AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Whether you possess sublimity, constancy, and perseverance;
Then there is no blame.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
The meeting had concluded. Pat returned to the office with Barclay, who had receipts to file, and Midge left to ask Tasha Mayo whether she’d be prepared to enjoy a week at the exclusive clinic of Dr Andy Zhou, expenses paid by the agency.
‘Want a coffee?’ Strike asked Robin.
‘OK,’ said Robin, even though she’d just had two.
They walked together to Frith Street and Bar Italia, which lay across the road from Ronnie Scott’s jazz club, and which Strike preferred to Starbucks. While he was buying their drinks, Robin sat at one of the round metal tables, watching the passers-by and wishing she was any one of them.
‘You all right?’ Strike said, once he’d set the drinks on the table and sat down. He knew perfectly well what the answer was, but was unable to think of any other opening. Robin took a sip of her cappuccino before saying,
‘I just keep thinking about her daughters.’
‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘I know.’
Both watched the cars pass for a moment or two, before Strike said,
‘Look—’
‘Don’t tell me we didn’t make it happen.’
‘Well, I am going to tell you that, because we didn’t.’
‘Strike—’
‘She did it. She chose to do it.’
‘Yes – because of us.’
‘We asked questions. That’s the job.’
‘That’s exactly what Ryan said. “That’s the job.”’
‘Well, he’s not wrong,’ said Strike. ‘Do I feel good about what happened? No. But we didn’t put the rope round her neck. She did that herself.’
Robin, who’d done a lot of crying when not at work in the last two days, had no tears left to shed. The terrible burden of guilt she’d carried with her ever since Strike had told her that the mother of two had been found hanged in the family’s garage wasn’t eased by his words. She kept visualising the picture stuck to Carrie Curtis Woods’ fridge door, of two figures hand in hand in princess dresses: Me and Mummy.
‘We went to interview her,’ said Strike, ‘because a seven-year-old child who was in her care vanished off the face of the earth. D’you think Carrie should’ve been able to walk away from that and never answer any questions, ever again?’
‘She’d already answered questions from the police and at the inquest. It was over, it was behind her, she had a happy life and a family, and we went raking it all up again… I feel as though they’ve made me one of them,’ Robin added quietly.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’ve become an agent of infection for the church. I carried the virus back to Carrie and this time she didn’t survive it.’
‘With respect,’ said Strike, ‘that’s complete bollocks. We’re just going to ignore the neon elephant in the room, are we? If Carrie was going to kill herself because of what the church did to her, it’d have happened in the last two decades. This wasn’t about the church. There was something she didn’t want to face, something she couldn’t stand people knowing, and that’s not our fault.’
‘But—’
‘What I want to know,’ said Strike, ‘is who called her that morning, before we arrived. Did the police ask you about that mobile number her husband didn’t recognise?’
‘Yes,’ said Robin dully. ‘It could have been anyone. Wrong number.’
‘Except that she called it back, after we left.’
