalp. He’s a kid, she told herself. And Strike’s right behind you. The thought gave her courage. ‘Get out of the way, please,’ she said.
He hesitated, dropped a sneering comment about her figure, and moved. She half expected him to grab her as she passed but he loped back to his mates, all of them calling filthy names after her as she climbed the stairs and emerged with relief, without being followed, on to the balcony leading to Kath Kent’s flat.
The lights inside were on. Robin paused for a second, gathering herself, then rang the doorbell.
After some seconds the door opened a cautious six inches and there stood a middle-aged woman with a long tangle of red hair.
‘Kathryn?’
‘Yeah?’ said the woman suspiciously.
‘I’ve got some very important information for you,’ said Robin. ‘You need to hear this.’
(‘Don’t say “I need to talk to you”,’ Strike had coached her, ‘or “I’ve got some questions”. You frame it so that it sounds like it’s to her advantage. Get as far as you can without telling her who you are; make it sound urgent, make her worry she’s going to miss something if she lets you go. You want to be inside before she can think it through. Use her name. Make a personal connection. Keep talking.’)
‘What?’ demanded Kathryn Kent.
‘Can I come in?’ asked Robin. ‘It’s very cold out here.’
‘Who are you?’
‘You need to hear this, Kathryn.’
‘Who—?’
‘Kath?’ said someone behind her.
‘Are you a journalist?’
‘I’m a friend,’ Robin improvised, her toes over the threshold. ‘I want to help you, Kathryn.’
‘Hey—’
A familiar long pale face and large brown eyes appeared beside Kath’s.
‘It’s her I told you about!’ said Pippa. ‘She works with him—’
‘Pippa,’ said Robin, making eye contact with the tall girl, ‘you know I’m on your side – there’s something I need to tell you both, it’s urgent—’
Her foot was two thirds of the way across the threshold. Robin put every ounce of earnest persuasiveness that she could muster into her expression as she looked into Pippa’s panicked eyes.
‘Pippa, I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t think it was really important—’
‘Let her in,’ Pippa told Kathryn. She sounded scared.
The hall was cramped and seemed full of hanging coats. Kathryn led Robin into a small, lamp-lit sitting room with plain magnolia-painted walls. Brown curtains hung at the windows, the fabric so thin that the lights of buildings opposite and distant, passing cars shone through them. A slightly grubby orange throw covered the old sofa, which sat on a rug patterned with swirling abstract shapes, and the remains of a Chinese takeaway sat on the cheap pine coffee table. In the corner was a rickety computer table bearing a laptop. The two women, Robin saw, with a pang of something like remorse, had been decorating a small fake Christmas tree together. A string of lights lay on the floor and there were a number of decorations on the only armchair. One of them was a china disc reading Future Famous Writer!
‘What d’you want?’ demanded Kathryn Kent, her arms folded.
She was glaring at Robin through small, fierce eyes.
‘May I sit down?’ said Robin and she did so without waiting for Kathryn’s answer. (‘Make yourself at home as much as you can without being rude, make it harder for her to dislodge you,’ Strike had said.)
‘What d’you want?’ Kathryn Kent repeated.
Pippa stood in front of the windows, staring at Robin, who saw that she was fiddling with a tree ornament: a mouse dressed as Santa.
‘You know that Leonora Quine’s been arrested for murder?’ said Robin.
‘Of course I do. I’m the one,’ Kathryn pointed at her own ample chest, ‘who found the Visa bill with the ropes, the burqa and the overalls on it.’
‘Yes,’ said Robin, ‘I know that.’
‘Ropes and a burqa!’ ejaculated Kathryn Kent. ‘Got more than he bargained for, didn’t he? All those years thinking she was just some dowdy little… boring little – little cow – and look what she did to him!’
‘Yes,’ said Robin, ‘I know it looks that way.’
‘What d’you mean, “looks that”—?’
‘Kathryn, I’ve come here to warn you: they don’t think she did it.’
(‘No specifics. Don’t mention the police explicitly if you can avoid it, don’t commit to a checkable story, keep it vague,’ Strike had told her.)
‘What d’you mean?’ repeated Kathryn sharply. ‘The police don’t—?’
‘And you had access to his card, more opportunities to copy it—’
Kathryn looked wildly from Robin to Pippa, who was clutching the Santa-mouse, white-faced.
‘But Strike doesn’t think you did it,’ said Robin.