‘You haven’t got children,’ said Linda in a low voice.
‘Thanks for pointing that out,’ said Robin. ‘I was worried I’d left them somewhere.’
‘You don’t know what it’s like, to worry yourself sick about your daughter—’
‘You don’t know what it’s like to have my worries,’ said Robin, thinking of the icy ultrasound wand on her stomach, and the rubber gorilla hidden in her sock drawer in London, and MI5 being angry at the agency for investigating, and DCI Malcolm Truman and his masonic lodge. ‘So we’re even.’
She’d just tipped some of her brimming cup of coffee into the sink when she heard the front door open and her father, Stephen and Annabel entered the kitchen, all pink-faced, cheerful and talkative. Linda hastily wiped her eyes on the tea towel as Michael Ellacott set a bulging bag of shopping on the table.
‘Auntie Bobbin,’ said Annabel, trotting over to Robin to show her a stick. ‘I’ve got Stick Man.’
‘We’re in a big Stick Man phase,’ Stephen informed his sister.
‘Lovely,’ Robin said to Annabel, who was big for her age, brunette, like her mother, but with her father’s dimples. ‘You need to look after him.’
‘Or a dog will take him,’ said Annabel, nodding gravely.
‘Jenny still asleep?’ Stephen asked Linda.
‘Yes, and so’s Jonathan,’ said Linda, her voice artificially cheerful as she resumed her drying and putting away of crockery. ‘I don’t know what his excuse is.’
Robin sat down at the kitchen table and pulled the abandoned Telegraph towards her while the others clattered around her, Linda opening and closing cupboards, Michael putting away groceries, Stephen unbuttoning Annabel’s coat and fetching her a drink. After staring mindlessly at an article on the United Nations Security Council without taking in a word, Robin turned the page.
Lord Oliver Branfoot was pictured, scruffy and bull-like, beaming in black tie beside a very tall man, and a large blonde woman in evening dress. The caption read, ‘Branfoot Trust Recommends Reintroduction of Borstals’.
‘Have you been hearing the Martin saga?’ said a voice near Robin, and she started.
‘What?’
‘Mum been filling you in on Martin?’ asked Stephen.
‘No,’ said Robin, getting to her feet, coffee in one hand, paper in the other. ‘Sorry, it’ll have to wait. I’ve got to call Strike.’
38
What were the wise man’s plan?—
Through this sharp, toil-set life,
To work as best he can,
And win what’s won by strife.
Though technically on Christmas leave, Strike was sitting at the partners’ desk. To spare himself another trip upstairs he’d brought down the holdall he’d packed for his brief stay at Lucy’s, plus two carrier bags full of Christmas presents for the family, comprising the pastel-coloured scarf he’d chosen for Lucy in Liberty’s, a bottle of gin for Greg, gift tokens for his eldest and youngest nephews and, for Jack, his favourite, a survival kit Strike would have loved himself when young. Among other things, the khaki rucksack contained water purifying tablets, a compass, emergency food rations, camouflage make-up, an elaborate penknife and a couple of safety light sticks. The last of these had reminded Strike of the tube-shaped object that had fallen from William Wright’s pocket on the night he’d shared a takeaway and cannabis with Mandy and Daz, and which Wright had claimed was a blood sample. What the hell that had really been, Strike still had no idea.
Pat was now on Christmas leave, but she’d propped another handwritten card against the aquarium.
DON’T FEED, THERE’S A TIME RELEASE BLOCK OF FOOD IN HERE, WILL LAST A WEEK.
The subcontractors were on various jobs, which left Strike alone and free to do a bit of research he preferred to do in privacy: trying to identify the woman who’d shoved the cipher note through their office door. This meant trawling through stills advertising porn films, and he didn’t fancy being discovered with an erection, nor did he much relish the idea of explaining to the accountant why he was charging porn to the business account, which was why he was trying not to pay for anything.
Starting on the premise that the blonde might have worked with Dangerous Dick de Lion, if she knew or feared he’d been murdered, Strike was working his way steadily through de Lion’s oeuvre, which included such titles as Twelve Horny Men and The Ass House. The man had done ‘crossover’, meaning he worked in both straight and gay porn, so Strike was currently squinting at various naked or scantily dressed women in an attempt to identify the woman he’d seen only once. He was staring at a brunette being penetrated both anally and orally when his mobile rang.
‘Hi,’ said Robin. ‘Sorry to call on Christmas Eve.’
‘No problem,’ said Strike, shutting down the window on his computer as though she could see what he was doing, and hoping his hard-on would subside enough to concentrate. ‘What’s up?’
‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen today’s Telegraph?’
‘No,’ said Strike, with an ominous feeling that, if nothing else, was helping to subdue his erection. ‘There’s not another—?’
‘No,’ said Robin, ‘nothing about you, but there’s a picture of Lord Oliver Branfoot in it, and Strike, he’s standing beside the customer we saw in Ramsay Silver. That tall man who had one eye looking up at the ceiling.’
Sitting on her bed, still in her pyjamas, Robin waited for Strike’s response. After a few seconds, he said,
‘Shit.’
‘Kenneth Ramsay said your name in front of him, remember? Not mine, though.’
‘Who is he, the customer?’ said Strike.
‘Sir Victor Lambert,’ said Robin, reading it from the newspaper. ‘He sits on the Branfoot Trust and I’ve just looked him up; he’s a banker. But he can’t have ordered Wright’s murder, can he? He’d hardly have gone shopping at Ramsay Silver afterwards.’
‘That’d seem unwise,’ agreed Strike.
‘So…’ said Robin, unwilling to put into words what she was thinking; if she’d worried that connecting Sofia Medina with the murder of Wright might sound far-fetched, this, surely, was a hundred times more so.
‘You think Lambert mentioned to his mate Branfoot that I’ve been nosing around at Ramsay Silver,’ said Strike, ‘and Branfoot, who ordered the hit on Wright, panicked and started gunning for us?’
‘Well… I know it’s a stretch,’ said Robin, ‘but you can’t say it doesn’t fit. Shanker said “you were seen”, and we knew all along that could only have been Ramsay Silver or St George’s Avenue. I know Branfoot’s a real rent-a-quote, but why’s he suddenly so interested in the private detective business? Why’s he out to get us? And he’s on the telly, which fits the cipher note, too.’