‘Why? What’s wrong?’
‘I – my brother’s girlfriend’s just had her baby a month early, and there’s something wrong with him, I just heard—’
‘Oh no, Robin, I’m so sorry—’
‘It’s not that, I can’t do anything about that tonight,’ said Robin distractedly. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t care about this right now, but Ilsa, I just need to know, was Strike violent to Charlotte Campbell?’
‘What?’
‘I just met a man called Valentine Longcaster, and—’
‘Him,’ said Ilsa, her tone scathing. ‘Oh, I know him. We met him a couple of times. There was a bloody terrible party on a barge, and some dinner in Belgravia. How on earth did you meet him?’
‘It’s complicated,’ said Robin. ‘Anyway, he told me Strike knocked Charlotte around, and Ilsa, if he did—’
‘Did he hell,’ said Ilsa.
‘Are you sure?’ said Robin, and even as she said it, she knew nobody could give her the total assurance she craved. Who knew what happened when a man and a woman were alone together, unwatched, unheard? ‘I can’t work with him if – I can’t take this, on top of everything else—’
‘Robin, she injured him. She threw things, clawed his face—’
‘How d’you know it wasn’t self-defence?’
‘Well, for a start: the night on the houseboat, she got hammered and grabbed a knife and was waving it around. We all left, but Nick had left his favourite bloody sunglasses there, so he went back. He saw it through the window, she was threatening to stab Corm, or herself, and he disarmed her, and she slipped – we never told Corm Nick had seen it, but ages later Corm told Nick she was accusing him of throwing her across the boat or some such rubbish. If he was so violent, why was he the one constantly walking out with split lips, and why was she always begging him to come back?’
Robin wanted to believe Ilsa, but given recent events, she wasn’t sure she could be certain of anything relating to Cormoran Strike.
‘Look, nine times out of ten women are telling the truth about being beaten,’ said Ilsa, ‘and I should know, I’ve prosecuted enough domestic abuse cases, but Corm’s not an abuser. Robin, he’s not. Listen, I had a really terrible case, five years ago: a woman who was trying to get sole custody of her young daughter…’
Robin heard footsteps behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, but the man was fifty yards away. She didn’t like being followed, not after Harrods, and the incident that had left her with an eight-inch scar up her right forearm – not that this man was following her, of course, he was simply walking in the same direction, in the dark. Anyway, this was a residential street: lit windows everywhere, plenty of people to hear her scream…
‘… own history of violence, so the only way she was going to get custody was to paint him as even worse. She said he’d attacked them with broken bottles and used ligatures…’
Was it Robin’s imagination, or was the man behind her speeding up? She looked back again. Yes, he was definitely closer, and one hand seemed to be inside his jacket.
‘… just fell apart on the stand. It couldn’t have happened the way she claimed. Meanwhile, her partner had been seen covered in abrasions and bruises…’
The man behind Robin passed beneath a street light. He was wearing a latex gorilla mask.
‘Ilsa,’ Robin shouted, ‘I’m on Shernhall Street, heading towards Wood Street station and I’m being followed, and I’m about to film him and describe him to you.’
‘Wh—?’
‘If anything happens, call the police!’
He was striding straight for her; Robin raised her phone, as though she was filming him, and said loudly,
‘He’s wearing a gorilla mask, about five nine, dark hair, green jacket, black gloves—’
The man slowed. She could see his eyes glinting behind the small holes in the mask.
‘You need to stop,’ he said in a low voice, advancing on her as she walked backwards. ‘Stop. Just stop.’
From beneath his jacket, he drew a dagger.
‘ILSA,’ said Robin, now screaming, ‘HE’S GOT A KNIFE—’
64
She thought, moreover, real lies were—lies told
For harm’s sake; whereas this had good at heart…
‘You need to stop,’ the man repeated, from behind the mask. ‘All right? You need to leave it. Then you won’t get hurt. Stop.’
Before Robin could say or do anything else, he threw the dagger at her feet, turned, and sprinted away.
Ilsa was still shouting on the other end of the phone. Too stunned to compute what had just happened, Robin stared at the dagger lying on the pavement, then crouched down to look at it.
‘ARE YOU THERE? ROBIN!’
‘Yes,’ said Robin, raising the phone to her ear again. Her heart seemed to be thudding in her throat. ‘I’m here. I’m fine. It’s OK. He ran away.’
‘JESUS CHRIST, ROBIN!’
‘It’s all right, I’m OK. He didn’t do any—’
‘You all right?’ said a man in slippers, who’d just emerged from the nearest house. ‘I heard a scream.’
‘Yes,’ said Robin, while Ilsa gabbled from the phone she’d lowered to answer him. ‘Yes, thank you, I’m fine. A man was following me, but he’s gone.’
‘You sure you’re all right?’
He was elderly, and as he drew nearer to the street light she saw his look of concern.
‘Yes, really, I’m fine, but thank you – thank you so much for checking.’
The man retreated inside his house. Robin raised the phone to her ear yet again.
‘It’s all fine, Ilsa, he just threw the knife at me.’
‘He what?’
‘I know,’ said Robin, gaining a perverse strength from Ilsa’s panic. ‘Some attacker.’
‘He threw the knife at you?’
‘Yes,’ said Robin, staring at the dagger lying on the ground. Its nine-inch blade looked blunt. It had a black handle and a brass crosspiece, on which a familiar symbol was engraved. Robin pulled her gloves back out of her pocket, put them on with her phone held between ear and shoulder, and picked it up. Ilsa was still talking.
‘Sorry, what?’ said Robin, straightening up, weighing the dagger in her hand. It was fifteen inches long, weighty and very clearly ceremonial rather than a genuine weapon. Even so, it would make a decent bludgeon.
‘I said, call the police!’
‘I doubt they’ll get him,’ said Robin, now examining the compass and square symbol on the hilt. ‘It’s dark and he was wearing a mask. No cameras… anyway, I’m not hurt. He just wanted to frighten me.’
‘That’s hardly the bloody—!’
‘Where did he follow me from?’ said Robin, talking more to herself than to Ilsa, now.
‘Robin, you’re scaring the crap out of me—’
‘I’m all right, I’m fine… now I just need to find a way of hiding this dagger so I don’t get arrested on the Tube.’
Robin’s phone began bleeping.
‘Ilsa, I’m really sorry, that’s Mum, I’ll have to take it.’
‘But—’
‘I’ll call you back.’
A man walking his dog appeared out of the darkness ahead. Robin thrust the masonic dagger inside her coat, tightened her belt so it wouldn’t fall out and accepted her mother’s call.