The Running Grave — страница 156 из 179

‘Excellent,’ said Strike, his mind now working rapidly as he watched Dennis talking to the pigeon in his hand. ‘All right, listen: I want you to head down to Borehamwood. Tasha might need back-up. You can check in to a B&B in the vicinity or something. If Tasha can get back to that window tonight, get her to tap on it and hold up a note to tell Lin Will’s out, he’s got Qing and they’re both safe.’

‘Will do,’ said Midge, who sounded delighted. ‘How about I—?’

‘For now, just stay within hailing distance of the clinic, in case they try and move Lin by night. Don’t try any rescue attempts, and tell Tasha not to take any more risks than she has to, OK?’

‘OK,’ said Midge.

‘With any luck,’ said Strike, ‘this news will put a stick of dynamite under Will Edensor, because Christ knows what else’ll do it.’

115

At such times when hidden divergences in temper make themselves felt and lead to mutual misunderstandings, we must take quick and vigorous action to dissolve the misunderstandings and mutual distrust.

The I Ching or Book of Changes




‘It took another hour and a half to persuade him,’ Robin told Murphy later, at her flat. He’d wanted to take her out to dinner, but Robin, who was exhausted, had told him she’d rather eat in, so Murphy had picked up a Chinese takeaway. Robin was avoiding the noodles; she never wanted to eat another noodle in her life.

‘We went round and round in circles,’ Robin went on, ‘but Pat clinched it. She told Will that Lin probably won’t be in a fit state to have sole charge of Qing the moment she gets out – if we can get her out, obviously – and said the best thing Will can do is to keep himself out of jail, so he can help. Anyway, it’s all arranged: we’re going to take Will over to Prudence’s on Monday evening.’

‘Great,’ said Murphy.

He hadn’t been particularly talkative since arriving, and didn’t smile as he said this. Robin had assumed he, too, was tired, but now she detected a certain constraint.

‘You OK?’

‘Yeah,’ said Murphy, ‘fine.’

He tipped more chow mein onto his plate, then said,

‘How come you didn’t call me last night, when the guy in black was trying to get into the building?’

‘You were working,’ said Robin, surprised. ‘What could you have done about it?’

‘Right,’ said Murphy. ‘So you’d only call me if I could be useful?’

A familiar mixture of unease and frustration, one she’d felt all too many times in her marriage, rose inside Robin.

‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘But we’ve changed the locks. The guy didn’t get in. I wasn’t in any danger.’

‘But you still spent the night there.’

‘As a precaution,’ said Robin.

She now knew exactly what was bothering Murphy: the same thing that had bothered Matthew, both before and after they’d got married.

‘Ryan—’

‘How come Strike didn’t realise you were still in the office, when he got back from this religious meeting?’

‘Because the lights were out,’ said Robin.

‘So you heard him go upstairs, but you didn’t go out and ask him what had happened with Wace? You waited until this morning.’

‘I didn’t hear him going upstairs,’ said Robin truthfully. ‘You can’t, in the inner office, which is where I was.’

‘And you hadn’t texted him, to say you were staying the night?’

‘No,’ said Robin, trying not to become openly angry, because she was too tired to want a row, ‘because I didn’t decide to stay the night until one in the morning. It was too late to take the Tube and I was still worried the person in the black jacket would be hanging around.’

‘You just told me you weren’t in any danger.’

‘I wasn’t, not inside the building.’

‘You could’ve got a taxi.’

‘I know I could, but I was really tired, so I decided to stay.’

‘Weren’t you worried about where Strike had got to?’

Now on the brink of losing the fight with her anger, Robin said,

‘I’m not his wife and he can handle himself. Anyway, I told you: I was busy joining dating sites to try and find this woman we need to interview.’

‘And he didn’t call you after he left the meeting?’

‘No. It was late and he probably assumed I’d be in bed.’

‘Right,’ said Murphy, with precisely the edge in his voice Matthew had once had, whenever they discussed Strike.

‘For God’s sake, just ask,’ said Robin, losing her temper. ‘Ask me whether I slept upstairs.’

‘If you say you slept in the office—’

‘That is what I say, because that’s the truth, and you can keep giving me the third degree, but the story won’t change, because I’m telling you what actually happened.’

‘Fine,’ said Murphy, and the monosyllable had so much of Matthew in it, that Robin said,

‘Listen, I’ve done this shit before, and I’m not going to do it again.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning you’re not the first man who thinks I can’t be in partnership with Strike without screwing him. If you don’t trust me—’

‘It’s not a question of trust.’

‘How can it not be a question of trust? You’ve just been trying to catch me out in a lie!’

‘You might’ve wanted to spare my feelings. Slept upstairs, and maybe nothing happened, but you didn’t want to admit you’d been there.’

That isn’t – what – happened. Strike and I are friends – and he happens to be dating a lawyer.’

The lie fell easily and instinctively out of Robin’s mouth, and when she saw Murphy’s expression clear, she knew it had served its purpose.

‘You never told me that.’

‘I had no idea you were so interested in Strike’s love life. I’ll keep you briefed in future.’

Murphy laughed.

‘I’m sorry, Robin,’ he said, reaching for her hand. ‘I am, seriously. Shit… I didn’t mean to… Lizzie went off with a supposed “friend”, in the end.’

‘I know that, but what you’re failing to factor in here is, I’m not Lizzie.’

‘I know. I’m sorry, seriously. How long’s Strike been with this lawyer?’

‘I don’t know – months. I don’t keep notes,’ said Robin.

The rest of the evening passed amicably enough. Tired, still annoyed but wanting to keep the peace, Robin told herself she’d worry later about what might happen if Nick, Ilsa, or Strike himself revealed that his affair with Bijou was over.

116

Nine at the beginning means:

Hidden dragon.

Do not act.

The I Ching or Book of Changes




Robin spent a good deal of the next three days asking herself unanswerable questions about the state of her own feelings, and in speculation about the likely future trajectory of Murphy’s newly revealed jealousy. Would this relationship go the same way as her marriage, through increasing levels of suspicion to a destructive explosion, or was she projecting old resentments onto Murphy, much as he’d done to her?

Though she’d accepted the truce, and did her best to act as though all was forgiven and forgotten, Robin remained annoyed that, yet again, she’d been forced to justify and dissemble on matters relating to Cormoran Strike. Those fatal four words, ‘I love you, too’, had brought about a shift in Murphy. It would be going too far to call his new attitude possessiveness, but there was a certain assurance that had been lacking before.

In her more honest moments, Robin asked herself why she hadn’t called him when worried a gunman might be lurking out of sight round the corner. The only answers she could come up with were confused, and some opened doors onto further questions she didn’t want to answer. At the admissible end of the scale was her fear that Murphy would have overreacted. She hadn’t wanted to hand her boyfriend a justification for dictating what risks she took, because she’d had quite enough of that already, from her mother. Yet, whispered her conscience, she’d let Strike tell her to be more careful, hadn’t she? She’d also done as he’d suggested, with regard to taxis and taking on no jobs on her own. What was the difference?

The answer (so Robin told herself) was that she and Strike were in business together, which gave him certain rights – but here, her self-analysis stopped, because it might be argued that Murphy, too, had rights; it was simply that she found them less admissible. Such musings came dangerously close to forcing her to confront something she was determinedly avoiding. Ruminations on Strike’s true feelings, as she knew from past experience, led only to confusion and pain.

Strike, meanwhile, had personal worries of his own. On Saturday afternoon, Lucy called him with the news that Ted, who was still staying at her house, had had a ‘funny turn’. Guilt-stricken that he hadn’t so much as visited Ted in the last couple of weeks, Strike abandoned surveillance of the husband they’d nicknamed Hampstead to drive straight to Lucy’s house in Bromley, where he’d found Ted even more disorientated than usual. Lucy had already made a doctor’s appointment for their uncle, and had promised to get back to Strike with news as soon as she had it.

He spent most of Monday on surveillance of Toy Boy, handing over to Barclay in the late afternoon, then heading back to the office at four o’clock. Robin had been there all day, trying to sublimate in work the anxiety she felt about moving Will out of the safe haven of Pat’s house to visit Prudence that evening.

‘I still think Will and Flora could have FaceTimed,’ Robin said to Strike, when he joined her at the partners’ desk, coffee in hand.

‘Yeah, well, Prudence is a therapist, isn’t she? Wants the in-person touch.’

He glanced at Robin, who looked both tired and tense. Assuming this was due to her continuing fear of the church, he said,

‘They’d be stupider than I think they are to try and tail us after what I said to Wace on Friday, but if we spot anyone, we’ll pull over and confront them.’