Page 67 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

The stars have not dealt me the worst they can do:

My pleasures are plenty, my troubles are two.

But oh, my two troubles they reave me of rest,

The brains in my head and the heart in my breast.

A. E. Housman XVII, Additional Poems

Several days after returning from Masham and having worked almost non-stop since, Robin still felt as she had done ever since she’d unwrapped Strike’s bracelet: anxious and guilty.

Her nervousness resembled the state in which a person waited for exam results, or the outcome of medical tests.

When, from time to time, her unruly subconscious made suggestions as to what she might be anticipating, or dreading – she wasn’t sure which – she quelled them as best she could.

Strike’s bracelet was now hidden inside her only evening bag in her wardrobe, but it was hard to forget what she’d drunkenly thought on first examining it.

Moreover, she knew that if another woman had shown her the bracelet, and explained the significance of the charms, she’d have responded, ‘I think he might be trying to tell you he’s in love with you.

’ What man would give a present so intimate, so full of meaning only two people could understand, without knowing how it might be interpreted?

Yet the gift had been given by Cormoran Strike, he who voluntarily lived in two rooms over his office, alone and self-sufficient.

Yes, the recent references to Charlotte’s suicide note might suggest a desire to open a conversation they’d only once before come close to having, while eating curry at the office, when Strike had told her she was his best friend, and she’d thought he might be about to say more, to acknowledge what both of them, she remained convinced, had felt on the day they’d hugged at Robin’s wedding, when she could have sworn he’d considered asking her to run away with him, and leave Matthew standing on the dancefloor…

But he hadn’t spoken at the wedding, had he?

Nor in the office, over whisky and curry.

In the midst of her guilty deliberations about what might be going on inside Strike’s head, Robin kept bumping back against the conclusion she’d reached in the bathroom of the Prince of Wales pub: that Strike, whether consciously or unconsciously, was playing some kind of game intended to weaken her ties to Murphy, lest she contemplate leaving the agency for a more settled existence.

The thing she’d thought, when sitting, drunk, on her parents’ bathroom floor, felt like a betrayal of the man with whom she was now supposed to be setting up house.

She loved Murphy, didn’t she? She’d certainly told him so, and she thought – knew – she did.

Barring his two recent cobra strikes of anger, one born of stress, one of jealousy, and both entwined with his own history of drinking and the failure of his marriage, they hardly ever argued.

He was kind and intelligent, and she couldn’t have asked more of him in the aftermath of the ectopic pregnancy.

He’d never expressed an opinion on how much she earned, or complained about the old Land Rover, or what everyone else seemed to see as her rackety career.

Their now-resumed sex life was far more enjoyable than the one Robin had had with Matthew, because Murphy seemed to actually care whether Robin was enjoying herself, whereas Matthew, she realised in retrospect, had mostly wanted applause.

He was generous, too: she was currently wearing the opal earrings he’d bought her for Christmas, which matched the pendant her parents had given her for her thirtieth.

Most importantly of all, Murphy was open and honest. He didn’t play games, didn’t lie, didn’t compartmentalise his life so that Robin didn’t really know where she stood.

So she owed him similar honesty and transparency, didn’t she?

Yet she was increasingly feeling as she supposed unfaithful spouses must do as their lies snowballed and they were kept in a constant state of alertness for the slip that might lead to discovery.

If Murphy found out she and Strike were interviewing relatives of other possible William Wrights, he’d know they were investigating the body in the vault, not just trying to find the missing Rupert.

Almost worse: Strike had sent her an itinerary for their visit to Crieff and Ironbridge.

He’d booked two sleeper berths to Glasgow for the night of the sixteenth.

They were then to pick up a hire car and drive to Crieff to interview the abandoned wife of Niall Semple, before continuing south to Ironbridge, where Tyler Powell’s grandmother lived, breaking their journey overnight in the Lake District.

Robin had Googled the Lake District hotel.

It looked rather beautiful, with stunning views out over Windermere.

She and Strike usually stayed in the cheapest possible accommodation when on investigative trips.

Little ripples of nervous excitement kept hitting her at the thought of the place, and she was trying not to analyse them, because she was already burdened with so much guilt.

She’d told Murphy the forthcoming three-day trip north was connected to ‘the Fleetwood case’.

Thankfully, being as busy as ever at work, Murphy hadn’t asked for many details.

Robin’s nagging feelings of guilt and confusion manifested themselves outwardly as an increased niceness and consideration to her boyfriend.

Before they’d returned to London, she’d agreed to put in an offer on the second house they’d viewed, but she’d known all along that it wouldn’t be accepted, and was unsurprised when they heard, at the end of the first week of January, that it had sold for nearly ten thousand pounds more than the most they could have afforded.

Now Murphy was sending her the specs of other houses, and she was making half-promises to view them when she had time.

Meanwhile, she was policing and second-guessing every move she made where Strike was concerned.

On the dark and dreary evening of New Year’s Day, she arrived home after a stint of surveillance of Plug, who hadn’t stirred since he got back from the pub in the small hours, and had barely pulled off her coat when Strike texted her.

Valentine Longcaster doesn’t want to talk to us. Not a big surprise. He was Charlotte’s biggest fan.

Sitting on her sofa, Robin felt again that thrill of – what? Panic? Excitement? – at the recurrence of Charlotte’s name, but she was determined to appear unflustered and professional, so she texted back:

Pity. I want to know why Rupert crashed Legard’s birthday party. On the subject of trying to get people to talk, I’ve been wondering what you’d think of me trying an approach to Gretchen Schiff, Sofia Medina’s flatmate?

Strike was slow at responding to this suggestion. After five minutes had passed, Robin thought he might have forgotten who Sofia Medina was, and added:

Sofia, the girl whose body was found on the North Wessex Downs. Pink top.

When there was still no answer, Robin took her phone with her into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Strike’s response came just as the kettle was boiling.

Sorry, thought Mrs TT was on the move, false alarm. I think trying to get Schiff to talk is a good idea. If Medina knew a bloke with dark curly hair who likes wearing sunglasses indoors, we’ve finally got something concrete.

OK, I’ll message Schiff. I’ve found her Instagram.

Robin had a couple more things she wanted to tell Strike, one of which she felt awkward and embarrassed about, while the other might be completely irrelevant to the investigation.

While she was wondering whether it mightn’t be easier to broach both of them by text, rather than face to face, Strike texted again.

Newsflash: just heard from Barclay. I put him on Jim Todd this afternoon. Todd cleaned a café for two hours, then made a call from a public phone box and a pointless Tube journey.

How, pointless?

Just sat on the Circle line for an hour, going round, then got off where he got on. There’s definitely something fishy about Todd. Can’t find him in any records. Think he’s using a fake name.

Robin now received a text from Murphy, who was at work. She saw the tell-tale link to rightmove.co.uk, and swiped it away without reading it, instead texting Strike again.

You think Todd’s got a record?

Starting to think it’s odds on.

Having read this message, Robin decided to mention the subject she found awkward.

In the small amount of time she’d had over Christmas that hadn’t been dedicated to fretting about her feelings for Strike, or his for her, she’d also been worrying about what he expected her to do regarding porn actor Dangerous Dick de Lion, who, if the cipher note slipped through the office door was to be believed, had been the body in the silver vault. Robin texted:

I wanted to talk to you about Dick de Lion.

There was no immediate response, possibly because Mrs Two-Times was now genuinely on the move.

Robin therefore opened Murphy’s text and followed the link to the details of a house in Walthamstow.

Unlike most of the two-bed-one-box-room terraced houses he’d sent her, it looked as though it was recently decorated and stood on the end of the terrace. Murphy’s text read:

Only two bedrooms, though.

Exactly how many IVF babies are you hoping for? was Robin’s immediate thought.

Her phone rang. Strike was calling instead of texting. Trying to ignore the lurch in her stomach, Robin answered.

‘What about de Lion?’ Strike asked.

‘I – well, I’m not going to be able to pretend I’m casting a porn shoot, however much research I do. Sorry, but I’m just not going to be any good at it. If you think that’s the only way to find out where he is, it’ll have to be one of the others.’

She wondered whether Strike was thinking her prudish or inadequate. The truth was that Robin had a strong aversion to pornography. The rapist who’d wrecked her fallopian tubes had kept a stack of movies focusing on throttling and rape beneath the floorboards where he’d also hidden his gorilla mask.

‘I didn’t want to have to involve any of the others on de Lion,’ said Strike.

‘Well, then, shall we concentrate on finding out who the girl was, who posted the note through the door?’

‘Shit, I forgot to tell you,’ said Strike.

‘I know who she is. Her professional name’s Fyola Fay, her real name’s Fiona Freeman, and she lives in Wimbledon.

I found a website dedicated to outing female porn stars.

Real names, former or current professions, marital status, etc.

No equivalent site for men, unfortunately. ’

‘There’s a surprise,’ said Robin darkly. ‘Shall I try and talk to her?’

‘We need to think that through,’ said Strike.

‘I don’t doubt she’d be happier talking to you than me, but I’ve found out she lives with a porn director who looks like he lifts buses for weights and eats steroids for breakfast. A bit of covert surveillance on the house might be needed, so we make sure to catch her at home alone.

‘By the way, we seem to have picked up another Gateshead. Crazy-sounding Scottish woman who’s called twice now, asking me to meet her at the Golden Fleece.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ said Strike. ‘She sounds crazy enough to have mistaken me for Jason of the Argonauts.’

Robin laughed, then said,

‘There was something else I was going to tell you, actually,’ said Robin.

‘I know it might not be relevant at all, but I Googled Rita Linda while I was home and got a search result I want you to look at. It’s the only one I’ve found that would explain “it might be in the papers” and Wright “knowing what happened t—”’

‘Shit, got to go, Mrs TT’s active,’ said Strike.

He hung up.

Robin scrolled through her recent photos to find a screenshot she’d saved of a paragraph about ‘Reata Lindvall’, the woman whose name she’d found online while too drunk to read, outside the Bay Horse, and texted it to Strike.

She made herself a cup of tea, grabbed some biscuits, sat down at her laptop and headed back to the abandoned Instagram page of Sapphire Neagle, the missing schoolgirl who’d left online messages for both Calvin Osgood, the real music producer, and Oz, his online impersonator.

Robin was trying to identify the school Sapphire had briefly attended before her disappearance.

One pretty black girl seemed to have become close to Sapphire during her weeks at the school, judging by the many selfies the two had taken together, but Robin hadn’t yet managed to find the friend’s real name.

In spite of having something to occupy her mind and the matter-of-fact exchange of information she’d just had with her detective partner, Robin’s underlying anxiety hadn’t been assuaged.

She still felt as though waiting for something to happen, something disruptive and cathartic, as a person feels in the change of air pressure the first intimations of a coming thunderstorm.