‘He’s very charismatic.’
‘He’d need to be,’ grunted Strike. ‘Anyone try and recruit you?’
‘Not explicitly, but a blonde woman, who I think knows how much Prudence’s clothes must’ve cost, intercepted me on the way out. Said she hoped I’d enjoyed myself and asked whether I had any questions. I said it had all been very interesting, but I didn’t show massive interest. She said she hoped she’d see me there again.’
‘Playing hard to get,’ said Strike, who’d just felt the first spot of icy rain on his face. ‘Good call.’
‘I had to bung a twenty pound note into the collecting bucket on the way out,’ said Robin, ‘given that I’m carrying a five hundred quid handbag. I made sure the boy on the door saw how much I was giving, though.’
‘Take it out of our petty cash,’ said Strike.
‘And I – wow,’ said Robin, half-laughing, half-startled.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I – nothing.’
Two young American men – tall, well-nourished, bearded and baseball-capped – had just taken a table two away from Robin. One was wearing a polo shirt, the other, a NASCAR T-shirt emblazoned with the name Jimmie Jones, and a large 48.
‘Nothing important, I’ll tell you later,’ said Robin. ‘Just wanted to touch base. I’ll let you go, if you’re off to Lucy’s. See you Monday.’
Strike, who didn’t particularly want to forfeit the distraction of talking to Robin while he headed towards an encounter he was dreading, said goodbye, then continued walking, his feeling of foreboding growing ever deeper. Lucy had sounded thrilled that he was coming over, which made the prospect of delivering his news even less palatable.
The large magnolia tree in Lucy and Greg’s front garden was, naturally, sporting no flowers on this cool March day. Strike knocked on the door, which was opened almost immediately by his favourite nephew, Jack.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Strike. ‘You’ve grown about eight inches since I last saw you.’
‘Be weird if I’d shrunk,’ said Jack, grinning. ‘You’re thinner.’
‘Yeah, well, I needed shrinking,’ said Strike, wiping his feet on the doormat. ‘You’ll understand once you reach my age… I got those for you, Luke and Adam,’ he added, handing Jack the carrier bag.
Lucy now appeared in the hall, and on hearing these words, beamed at Strike. She’d previously expressed displeasure that he so obviously favoured her middle son.
‘This is a lovely surprise,’ she said, hugging her brother. ‘Luke’s out at football with Greg, but Adam’s upstairs. Come through, I’ve just taken banana bread out of the oven.’
‘Smells great,’ said Strike, following her into the kitchen, with its glass doors overlooking a lawn. ‘Give me a small bit. I’m still a stone off my target weight.’
‘I’m so glad you called, because I’m a bit worried about Ted,’ said Lucy, taking a couple of small plates out of the cupboard. Ted was their widowed uncle, who lived in Cornwall. ‘I rang him this morning and he told me the same story he told me last time I called, word for word.’
‘Think he’s lonely,’ said Strike, sitting down at the kitchen table.
‘Maybe,’ said Lucy doubtfully, ‘but I’ve been thinking I might nip down and see him. Would you come, too?’
‘Yeah, with a bit of notice,’ said Strike, who was experiencing the familiar sense of constriction Lucy often gave him, whereby he was asked to commit immediately to future arrangements, and often had to deal with her irritability when he couldn’t instantly fall in with her plans. Today, however, Lucy merely set a slice of banana bread down in front of him, followed shortly afterwards by a mug of tea.
‘So, why the visit? Not that I’m not pleased to see you.’
Before Strike could respond, both Jack and Adam appeared, each holding an Air Storm Firetek Bow, which had been bought by Strike with the express purpose of getting Lucy’s sons out into the garden while he talked to her.
‘This is awesome,’ said Adam to Strike.
‘Glad you like it,’ said Strike.
‘Corm, you shouldn’t have!’ said Lucy, clearly delighted that he had. Given the number of times he’d forgotten his nephews’ birthdays, Strike was well aware these gifts might be said to be overdue. ‘Pity it’s raining,’ said Lucy, glancing out of the window at the garden.
‘Not much,’ said Strike.
‘I want to try it,’ said Jack, confirming his position as his uncle’s favourite. ‘I’ll put on my wellies,’ he threw at his mother, as he hurried out of the kitchen again. To Strike’s relief, Adam followed his older brother.
‘So, why are you here?’ Lucy asked again.
‘I’d rather talk once the boys can’t hear us,’ said Strike.
‘Oh my God – are you ill?’ said Lucy, in panic.
‘No, of course not,’ said Strike. ‘I just—’
Jack and Adam came hurrying back into the kitchen, both carrying wellington boots.
‘And coats, boys,’ said Lucy, torn now between apprehension at what Strike was about to tell her, and the needs of her sons.
At last, when the two boys disappeared into the rain with their coats on, Strike cleared his throat.
‘OK, I wanted to talk to you about a case I’ve just taken on.’
‘Oh,’ said Lucy, who looked slightly reassured. ‘Why?’
‘Because if we’re successful, which is long odds at the moment, but if we are, there’s a chance it’ll be in the press. And if that happens, there’s also a slim chance that there’ll be something about us – you and me – in there. That something might be dug up.’
‘Like what?’ said Lucy, in a slightly brittle voice. ‘They’ve done it all already, haven’t they? “Son of super-groupie.” “Notorious good-time girl Leda Strike.”’
‘This wouldn’t just be about Mum,’ said Strike.
He noticed Lucy’s slight tightening of expression. She hadn’t called Leda ‘Mum’ since she was fourteen and was explicit, these days, about the fact that she’d considered their late aunt, Joan, her true mother.
‘What, then?’ said Lucy.
‘Well,’ said Strike, ‘I’ve been hired to investigate the Universal Humanitarian Church.’
‘So?’
‘So, their headquarters are where the Aylmerton Community used to be.’
Lucy slumped back in her chair as though the words had hit her physically, her expression blank. At last, she swallowed and said,
‘Oh.’
‘I got a hell of a shock when I realised that’s where they started,’ said Strike. ‘I only found out once we’d taken the case and—’
To his horror, Lucy had begun noiselessly crying.
‘Luce,’ he said, putting out a hand, but she’d withdrawn her own from the table, and now wrapped her arms around herself. This was a far worse reaction than Strike had imagined; he’d anticipated anger and resentment that he was once again exposing her to gossip at the school gates about her unorthodox past.
‘Christ,’ said Strike, ‘I didn’t—’
‘Didn’t what?’ said Lucy, with a trace of anger, tears now trickling down her face.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Strike. ‘I got a shock myself, when I saw—’
Lucy got to her feet and blundered towards the side where kitchen roll stood on a metal stand. Ripping off several pieces she mopped her face, took a deep breath and said, clearly fighting to regain control,
‘I’m sorry. I just – I didn’t expect—’
She broke down completely. Strike pushed himself up from the table and walked towards her. He half-expected her to push him away, but she let him put his arms around her and pull her close, so that she was sobbing into her brother’s chest. They’d stood thus for barely a minute when the front door opened.
Lucy pushed Strike away at once, hastily wiping her face. With false gaiety she called out,
‘How did it go, Luke, did you win?’
‘Yeah,’ called Luke back from the hall, and Strike noticed that his voice had broken since he’d last seen the boy. ‘Three–one. They were pathetic.’
‘Fantastic! If you’re muddy, get straight in the shower,’ called Lucy. ‘Uncle Corm’s here,’ she added.
Luke made no response to this, but ran straight upstairs.
Strike’s brother-in-law now entered the kitchen, his tracksuit bottoms damp. Strike supposed he must coach or manage his son’s team. Greg was a quantity surveyor for whom Strike entertained feelings that had never quite reached the level of liking.
‘Everything all right?’ he said, looking from Strike to Lucy.
‘Just been talking about Ted,’ said Lucy, to explain her reddened eyes and heightened colour.
‘Oh. Well, I’ve been telling her, it’s only natural he’s getting a bit forgetful,’ Greg told Strike dismissively. ‘What’s he now, eighty-odd?’
‘Seventy-nine,’ said Lucy.
‘Well, that’s eighty-odd, isn’t it?’ said Greg, heading for the loaf of banana bread.
‘Come through to the living room,’ Lucy told Strike, picking up her tea. ‘We can talk it all over there.’
Greg, who evidently had no desire to talk about his uncle-in-law’s well-being, made no objection at being excluded from the conversation.
The living room, with its beige three-piece suite, was unchanged since the last time Strike had been in there, except that his nephews’ school photos had been updated. A large picture of Uncle Ted and Aunt Joan, dating from the eighties, stood in pride of place on a shelf. Strike well remembered the couple looking like that: Joan’s hair as big as Elnett could make it, stiff in the sea breezes, Ted, the largest and strongest member of the local lifeboat men. As Strike sat down on the sofa, he felt as though he should turn the picture to face the wall before dragging up memories of the Aylmerton Community, because his aunt and uncle had dedicated so much of their lives to trying to protect the niece and nephew whom Leda dumped on them, then removed, as unpredictably as she did everything.
Having shut the door carefully on the rest of her family, Lucy sat down in an armchair and placed her mug of tea on a side table.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.
‘Don’t apologise,’ said Strike. ‘Believe me, I know.’