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‘This is it,’ said Strike five minutes later, as he pulled up in a dark car park.
As Strike turned off the engine, Robin undid her seat belt, half rose from her seat, threw her arms around him, buried her face in his shoulder and burst into tears.
‘Thank you.’
‘’S all right,’ said Strike, putting his arms around her and speaking into her hair. ‘My job, innit… you’re out,’ he added quietly, ‘you’re OK now…’
‘I know,’ sobbed Robin. ‘Sorry… sorry…’
Both were in very inconvenient positions in which to hug, especially as Strike still had his seat belt on, but neither let go for several long minutes. Strike gently rubbed Robin’s back, and she held him in a tight grip, occasionally apologising while his shirt collar grew wet. Instead of recoiling when he pressed his lips to the top of her head, she tightened her hold on him.
‘It’s all right,’ he kept saying. ‘It’s OK.’
‘You don’t know,’ sobbed Robin, ‘you don’t know…’
‘You can tell me later,’ said Strike. ‘There’s plenty of time.’
He didn’t want to let her go, but he’d dealt with enough traumatised people in the army – had indeed been one of those people himself, after the car in which he’d been travelling had been blown up, taking half his leg with it – to know that being asked to re-live calamity in its immediate aftermath, when what was really needed was physical comfort and kindness, meant a debrief ought to wait.
They walked together across the lawn towards the low guest house, one of three in a row, Strike’s arm around Robin’s shoulders. When he unlocked the door and stood back to let her in, she passed across the threshold in a state of disbelief, her eyes roving from the four-poster to the multitude of cushions Strike had found excessive, from the kettle standing on a chest of drawers to the television in the corner. The room seemed unimaginably luxurious: to be able to make yourself a hot drink, to have access to news, to have control of your own light switch…
She turned to look at her partner as he closed the door.
‘Strike,’ she said, with a shaky laugh, ‘you’re so thin.’
‘I’m fucking thin?’
‘D’you think I could eat something?’ she said timidly, as though asking for something unreasonable.
‘Yeah, of course,’ said Strike, moving to the phone. ‘What d’you want?’
‘Anything,’ said Robin. ‘A sandwich… anything…’
She moved restlessly around the room as he dialled the number of the main hotel, trying to convince herself she was genuinely here, touching surfaces, gazing around at the leaf-strewn wallpaper and the ceramic deer head. Then, out of one of the windows, she spotted the hot tub, the water looking black by night and reflecting the trees behind it, and she seemed to see the eyeless child rising again from the depths of the baptismal pool. Strike, who was watching her, saw her flinch and turn away.
‘Food’s on its way,’ he told her, having hung up. ‘There are biscuits by the kettle.’
He closed the curtains as she picked up two plastic-wrapped biscuits and ripped them open. Having devoured them in a few mouthfuls, she said,
‘I should phone the police.’
The call, as Strike could have predicted, wasn’t straightforward. While Robin sat on the edge of the bed, explaining to the emergency operator why she was calling and describing the condition and location of the boy called Jacob, Strike scribbled ‘We’re here: Felbrigg Lodge, Bramble guest house’ onto a bit of paper and passed it to her. Robin duly read out this address when asked for her location. While she was still talking, Strike texted Midge, Barclay, Shah and Pat.
Got her. She’s OK.
He wasn’t convinced the second sentence was true, except in the very broadest sense of lacking a disabling physical injury.
‘They’re going to send someone out to talk to me,’ Robin told Strike at last, having hung up. ‘They said it might be an hour.’
‘Gives you time to eat,’ said Strike. ‘I’ve just been telling the others you’re out. They’ve been crapping themselves about you.’
Robin started crying again.
‘Sorry,’ she gasped, for what felt like the hundredth time.
‘Who hit you?’ he asked, looking at the yellowish purple marks on the left side of her face.
‘What?’ she said, trying to stem the flood of tears. ‘Oh… Will Edensor…’
