AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘The second one was last night,’ said Littlejohn. ‘I was going to give it to Mitch.’
‘I’m sure there’s an innocent explanation,’ said Strike, who was sure of nothing of the sort. ‘If that’s your best shot—’
‘It’s not – I’ve got stuff on Patterson.’
‘I’ll get it myself if I want it.’
‘No, listen,’ said Littlejohn again, ‘I can get you something for that church case. Mitch has got a recording. He didn’t hand it over when Edensor sacked him.’
‘What recording would this be?’ asked the sceptical Strike.
‘Of that Kevin whatever he was called, who got out of the church – Kevin Purvis?’
‘Pirbright,’ said Strike.
‘Yeah, exactly. Mitch got an undercover recording of him.’
‘Why would Patterson covertly record Pirbright, when Pirbright had already told Colin Edensor everything he knew?’
‘They fell out, Pirbright and Edensor,’ said Littlejohn. ‘Didn’t they? Before Pirbright got shot? They weren’t talking to each other.’
Strike’s interest level rose slightly, because it was true Sir Colin and Kevin Pirbright had argued, then had little contact, in the interval between Kevin heckling Giles Harmon at his book reading, and Pirbright’s murder.
‘There was an email, I think it was an email, Pirbright sent to Edensor,’ Littlejohn went on, his expression pleading, ‘where Pirbright said he was piecing things together he’d repressed or something, right? Mitch was getting nowhere on the case, so he sent Farah to chat up Pirbright and see what new stuff she could get out of him. Pirbright wasn’t right mentally, see, so Mitch was worried if they interviewed him over the counter, Pirbright might blab on his blog. He was getting too mouthy.’
‘Why didn’t Patterson hand over this recording to Edensor?’
‘Because it’s shit quality. You can’t hear much. Farah fucked up, but she told Mitch afterwards Pirbright didn’t have anything useful to say anyway.’
‘And this is the valuable bit of evidence you think will persuade me to keep you in employment? A recording you can’t hear, of a conversation containing nothing useful?’
‘Yeah, but it’s you, isn’t it?’ said Littlejohn, desperate. ‘You can do something with it.’
If there was one thing that truly added insult to injury, in Strike’s opinion, it was attempts to flatter in the aftermath of proven treachery. Once again, it cost him some effort to suppress a straightforward ‘go fuck yourself’.
‘If it’s useless, why didn’t Patterson chuck it?’
‘He did – well, he chucked it in the safe and forgot about it. I saw it in there last time I opened it.’
‘All right,’ said Strike slowly, ‘bring me that recording and we can have another talk about your employment prospects.’
A very short fucking talk.
‘Thank you,’ said Littlejohn effusively. ‘Thank you, Cormoran, I can’t thank you enough. I really need this job, you don’t understand what it’s been like for me, the strain of everything, but as long as I’ve got regular work I can work something out, get a loan or something – you won’t regret this. I’m a loyal man,’ said Littlejohn shamelessly, ‘I don’t forget a good turn. You won’t have anyone more dedicated to this agency—’
‘You can save all that. You haven’t brought back the recording yet.’
Once Littlejohn was safely out of the office, Strike called Midge.
‘Wotcha,’ she said, answering after a couple of rings.
‘Want to tell me why you’re going shopping with our client?’
‘What?’ said Midge, startled.
‘You. Tasha Mayo. Waitrose,’ said Strike, barely keeping a lid on his temper.
‘I weren’t shopping with her,’ said Midge, sounding incredulous. ‘One of them split, that’s all.’
