4.27 pm 8 July 2014
Penny Peacock @rachledbadly
replying to @rachledbadly
My mum says it serves me right and I texted my dad and he’d forgotten I was in court today. #TopParenting
Penny Peacock @rachledbadly
replying to @rachledbadly
so now I’m going to have some vodka to celebrate haha. #notgoingtojail
Lepine’s Disciple @LepinesD1sciple
replying to @rachledbadly
They should lock femoids like you up just for bein so ugly
Penny Peacock @rachledbadly
replying to @LepinesD1sciple
Will you just FUCK OFF
‘I’ve been waiting for someone to tell Lepine’s Disciple to fuck off,’ said Strike, pushing Robin’s phone back across the table towards her. ‘He’s the kind of bloke who should be told to fuck off, loudly and often… Everything all right?’ he asked, because Robin was wearing a very tense expression while watching the iPad in her hands.
‘Fine,’ said Robin. ‘I could use another glass of wine, though.’
As Strike hailed the waiter, Rachel’s response appeared on the screen in front of her.
Are you a journalist?
Penny Peacock
Or police?
Penny Peacock
As Robin began to type very fast, Strike wondered what on earth she was up to. Her silence suggested something private, and he suddenly remembered that call to the office from Hugh Jacks which had been put through to his phone the night he’d had dinner with Grant Ledwell. He’d never found out what was going on between them. Now he remembered the photograph of that fishy-eyed bloke with his arm around her in Switzerland on her mantelpiece. When the two fresh glasses of wine arrived, he drank while covertly watching Robin, trying to decide whether she looked more like a woman arranging another holiday with her boyfriend, or breaking up with him.
In fact, Robin was typing:
Neither. I’ll tell you everything if you meet me. I can guarantee you total anonymity and we can meet face to face in a crowded place by daylight anywhere you like. If you don’t like the look of me, you can leave immediately. If you decide when you get there you don’t want to talk to me after all, you can just leave. Nobody ever needs to know you met me or that you helped me, if that’s what you decide to do.
Stop Anomie
Why won’t you tell me who you are now?
Penny Peacock
Because if you tell anyone, you could hamper me trying to stop Anomie
Stop Anomie
Their waiter now returned to their table with their food. Robin shifted slightly to allow him to place her bowl of pasta in front of her, her gaze fixed on her iPad. Strike looked down at his own plate: where there should have been chips, there was only salad. He supposed he had only himself to blame for this, so picked up his knife and fork and began to eat in silence while Robin continued to type.
I want to help but I’m scared
Penny Peacock
I understand, but you’ve got nothing at all to fear from me, I swear
Stop Anomie
My mum’s ill. She can’t take me getting in trouble again
Penny Peacock
You won’t be in trouble. Nobody even needs to know you’re meeting me
Stop Anomie
Could you come to Leeds?
Penny Peacock
Of course
Stop Anomie
Tomorrow afternoon?
Penny Peacock
‘Strike,’ said Robin, looking up with an expression of excitement that made him fear the worst: possibly a proposal of marriage made by text. ‘Could we go to Leeds tomorrow?’
‘Leeds?’
‘Rachel Ledwell’s agreed to talk to me.’
‘What?’
‘I’ll explain in a minute – can we go?’
‘Of course we can fucking go!’
So Robin typed:
Yes
Stop Anomiie
You can’t come to my house because of my mum
Penny Peacock
That’s OK
Stop Anomie
There’s a place called Meanwood Park
Penny Peacock
Go in through the entrance by the cafe and take the right-hand path
Penny Peacock
There’s a stone bridge over the stream on the left, like broken slabs
Penny Peacock
On the other side of the stream there’s a tree with two big boulders on either side of it
Penny Peacock
Near the tree there’s a bench with the name Janet Martin on it
Penny Peacock
I’ll meet you at Janet Martin’s bench at 3 o’clock
Penny Peacock
Wonderful. I’ll see you there x
Stop Anomie
Robin put down her iPad, drank most of her second glass of Rioja straight off, then told Strike everything. He listened in mounting astonishment, and when she’d finished her recital he said,
‘Fucking hell, Ellacott – I fall asleep for three hours and you crack the fucking case!’
‘Not yet,’ she said, flushed with excitement, wine and the pleasure these words had given her. ‘But if we get Morehouse, we get Anomie!’
Strike picked up his wine glass and clinked it against hers.
‘Want another one?’
‘Better not. It must be three-hundred-odd miles to Leeds. I don’t want to fail a breathalyser test.’
She picked up her fork at last and began eating her pasta.
‘How’s your steak?’
‘Bloody good, actually,’ said Strike, wondering whether to say what he wanted to say, and finally deciding to do so. ‘I thought you might be emailing Hugh Jacks.’
‘Hugh Jacks?’ said Robin incredulously, her next forkful of spaghetti suspended halfway to her mouth. ‘Why on earth would I be doing that?’
‘Dunno. He’s calling you at work, I thought something might be going—’
‘God, no,’ said Robin. ‘Nothing’s going on between me and Hugh Jacks.’
A combination of Rioja and elation at securing a rendezvous with Rachel Ledwell had loosened the guard Robin had kept over herself over these last few months. Right now, she felt more kindly towards her partner than she had in weeks.
‘Tell me something,’ she said. ‘If a woman ignored you knocking on her bedroom door, a Valentine’s card and sundry phone calls, would you think she was interested?’
Strike laughed.
‘I’d have to say, on balance, no.’
‘Thank God,’ said Robin, ‘because you wouldn’t be much of a detective if you couldn’t read clues like that.’
Strike laughed again. The relief he was currently feeling was telling him something, he knew that, but now was hardly the moment to sink into an introspective reverie, so instead he drank more wine and said,
‘Nice hotel, this.’
‘I thought you were pissed off it hasn’t got a lift to the attic and nobody helped you with your imaginary luggage?’
‘But they do a good steak.’
Robin laughed in turn. As he’d asked about Hugh Jacks, she briefly considered asking him how things were going with Madeline, but decided against posing a question that might ruin her current good mood. The rest of dinner passed pleasantly, with inconsequential talk, jokes and laughter that might have seemed extraordinary to their fellow diners, had they known how recently Strike and Robin had been sent a bomb.