‘Right,’ said Strike.
Littlejohn stood for another second or two, then turned and left the office, closing the glass door behind him.
‘It’s like he gets taxed per syllable,’ said Robin quietly.
Strike said nothing. He was still frowning towards the glass door.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Robin.
‘Nothing.’
‘Yes, there is. Why are you looking like that?’
‘How was he planning to get in? I changed the rota last night so we could have a catch-up, otherwise I’d’ve been tailing Frank Two and you wouldn’t have had any reason to be here – especially during a near hurricane,’ Strike added, as the rain thumped against the window.
‘Oh,’ said Robin, now looking blankly after Littlejohn as well. ‘Did you hear keys before the door opened?’
‘He hasn’t got a key,’ said Strike. ‘Or he shouldn’t have.’
Before either could say anything else, Robin’s mobile rang.
‘Sorry,’ she said to Strike, on checking it. ‘It’s Ryan.’
Strike got up and headed into the outer office. His ruminations on Littlejohn’s strange behaviour were disrupted by Robin’s voice, and her burst of laughter. Evidently evening plans were being changed, due to the weather. Then his own mobile rang.
‘Strike.’
‘Hi,’ said Ilsa’s voice. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine,’ said Strike, while Robin lowered her voice in the inner office, and his feeling of irritation increased. ‘What’s up?’
‘Look, I hope you don’t think I’m interfering.’
‘Tell me what you’ve got to say, then I’ll tell you if you’re interfering,’ said Strike, without bothering to sound too friendly.
‘Well, you’re about to get a call from Bijou.’
‘Which you know, because—?’
‘Because she just told me. Actually, she told me, and three other people I was having a conversation with.’
‘And?’
‘She says you haven’t answered her texts, so—’
‘You’ve called to tell me off for not answering texts?’
‘God, no, the reverse!’
In the inner office, Robin was laughing at something else Ryan had said. The man simply couldn’t be that fucking funny.
‘Go on,’ Strike said to Ilsa, striding towards the inner door and closing it rather more firmly than was necessary. ‘Say your piece.’
‘Corm,’ said Ilsa quietly, and he could tell she was trying not to be overheard by colleagues, ‘she’s crazy. She’s already told—’
‘You’ve called to give me unsolicited advice on my love life, is that right?’
Robin, who’d just finished her call with Ryan, got to her feet and opened the door in time to hear Strike say,
‘—no, I don’t. So, yeah, don’t interfere.’
He hung up.
‘Who was that?’ said Robin, surprised.
‘Ilsa,’ said Strike curtly, walking back past her and sitting back down at the partners’ desk.
Robin, who suspected she knew what Ilsa had just called about, settled back into her chair without saying anything. Noticing this unusual lack of curiosity, Strike made the correct deduction that Ilsa and Robin had already discussed his night with Bijou.
‘Did you know Ilsa was planning to tell me how to conduct my private life?’
‘What?’ said Robin, startled by both question and tone. ‘No!’
‘Really?’ said Strike.
‘Yes, really!’ said Robin, which was true: she might have told Ilsa to talk to Strike, but she hadn’t known she was going to do it.
Strike’s mobile now rang for a second time. He hadn’t bothered to save Bijou’s number to his contacts, but, certain who he was about to hear, he answered.
‘Hi, stranger,’ said her unmistakeably loud, husky voice.
‘Hi,’ said Strike. ‘How’re you?’
Robin got up and walked into the next room, on the pretext of fetching more coffee. Behind her, she heard Strike say,
‘Yeah, sorry about that, been busy.’
As it was Robin’s determined habit these days not to think about her partner in any terms other than those of friendship and work, she chose to believe the mingled feelings of annoyance and hurt now possessing her were caused by Strike’s irritability and the near slamming of the office door, while she’d been talking to Ryan. It was entirely his business if he wanted to sleep with that vile woman again, and more fool him if he didn’t realise she was after him for the fortune he didn’t possess, or the baby he didn’t want.
‘Yeah, OK,’ she heard Strike say. ‘I’ll see you there.’
Making a determined effort to look neutral, Robin returned to the partners’ desk with fresh coffee, ignoring her partner’s air of truculent defiance.
16
The line at the beginning has good fortune, the second is favourable; this is due to the time.
The third line bears an augury of misfortune, the fifth of illness…
The I Ching or Book of Changes
For the next couple of days, Strike and Robin communicated only by matter-of-fact texts, with neither jokes nor extraneous chat. Robin was more annoyed with herself for dwelling on the door slamming and the accusation that she’d been gossiping with Ilsa behind her partner’s back than she was at Strike for doing either of these two things.
Strike, who knew he’d behaved unreasonably, made no apology. However, a nagging sense of self-recrimination was added to his irritation at Ilsa, and both were intensified by his second date with Bijou.
He’d known he was making a mistake within five minutes of meeting her again. While she’d roared with laughter at her own anecdotes and talked loudly about top QCs who fancied her, he’d sat in near silence, asking himself what the hell he was playing at. Determined at least to get what he’d come for, he left her flat a few hours later with a faint feeling of self-disgust and a strong desire never to set eyes on her again. The only small consolation was that his hamstring hadn’t suffered this time, because he’d indicated a preference for being horizontal while having sex.
While it was hardly the first time Strike had slept with a woman he wasn’t in love with, never before had he screwed someone he actively disliked. The whole episode, which he now considered firmly closed, had intensified rather than alleviated his low mood, forcing him back up against his feelings for Robin.
Little did Strike know that Robin and Murphy’s relationship had suffered its first serious blow, a fact that Robin had no intention whatsoever of sharing with her business partner.
The row happened on Wednesday evening in a bar near Piccadilly Circus. Robin, who was due to leave for Coventry at five o’clock the following morning, hadn’t really fancied a mid-week trip to the cinema in the first place. However, as Murphy had already bought the tickets, she felt she couldn’t object. He seemed determined not to slide into a pattern whereby they merely met at each other’s flats for food and sex. Robin guessed this was due to a fear of taking her for granted or getting into a rut, which she’d deduced, from oblique comments, had been a complaint of his ex-wife’s.
The trigger for their argument was a casual remark of Robin’s about her planned stay at Chapman Farm. It then became clear that Murphy was labouring under a misapprehension. He’d thought she’d only be gone for seven days if she managed to be recruited, and was shocked to discover that, in reality, she’d committed to an open-ended undercover job that might last several weeks. Murphy was nettled that Robin hadn’t explained the situation fully, while Robin was irate at the fact he hadn’t listened properly. It might not be Murphy’s fault that he was bringing back unpleasant memories of her ex-husband’s assumed right to dictate the limits of her professional commitment, but the comparison was unavoidable, given that Murphy seemed to think Strike had pressured Robin into doing this onerous job, and she hadn’t been assertive enough to refuse.