‘And I’m sure Ross was delighted to let you have a look at her, and had no questions about why you were hiding in a fucking bush—’
‘What was she supposed to do?’ said Robin heatedly, who was entirely on Midge’s side. ‘Keep filming while the girl got crushed to death?’
‘I was climbing over the fence when Ross managed to drag the pony off her, but I think the girl had a broken leg at the very least. White as a fookin’ sheet.
‘So then Ross sees me,’ said Midge, ‘and shouts “who the fook are you?” or something and – you won’t like this bit either, Strike—’
‘You told him you’d got the lot on film?’
‘I did, yeah,’ said Midge. ‘And then he came after me with the horse whip. Thought that was the kind of thing that went out with the Victorians.’
‘He left his daughter lying on the ground with a broken leg to chase you?’ said Robin in disbelief.
‘’Course he fucking did,’ said Strike. ‘He’s the whole reason she’s got a bloody broken leg, he’s hardly going to start worrying about her now, is he? I take it you outran him?’ Strike asked Midge.
‘’Course,’ said Midge. ‘He’s not very fit. Well, he gets driven everywhere, doesn’t he, lazy arsehole? So, yeah. I’ve got a film for you with a good bit of child and animal cruelty on it. Thought you’d be pleased about that bit, at least.’
‘I am,’ said Strike. ‘Hopefully Ross’ll think you’re some horse- welfare crank… Well, I wouldn’t have advised those tactics, but you got excellent results. Well done.’
When Midge had hung up, Strike heaved a long sigh of relief.
‘Well, with that, the film Dev got and the pissed nanny, I think that’s Ross well and truly fucked. Once Bhardwaj has told us who Anomie is, we’re down two cases and can focus on Fingers and a fat payday all round.’
Robin didn’t answer. Strike glanced sideways at her, registered her stony expression and guessed immediately what lay behind it.
‘I’m not happy the kid got hurt.’
‘I never thought you were,’ said Robin coolly.
‘So why the Medusa stare?’
‘Just thinking: those girls aren’t going to be helped by knowing their father’s been filmed hurting them. All that’s likely to happen is that he’ll be a bit more careful about who’s watching.’
Strike took his e-cigarette out of his pocket as he turned his gaze back to the M11 and said,
‘I haven’t forgotten trying to get them some help. If I can do both, I will.’
84
What was my sin, to merit this?
It was almost seven o’clock when Strike and Robin finally entered the outskirts of Cambridge. The clear spring sky now had an opaline gleam, and Robin, though tired, noticed the increasing frequency of beautiful classical buildings as they made their way towards Vikas Bhardwaj’s college.
‘This is ironic,’ said Strike, who was reading from the college’s website on his phone. ‘“Caius” – one of the blokes the place was named after, obviously – “was renowned for his unusual entry rules, barring the sick and infirm, as well as the Welsh, from studying here”… Well, obviously all sensible people will be with him on the Welsh, but I doubt Caius would have wanted to miss out on Vikas Bhardwaj… Christ, and Stephen Hawking was here, too… fourth-oldest college… one of the richest…’
‘It’s not easy to get to, I know that,’ said Robin, who could see the college clearly on the satnav but was being directed down a series of streets that seemed to be taking her further away from it. ‘Are you up to walking? I don’t think we’ll be able to park next to it, what with all these bus lanes and pedestrianised areas.’
‘Yeah, no problem,’ said Strike, flicking across to another window on his phone, which showed a photograph of Vikas, who was in his wheelchair, dressed in a light green shirt and jeans, surrounded by a group of fellow researchers. Vikas was indeed very handsome, having thick black hair, a square jaw and a singularly charming smile, and looked to Strike as though he was in his mid-twenties. He could tell the younger man had dysfunction in his hands, which were curled in on themselves, and clearly in his legs, because like Inigo Upcott’s they showed signs of muscle wastage. According to the caption beneath the picture, Vikas and his colleagues were studying neutron stars, a subject about which Strike knew precisely nothing, and were posing in Tree Court, which gave a backdrop of viridian lawn and buildings of golden stone.
‘Doesn’t look like an ideal place for a wheelchair-user to live,’ commented Strike, eyeing the narrow doorways behind Vikas, which undoubtedly gave on to stairs even narrower and steeper than those at the Marine Hotel.
A few minutes later, Robin parked and they got out, Robin now consulting her own phone for directions.
They passed many young people also taking the soft evening air. The sun imparted a golden glow to the old brick buildings. Robin, whose own student life had ended so grotesquely, found herself remembering those brief months of happiness and freedom she usually avoided thinking about because of what had happened to her in the stairwell of her halls of residence. She’d come to believe over the intervening years that had the rapist in the gorilla mask never reached out of that dark space and seized her, she and Matthew would have split up before they were twenty, drawn apart by competing interests and lives. Instead, Robin had dropped out, gone home to her parents in the small Yorkshire town where she’d been raised, and clung to the only man in the world who seemed safe. As these memories remained painful, she determinedly refocused her attention on her surroundings.
‘It’d be a wonderful place to study, wouldn’t it?’ she said to Strike as they crossed a bridge over the River Cam and looked down upon the willow-fringed water, on which two young students were punting.
‘Yeah, if you like statues and toffs.’
‘Wow,’ said Robin, smiling up at him. ‘I never knew you were this chippy. You’re Oxbridge yourself, why the attitude?’
‘I’m failed Oxbridge,’ he corrected her as they entered Garret Hostel Lane, a narrow alleyway between old brick buildings.
‘It isn’t failing if you choose to leave of your own accord,’ said Robin, who knew Strike had dropped out of Oxford University after the suspicious death of his mother.
‘Yeah, I’m sure that’s what Joan told the neighbours,’ said Strike, who well remembered his aunt’s bitter disappointment at him leaving Oxford.
‘What did you study?’ asked Robin, who’d never asked. ‘Classics?’
‘No. History.’
‘Really? I thought, because you know Latin…’
‘I don’t know Latin,’ said Strike. ‘Not properly. I’ve just got a good memory and a GCSE.’
They turned into Trinity Lane.
‘In one of the squats my mother took us to live in,’ said Strike, to Robin’s surprise, because he rarely talked about his childhood, ‘there was a guy who’d been a classics teacher at some major public school. I can’t remember which one now, but I know it was famous. The guy was an alcoholic who claimed to have had a nervous breakdown. Well, he was pretty unstable, so maybe he had, but he was a real shit as well.
‘I was about thirteen and he told me I’d never make anything of myself, because, among other things, I lacked all the basics of a gentleman’s education.’
‘Like what?’
‘Well, like classics,’ said Strike. ‘And he quoted some long Latin tag at me with a sneer on his face. I didn’t know what it meant, so obviously I couldn’t really make a comeback – but I really didn’t like being fucking patronised when I was a kid.’