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‘It only starts happening once you’re in properly. Don’t want to scare them off too early. But my source told me, once they’re full members, they’re not supposed to refuse anyone who wants it. I went as close to talking about it as I could, in the piece – plenty of “it is rumoured” and “sources claim” – but my editor didn’t want any of the better-known members suing us for saying they were raping anyone, so I had to take all that out.’
Strike made a further note before saying,
‘Was your source the only ex-member you could persuade to talk?’
‘Yeah,’ said Robertson. ‘Everyone else I tried told me to fuck off. Some of them were ashamed,’ he said, taking another sip of beer, ‘embarrassed they ever fell for it. They’ve gone back to normal lives and don’t want their pasts all over the papers. You can’t blame them. Others were still a real mess. There were a couple I couldn’t trace. Might’ve died.’
‘Don’t s’pose you kept a list of ex-members?’
‘I did, yeah,’ said Robertson.
‘Have you still got it?’
‘Might have it somewhere… quid pro quo, though, right? I get the scoop, if you get a story?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘All right, I’ll see if I can dig it out…’
Robertson chomped on his gum for a brief spell, before saying,
‘So, when did Sir Colin Edensor hire you?’
‘I don’t identify my clients to journalists,’ said Strike, with no change of expression.
‘Worth a punt,’ said Robertson, eyes twinkling. ‘Edensor’s been pretty vocal about the church in the last couple of years.’
‘Has he?’
‘I s’pose there might some other rich kids in there, though,’ said Robertson, watching Strike closely. ‘Other than Will Edensor.’
‘S’pose there might,’ said Strike non-committally, looking over his notes. ‘She told you, “There’s something you don’t know”? And this was something other than Cathcart-Bryce being denied a doctor, was it?’
‘Yeah, she’d already told me about the old girl,’ said Robertson, who now flipped open his laptop again. ‘Sure you haven’t got a view on Brexit? How would it affect the private detective trade, if we leave the EU?’
‘Not at all,’ said Strike, getting to his feet.
‘So I can put down Cormoran Strike as a Brexiteer, can I?’
‘You can fuck off, is what you can do,’ said Strike, and he left the journalist chuckling behind him.
15
In friendships and close relationships an individual must make a careful choice. He surrounds himself either with good or with bad company; he cannot have both at once.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
‘God, it’s horrible out there,’ were Robin’s first words to Strike the next time they met, which was on Easter Monday.
Storm Katie was currently ravaging London, knocking down trees and pylons, and Robin’s colour was high, her hair windblown. The windows of the office were gently rattling as the wind howled down Denmark Street.
‘I did text you, offering to catch up by phone,’ said Strike, who’d just put the kettle on.
‘I was probably already on the Tube,’ said Robin, tugging off her coat and hanging it up. ‘I didn’t mind coming in. Quite bracing, really.’
‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d got smacked in the head by a flying bin,’ said Strike, who’d just been watching plastic cones tumbling down Charing Cross Road. ‘Coffee?’
‘Great,’ said Robin, trying to detangle her hair with her fingers. ‘Pat got the day off?’
