Seb hailed a taxi at the small roundabout a short walk from the pub, leaving Nils and Bram to continue up Hampstead Lane, Bram still playing on his father’s phone and regularly bumping into lampposts, walls and people. Strike now paused on the pavement and lit up a cigarette. It was still only mid-afternoon; he had plenty of time to kill before his date with Madeline later, perhaps enough to get back to the flat, shower and change, which was a luxury he didn’t often have. Intending only to finish his cigarette before flagging down a cab himself, he remained stationary, smoking, until his eye fell on a thin young woman dressed all in black who was hurrying along the pavement on the other side of the road, her phone pressed to her ear, scanning her surroundings in what looked like desperation.
22
… a stunted child,
Her sunk eyes sharpened with precocious care…
The girl’s distress was so evident that Strike’s attention was caught. She was tiny, perhaps five feet tall, and thin to the point of emaciation, with protruding collarbones that were visible even from across the street. Her hair, which was almost waist-length, was dyed a blueish black and her eyes were outlined with a lot of black kohl, so that they stood out starkly against her very pale skin. Though her chest looked virtually flat, and in spite of her size, Strike assumed that she was at least eighteen, because she was sporting a half-sleeve of black tattoos on her left arm. Her thin black vest top, long skirt and flat ankle boots all looked old and cheap.
Evidently the person she was trying to call wasn’t picking up. Every minute or so she’d stab at the phone with her finger and raise it to her ear again, still looking wildly up and down the street. Finally she began to walk quickly in the direction from which Strike had just come.
Strike turned back and followed the girl, still smoking as he watched her hurry along on the opposite pavement. When he’d almost reached the Red Lion and Sun, she ran across the road, phone still clamped to her ear. Strike slowed down, watching her scan the tables, which were occupied with a few more drinkers, before hurrying into the pub. As she darted across Strike’s path he saw her close up. Her teeth looked too big for her sunken face and, with a small thrill of surprise, he recognised one of the tattoos on her forearm: Harty, the jet-black hero of The Ink Black Heart.
Now definitely intrigued, Strike stood waiting on the pavement, because he had a feeling that whoever the girl was trying to find wouldn’t prove to be in the pub. Sure enough, she re-emerged in under a minute, phone still held to her ear, though not talking. After standing irresolute on the pavement for a few seconds while Strike pretended to examine something on his own phone, she walked away from the pub more slowly, giving the impression of one whose destination is no longer important, although she kept trying to reach somebody on her phone, holding it to her ear until, Strike guessed, voicemail answered, then lowering the mobile without speaking, pressing (Strike assumed) ‘try again’, then raising it to listen once more.
Strike continued to follow her at a distance of twenty yards. A quantity of cheap silver bangles clinked on her wrists. Her shoulder blades were as prominent as her collarbones. She was so thin Strike could have reached around her upper arm with one hand. He wondered whether she was anorexic.
As Strike followed his quarry into Highgate High Street, his own mobile began to vibrate in his pocket and he took it out.
‘Strike.’
‘Oh, yes, hello,’ said a jittery middle-class voice. ‘This is Katya Upcott.’
‘Ah, thanks for getting back to me, Mrs Upcott,’ said Strike, continuing to follow the black-clad girl. She was so small, the six-foot-three Strike felt slightly creepy following her, and was hanging well back.
‘Yes, I’m terribly sorry, Inigo wrote your number on the notepad but he got one of the digits wrong and I kept getting some poor woman who was getting really annoyed at me, so I called your agency just now and a very nice man called Pat gave me the right number.’
Grinning slightly, Strike said,
‘Very good of you to take the trouble. You know what I’m calling about, I take it?’
‘Anomie, yes,’ she said. ‘I’m delighted Allan and Richard have called you in. I certainly hope you can find out who he is. Josh’ – her voice became slightly higher as she said the name – ‘is so distressed – I know they told you about it – just an awful misunderstanding,’ she said, and he thought she sounded on the verge of tears. ‘We’re both so happy it’s you. I read Josh an article about you.’
‘Well, we’re certainly going to do our best,’ said Strike. ‘How is Josh?’
‘He’s—’ Her voice broke. ‘I’m so sorry… it’s just been so ghastly. He’s being very – very brave. He’s paralysed. They call it Brown-Séquard Syndrome; he can’t move at all on one side and he’s lost all feeling on the other. They’re saying this kind of paralysis can improve, and I’m trying to – everyone’s trying to be positive – he wants to meet you. He managed to tell me so, this afternoon, but the doctors would rather he’s not fussed just yet, because he’s struggling to talk and the subject of Edie gets him so agitated and – and distressed—’
She gave a little gasp, and Strike heard muffled crying and guessed she’d put her hand over the receiver.
Ahead of him, the young woman in black had turned right into a park. Strike followed.
‘S-so sorry,’ sobbed Katya Upcott in his ear.
‘Please don’t apologise,’ said Strike. ‘Terrible situation.’
‘It is,’ she said, as though he’d said something profoundly insightful, which nobody else around her had spotted. ‘It really is. He – he feels so horrible about Edie, and about accusing her of being Anomie. I… He dictated a letter to me, to put in her – in her – in her coffin. Saying how s-s-sorry he was and – and what she’d meant to him – he’s twenty-five,’ sobbed Katya, without explanation, but Strike knew what she meant. The man who’d had his body ripped in half in the explosion that had taken half of Strike’s right leg had been the same age as Josh Blay.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ repeated Katya, clearly fighting to get control of herself. ‘I visit him every day. He doesn’t really have anyone else. His father’s a raging alcoholic and his friends – well, people of that age, they’re all scared of what’s happened, I think. Anyway, the doctors want him kept quiet just now.’
‘Well, I certainly don’t want to bother him until the doctors think he’s up to it,’ said Strike, ‘but I’d very much like to talk to you, given that you knew Josh and Edie right from the beginning of The Ink Black Heart. I’d like to know who’s been close to them, because as you know, Anomie seems to have got hold of a lot of personal information about Edie.’
The girl he was following continued to walk along the paved path through the middle of the park, her phone pressed against her ear.
‘Of course, yes, anything I can do to help,’ said Katya. ‘Edie moved around a lot before she went to North Grove. She had a lot of ex-flatmates and people she’d worked with. I’ll help in any way I can – I’ve promised Josh I will.’
‘How would you be fixed next week?’ Strike asked.