‘Food’s on its way,’ he told her, having hung up. ‘There are biscuits by the kettle.’
He closed the curtains as she picked up two plastic-wrapped biscuits and ripped them open. Having devoured them in a few mouthfuls, she said,
‘I should phone the police.’
The call, as Strike could have predicted, wasn’t straightforward. While Robin sat on the edge of the bed, explaining to the emergency operator why she was calling and describing the condition and location of the boy called Jacob, Strike scribbled ‘We’re here: Felbrigg Lodge, Bramble guest house’ onto a bit of paper and passed it to her. Robin duly read out this address when asked for her location. While she was still talking, Strike texted Midge, Barclay, Shah and Pat.
Got her. She’s OK.
He wasn’t convinced the second sentence was true, except in the very broadest sense of lacking a disabling physical injury.
‘They’re going to send someone out to talk to me,’ Robin told Strike at last, having hung up. ‘They said it might be an hour.’
‘Gives you time to eat,’ said Strike. ‘I’ve just been telling the others you’re out. They’ve been crapping themselves about you.’
Robin started crying again.
‘Sorry,’ she gasped, for what felt like the hundredth time.
‘Who hit you?’ he asked, looking at the yellowish purple marks on the left side of her face.
‘What?’ she said, trying to stem the flood of tears. ‘Oh… Will Edensor…’
‘Wh—?’
‘I told him his mother was dead,’ said Robin wretchedly. ‘It was a mistake… or… I don’t know if it was a mistake… I was trying to get through to him… that was a couple of days ago… it was that or have sex with him… sorry,’ she said again, ‘so much has happened these last few days… it’s been—’
She gasped.
‘Strike, I’m so sorry about Charlotte.’
‘How the hell did you know about that?’ he said, amazed.
‘I saw it in an old newspaper this afternoon… it’s awful…’
‘It’s what it is,’ he said, far less interested in Charlotte at this moment than in Robin. His mobile buzzed.
‘That’s Barclay,’ he said, reading the text. ‘He says “thank fuck.”’
‘Oh, Sam,’ sobbed Robin, ‘I saw him a week ago… was it a week ago? I watched him, in the woods… I should’ve gone then, but I didn’t think I had enough to leave… sorry, I don’t know why I keep c-crying…’
Strike sat down next to her on the bed and put his arm around her again.
‘Sorry,’ she said, sobbing as she leaned into him, ‘I’m really sorry—’
‘Stop apologising.’
‘It’s just… relief… they locked me up in a b-box… and Jacob… and the Manifestation was—’ Robin gasped again, ‘Lin, what about Lin, did you find her?’
‘She’s not in any of the hospitals Pat called,’ said Strike, ‘unless she was admitted under another name, but—’
His mobile buzzed again.
‘That’s Midge,’ he said, and he read the text aloud. ‘“Thank fuck for that.”’
The phone buzzed a third time.
‘Shah. “Thank fuck.” What d’you say we get them all thesauruses for Christmas?’
Robin started to laugh, and found she couldn’t stop, though tears were still dribbling out of her eyes.
‘Hang on,’ said Strike, as his phone buzzed yet again. ‘We’ve got an outlier. Pat says, “Is she really OK?”’
‘Oh… I love Pat,’ said Robin, her laughter turning immediately to sobs again.
‘She’s sixty-seven,’ said Strike.
‘Sixty-seven what?’
‘That’s exactly what I said when she told me. Sixty-seven years old.’
‘S-seriously?’ said Robin.
‘Yeah. I haven’t sacked her, though. Thought you’d be pissed off at me.’
There was a knock on the door, and Robin jumped as violently as if she’d heard gunshots.
‘It’s only your brandy,’ said Strike, getting to his feet.
When he’d taken the glass from the helpful woman from the hotel, handed it to his partner and sat back down on the bed beside her, Strike said,
‘In other news: Littlejohn was a plant. From Patterson Inc.’
‘Oh my God!’ said Robin, who’d just gulped down some brandy.
‘Yeah. But the good news is, he’d rather work for us, and he assures me he’s very trustworthy and loyal.’
Robin laughed harder, though she didn’t seem able to stop her eyes streaming. Strike, who was deliberately talking about life outside Chapman Farm rather than interrogating her on what had happened inside it, laughed too, but he’d silently registered everything Robin had so far told him about her last few days: they locked me in a box. It was that or have sex with him. And the Manifestation was…
‘And Midge has been fucked off at me because I thought she and Tasha Mayo might be getting overfamiliar.’
‘Strike!’
‘Don’t bother, Pat’s already told me off. She knew another lesbian once, so it’s very much her area of expertise.’
There might be an edge of hysteria to Robin’s laughter, but Strike, who knew the value of humour in the wake of horror, and the necessity of emphasising that Robin had rejoined the outside world, continued to fill her in on what had been happening with the agency while she’d been away, until the woman from the hotel knocked on the door again, this time carrying soup and sandwiches.
Robin drank a few mouthfuls of soup as though she hadn’t seen food for days, but after a couple of minutes she laid down her spoon and pushed the bowl onto the bedside table.
‘Is it all right if I just…?’
Drawing her legs up onto the bed, she fell sideways onto the pillow and was instantly asleep.
Strike got carefully off the bed so as not to wake her and moved to an armchair, no longer grinning. He was worried: Robin seemed far more fragile than any of her letters had suggested and through the ripped portion of her tracksuit trousers he could see raw skin on her right knee, which looked as though she’d been walking on it. He supposed he should have anticipated the dramatic weight loss and the profound exhaustion, but the hysteria, the unbridled fear, the strange reaction to the view of the hot tub, the ominous fragments of information, all added up to something more serious than he’d expected. What the fuck was ‘the box’ she’d been locked in? And why did she say the only alternative to getting punched in the face had been coerced sex with their client’s son? He knew his partner to be physically brave; indeed, there’d been more than one occasion on which he’d have called her recklessly so. Had he not had confidence in her, he’d never have let her go undercover at Chapman Farm, but now he felt he should have put one of the men in there instead, should have overruled Robin’s request to do the job.
The sound of a car made Strike get to his feet and peer through the curtains.
‘Robin,’ he said quietly, moving back to the bed, ‘the police are here.’
She remained asleep, so he tentatively shook her shoulder, at which she woke with a start and looked wildly at him, as though he was a stranger.
‘Police,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘right… OK…’
She struggled back into a sitting position. Strike went to open the door.
89
Six in the fourth place means:
Grace or simplicity?
A white horse comes as if on wings.