Page 145 of The Running Grave

‘No,’ said Pat, stiffening.

‘Has he called?’

‘No.’

‘Let me know if he does either. I’ll be through here. Don’t worry about interrupting me, I’ll just be trying to find a needle in a haystack on Facebook and Mumsnet.’

Once settled at his desk, Strike made his two phone calls. Bigfoot’s wife was gratifyingly ecstatic to see concrete evidence of her wealthy husband’s infidelity. The man who wanted his mother’s movement’s watched, and who had an upper-class accent so pronounced Strike found it hard to believe he wasn’t putting it on, was also delighted to hear from the detective.

‘Ay was thinkin’ of gettin’ in touch with Patters’ns if I didn’t hyar from yeh soon.’

‘You don’t want to use them, they’re shit,’ said Strike, and was rewarded with a surprised guffaw.

Having asked Pat to email the newest client a contract, Strike returned to his desk, opened the notebook in which he’d written every possible combination of the first names and surnames he knew Cherie Gittins had used in youth, logged into Facebook using a fake profile, and began his methodical search.

As he’d expected, the problem wasn’t too few results, but too many. There were multiple results for every name he tried, not only in Britain, but also in Australia, New Zealand and America. Wishing he could hire people to do this donkey work for him, rather than pay two of Shanker’s criminal mates to watch Littlejohn, he followed – or, in the case of private accounts, sent follower requests to – every woman whose photo might plausibly be that of a thirty-eight-year-old Cherie Gittins.

Two and a half hours, three mugs of tea and a sandwich later, Strike came across a Facebook account set to private with the name Carrie Curtis Woods. He’d included ‘Carrie’ in his search as a shortened version of ‘Carine’. As the double surname was unhyphenated, he suspected the account owner would be American rather than English, but the photograph had caught his attention. The smiling woman had the same curly blonde hair and insipid prettiness of the first picture of Cherie he’d found. In the picture, she was cuddling two young girls Strike supposed were her daughters.

Strike had just sent a follow request to Curtis Woods when the music in the outer office ceased abruptly. He heard a male voice. After a moment or two, the phone on Strike’s desk rang.

‘What’s up?’

‘There’s a Barry Saxon here to see you.’

‘Never heard of him,’ said Strike.

‘He says he’s met you. Says he knows an Abigail Glover.’

‘Oh,’ said Strike, closing Facebook, as the memory of a glowering, bearded man presented itself: Baz, of the Forester pub. ‘OK. Give me a minute, then send him in.’

49

Nine in the third place means…

A goat butts against a hedge

And gets its horns entangled.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Strike rose and went to the noticeboard on the wall, where he’d pinned various items relating to the UHC case, and folded the wooden wings to conceal the Polaroids of teenagers in pig masks and the photo of Kevin Pirbright’s bedroom. He’d just sat down when the door opened, and Barry Saxon entered.

Strike judged him to be around forty. He had very small, deep-set hazel eyes with large pouches beneath them, and his hair and beard looked as though their owner spent a lot of time caring for them. He came to a halt before Strike, with his hands in his jeans pockets, feet planted wide apart.

‘You weren’ Terry, then,’ he said, squinting at the detective.

‘No,’ said Strike. ‘How did you find that out?’

‘Ab told Patrick, an’ ’e told me.’

With an effort, Strike recalled that Patrick was Abigail Glover’s lodger.

‘Does Abigail know you’re here?’

‘Not bloody likely,’ said Saxon, with a slight snort.

‘D’you want to sit down?’