Once inside the dormitory, which was deserted, Robin hurried to her bed to deposit the latest pebble beneath the mattress, marking yet another day at Chapman Farm. On kneeling down, however, she saw that several of the tiny pebbles she’d already deposited there this week had been dislodged and lay scattered on the floor.
Disconcerted, she ran her hand beneath the mattress, finding only one pebble still in place. Then her fingers touched something small, flat, loose and smooth. She pulled it out and saw a pearly bright, intricately carved fish.
Robin hastily scooped all the dislodged pebbles up, thrust them all inside her bra, leapt to her feet and ran to the bathroom. Here she clambered up onto the sink, opened the high window, checked that the coast was clear, and threw the fish outside. It landed in a clump of tall grass.
Robin jumped back down onto the floor, wiped her footprints off the sink and turned on a tap, just in time: she heard a group of women enter the dormitory.
‘Hi,’ said Robin, emerging from the bathroom and hoping that she didn’t look too red in the face. Vivienne, who was among the women, ignored her, instead saying to the group,
‘Check everywhere, OK? Even under the mattresses.’
‘How could the pendant have got under a mattress?’ Robin asked Vivienne, her heart still thumping rapidly from the shock of her discovery.
‘I don’t know, it’s just what Becca wants,’ said Vivienne irritably.
‘Oh, right,’ said Robin.
‘Aren’t you going to help?’ said Vivienne, as Robin made to leave.
‘Sorry,’ said Robin, ‘Jiang wants me to help him.’
As she walked outside to rejoin Jiang, she noticed Becca talking to Dr Zhou on the other side of Drowned Prophet’s fountain.
‘Where should we look?’ Robin asked Jiang. She had no intention whatsoever of pursuing the fish into its clump of grass: let somebody else find it.
‘Craft rooms,’ suggested Jiang, who was clearly enjoying Robin looking to him for orders.
‘Great,’ said Robin.
As they walked away, Robin glanced back at Becca, and was unsurprised to find her eyes following them.
70
Thus the superior man pardons mistakes
And forgives misdeeds.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
Strike was having an extremely trying day.
At shortly after ten, as he was following Toy Boy and the client’s mother into Selfridges, Shanker called. Hoping for confirmation that Littlejohn was working undercover for Patterson Inc, Strike answered quickly, placing a finger in his free ear to block out the sound of canned music and talkative shoppers.
‘Hi,’ said Strike, ‘what’ve you got?’
‘Reaney’s tried to top ’imself. Fort you’d wanna know.’
‘He’s what?’
‘Yeah,’ said Shanker. ‘Overdose. Me mate in Bedford jus’ called an’ told me.’
‘When was this?’
‘Few days back. Silly cunt. Bought up and nicked all the pills ’e could get ’is ’ands on and took the lot.’
‘Shit. He’s still alive, though?’
‘Just abaht. In ’ospital. Me mate said ’e was yellow an’ covered in puke when the screws found ’im.’
‘Anyone know why he did it?’
‘Yeah, ’e got a phone call from ’is wife, a week ago. After that ’e started buying up everyfing anyone could give ’im and dahned the lot.’
‘OK,’ said Strike. ‘Cheers for letting me know.’
‘No bovver. Lot of it goin’ abaht, in’t there?’
‘What? Oh,’ said Strike, realising Shanker was talking about Charlotte. ‘Yeah, I s’pose. Listen, can you give those boys of yours a kick up the arse? I need something on Littlejohn, fast.’
Strike hung up and set off in pursuit of Toy Boy and his companion, thinking of Reaney as he’d last seem him, shoving away those Polaroids of naked youths in pig masks, then standing up, pale and sweaty, after mention of the Drowned Prophet.
He spent the next four and a half hours trailing around Selfridges after his targets.
‘He’s got a couple of suits and a watch out of her so far,’ Strike informed Barclay at three o’clock, when the latter arrived to take over.
‘Starting tae think I’m in the wrong line o’ work,’ said Barclay. ‘I could use a Rolex.’
‘If you can look that woman straight in the eye and tell her she’s beautiful, you deserve one.’
Strike left the store and walked off along Oxford Street, craving a kebab. He was crossing the road when his mobile rang again, this time from an unfamiliar number.
‘Strike.’
‘It’s me,’ said a woman’s voice.
‘Who’s “me”?’ asked Strike irritably.
‘Bijou. Don’t be angry. I had to ask Ilsa for your number again. This is serious, please don’t hang up.’
‘What d’you want?’
‘I can’t say it on the phone. Can I meet you?’
As Strike hesitated, a youth on a skateboard cuffed him in passing, making Strike yearn to slap the inconsiderate little fucker into the gutter.
‘I’m in Oxford Street. I can give you twenty minutes in the Flying Horse if you hurry.’
‘Fine,’ she said, and hung up.
It took Strike a quarter of an hour to reach the pub and he found Bijou already there, sitting at the tall table at the back beneath the glass cupola, wrapped in a black coat and nursing what looked like water. Strike bought himself a pint he felt he’d more than earned, and joined her at the high table.
‘Go on,’ he said, omitting a greeting.
Bijou glanced around before saying in a low voice,
‘Somebody’s bugged Andrew’s office. He thinks it was you.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ said Strike, who felt he’d reached his full monthly capacity for unsought problems and obstacles. ‘It’ll be some bloody tabloid. Or his wife.’
‘I told him that,’ said Bijou, her bright blue eyes moist, ‘but he doesn’t believe me!’
‘Well, what d’you expect me to do about it?’
‘Talk to him,’ she whimpered. ‘Please.’
‘If he doesn’t believe you, why the hell would he believe me?’
‘Please, Cormoran! I’m – I’m pregnant!’
For a split second, he felt as though dry ice had slid down through his guts, and evidently his horror had shown on his face, because she said quickly,
‘Don’t worry, it’s not yours! I only just found out – it’s Andy’s, but—’
Bijou’s face crumpled and she buried her face in her beautifully manicured hands. Strike surmised that Andrew Honbold QC hadn’t evinced joy at the fact that an embryo of his own creation was currently nestling inside the cosmetically enhanced body of a mistress he now believed had had his office bugged.
‘Has Honbold had anyone new in his office lately? Taken meetings with anyone he hasn’t met before?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Bijou, raising a tearstained face. ‘I think it’s bloody Matilda. Will you talk to him? Please?’
‘I’ll think about it,’ said Strike, not because he felt any sympathy for Bijou, but because an idea had occurred to him that was as unpleasant as it was plausible. Bijou now reached a hand across the table, but Strike withdrew his own hand, unpleasantly reminded of Charlotte.
‘I was only going to thank you,’ she said, with the hint of a pout.
‘Don’t. I’m not promising to do anything.’
She slid off the bar stool and stood for a moment, looking at him, and even now, he sensed her wish for some sign that he still desired her, and he was again reminded of Charlotte.
‘Cormoran—’
‘I said I’ll think about it.’
She swept up her handbag and left.
Strike, who had paperwork waiting for him at the office, sipped his pint and tried to tell himself he didn’t want a burger and chips. There was a burning sensation behind his eyes, born of tiredness. His stomach growled. The myriad problems of the day seemed to buzz around him like mosquitos. Andrew Honbold, Bijou, Patterson: did he not have enough to worry about, without all these extraneous difficulties?
Caving in, he went to the bar to order food. Once back at the table beneath the cupola, Strike took out his phone and, in masochistic spirit, checked the Facebook account of Carrie Curtis Woods, who naturally hadn’t responded to his follower request, and Torment Town’s Pinterest page, on which no new comments had been posted since his own. Tired of the stalemate, he typed out another question for Torment Town, determined to force something out of whoever ran the account.
Did you ever know a woman called Deirdre Doherty?
He pressed send. If the drawing of the fair-haired woman in glasses floating in the dark pool was indeed supposed to be Deirdre, that, surely, would get a reaction.
He next looked up the phone number of Reaney’s wife’s nail salon, Kuti-cles. After asking for Ava there was a wait of a few seconds, then he heard her approaching the phone while talking loudly to someone in the background.
‘—keep ’em in there and don’t touch ’em. Hello?’
‘Hi, Mrs Reaney, it’s Cormoran Strike again. The private detective.’
‘Oh,’ said Ava, sounding displeased. ‘You.’
‘I’ve just heard some news about Jord—’
‘Yeah, I know he’s overdosed.’
‘I hear you called him a week before he did it. Was that about your divorce?’
‘I never called ’im. Why would I? ’E’s known abou’ the divorce for monfs.’
‘So you didn’t phone him a week ago?’
‘I ’aven’t called him in ages. I’ve changed my numbers to stop him pestering me. It’ll have been one of his girlfriends, pretending to be me to make sure ’e took the call. He’ll put his dick in anything, Jordan will. First ’e shags you, then ’e slaps you around. She’s welcome to ’im, whoever she is.’
‘Right,’ said Strike, thinking fast. ‘Seems an extreme reaction to the call, if it was just a girlfriend. Has he ever attempted suicide before?’
‘No, more’s the pity. Listen,’ she added, in a lower voice, ‘if you want the truth, I’d sooner ’e died. I won’t be looking over me shoulder for the rest of me life. Got it?’