<Fiendy1 has left the channel>
>
>
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<Hartella has left the channel>
LordDrek: is that all of them gone?
Vilepechora: roflmao
Vilepechora: Fuck me, they’re thick
Vilepechora: not sure Fiendy1 totally went for it
LordDrek: who cares what that little fag thinks
LordDrek: all we need is for Blay to believe it
Vilepechora: true
LordDrek: I just called that fat pig Hartella ‘gorgeous’
Vilepechora: roflmao you cuck
LordDrek: but she agreed not to say where she got the stuff
Vilepechora: fkn amazing
Vilepechora: think Paperwhite’ll tell Morehouse?
LordDrek: not if she’s got any sense
LordDrek: touchpaper lit, bwah
Vilepechora: lol if this works…
<A new private channel has opened>
<7 January 2015 16.25>
<LordDrek invites Hartella>
<Hartella joins the channel>
Hartella: Hi! How are rehearsals going?
LordDrek: Hard work, but that’s Chekhov for you. Listen, will you do me a favour, babe?
LordDrek: Don’t tell Josh where you got the file.
LordDrek: if he thinks a pair of mods in Drek’s Game put it together, he might not trust it
Hartella: ok but where do I say I got it then?
LordDrek: say concerned fans/sources sent the stuff to you. That’s credible, you’re a leader in the fandom
Hartella: ok, makes sense. I’ll try and go see Josh this Saturday
LordDrek: you’re a heroine. Keep us posted.
Hartella: will do xxx
Hartella: ok I got to get back to work, speak soon xxx
LordDrek: thanks, gorgeous xxx
<Hartella has left the channel>
<LordDrek has left the channel>
<Private channel has closed>
6
Thou shalt have fame! – Oh, mockery! give the reed
From storms a shelter – give the drooping vine
Something round which its tendrils may entwine –
Give the parch’d flower a rain-drop, and the meed
Of love’s kind words to woman! Worthless fame!
The last Friday afternoon in January found Robin sitting alone at the partners’ desk in the agency’s small office in Denmark Street, killing time before setting out to view a flat in Acton by reviewing the Groomer file. There was a lot of noise in the street outside: comprehensive building work continued to cause disruption around Charing Cross Road, and all journeys to and from the office meant walking over planks, past pneumatic drills and the catcalls of builders. In consequence of the racket outside, the first intimation Robin had that a prospective client had just walked in off the street wasn’t the sound of the glass outer door opening, but the phone on the desk ringing.
On answering, she heard Pat’s baritone.
‘Message from Mr Strike. Would you be free to visit Gateshead this Saturday?’
This was code. Since last year’s successful resolution of a cold case, which had earned the agency another flurry of flattering press coverage, two would-be clients of pronounced eccentricity had walked in off the street. The first, a clearly mentally ill woman, had begged Barclay, the only detective present at the time, to help her prove the government was watching her through the air vent of her flat in Gateshead. The second, a heavily tattooed man who seemed slightly manic, had become threatening to Pat when she’d told him there were no detectives available to take down the details of his neighbour who, he was convinced, was part of an ISIS cell. Fortunately, Strike had walked in just as the man had picked up Pat’s stapler, with the apparent aim of throwing it at her. Since then, Strike had insisted that Pat keep the outside door locked when she was alone in the office, and they’d all agreed on a code which meant, in essence, ‘I’ve got a nutter here.’
‘Threatening?’ said Robin quietly, flicking the Groomer file closed.
‘Oh, no,’ said Pat calmly.
‘Mentally ill?’
‘Maybe a bit.’
‘Male?’
‘No.’
‘Have you asked her to leave?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does she want to talk to Strike?’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘All right, Pat, I’ll have a word with her. Coming out now.’
Robin hung up the phone, put the Groomer file back in the drawer and headed for the outer office.
A young woman with untidy brown shoulder-length hair was sitting on the sofa opposite Pat’s desk. Robin was immediately struck by several oddities in the woman’s appearance. The overall impression she gave was of scruffiness, even grubbiness: she was wearing old ankle boots that needed re-heeling, slapdash eyeliner which looked as though it might have been applied the day before and a shirt so deeply creased it could have been slept in. However, unless it was a fake, the Yves Saint Laurent handbag sitting on the sofa beside her would have cost over a thousand pounds and her long black wool coat looked brand new and of high quality. When she saw Robin, the woman caught her breath in a little gasp, and before Robin could say anything, said,
‘Please don’t chuck me out. Please. I really, really need to talk to you. Please.’
Robin hesitated, then said,
‘OK, come through. Pat, could you tell Strike I’m fine to go to Gateshead?’
‘Hmm,’ said Pat. ‘I’d have refused, personally.’
Robin stood back to let the young woman pass into the inner office, then mouthed at Pat ‘twenty minutes’.
As Robin closed the inner-office door, she noticed that the back of the woman’s hair was a little matted, as if it hadn’t been brushed in days, but the label standing up out of the back of her coat declared it to have come from Alexander McQueen.
‘Was that some sort of code?’ she said, turning to face Robin. ‘That stuff about Gateshead?’
‘No, of course not,’ lied Robin with a reassuring smile. ‘Have a seat.’
Robin sat down behind the desk and the woman, who looked around her own age, took the chair facing her. In spite of the unbrushed hair, the badly applied make-up and the pinched expression, she was attractive in an offbeat way. Her square face was pale, her mouth generous and her eyes a striking shade of amber. Judging by her accent, she was London-born. Robin noticed a small, blurry tattoo on one of the woman’s knuckles: a black heart that looked as though she might have inked it herself. Her fingernails were bitten to the quick and the index and middle fingers of her right hand were stained yellow. Taken all in all, the stranger gave the impression of somebody down on their luck who’d just fled a rich woman’s house, stealing her coat and bag as she went.
‘I don’t suppose I can smoke?’ she said.
‘I’m afraid not, we’re a non-smoking—’
‘’S’all right,’ said the woman. ‘I’ve got gum.’