“I’m going to nip out for a bit,” said Strike, putting down his virtually untouched coffee and moving crabwise towards the door, taking down the overcoat hanging beside it. “If anyone calls…”
“Mr. Strike—before you go, I think you ought to see this.”
Still flushed, Robin took, from on top of the pile of opened letters beside her computer, a sheet of bright pink writing paper and a matching envelope, both of which she had put into a clear plastic pocket. Strike noticed her engagement ring as she held the things up.
“It’s a death threat,” she said.
“Oh yeah,” said Strike. “Nothing to worry about. They come in about once a week.”
“But—”
“It’s a disgruntled ex-client. Bit unhinged. He thinks he’s throwing me off the scent by using that paper.”
“Surely, though—shouldn’t the police see it?”
“Give them a laugh, you mean?”
“It isn’t funny, it’s a death threat!” she said, and Strike realized why she had placed it, with its envelope, in the plastic pocket. He was mildly touched.
“Just file it with the others,” he said, pointing towards the filing cabinets in the corner. “If he was going to kill me he’d have made his move before now. You’ll find six months’ worth of letters in there somewhere. Will you be all right to hold the fort for a bit while I’m out?”
“I’ll cope,” she said, and he was amused by the sour note in her voice, and her obvious disappointment that nobody was going to fingerprint the be-kittened death threat.
“If you need me, my mobile number’s on the cards in the top drawer.”
“Fine,” she said, looking at neither the drawer nor him.
“If you want to go out for lunch, feel free. There’s a spare key in the desk somewhere.”
“OK.”
“See you later, then.”
He paused just outside the glass door, on the threshold of the tiny dank bathroom. The pressure in his guts was becoming painful, but he felt that her efficiency, and her impersonal concern for his safety, entitled her to some consideration. Resolving to wait until he reached the pub, Strike headed down the stairs.
Out in the street, he lit a cigarette, turned left and proceeded past the closed 12 Bar Café, up the narrow walkway of Denmark Place past a window full of multicolored guitars, and walls covered in fluttering fliers, away from the relentless pounding of the pneumatic drill. Skirting the rubble and wreckage of the street at the foot of Center Point, he marched past a gigantic gold statue of Freddie Mercury that stood over the entrance of the Dominion Theatre across the road, head bowed, one fist raised in the air, like some pagan god of chaos.
The ornate Victorian face of the Tottenham pub rose up behind the rubble and roadworks, and Strike, pleasurably aware of the large amount of cash in his pocket, pushed his way through its doors, into a serene Victorian atmosphere of gleaming scrolled dark wood and brass fittings. Its frosted glass half-partitions, its aged leather banquettes, its bar mirrors covered in gilt, cherubs and horns of plenty spoke of a confident and ordered world that was in satisfying contrast to the ruined street. Strike ordered a pint of Doom Bar and took it to the back of the almost deserted pub, where he placed his glass on a high circular table, under the garish glass cupola in the ceiling, and headed straight into the Gents, which smelled strongly of piss.
Ten minutes later, and feeling considerably more comfortable, Strike was a third of the way into his pint, which was deepening the anesthetic effect of his exhaustion. The Cornish beer tasted of home, peace and long-gone security. There was a large and blurry painting of a Victorian maiden, dancing with roses in her hands, directly opposite him. Frolicking coyly as she gazed at him through a shower of petals, her enormous breasts draped in white, she was as unlike a real woman as the table on which his pint rested, or the obese man with the ponytail who was working the pumps at the bar.
And now Strike’s thoughts swarmed back to Charlotte, who was indubitably real; beautiful, dangerous as a cornered vixen, clever, sometimes funny, and, in the words of Strike’s very oldest friend, “fucked to the core.” Was it over, really over, this time? Cocooned in his tiredness, Strike recalled the scenes of last night and this morning. Finally she had done something he could not forgive, and the pain would, no doubt be excruciating once the anesthetic wore off: but in the meantime, there were certain practicalities to be faced. It had been Charlotte’s flat that they had been living in; her stylish, expensive maisonette in Holland Park Avenue, which meant that he was, as of two o’clock that morning, voluntarily homeless.
(“Bluey, just move in with me. For God’s sake, you know it makes sense. You can save money while you’re building up the business, and I can look after you. You shouldn’t be on your own while you’re recuperating. Bluey, don’t be silly…
Nobody would ever call him Bluey again. Bluey was dead.)
It was the first time in their long and turbulent relationship that he had walked out. Three times previously it had been Charlotte who had called a halt. There had been an unspoken awareness between them, always, that if ever he left, if ever he decided he had had enough, the parting would be of an entirely different order to all those she had instigated, none of which, painful and messy though they had been, had ever felt definitive.
Charlotte would not rest until she had hurt him as badly as she could in retaliation. This morning’s scene, when she had tracked him to his office, had doubtless been a mere foretaste of what would unfold in the months, even years, to come. He had never known anyone with such an appetite for revenge.
Strike limped to the bar, secured a second pint and returned to the table for further gloomy reflection. Walking out on Charlotte had left him on the brink of true destitution. He was so deeply in debt that all that stood between him and a sleeping bag in a doorway was John Bristow. Indeed, if Gillespie called in the loan that had formed the down payment on Strike’s office, Strike would have no alternative but to sleep rough.
(“I’m just calling to check how things are going, Mr. Strike, because this month’s installment still hasn’t arrived…Can we expect it within the next few days?”)
And finally (since he had started looking at the inadequacies of his life, why not make a comprehensive survey?) there was his recent weight gain; a full stone and a half, so that he not only felt fat and unfit, but was putting unnecessary additional strain on the prosthetic lower leg he was now resting on the brass bar beneath the table. Strike was developing the shadow of a limp purely because the additional load was causing some chafing. The long walk across London in the small hours, kitbag over his shoulder, had not helped. Knowing that he was heading into penury, he had been determined to travel there in the cheapest fashion.
He returned to the bar to buy a third pint. Back at his table beneath the cupola, he drew out his mobile phone and called a friend in the Metropolitan Police whose friendship, though of only a few years’ duration, had been forged under exceptional conditions.
Just as Charlotte was the only person to call him “Bluey,” so Detective Inspector Richard Anstis was the only person to call Strike “Mystic Bob,” which name he bellowed at the sound of his friend’s voice.
“Looking for a favor,” Strike told Anstis.
“Name it.”
“Who handled the Lula Landry case?”
While Anstis searched out their numbers, he asked after Strike’s business, right leg and fiancée. Strike lied about the status of all three.