Soon — he could feel it coming — she would want to introduce him to her daughter. In thirty-seven years, Strike had successfully avoided the status of “Mummy’s boyfriend.” His memories of the men who had passed through Leda’s life, some of them decent, most of them not — the latter trend reaching its apotheosis in Whittaker — had left him with a distaste that was almost revulsion. He had no desire to see in another child’s eyes the fear and mistrust that he had read in his sister Lucy’s every time the door opened onto yet another male stranger. What his own expression had been, he had no idea. For as long as he had been able to manage it, he had closed his mind willfully to that part of Leda’s life, focusing on her hugs and her laughter, her maternal delight in his achievements.
As he climbed out of the Tube at Notting Hill Gate on his way to the school, his mobile buzzed: Mad Dad’s estranged wife had texted.
Just checking you know boys not at school today because of bank holiday. They’re with grandparents. He won’t follow them there.
Strike swore under his breath. He had indeed forgotten about the bank holiday. On the plus side, he was now free to return to the office, catch up with some paperwork, then head out to Catford Broadway by daylight for a change. He only wished that the text could have arrived before he made the detour to Notting Hill.
Forty-five minutes later, Strike was tramping up the metal staircase towards his office and asking himself for the umpteenth time why he had never contacted the landlord about getting the birdcage lift fixed. When he reached the glass door of his office, however, a far more pressing question presented itself: why were the lights on?
Strike pushed open the door so forcefully that Robin, who had heard his laborious approach, nevertheless jumped in her chair. They stared at each other, she defiant, he accusing.
“What are you doing here?”
“Working,” said Robin.
“I told you to work from home.”
“I’ve finished,” she said, tapping a sheaf of papers that lay on the desk beside her, covered with handwritten notes and telephone numbers. “Those are all the numbers I could find in Shoreditch.”
Strike’s eyes followed her hand, but what caught his attention was not the small stack of neatly written papers she was showing him, but the sapphire engagement ring.
There was a pause. Robin wondered why her heart was pummeling her ribs. How ridiculous to feel defensive... it was up to her whether she married Matthew... ludicrous even to feel she had to state that to herself...
“Back on, is it?” Strike said, turning his back on her as he hung up his jacket and backpack.
“Yes,” said Robin.
There was a short pause. Strike turned back to face her.
“I haven’t got enough work for you. We’re down to one job. I can cover Mad Dad on my own.”
She narrowed her gray-blue eyes.
“What about Brockbank and Laing and Whittaker?”
“What about them?”
“Aren’t you still trying to find them?”
“Yes, but that’s not the—”
“So how are you going to cover four cases?”
“They’re not cases. No one’s paying—”
“So they’re a kind of hobby, are they?” said Robin. “That’s why I’ve been looking for numbers all weekend?”
“Look — I want to trace them, yes,” said Strike, trying to marshal his arguments through heavy fatigue and other, less easily definable emotions (the engagement was back on... he had suspected all along that it might happen... sending her home, giving her time with Matthew would have helped, of course), “but I don’t—”
“You were happy enough to let me drive you to Barrow,” said Robin, who had come prepared for argument. She had known perfectly well he didn’t want her back in the office. “You didn’t mind me questioning Holly Brockbank and Lorraine MacNaughton, did you? So what’s changed?”
“You got sent another fucking body part, that’s what’s fucking changed, Robin!”
He had not intended to shout, but his voice echoed off the filing cabinets.
Robin remained impassive. She had seen Strike angry before, heard him swear, seen him punch those very metal drawers. It didn’t bother her.
“Yes,” she said calmly, “and it shook me up. I think most people would have been shaken up by getting a toe stuck inside a card. You looked pretty sick about it yourself.”
“Yeah, which is why—”
“—you’re trying to cover four cases single-handedly and you sent me home. I didn’t ask for time off.”
In the euphoric aftermath of replacing her ring, Matthew had actually helped her rehearse her case for returning to work. It had been quite extraordinary, looking back on it, he pretending to be Strike and she putting her arguments, but Matthew had been ready to help her do anything at all, so long as she agreed to marry him on the second of July.
“I wanted to get straight back to—”
“Just because you wanted to get back to work,” said Strike, “doesn’t mean it was in your best interests to do so.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize you’re a qualified occupational therapist,” said Robin, delicately sarcastic.
“Look,” said Strike, more infuriated by her aloof rationality than he would have been with rage and tears (the sapphire sparkling coolly from her finger again), “I’m your employer and it’s down to me if—”
“I thought I was supposed to be your partner,” said Robin.
“Makes no difference,” said Strike, “partner or not, I’ve still got a responsibility—”
“So you’d rather see this business fail than let me work?” said Robin, an angry flush rising in her pale face, and while Strike felt he was losing on points he took an obscure pleasure in the fact that she was losing her cool. “I helped you build it up! You’re playing right into his hands, whoever he is, sidelining me, neglecting paying cases and working yourself into the—”
“How do you know I’ve—?”
“Because you look like shit,” said Robin baldly and Strike, caught off guard, almost laughed for the first time in days.
“Either,” she resumed, “I’m your partner or I’m not. If you’re going to treat me like some piece of special-occasion china that gets taken out when you don’t think I’ll get hurt, we’re — we’re doomed. The business is doomed. I’d do better to take Wardle up on—”
“On what?” said Strike sharply.
“On his suggestion that I apply to the police,” said Robin, looking Strike squarely in the face. “This isn’t a game to me, you know. I’m not a little girl. I’ve survived far worse than being sent a toe. So—” She screwed up her courage. She had hoped it would not come to an ultimatum. “—decide. Decide whether I’m your partner or a — a liability. If you can’t rely on me — if you can’t let me run the same risks you do — then I’d rather—”
Her voice nearly broke, but she forced herself onwards.
“—rather get out,” she finished.
In her emotion, she swung her chair round to face her computer a little too forcefully and found herself facing the wall. Mustering what dignity she felt she had left, she adjusted her seat to face the monitor and continued opening emails, waiting for his answer.
She had not told him about her lead. She needed to know whether she was reinstated as his partner before she either shared her spoils or gave it to him as a farewell gift.
“Whoever he is, he butchers women for pleasure,” said Strike quietly, “and he’s made it clear he’d like to do the same to you.”
“I’ve grasped that,” said Robin in a tight voice, her eyes on the screen, “but have you grasped the fact that if he knows where I work, he probably also knows where I live, and if he’s that determined he’ll follow me anywhere I go? Can’t you understand that I’d much rather help catch him than sit around waiting for him to pounce?”