Page 50 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

What I seem to myself, do you ask of me?

No hero, I confess.

Robert Browning A Light Woman

Robin had seen the online article about Strike just before boarding the Tube that morning, and consequently spent most of her journey to Denmark Street staring fixedly at the passenger opposite’s feet and thinking about what she’d just read, instead of the discovery she’d made the previous evening and which she’d been looking forward to sharing with Strike.

She told herself the Candy story must be false, but could she be completely sure?

Back in 2013 she and Strike had been by no means as close as they were now; there’d been pockets of his life that had remained totally mysterious to her.

A voice in her head kept insisting you know he never did this , but life had taught Robin that men you might trust completely – clean-cut chartered accountants like her own unfaithful ex-husband, for instance, or serial rapists (the man who’d ended her university career, and ruined her fallopian tubes, had been cohabiting with a woman who’d stood by him throughout the trial and given him flimsy fake alibis), or the bigamists and philanderers she’d dealt with at work – were sometimes hiding huge and jagged secrets that tore apart more lives than their own when revealed.

Strike’s record on openness and transparency when it came to his sex life was extremely poor.

Robin wouldn’t have known about Madeline if Charlotte hadn’t told her, about Bijou if Ilsa hadn’t told her, or about Dominic Culpepper’s cousin if Kim hadn’t mentioned her.

No, Strike wouldn’t be the first man to have done something nobody around him believed him capable of, and the pit of Robin’s stomach felt as though it was teeming with wriggling maggots, and she just wanted to get to the office and have the thing out with him, believing (but could she count even on that?) that if she could look him in the eye, she’d know the truth.

Robin had just left Tottenham Court Road when her mobile rang.

‘There are journalists outside the office, he wanted you to know,’ said Pat.

‘How many?’ said Robin.

‘Two.’

‘What’s going on there?’

‘I think he’s going to do something silly,’ said Pat.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘He’s trying to get hold of that journalist who wrote the thing.’

‘I’ll be there in five,’ said Robin, speeding up.

As she rounded the corner into Denmark Street she heard a man calling her name. She bowed her head and kept walking; there didn’t seem to be a photographer, thank God—

‘Miss Ellacott? Miss Ellacott? Anything to say about Lord Branfoot’s comments? Anything to say about Candy, Miss Ellacott?’

‘No comment,’ said Robin coldly, refusing to look the young man in the face, but here came an older man, his phone recording in his hand.

‘Did you know about Candy, Miss Ellacott? Did you meet her?’

‘No comment,’ repeated Robin; she was at the door, had opened it, and slammed it in the reporters’ faces.

Up the two flights of metal stairs she ran, her operation site aching, until she reached the glass door. The first thing she saw on entering was Pat’s alarmed face; then she heard her detective partner’s voice as, probably, could the entire street.

‘YEAH, I’LL LEAVE A FUCKING MESSAGE! YOU TELL THAT CUNT I’M COMING FOR HIM, ALL RIGHT? ’

‘Oh, for God’s—’

Robin ran through the dividing doorway into the inner office.

‘ IF HE THINKS THE ONLY THING I CAN GET ON HIM IS THAT HIS WIFE— ’

Strike’s first clue that his partner had arrived was his phone being wrenched out of his hand.

‘ The fuck—? ’

Robin stabbed at the screen to end the call.

‘ You can’t go to war with Culpepper, ’ she said fiercely, backing away from Strike while keeping a tight, two-handed grip on his phone. ‘You can’t ! He’s got a national newspaper on his side!’

Strike looked at her, his expression thunderous.

‘So you’ve seen it. Obviously.’

‘Yes, I’ve seen it.’

‘He’s not fucking doing this to me. He’s not fucking doing it . I’ll fucking destroy that fucker, I’ll make him wish—’

‘Strike—’

‘They’ve paid some fucking – they’ve dragged up some—’

‘ I know what they’ve done! We need to talk!’ said Robin, slamming the dividing door on the staring Pat.

Strike was pacing in his shirt sleeves.

‘What?’ he threw furiously at Robin, who was watching him. ‘You need me to say it, do you? Fine, I’ll fucking say it: I’ve never hired a sex worker – I’ve never hired one, full fucking stop, but I’ve sure as fuck never done it to entrap anyone.’

‘I know,’ said Robin ( did she know? God, she hoped she did), ‘but this isn’t the way to deal with it, you’re just giving Culpepper more to print, threatening him!’

Robin wished her voice wasn’t shaking, but she had to ask the next question; matters had gone too far for polite avoidance of the subject.

‘Who was the woman in the first article?’

Strike now knew the fury of a cornered predator.

His business under attack, his relationship with Robin threatened; he knew he owed her an explanation, and that it was crucial she heard the truth from him, and that he made it sound as unsordid as possible, but all he really wanted to do was start punching out windows.

‘Her name’s Nina Lascelles,’ he said. ‘The Honourable Nina Lascelles, if you want the full fucking – and she’s how I got hold of the manuscript of fucking Bombyx Mori ,’ he said, referring to a book the agency had been keen to get its hands on.

‘Culpepper told me his cousin worked at the publishers, and gave me her contact details. We met, we went to the Roper Chard party together, she ran me off a copy of the manuscript. There was no seduction, no promise of anything. She enjoyed the adventure.’

‘And?’ said Robin, who was still holding Strike’s mobile tightly in both hands.

‘And I invited her to dinner with me at Lucy’s the next night. As a thank you.’

Robin, who’d never been invited to Lucy’s for dinner, couldn’t understand why Strike, most private of men, would have mixed business and family in this way.

‘And then—?’

‘I slept with her,’ said Strike aggressively, ‘yeah. Twice. And then I never called her again. But there was no fucking coercion, no quid pro quos , nothing.’

‘Right,’ said Robin.

‘It was – one of those things. I didn’t particularly—’

He had just enough sense to bite off the end of that sentence, but Robin had heard it, anyway. Didn’t particularly fancy her.

But you slept with her anyway, thought Robin, because of course you did. And now look.

‘She wanted a relationship,’ said Strike, who thought this was a point in his favour. ‘She wanted to keep it going. That’s why – I could tell she was carrying a grudge, the night I saw her at the Dorchester. She claims I fucked up one of her best friend’s lives, too.’

‘Whose?’ said Robin in alarm, visualising fresh vistas of fertile scandals for the tabloids to explore.

‘No fucking idea. Probably some cheating wife we investigated. But she guessed I was there on a job, at the Dorchester, so when Mr A told his ex he knew what she was up to—’

‘Well, going forwards,’ said Robin (Strike would have said exactly the same, she knew, had it been a question of another employee), ‘maybe you shouldn’t be doing the kind of jobs where you might bump into former girlfriends.’

‘There aren’t that fucking many of them!’

‘But a lot of them come from that kind of social circle, don’t they?

’ said Robin, who was determined to have her say; not to punish him, but because the agency meant more to her than coddling Strike’s feelings.

‘It’s a miracle this has never happened before.

You’re the most recognisable member of the agency, as well.

We just need to bear that in mind from now on. ’

After fuming in silence for a few seconds, Strike bellowed ‘FUCK’S SAKE’ at no one in particular, though it made Robin jump.

‘You know what you need to do?’ Robin said, forcing herself to speak calmly. ‘Call Fergus Robertson.’

Strike glared at her, then said,

‘I thought of that, but I’m not—’

‘This won’t go away with “no comment”. Talk to Robertson, tell him the truth. You’ve always played fair with him.’

‘I didn’t want to have to—’

‘It’s too late for what you “didn’t want to have to do”,’ said Robin angrily. This was her agency as well, and she wasn’t going to stand by and watch it get trashed. ‘You need to give Robertson the facts. You’ve got to push back.’

‘It won’t be enough. I need to stop this at the source.’

‘What are you going to do, track this girl down and threaten her into recanting?’ said Robin, now losing patience. ‘How d’you think that ’ll play out? “ Cormoran Strike in further threats to sex worker ”? Or are you planning to lay about Dominic Culpepper with a baseball bat? Because that —’

‘Give me my phone.’

‘You can’t threaten Culpepper, Strike! You can’t !’

‘I’m not going to. I’ll call Robertson and see if I can do some damage control.’

Robin gave the phone back but stood watching him.

‘I’d rather you didn’t listen,’ he told her.

‘Fine,’ said Robin coldly, and she left the room.

Strike waited until the door had closed before sitting down and pressing Robertson’s number.

‘’Ello, ’ello,’ said an amused voice on the end of the line. ‘Just thinking of calling you, seeing as you’re not returning any of my colleagues’ calls. Why’s Mr Culpepper so keen to get you, all of a sudden?’

‘Might be prepared to tell you that,’ said Strike, ‘as long as I’m guaranteed an accurate quote or two.’

‘Who’s giving the quotes?’

‘Me,’ said Strike.

‘Fire away,’ said Robertson, and Strike heard the turning of a page.

‘I’ve never hired any woman – emphasis on “any” – sex worker or otherwise, to entrap or lure an investigative target or witness,’ said Strike, and he heard Robertson’s shorthand moving rapidly across paper, ‘nor have I ever attempted to get sex by offering money, withholding payment, or by any other kind of threat. I have never met, spoken to or otherwise interacted with the woman calling herself Candy and her claims, for which she’s offered no proof, are completely without foundation. ’

‘Gonna take legal action?’ asked Robertson, who was still audibly scribbling.

‘On the record, yeah, I’m speaking to lawyers. Off the record, I haven’t got the money to sue, as Culpepper fucking well knows.’

‘Right,’ said Robertson. ‘This all seems to have got very personal, very fast.’

‘There’s a reason for that,’ said Strike, ‘and I might be prepared to give you some pointers on where to dig, as long as you can guarantee I’m going to be accurately quoted…’