‘There’s a bloke with a spade,’ said Strike, squinting at a figure in a bright yellow jacket, who seemed to be working at the far end of an expanse of lawn. ‘We could—’
Robin’s mobile rang.
‘Sorry,’ she said, with a sinking feeling, seeing Murphy was calling. ‘I need to—’
‘OK, I’ll see you in there,’ said Strike, and he left her, going through the open gate, making liberal use of his stick as he walked out onto the lawn in the direction of the distant gardener. Robin waited until her partner was out of earshot, then answered her phone.
‘Hi,’ said Murphy. ‘How’s Sark?’
‘Cold,’ said Robin, watching Strike move slowly towards the distant man in the yellow jacket, who still had his back to the road.
‘Found what you were looking for?’
‘Possibly. I don’t know.’
‘Listen, I wanted to talk about Monday night.’
Robin, who’d thought she’d been sufficiently affectionate when she’d said goodbye to Murphy on Tuesday morning to avoid a post-mortem, thought, oh God, not now.
‘Ryan, I’m mid-job. We can talk about it when I get back.’
‘Which is when?’
‘Tomorrow, if we’re lucky,’ said Robin, watching Strike. The figure in the yellow jacket still hadn’t turned around.
‘It’s been playing on my mind, that’s all,’ said Murphy. ‘I genuinely didn’t mean to upset you, with what I said, I was just trying—’
‘Please,’ said Robin, through clenched teeth, ‘don’t say you were trying to be honest.’
‘You don’t want—?’
‘Of course I want honesty between us, it just seems like it’s becoming a catch-all excuse to force conversations I—’
‘I wasn’t trying to force anything, I’m trying to understand—’
‘And I gave you my answer,’ said Robin, trying to hold herself together. ‘I answered you honestly. I don’t know what I’d have done if the baby had been viable, and I don’t think it’s fair—’
‘Were you sad? At all? About the baby?’
‘Yes,’ said Robin, her voice breaking. ‘Yes, I’ve cried about the baby. Is that what you need to know? That I’m not inhuman?’
‘I never—’
‘Be honest, Ryan. You want me to behave as you think a woman should behave.’
‘What’s that supposed—?’
‘You wanted me to sob in your arms about our lost child and say I wanted to get my eggs frozen immediately, so we can make a replacement.’
‘That’s not—’
‘Look, I’m working,’ said Robin, watching Strike, who was now within easy calling distance of the gardener. ‘I’d rather—’ She gasped, then exclaimed, ‘Oh my God – I’ve got to go!’ and hung up.
Cormoran Strike had just taken a spade to the face.
85
‘You don’t know our Sark men… They do things first and are sorry after…’
Danny de Leon had swung his spade so forcefully at Strike’s head that it had knocked the latter over. From his suddenly prone position in the wet grass, Strike saw the panicked young man drop his weapon and begin to run towards the house, while Robin sprinted towards them.
‘Don’t you fucking dare!’ Strike yelled, afraid de Leon would employ violence on Robin, too, but Robin, bracing herself, and given an advantage by the fact that de Leon had looked back at Strike when he’d shouted, bent low and tackled him around the waist, hooking her leg around one of his and causing both of them to topple over, though Robin got the worst of it, hitting the ground hard with de Leon on top of her.
‘We’re detectives, we’re not after you,’ she managed to gasp, in spite of being winded. ‘We came to Sark to find out whether you were OK!’
He was trying to fight free of her while she clung with all her might to his yellow jacket. Strike, meanwhile, had managed to get to his feet and, forgetting the walking stick, hobbled ill-advisedly towards the struggling pair, slipping on grass as he came, almost falling again, reaching them just in time to seize de Leon before he could break free from Robin, and drag him into a standing position.
The fake tan and the peroxided hair were no more. De Leon’s hair was what looked like its natural dark brown, and the perfect teeth for which Lord Oliver Branfoot had paid stood out, very white, against a face that was now naturally weather-beaten as opposed to fake tanned. He was short, strongly built and handsome, and continued to struggle with Strike until the latter shook him and bellowed,
‘FUCKING GIVE IT UP, WE’RE NOT HERE TO KILL YOU!’
‘We were worried you’d been murdered,’ panted the dishevelled and grass-stained Robin, clambering back onto her feet. ‘We thought you were a body—’
‘In a safe,’ said Danny, and immediately looked as though he wished he hadn’t. He’d stopped resisting but seemed both angry and scared. Raising his hands to his ears he said,
‘My earbuds—’
‘Forget your fucking earbuds,’ said Strike, whose jaw was bleeding and rapidly swelling. ‘We want to talk to you.’
Danny looked as though he’d have liked to refuse, but looking up at Strike, some of the fight seemed to go out of him.
‘Fine,’ he muttered. ‘We can go in the house.’
‘What about the owner?’ said Strike.
‘She’s out. She’s gone shopping on Guernsey with my mum.’
‘I’ll get your stick,’ Robin told Strike. ‘I’ll see you in there.’
So Strike stumbled off in the direction of the house, jaw throbbing, knee extremely painful for his run over slippery grass, and still holding on to Danny’s jacket in case he made a break for it, while Robin headed for the end of the lawn where she picked up Strike’s walking stick and found Danny’s earbuds, one of which had been crushed by a man’s foot.
The back door of Clos de Camille led directly into a neat kitchen with pale pink walls, hung with small seascapes that reminded Strike of Ted and Joan’s house in St Mawes. Danny had just sat down at the pine table when Robin entered with Strike’s stick.
‘You need to clean that,’ she said, looking at Strike’s face, where a livid cut had been made by the spade. ‘It’s bleeding and filthy.’
Strike moved to the sink and busied himself with soap and water, while Robin opened the door of the fridge freezer and found a packet of frozen peas. She handed the packet to Strike, who muttered thanks while drying his face with kitchen roll.
Now a fourth person arrived via the back door: Richard de Leon.
‘Oh Christ, what d’you want?’ cried Danny.
‘The fuck’s going on?’ demanded Richard.
‘Your brother just smacked me in the face with a spade,’ said Strike, the bag of frozen peas clutched to his jaw.
‘Why weren’t you answering your fucking phone?’ Richard demanded of his younger brother.
‘I was listening to music, all right?’
‘As we’ve already told you, Mr de Leon,’ said Robin, trying to defuse the situation, because both de Leon brothers looked on the verge of outbursts, possibly of physical violence, ‘we were worried your brother was dead.’
‘Well, he’s not, is he?’ said Richard.
‘Thanks for that,’ said Strike, frozen peas still pressed to his face. ‘We weren’t sure.’
‘Well, why’re you after him, if he’s not—?’
‘This isn’t complicated,’ said Strike, who now lowered himself onto a chair at the kitchen table, his knee excruciatingly painful, and more than willing to vent his own temper on anyone who presented a target. ‘A man was murdered, we got tipped off it was your brother, we look for your brother, he’s alive, it wasn’t him. I’ll draw it for you, if you want.’