Page 195 of The Running Grave

One must not expect perseverance too soon.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Strike woke next morning to a moment of confusion as to where he was. He’d been dreaming that he was sitting beside Robin in her old Land Rover and exchanging anecdotes about drowning, which in the dream both had experienced several times.

Bleary eyed, he reached across to his mobile to silence the alarm and immediately saw that seven texts had come in over the last half an hour: from Pat, Lucy, Prudence, Shanker, Ilsa, Dave Polworth and journalist Fergus Robertson. With a lurch of dread, he opened Pat’s message.

Her sister’s just called. I said you weren’t here. Hope you’re all right.

Strike opened Lucy’s next.

Stick, I’m so sorry, I’ve just seen. It’s awful. I don’t know what else to say. Hope you’re ok xxx

Now with a real sense of foreboding, Strike hitched himself up in bed and opened the text from Fergus Robertson.

I’ve got the news desk asking if you’ve got a comment. Might be wise to give them something, get everyone off your back. Don’t know if you’re aware, but there’s a rumour she left a note.

His heart now beating uncomfortably fast, Strike opened his phone browser and typed in Charlotte’s name.

Death of an It-Girl: Charlotte Campbell Found Dead

Former Wild Child Charlotte Campbell Found Dead by Cleaner

Charlotte Campbell Dead in Wake of Assault Charge

He stared at the headlines, unable to take in what he was seeing. Then he pressed the link to the last story.

Charlotte Campbell, model and socialite, has died by suicide at the age of 41, her family’s lawyer confirmed on Friday evening. In a statement issued to The Times, Campbell’s mother and sister said,

‘Our beloved Charlotte took her own life on Thursday night. Charlotte was under considerable stress following a baseless accusation of assault and subsequent harassment by the press. We request privacy at this very difficult time, particularly for Charlotte’s adored young children.’

‘We’ve lost the funniest, cleverest, most original woman any of us knew,’ said Campbell’s half-brother, actor Sacha Legard, in a separate statement. ‘I’m just one of the heartbroken people who loved her, struggling to comprehend the fact that we’ll never hear her laugh again. Death lies on her like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.’

The younger daughter of broadcaster Sir Anthony Campbell and model Tara Clairmont, Campbell married Jago Ross, Viscount of Croy, in 2011. The couple had twins before divorcing last year. Prior to her marriage she was the long-term girlfriend of private detective Cormoran Strike, eldest son of rock star Jonny Rokeby. More recently Campbell dated Landon Dormer, American billionaire scion of the Dormer hotel empire, but the relationship ended ten days ago with Campbell’s arrest for assault. Friends of Dormer assert that he required stitches to his face after an altercation at Dormer’s Fitzrovia apartment.

Campbell, who first made news when she ran away from Cheltenham Ladies’ College aged 14, gained a degree in Classics at Oxford before becoming a regular fixture on the London social scene. Described as ‘mercurial and mesmerising’ by Vogue, she worked intermittently as a model and fashion writer, and spent several spells in rehab during the 90s and 00s. In 2014 she was admitted to the controversial Symonds House, a private psychiatric and addiction clinic, from which she was hospitalised after what was later described as an accidental overdose.

Campbell’s body is believed to have been discovered by a cleaner yesterday morning at her Mayfair flat.

Blood thudded in Strike’s ears. He scrolled slowly back up the article.

Two pictures accompanied the piece: the first showed Charlotte in academic gown alongside her parents on her graduation day at Oxford in the nineties. Strike remembered seeing the picture in the press while stationed in Germany with the military police. Unbeknownst to Sir Anthony and his wife, Tara, both of whom had loathed Strike, he and Charlotte had already resumed their affair at long distance.

The second picture showed Charlotte smiling into the camera, wearing a heavy, emerald-studded choker. This was a publicity still for a jewellery collection, and the irrelevant thought flashed through his numb brain that the designer, whom he’d briefly dated, would surely be glad it had been used.

‘Fuck,’ he muttered, pushing himself up on his pillows. ‘Fuck.’

Shock was battling a heavy sense of absolute inevitability. The final hand had been played and Charlotte had been wiped out, with nothing more to bet and nowhere to find credit. She must have done it right after calling him. Had one of the voicemail messages he’d deleted made her intentions explicit? After threatening to go to Robin and tell her what Strike really was, had Charlotte broken down and pleaded with him to contact her once more? Had she threatened (as she’d done so many times before) to kill herself if he didn’t give her what she wanted?

Mechanically, Strike opened the other texts he’d been sent. He could have predicted all of them except Dave Polworth’s. Dave had always loathed Charlotte, and had often told Strike he was a fool to keep taking her back.

Bit of a fucker this, Diddy.

These were the exact words Polworth had spoken on first visiting Strike in Selly Oak Military Hospital, following Strike’s loss of half a leg.

Strike set down his phone without answering any of the texts, swung his one and a half legs out of the bed and hopped off towards the bathroom, using the wall and the door jamb to balance. Amidst the many emotions now assailing him was a terrible echo of the day he’d found out his mother had died. Grief stricken though he’d been, the burden of worry and dread he’d carried with him like a dead weight throughout Leda’s second marriage to a violent, volatile, drug-using younger man had become redundant: he’d never again need to fear hearing terrible news, because the news had come. A similar, shameful trace of relief was twisted in among his conflicting emotions now: the worst had happened, so he need never again fear the worst.

Having emptied his bladder and cleaned his teeth, he dressed and put on his prosthesis, entirely forgetting breakfast. He checked out of the hotel, so distracted that he couldn’t have said with any certainty what sex the receptionist was.