Robin heard someone coming upstairs. Right now she’d be delighted for Murphy to find her on the phone to Strike; indeed, she might ask him to leave the bedroom until they’d finished the call. However, the footsteps moved on past her bedroom door, and she reflected that Murphy would probably make sure his run was a long one, after the scene in the kitchen.
‘Well,’ said Strike at last, ‘there’s no reason, just because a man’s a raging self-publicist, he can’t also be a crook. Look at Jeffrey Archer. Look at Savile.’
He got to his feet and, once again, stood contemplating the corkboard on the office wall, where the four present candidates for William Wright were pinned, eyes on Dick de Lion, with his fake tan, his peroxided hair and his very white teeth.
‘Might be worth finding out which way Branfoot swings, sexually speaking.’
‘He’s married,’ said Robin, who’d done some speedy Googling before calling Strike. ‘To a woman. She’s here in this picture in the Telegraph, with Branfoot and Lambert. They’ve got two sons.’
‘Strong motive, if he’s been doing the dirty with de Lion, and doesn’t want the family and the papers to know,’ said Strike. ‘Still doesn’t explain why de Lion would have gone to work at Ramsay Silver, but… yeah, I think we’ll need to take a closer look at Branfoot. I might call Fergus Robertson again, see what he can tell me,’ said Strike, turning away from the board to write a reminder to himself in the notebook open on the desk. ‘We’ve had another threatening phone call, by the way.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yeah. “Leave it or gow-too will get you.”’
‘What’s “gow-too”?’
‘Exactly what I asked him. He hung up.’
‘Is it a name?’
‘Not one I’ve ever heard of. Anyway, be on the watch for him, or it, or them. I also spoke to Sacha Legard.’
‘Really?’ said Robin, with a slight inward tremor. ‘How did that go?’
‘Pretty informative,’ said Strike, and he described the interview, leaving out some of the more aggressive things he’d said to Legard, and concluding, ‘so one of us needs to speak to Valentine Longcaster, and if he’s not willing, we’ll see whether his sister Cosima can explain what Fleetwood was doing, gatecrashing an A-list party where he wasn’t wanted, to talk to the family he’d nicked a large bit of silver from. I’ve looked Cosima up. Remember Legs?’ he said, in reference to a teenage girl the agency had watched for a while, because her mother believed her to be having an affair with her own ex-boyfriend.
‘Yes,’ said Robin, who’d tailed the filly-like blonde teenager on a few occasions.
‘Well, she looks just like her. You might have to do that interview, if it comes to it. She’s only eighteen; I’ll probably be accused of more sexual harassment if I go anywhere near her.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Robin.
‘And there’s something else,’ said Strike. ‘Last night, I sent Shah to watch the entrance of Freemasons’ Hall. Guess who turned up for his six-thirty lodge meeting, apron bag in hand?’
‘DCI Malcolm Truman?’ said Robin, with a sinking feeling.
‘Right in one,’ said Strike. ‘Shah got some covert snaps.’
‘Interesting,’ Robin forced herself to say.
‘How’s things in Masham?’ Strike asked, moving to the window and staring down into Denmark Street, where last-minute panic buyers were wending their way in and out of the music shops.
‘Lousy. I’ve just had a blazing row with my mother.’
‘Ah,’ said Strike, thinking it was a shame it couldn’t have been Murphy as he watched an ageing hippy below, hurrying along with a ukulele under one arm and a stack of vinyl records under the other. ‘Well, it’s the season for it.’
‘When are you off to Lucy’s?’
‘Trying to leave it as late as possible,’ said Strike. ‘Aiming to arrive at the party halfway through, pleading pressure of work.’
‘If I have to suffer, so should you,’ said Robin. ‘Go early and help prepare the food or something. Earn some Brownie points.’
‘That reminds me,’ said Strike. ‘Thanks for my present.’
‘You’ve opened it already?’
‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘I wasn’t going to do it in front of Greg.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he’s a cunt,’ said Strike, who thought this reason enough. Robin’s gift had been a monthly delivery of Cornish food and beer; he’d been touched by it, and was glad to have opened it without the necessity of explanations, or hearing comments about either his waistline or the woman who seemed to know him so well.
He didn’t really want the call to end, but couldn’t think of any reason to prolong it, so when Robin said, ‘I suppose I’d better go,’ he agreed that he should, too, wished her a good Christmas and hung up.
He’d just settled back at his desk, feeling marginally better for his chat with Robin, when the landline phone rang in the outer office. There was no longer any danger that it was Charlotte, who’d often called on special occasions and holidays, especially when drunk, but he was on high alert for journalists, who might be seeking to extend the Candy story into a Yuletide serial, so he got up and moved to Pat’s desk, switched on the speaker and let voicemail play. Once Pat’s gravelly voice had finished saying that the office was closed for Christmas there was a click, and a manic-sounding woman’s voice with a strong Scottish accent spoke.
‘Aye, Ah need help, he give me a bit, but there’s more, he told me, it’s all hid under the bridge but Ah need help tae get it, so come tae the Golden Fleece, ask for me there, Ah’ve gottae keep movin’, Ah’ve got people after me, Ah’m nae kiddin’, come tae the Golden Fleece.’
The message ended, leaving Strike staring at the phone in total bemusement.
39
And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts
Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
About the life before I lived this life…
Robin had the inevitable row with Murphy quietly, in their room, once he’d returned from his run. Now showered, and wearing a sweater Jenny had bought her, which Robin had thought it tactful to bring home for Christmas, she told her boyfriend exactly what she thought of him talking to Linda behind her back, and demanded why, if he had questions about the Candy story, he couldn’t have asked them of her.
‘You know why,’ Murphy said, also keeping his voice low. He’d been apologetic at first, flushed and sweaty after his run, but in the face of Robin’s anger had become increasingly irate himself. ‘Because you won’t hear a bloody word against Strike and the last time I mentioned I’d seen him in the paper, I got the silent treatment.’
‘I’ve told you multiple times Strike can be an annoying sod,’ said Robin, who was sure she must have done. She’d thought it often enough.
‘You must’ve said it when I had headphones on,’ retorted Murphy. ‘You always keep as quiet about him to me as you do me to him.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘“I’m on my way to look at another house.”’
‘What?’
‘That’s what you said to Strike, when we were on the way to see the house in Wood Green. “I’m on my way to look at another house.”’
‘Well, we were on the way to see a h—’