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‘Know where he is?’
‘No,’ said Robin, who was now reaching for an empty case folder on the shelf. She understood Pat to be referring to Strike, who the office manager usually called ‘he’ when he wasn’t around.
‘Meeting her sister.’
‘Whose sister?’
‘Charlotte’s,’ said Pat in a loud whisper, though it was only the two of them in the office.
‘Oh,’ said Robin.
Deeply interested, but not wanting to gossip about Strike’s private life with their office manager, Robin took down the folder and rummaged in her bag.
‘I’m only back to file these notes. Could you tell Strike they’re in here when he gets back, if I’m already gone? He might want to look over them.’
Robin had just met the agency’s newest client, a professional cricketer, at his Chelsea flat. She’d expected the interview to last an hour, but it had gone on for two.
‘Will do. What’s he like, then, the new bloke?’ asked Pat, e-cigarette between her teeth. The man in question was tall, blond and good looking, and Pat had evinced a certain disappointment that he wasn’t going to have his preliminary interview at the office, but at home.
‘Er,’ said Robin who, in addition to not gossiping about Strike behind his back, also tried not to criticise clients in front of Pat. ‘Well, he didn’t like McCabes. That’s why he’s come back to us.’
In fact, she’d found the South African cricketer, who Strike had called an ‘arsehole’ after one phone conversation, an unpleasant combination of arrogant and inappropriately flirtatious, especially as his girlfriend had been lurking in the kitchen all through the interview. He’d given the impression he took it for granted that he was the best-looking man Robin had seen in a long while, and had made it clear he didn’t consider her entirely unworthy of notice. Robin had to assume the stunning brunette who’d seen her out of the flat at the end of the interview either took him at his own valuation, or enjoyed the gorgeous flat and the Bugatti too much to complain.
‘Is he as handsome in person?’ asked Pat, watching as Robin placed her notes inside the file, then scribbled the cricketer’s name on the front.
‘If you like that sort of thing,’ said Robin, as the glass door opened.
‘Sort of thing’s that?’ asked Strike, entering in his suit, his tie loosened and his vape pen in his hand.
‘Blond cricketers,’ said Robin, looking round. Her partner looked tired and downtrodden.
‘Ah,’ grunted Strike, hanging up his jacket. ‘Was he as much of an arsehole in person as he was on the phone?’
Seeing as the not-bitching-about-clients-in-front-of-Pat ship had now set sail full speed out of the harbour, Robin asked,
‘How bad was he on the phone?’
‘A good eight point five out of ten,’ said Strike.
‘Then he’s the same in person.’
‘Fancy updating me before you leave?’ said Strike, checking his watch. He knew Robin was due to take some long-overdue leave today. ‘Unless you need to get going?’
‘No, I’m waiting for Ryan,’ said Robin. ‘I’ve got time.’
They entered the inner office and Strike closed the door. The board on the wall that so recently had been covered in the UHC pictures and notes was empty again. The Polaroids were with the police, and the rest had been added to the case file, which was locked in the safe, pending its use in the forthcoming court case. Jacob’s body had now been identified, and the accusation of child abuse against Robin had at long last been dropped; the weekend away with Murphy was at least partly in celebration of this fact. Even Robin could see how much happier and healthier she looked in the mirror, now that this weight had been lifted off her.
‘So,’ said Robin, sitting down, ‘he thinks his estranged wife is having an affair with a married Mail journalist, hence the stream of scurrilous stories the Mail have had on him lately.’
‘Which journalist?’
‘Dominic Culpepper,’ said Robin.
‘Married now, then, is he?’
‘Yes,’ said Robin, ‘to a Lady Violet somebody. Well, Lady Violet Culpepper, now.’
‘Should be juicy, when it breaks,’ said Strike, unsmiling. Depression was radiating from him as the smell of cigarette smoke had, before he’d embarked on his health kick.
