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‘Doe, I’ll be fine.’
‘I’ll be happy to see the back of this case,’ said Strike. ‘Midge is right, the client’s a pain in the arse. S’pose she’ll get her multi-million settlement now.’
‘Yeah,’ said Shah. ‘New case, den? Ob the waiting list?’
‘Yeah,’ said Strike.
‘Even wid the Franks being a three-perdon job now?’
‘Heard about the snake, did you?’
‘Yeah, Barglay dold be.’
‘Well, they’re not a three-person job any more. Back to two.’
‘How gum?’
‘Because I’m having the third party watched by a couple of cash-in-hand blokes,’ said Strike. ‘They don’t often play on the side of the angels, but they’re experienced at surveillance – usually casing places to rob. It’s costing me a fortune, but I want to prove Patterson’s behind it. That fucker will rue the day he tried this on me.’
‘Wadz hid problem wid you, anyway?’
‘It pisses him off I’m better than him,’ said Strike.
Dev laughed but stopped abruptly, wincing.
‘I owe you a new phone,’ said Strike. ‘Give me the receipt and I’ll reimburse you. You should get home and rest up. Send me that picture and I’ll call Bigfoot’s wife when I get back to the office.’
A sudden thought now occurred to Strike.
‘How old’s your wife?’
‘Wad?’ said Shah, looking up.
‘I’ve been trying to track down a thirty-eight-year-old woman, for the UHC case,’ said Strike. ‘She’s used at least three aliases that I know of. Where do women that age hang out online, d’you know?’
‘Bubsned, probably,’ said Shah.
‘What?’
‘Bub – fuggit – Mumsnet,’ said Dev, enunciating with difficulty. ‘Aisha’d alwayd on dere. Or Fadeboog.’
‘Mumsnet and Facebook,’ said Strike. ‘Yeah, good thinking. I’ll try them.’
He arrived back at the office half an hour later to find Pat there alone, restocking the fridge with milk, the radio playing hits of the sixties.
‘Dev’s just got punched in the face by Bigfoot,’ said Strike, hanging up his coat.
‘What?’ croaked Pat, glaring at Strike as though he was personally responsible.
‘He’s fine,’ Strike added, moving past her to the kettle. ‘Going home to ice his nose. Who’s next on the waiting list?’
‘That weirdo with the mother.’
‘They all have mothers, don’t they?’ said Strike, dropping a teabag into a mug.
‘This one wants his mother watched,’ said Pat. ‘Thinks she’s frittering away his inheritance on a toyboy.’
‘Ah, right. If you pull the file for me, I’ll give him a ring. Has Littlejohn showed his face in here today?’
