‘Yes. I’ll call a cab, I’ll ask for help with my bags – everything.’
‘All right then,’ said Strike, turning into Denmark Street, which was deserted except for a woman silhouetted at the far end. ‘Call me once you’re in the taxi.’
‘I will. Speak in a bit.’
She rang off. Now giving into the impulse to swear under his breath every time he put down his right foot, Strike continued on his ungainly way towards the door to his flat.
Only when he was within ten yards of her did he recognise Madeline.
94
And that was when I thrust you down,
And stabbed you twice and twice again,
Because you dared take off your crown,
And be a man like other men.
‘Are you drunk?’ she called as he put out a hand and used the wall of the nearest shop to stabilise himself.
‘No,’ he said.
As she walked unsteadily towards him, he knew at once that the same couldn’t be said of her. She looked thinner than the last time he’d seen her, and her high silver heels and short metallic dress suggested that she’d come straight from a party or, perhaps, the launch of some book, album or beauty product: somewhere, at least, at which people were seen, and photographed, and reassured that they were important.
‘I wanna talk to you,’ she said, her voice slurred. ‘I wanna fuckin’ talk to you.’
Strike was in so much pain, and consumed by so much anxiety and anger after the call with Robin, that he felt nothing but a desire for this scene to be over as quickly as possible.
‘Let’s hear it, then,’ he panted.
‘You fucking bastard.’
She swayed slightly. The small bag dangling from a chain in her hand was hanging open.
‘Right,’ said Strike. ‘Is that it?’
‘Fuck you. Fuck you. I was gong – goinga – write you a letter, but then I thought, no, he’s gonna hear it face t’face. Direckly. You lying fucking bastard.’
In spite of every resolution he’d made on the journey, Strike pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket. If God wanted to mess with him this badly, all deals were off.
‘Sucha good guy, aren’ you?’ she sneered at him. ‘Such a fuckin’ hero.’
He lit up, took a long drag on his cigarette, then exhaled.
‘Don’t remember claiming to be either.’
‘Yeah, you did. Yeah, you fucking did. An’ you were using me… using me all alone… all ’long. Well, you’ve got what you fucking wanted now, ’aven’t you?’ she bellowed, her East End accent suddenly very pronounced.
‘All I want,’ said Strike, smoking as he looked down at her, ‘is to go to bed and be left—’
‘You – fucking – bastard!’
She punched him as hard as she could in the chest. He stepped backwards; she nearly overbalanced, and as she staggered on her heels a lipstick slid out of the open bag and rolled away.
Strike attempted to walk past her, but she grabbed his sleeve and, hanging on with both hands, said,
‘You were using me, an’ I know why – ’
With a sense of déjà vu, Strike tried to prise her off his arm; his lit cigarette fell to the ground.
‘ – you fucking user, you fucking parasite – ’
‘How about you go and dry out,’ he said, struggling to release himself without breaking her fingers, ‘and send me that letter.’
Left hand still clutching his sleeve, she pummelled his back with her right until he twisted around and seized that too. Once again, he saw the rictus grin she’d displayed on the night of her launch in Bond Street.
‘“Don’t talk about my daddy!” – but you’re just fucking like him – on’y not as fucking successful – and you pretend you don’t want the fucking public – publicity – but you o’ny fuck famous – an’ you think you’ve got her now, haven’t you?’
‘Stop embarrassing yourself,’ Strike said, still trying to disengage without hurting her.
‘Me, embarrass? Ev’ryone knows she’s messing around with Landon Dormer! An’ you ride to her fucking rescue, and you think she wants you?’
‘She does, yeah,’ said Strike, the instinct for cruelty that lies within every angry lover coming to his aid. ‘She’s fucking gagging for me. But I don’t want either of you, so how about you try and find some fucking dignity and—’
‘You bastard. You fucking bastard. You come into my life – Henry’s life—’
‘Henry doesn’t give a shit about me, and I don’t give a shit—’
‘—and it was all for her, wasn’t it? To make her jealous—’
‘You keep believing Charlotte – have another drink—’
‘—an’ I’ve got an interview w’the Mail next week – an’ I’ll tell them—’
‘Pure class, threatening me with the fucking—’
She twisted in his grasp and kicked out as hard as she could. Strike felt her stiletto heel stab his thigh and as he stepped backwards his real foot skidded on the lipstick she’d dropped and with a yell of pain he went down backwards, lower back smacking into concrete and the back of his head banging down seconds later.
For a few seconds, he thought he might vomit. He rolled over and pushed himself up onto all fours, hardly caring whether she was about to keep kicking. He was trapped in a vortex of pain, his stump spasming and jerking, his hamstring screaming for mercy.
Somewhere above him she was talking, pleading. He couldn’t make out words: he wanted her to disappear, to leave for ever. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her kneel down beside him, now sobbing.
‘Corm—’
‘Fuck off,’ he said hoarsely, while his prosthesis scraped the ground, stuck to the spasming stump. ‘Just go. Just fucking go.’
‘I didn’t mean to—’
‘Go.’
She struggled to her feet.
‘Corm, please – let me—’
‘GO!’
She was still crying, but after a period that might have been seconds or minutes he heard her uneven footsteps heading back towards Charing Cross Road. When they’d died away, he tried to struggle to his feet, but his stump absolutely refused to bear his weight.
As he crawled to the door of his office, he came across the cigarette he’d dropped, still burning, picked it up again and jammed it into his mouth. His stump dragging behind him, he reached the doorstep, manoeuvred himself gingerly into a sitting position on it, took a drag of his cigarette and leaned back against the black door.
The night air felt cold on his wet face, the stars over London as dim as they always were over the metropolis, and he experienced one of those moments of simultaneous confusion and clarity that belong to the drunk and the desperate, in which Yasmin Weatherhead’s flat face blended with the twisted grin of Madeline, and he thought about the dossier of convincing lies that had led to murder and paralysis, and the unwritten letter of accusations he could have burned without reading.