AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Something in Pat’s sharp glance made Strike say,
‘There wasn’t one in the rock.’
‘All right, I’m not accusing you of burning it,’ snapped Pat, turning back to her typing.
‘Everything all right?’ asked Strike. While he doubted anyone had ever compared Pat to a ray of eternal sunshine, he couldn’t offhand remember her being this tetchy without provocation.
‘Fine,’ said Pat, e-cigarette waggling as she scowled at her monitor.
Strike decided the politic course was to wash his mug in silence.
‘Well, that’s me off to watch Bigfoot,’ he said. As he turned to get his coat, his eye fell on a small pile of receipts on Pat’s desk.
‘Those Littlejohn’s?’
‘Yeah,’ said Pat, her fingers moving rapidly over the keys.
‘Mind if I have a quick look?’
He shuffled through them. There was nothing unusual or extravagant in there; indeed, if anything, they were on the sketchy side.
‘What d’you think of Littlejohn?’ Strike asked Pat, setting the receipts back down beside her.
‘What d’you mean, what do I think of him?’ she said, glaring up at him.
‘Exactly what I said.’
‘He’s all right,’ said Pat, after a moment or two. ‘He’s fine.’
‘Robin told me you don’t like him.’
‘I thought he was a bit quiet when he started, that’s all.’
‘Got chattier, has he?’ said Strike.
‘Yeah,’ said Pat. ‘Well – no – but he’s always polite.’
‘You’ve never noticed him doing anything odd? Behaving strangely? Lying about anything?’
‘No. Why’re you asking me this?’ said Pat.
‘Because if you had, you wouldn’t be the only one,’ said Strike. He was now intrigued: Pat had never before shown the slightest inclination to pull her punches when judging anyone: client, employee or, indeed, Strike himself.
‘He’s fine. Doing the job OK, isn’t he?’
Before Strike could answer, the phone on Pat’s desk rang.
‘Oh, hello Ryan,’ she said, her tone far warmer.
Strike decided it was time to leave, and did so, closing the glass door quietly behind him.
The next few days yielded little progress in the UHC case. There was no word from Shanker on a possible interview with Jordan Reaney. Cherie Gittins remained unfindable on every database Strike consulted. Of the witnesses to Cherie and Daiyu’s early morning swim, the café owner who’d seen Cherie taking the child down to the beach while carrying towels had died five years previously. He’d tried to contact Mr and Mrs Heaton, who’d seen the hysterical Cherie running up the beach after Daiyu disappeared beneath the waves, and who were still living at an address in Cromer, but nobody ever answered their landline, no matter what time of day Strike tried it. He toyed with the idea of driving on to Cromer after visiting Garvestone Hall, but as the agency was already stretched with its current cases, and he was already planning to go down to Cornwall later in the week, he decided against sacrificing another few hours on the road merely to find an unoccupied house.
His drive to Norfolk on a sunny Tuesday morning was uneventful until, on a flat, straight stretch of the A11, Midge called him about the most recently acquired case on the agency’s books, a case of presumed marital infidelity in which the husband wanted the wife watched. The client had been taken on so recently that no nickname had been assigned to either client or target, although Strike understood who Midge was talking about when she said without preamble,
‘I’ve caught Mrs What’s-Her-Name in the act.’
‘Already?’
