‘No,’ said Honbold, ‘but I looked her up. I don’t usually see people ad hoc like that, without the client. She was on their website. She’d just joined them.’
‘Was there a picture of her on the website?’
‘No,’ said Honbold, now looking uneasy.
‘Her real name,’ said Strike, ‘is Farah Navabi. She’s an undercover detective working for Patterson Inc.’
There was a second’s silence.
‘Bitch!’ Honbold exploded. ‘Working for some tabloid, is she? Or is it my bloody wife?’
‘Could be either,’ said Strike, ‘but Patterson had someone planted at my agency for the last few months. The aim could’ve been getting me in the dock for bugging you. Was Navabi alone in your office at any point?’
‘Yes,’ groaned Honbold, running a hand through his thinning hair. ‘I showed her in, but I needed a pee. She had a few minutes in there, alone. Shit,’ he exploded again. ‘She was bloody convincing!’
‘Acting’s clearly her strong suit, because she’s not much cop at undercover surveillance.’
‘Mitchell fucking Patterson… how he got off, after all the fucking phone hacking he did – I’ll have him banged up for this if it’s the last bloody thing I—’
Strike’s mobile rang.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, picking it up from the table. ‘Luce?’
‘They’ve found him.’
‘Oh, thank Christ,’ said Strike, feeling the relief wash over him like warm bath water. ‘Where was he?’
‘Down on the beach. They say he’s very confused. Stick, I’m going to go straight down there now and persuade him to come back with me, just for a visit, so we can talk to him about what he wants. He can’t go on like this.’
‘OK. D’you want me to—?’
‘No, I can manage alone, but will you come over to ours once I’ve got him here, to help me talk to him? Tomorrow night?’
‘I will, yeah, of course,’ said Strike, his spirits sinking slightly. Somebody else would have to pick up Robin from Chapman Farm.
He returned to the sitting room to find Honbold holding a coffee pot.
‘Want some?’ he barked at Strike.
‘That’d be great,’ said Strike, sitting down again.
Once both men were sitting again, a slightly awkward silence fell. Given that both of them had been having sex with the same woman over roughly the same time period, and that Bijou was now pregnant, Strike supposed this was inevitable, but he wasn’t going to be the one to bring up the subject.
‘Bijou told me you two had a couple of drinks,’ boomed the barrister. ‘Nothing more.’
‘That’s right,’ lied Strike.
‘Met at a christening, I understand? Isla Herbert’s child.’
‘Ilsa,’ Strike corrected him. ‘Yeah, Ilsa and her husband are old friends of mine.’
‘So Bijou didn’t—?’
‘She never mentioned you. I don’t discuss work outside the office and she never asked about it.’
This, at least, was true. Bijou had talked about nothing but herself. Honbold was now eyeing Strike thoughtfully. Having sipped his coffee, he said,
‘You’re very good at what you do, arentcha? I’ve heard glowing reports from clients.’
‘Nice to know,’ said Strike.
‘Wouldn’t fancy helping me get something on my wife, would you?’
‘Our client list’s full, I’m afraid,’ said Strike. He hadn’t extricated himself from the Bijou-Honbold mess to plunge straight back into it.
‘Pity. Matilda’s out for revenge. Revenge,’ boomed Honbold, and Strike could picture him in his barrister’s wig, throwing the word at a jury. Honbold began to enumerate the many outrageous ways in which his wife was currently behaving, one of which was refusing to give him access to his wine cellar.
Strike let the man talk, desirous only of defusing Honbold’s animosity to himself once and for all. Though the accent, the grievances and the objects of their ire might be very different, he was reminded of Barry Saxon as he listened to Honbold. Just like the Tube driver, the QC seemed perplexed and outraged that a woman he’d wronged might want to make things unpleasant for him in turn.
‘Well, thanks for the coffee,’ said Strike, when a convenient pause arose, getting to his feet. ‘I’ll look forward to seeing Patterson in court.’
‘“So you shall,”’ quoted Honbold, also rising, and raising his already loud voice he declaimed, ‘“And where the offence is let the great axe fall.”’
79
Six in the third place means:
One is enriched through unfortunate events.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
Relieved to have one problem crossed off his list, Strike returned to the office, eating and despising the carob bar he’d picked up en route in tribute to his renewed commitment to weight loss. He half hoped Littlejohn would have reneged on his promise to provide the Pirbright recording today, thereby giving Strike an opportunity to vent his tetchiness on a deserving target.
‘Littlejohn dropped this off,’ were Pat’s first words when he entered the office.
She indicated a plain brown envelope lying beside her, inside which was a small oblong object. Strike grunted, heading for the kettle.
‘And Midge has just been in,’ Pat continued. ‘She’s in a right mood. She says you insulted her.’
‘If she thinks her boss asking legitimate questions about her working practices is an insult, she’s led a very sheltered life,’ said Strike irritably, now adding an additional teabag to his mug, feeling he needed all the caffeine he could get.
In truth, his anger at Midge had abated somewhat during the last few days. Little though he wanted to admit it, he knew he’d overreacted about her getting caught on camera at Tasha Mayo’s house, because of his own anxiety about the fallout from Honbold’s divorce. He’d been toying with the idea of telling Midge she could go back on the Frank case as long as there was no more fraternising with the client, but the news that she’d been complaining to Pat aggravated him.
‘I knew another lesbian, once,’ said Pat.
‘Yeah?’ said Strike, as the kettle lid began to rattle. ‘Did she bitch behind her boss’s back, as well?’
‘No,’ said Pat. ‘She was the boss. Nice woman. People took her for hard as nails, but she was soft underneath. Very kind when I had my divorce.’
‘Is this a thinly veiled suggestion I should grovel for hurting Midge’s feelings?’
‘Nobody said anything about grovelling.’
‘Just as well, because that’s not going to happen,’ said Strike.
‘No need to be snappy,’ said Pat. ‘Anyway, Rhoda’s done what you asked.’
It took Strike a couple of seconds to remember that this was Pat’s daughter.
‘You’re kidding?’ he said, turning back towards her.
‘No,’ said Pat. ‘She’s got into that Carrie Curtis Woods’ Facebook page.’
‘Best news I’ve had all day,’ said Strike. ‘Want a cuppa?’
Once both had tea, Pat logged onto Facebook with her daughter’s details, and navigated to the account of the woman Strike hoped had been Cherie Gittins twenty-one years previously. Turning the monitor so Strike could view it, Pat puffed on her e-cigarette, watching him peruse the page.
Strike scrolled slowly downwards, carefully examining the many pictures of Carrie Curtis Woods’ two little blonde girls. The pictures of Carrie herself showed a woman who was heavier than in her profile picture. There was no indication of her having a job, though plenty of mention of her volunteering at her daughters’ school. Then—
‘It’s her,’ Strike said.
The picture, which had been posted to mark Carrie Curtis Woods’ anniversary, showed her wedding day, when she’d been at least two dress sizes smaller. There, unmistakeably, was the blonde with the simpering smile who’d once been an inmate of Chapman Farm: older, wearing less eyeliner, cinched into a tight lace dress, her curly blonde hair pulled up into a bun, beside a thickset man with heavy eyebrows. A little further down the page was a phone number: Carrie Curtis Woods was offering swimming lessons to toddlers.
‘Pat, you’ve played a blinder.’
‘It was Rhoda, not me,’ said Pat gruffly.
‘What does she drink?’
‘Gin.’
‘I’ll get her a bottle or two.’
A further five minutes’ scrolling helped Strike identify Carrie Curtis Woods’ husband, Nathan Woods, who was an electrician, and her home town.
‘Where the hell’s Thornbury?’ he muttered, switching to Google maps.
‘Gloucestershire,’ said Pat, who was now washing up mugs in the sink. ‘My Dennis’ cousin lives over that way.’
‘Shit,’ said Strike, now reading Carrie Curtis Woods’ most recent posts. ‘They’re off to Andalusia on Saturday.’
Having checked the weekly rota, Strike called Shah to ask him to pick up Robin from Chapman Farm the following night.
‘I think,’ said Strike, having hung up, ‘I’ll go down to Thornbury on Friday. Catch Carrie before she goes on holiday. Robin’ll be knackered, she’s not going to be up for a trip to Gloucestershire right after getting out.’
Privately, he was thinking that if he could manage the trip in a day, he’d have an excuse to go over to Robin’s that evening for a full debrief, a very cheering thought, given that he knew Murphy was still in Spain. Feeling slightly happier, Strike logged out of Facebook, picked up his tea and headed into his own office carrying the brown envelope left by Littlejohn.
Inside was a tiny Dictaphone tape, wrapped in a sheet of paper with a scrawled date on it. The recording had been made nearly a month after Sir Colin and Kevin had fallen out over the latter’s heckling at Giles Harmon’s book reading and five days before Kevin’s murder. Strike took a Dictaphone out his desk drawer, inserted the tape and pressed play.
He understood at once why Patterson hadn’t handed over the tape to Sir Colin Edensor: because it would have been hard to imagine a poorer advertisement for his agency’s surveillance skills. For a start, there were far better devices for this kind of work than a Dictaphone, which had to be concealed. The recording was of extremely poor quality: whichever pub Farah had taken Kevin to had been crowded and noisy, a rookie error for which Strike would have severely reprimanded any of his own subcontractors. It was, he thought, the kind of thing his now departed, unlamented hireling Nutley would have done.