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‘Yeah,’ said Strike.
‘You know he’s an alcoholic?’
‘Is he?’ said Strike, masking his expression by drinking more beer. Robin told him so little about her relationship that he hadn’t previously known this. Perhaps, he thought (with a leap of something strongly resembling hope), Robin didn’t know, either.
‘Yeah. On the wagon now, though. But he was a mean drunk. Real arsehole.’
‘In what way?’
‘Aggressive. Made a pass at anyone in a skirt. Tried it on with April one night. I nearly fucking punched him.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Oh yeah,’ repeated Wardle. ‘No surprise his wife walked out.’
But his expression saddened after he’d said it, remembering, perhaps, that Murphy wasn’t the only person whose wife had left him.
‘He’s dried out now, though, has he?’ asked Strike.
‘Yeah,’ said Wardle. ‘Where are the bogs in here?’
After Wardle had left the table, Strike set down his knife and flipped open the police file again, still forking beef Madras into his mouth. He extracted the post-mortem findings on Kevin Pirbright’s corpse, skipping the fatal injury to the head, and concentrating on the lines concerning toxicology. The pathologist had found a low level of alcohol in the body, but no trace of illegal drugs.
9
But in abolishing abuses one must not be too hasty. This would turn out badly because the abuses have been in existence so long.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
Robin’s neck felt exposed and chilly as she travelled by train to Prudence’s house in Strawberry Hill the following evening. She sincerely hoped the accountant would let her claim at least half the cost of her new haircut as a business expense, because it was the most expensive she’d ever had. Chin-length, with a long, graduated fringe, with the ends bleached and then dyed pale blue. After one look of shock, Murphy had beamed and told her he liked it upon meeting the previous evening, which, true or not, had made her feel slightly less self-conscious as they entered the Duke of York Theatre, to watch The Father.
‘Blue, eh?’ were Strike’s first words, when Robin got into the BMW outside Strawberry Hill station. ‘Looks good.’
‘Thanks. I’m hoping it also says, “Hi, I’ve got more money than sense.”’
‘Maybe once you’ve got the posh clothes on,’ said Strike, pulling out of the car park.
‘How was Bigfoot?’ Robin asked, as they drove past a long line of solid Edwardian villas.
‘Disappointingly celibate,’ said Strike. ‘But for a man who’s worth a couple of million, you’d think he could afford a comb.’
‘You really don’t like scruffiness, do you?’ said Robin, amused.
‘Not in people who have a choice. How hard is it to bloody wash?’
Strike took a right turn before saying,
‘Dev found the bloke Shanker’s after, by the way.’
‘Oh good,’ said Robin. While she was under no illusions about Shanker’s deeply criminal nature, he happened to have once helped her escape an assault by a large murder suspect, for which she remained grateful. ‘How’s the little girl doing?’
‘He didn’t say, but hopefully seeing her dad will cheer her up… here we go…’
Earlier than Robin had expected, they turned into the drive of a particularly large Edwardian house, which not only made Robin feel slightly intimidated, but also made her think ruefully of her own flimsily built flat, in which she had to endure the almost constant noise of the music from the man upstairs.
The front door opened before they reached it, revealing Strike’s half-sister, who was the daughter of a well-known actress and the rock star who’d also fathered Strike. Prudence was wearing a plain black dress that looked unexceptional to Strike, but which Robin guessed would have cost the equivalent of her own monthly mortgage repayment.
Like Sir Colin Edensor, Prudence had the kind of face it was hard to dislike, or so thought Robin. Though not quite as beautiful as her actress mother, she was very attractive, with freckled skin and long, wavy black hair. Eyes that slanted upwards at the corners and a small, smiling mouth added a slightly Puckish look. Though by no means overweight, she was curvy, something Robin, who’d been afraid she’d be stick thin and flat-chested, saw with relief.
