Page 24 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

‘No. Well,’ Strike conceded, ‘a bit. Doesn’t mean I want him dead.’

‘God above, I should hope not!’ said Robin, half-amused, half-shocked. ‘D’you usually want people you dislike dead?’

‘Some of them,’ said Strike, thinking of Jeff Whittaker, his mother’s second husband. ‘If I heard Mitch Patterson had dropped dead in the dock, I’d probably celebrate with a pint. Rather see him in the clink, though.’

Until a few months previously, ex-policeman Mitch Patterson had headed up the rival detective agency for which Kim Cochran had been working.

There’d never been any love lost between Patterson and Strike, and in the course of attempting to bring down Strike and Robin’s business, Patterson had found himself arrested for the illegal bugging of a top barrister’s office.

‘The trial starts next week,’ said Robin.

‘I know, I’m looking forward to that more than Christmas. You know, thinking about it,’ Strike said, feigning a sudden thought, ‘if anyone’s going to talk to Sacha Legard, it might have to be you.’

‘Why? You’re the one who knows him.’

‘Yeah, that’s the problem. I assume he knows what Charlotte’s suicide note said, which means he won’t be very well disposed to me at the moment. Although, come to think of it, that probably extends to you, too.’

Robin felt a hot explosion in the pit of her stomach; she didn’t know whether panic or pleasure predominated, but she was afraid she was going red.

Strike noted the blush and waited to see whether Robin ignored what had just been said, or responded to it for the first time. Looking down at her soup, she said,

‘Sacha can’t blame you for what she wrote in that note. She was… the papers said she’d taken a load of drink and drugs…’

‘She knew exactly what she was saying. She’d said it all to me before, sober.’

This was news to Robin. Before she could muster a response, Strike’s mobile rang, and Robin seized the opportunity to get away from the table by muttering,

‘Need the loo.’

Annoyed by the interruption, which he considered extremely ill-timed, Strike answered his phone.

‘Hi,’ said Midge, ‘I’m just letting you know, Kim and I’ve swapped jobs this evening. She’ll do the Dorchester with you.’

‘Why?’ said Strike, frowning.

‘She thinks Plug clocked her yesterday, so she’d rather he doesn’t see her again today.’

‘OK,’ said Strike. ‘Thanks for letting me know.’

He hung up, still annoyed. He’d hoped to do the Dorchester job with Robin – sitting in the bar, both of them dressed up to infiltrate a charity ball, might have been exactly the right setting for the declaration he intended to make – but unfortunately, Robin was due the night off.

Meanwhile, an agitated Robin was inside a cubicle in the Ladies, asking herself what the hell Strike was playing at, bringing up Charlotte’s suicide note again.

Knowing her work partner as well as she did, two possibilities occurred to her.

Either he was making straightforward statements of fact untinged with embarrassment, referring to the note purely because it might indeed colour Charlotte’s half-brother’s attitude to him and Robin, or…

Or what? Was he trying to tell her indirectly that he did have deeper feelings for her than he’d ever admitted before?

Was he pushing to see what she felt in turn?

Or was it safe to play this game, now she was with Murphy?

Was his aim to undermine her relationship, because it suited him better to keep her single, meaning the threat of her leaving the agency receded?

With mounting annoyance, Robin asked herself why, if Strike had something to say, it had to be couched in these plausibly deniable terms, out of the mouth of a dead woman.

What was she supposed to say, in a crowded pub, in the middle of a job: ‘was Charlotte right? Are you in love with me?’ If Strike did indeed feel anything approximating love for her, he’d had countless opportunities to say so, hadn’t he?

She’d suffered on account of her own feelings for him far more than she wanted to admit to herself nowadays.

Had he hinted at such feelings two years previously, everything might have been different…

or would it? As Robin knew from long, close contact with him, Strike didn’t do committed relationships.

A few months was all she’d ever known him manage, and Robin was now old enough, and wise enough, to know she’d never be the kind of person who wanted casual sex, or short flings.

It was important to remember that, whenever her ill-disciplined thoughts drifted towards Cormoran Strike…

She thought of Murphy, who didn’t play games, who said outright what he felt for her, who had no problem talking about a future with her, and didn’t bail on relationships at the first hint of trouble; who wasn’t, in short, an infuriating sod who messed with your feelings to further a confused, but probably self-interested, agenda.

It was pointless, not to mention masochistic, to dwell on how she’d felt when she’d hugged Strike on her wedding day, or when they’d looked into each other’s eyes on the pavement outside the Ritz and she’d known he was about to kiss her, or when she’d groped for his hand in the bed they’d shared, after she’d fled Chapman Farm…

There was a loud knock on the door of the cubicle in which Robin was sitting, and she jumped.

‘Is anyone in there?’ said an angry voice.

‘Yes,’ said Robin, and she hastily pulled up her pants and flushed the toilet.

Back at the table, Strike was still eating chips when Robin’s mobile, which she’d left lying face up on the table, received a text. Being good at reading things upside down, Strike didn’t need to touch the phone to see:

Ryan

We could probably afford something like this www.rightmove.c…

Fuck. Fuck, fuck—

‘How’s your fish?’ said Robin, sitting back down opposite him. She glanced at her phone, then put it back in her bag without answering the text.

‘Pretty good,’ said Strike.

This indication that Murphy and Robin appeared to be thinking of moving in together had come as a significant blow to Strike.

Furthermore, he sensed, from Robin’s tone, that continuing to milk Charlotte’s suicide note would be inadvisable just now.

Reluctant to abandon the field completely, however, he said,

‘You’ve told Murphy we’re taking Decima’s case?’

‘Yes,’ said Robin.

‘How’d he take it?’

‘Fine,’ said Robin shortly.

Strike retreated, but only to marginally safer ground:

‘I’ll email Sacha Legard to see if he’s prepared to meet one or other of us.’

Whether because the conversation had veered back within orbit of Charlotte’s suicide note or not, Robin now glanced at her watch.

‘I’d better get going. I’m supposed to be in Camberwell in forty minutes.’

‘OK,’ said Strike, as she gathered up her things, ‘but let’s try and get out to St George’s Avenue and talk to Wright’s housemates soon. Probably have to be both of us or it’ll take all day to find the right house, given we haven’t got the number.’

‘Fine,’ said Robin again, now brisk. ‘Let me know when.’