“Who delivered it?”
“She can’t remember. We’ll find out. Courier service, I shouldn’t wonder, booked on another burner phone.”
“And the credit card?”
“That was another good spot of yours,” admitted Layborn. “We didn’t know a credit card had gone missing. We got details through from the bank this morning. The same day Flick’s flatmate realized the card was gone, somebody charged a crate of champagne and bought a hundred quid’s worth of stuff on Amazon, all to be sent to an address in Maida Vale. Nobody took delivery, so it was returned to the depot where it was picked up that afternoon by someone who had the failed delivery notice. We’re trying to locate the staff who can identify the person who collected it and we’re getting a breakdown on what was bought on Amazon, but my money’s on helium, tubing and latex gloves.
“This was all planned months in advance. Months.”
“And that?” Strike asked, pointing to the photocopy of the note in Chiswell’s handwriting, which was lying on the side in its polythene bag. “Has she told you why she nicked it yet?”
“She says she saw ‘Bill’ and thought it meant her boyfriend’s brother. Ironic, really,” said Layborn. “If she hadn’t stolen it, we wouldn’t have cottoned on nearly so fast, would we?”
The “we,” thought Robin, was daring, because it had been Strike who had “cottoned on,” Strike who had finally cracked the significance of Chiswell’s note, as they drove back to London from Chiswell House.
“Robin deserves the bulk of the credit there, too,” said Strike. “She found the thing, she noticed ‘Blanc de Blanc’ and the Grand Vitara. I just pieced it together once it was staring me in the face.”
“Well, we were just behind you,” said Layborn, absentmindedly scratching his belly. “I’m sure we’d have got there.”
Robin’s mobile vibrated in her pocket again: somebody was calling, this time.
“I need to take this. Is there anywhere I can—?”
“Through here,” said Layborn helpfully, opening a side door.
It was a photocopier room, with a small window covered in a Venetian blind. Robin closed the door on the others’ conversation and answered.
“Hi, Sarah.”
“Hi,” said Sarah Shadlock.
She sounded totally unlike the Sarah whom Robin had known for nearly nine years, the confident and bombastic blonde whom Robin had sensed, even in their teens, was hoping that some mischance might befall Matthew’s long-distance relationship with his girlfriend. Always there through the years, giggling at Matthew’s jokes, touching his arm, asking loaded questions about Robin’s relationship with Strike, Sarah had dated other men, settling at last for poor tedious Tom, with his well-paid job and his bald patch, who had put diamonds on Sarah’s finger and in her ears, but never quelled her yen for Matthew Cunliffe.
All her swagger had gone today.
“Well, I’ve asked two experts, but,” she said, sounding fragile and fearful, “and they can’t say for sure, not from a photograph taken on a phone—”
“Well, obviously not,” said Robin coolly. “I said in my text, didn’t I, that I wasn’t expecting a definitive answer? We’re not asking for a firm identification or valuation. All we want to know is whether somebody might have credibly believed—”
“Well, then, yes,” said Sarah. “One of our experts is quite excited about it, actually. One of the old notebooks lists a painting done of a mare with a dead foal, but it’s never been found.”
“What notebooks?”
“Oh, sorry,” said Sarah. She had never sounded so meek, so frightened, in Robin’s vicinity. “Stubbs.”
“And if it is a Stubbs?” asked Robin, turning to look out of the window at the Feathers, a pub where she and Strike had sometimes drunk.
“Well, this is entirely speculative, obviously… but if it’s genuine, if it’s the one he listed in 1760, it could be a lot.”
“Give me a rough estimate.”
“Well, his ‘Gimcrack’ went for—”
“—twenty-two million,” said Robin, feeling suddenly light-headed. “Yes. You said so at our house-warming party.”
Sarah made no answer. Perhaps the mention of the party, where she had brought lilies to her lover’s wife’s house, had scared her.
“So if ‘Mare Mourning’ is a genuine Stubbs—”
“It’d probably make more than ‘Gimcrack’ at auction. It’s a unique subject. Stubbs was an anatomist, as much scientist as artist. If this is a depiction of a lethal white foal, it might be the first recorded instance. It could set records.”
Robin’s mobile buzzed in her hand. Another text had arrived.
“This has been very helpful, Sarah, thanks. You’ll keep this confidential?”
“Yes, of course,” said Sarah. And then, in a rush:
“Robin, listen—”
“No,” said Robin, trying to stay calm. “I’m working a case.”
“—it’s over, it’s finished, Matt’s in pieces—”
“Goodbye, Sarah.”
Robin hung up, then read the text that had just arrived.
Meet me after work or I’m giving a statement to the press.
Eager as she was to return to the group next door and relay the sensational information she had just received, Robin remained where she stood, temporarily flummoxed by the threat, and texted back:
Statement to the press about what?
His response came within seconds, littered with angry typos.
The mail called the office this morning g and left a message asking how I feel about my dive shacking up with Cornish Strike. The sun’s been one this afternoon. You probably know he’s two timing you but maybe you don’t give a shit. I’m not having the papers calling me at work. Either meet me or I’m go give a statement to get them off my back.
Robin was rereading the message when yet another text arrived, this time with an attachment.
In case you haven’t seen it
Robin enlarged the attachment, which was a screenshot of a diary item in the Evening Standard.
THE CURIOUS CASE OF CHARLOTTE CAMPBELL AND CORMORAN STRIKE
A staple of the gossip columns ever since she ran away from her first private school, Charlotte Campbell has lived out her life in a glare of publicity. Most people would choose a discreet spot for their consultation with a private detective, but the pregnant Ms. Campbell—now Mrs. Jago Ross—chose the window table of one of the West End’s busiest restaurants.
Were detective services under discussion during the intense heart-to-heart, or something more personal? The colorful Mr. Strike, illegitimate son of rock star Jonny Rokeby, war hero and modern-day Sherlock Holmes, also happens to be Campbell’s ex-lover.
Campbell’s businessman husband will doubtless be keen to solve the mystery—business or pleasure?—upon his return from New York.
A mass of uncomfortable feelings jostled inside Robin, of which the dominant ones were panic, anger and mortification at the thought of Matthew speaking to the press in such a way as to leave open, spitefully, the possibility that she and Strike were indeed sleeping together.
She tried to call the number, but it went straight to voicemail. Two seconds later, another angry text appeared.
I’M WITH A CLIENT I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS
IN FRONT OF HIM JUST MEET ME
Angry now, Robin texted:
And I’m at New Scotland Yard. Find a quiet corner.
She could imagine Matthew’s polite smile as the client watched, his smooth “just the office, excuse me,” while he hammered out his furious replies.