Page 111 of Troubled Blood

She sent the message, then looked up at Linda.

“Who’s Saul Morris?” her mother asked.

“Subcontractor at the agency. Ex-police,” said Robin.

“Oh,” said Linda.

Robin could tell that had given Linda fresh food for thought. If she was honest with herself, she’d meant to do exactly that. Picking her laptop off the table, she left the kitchen.

The bathroom was, of course, occupied. Robin returned to her room. By the time she lay back down on her bed, laptop open again, Morris had texted her again.

Tell me your troubles and I’ll tell you mine. Problem shared and all that.

Slightly regretting that she’d answered him, Robin turned the mobile face down on her bed and continued reading Strike’s document.

Irene’s invented sign looks like a big fish and Talbot’s blunt about what he thinks it represents: “the monster Cetus, Leviathan, the biblical whale, superficial charm, evil in depths. Headstrong, enjoys spotlight, a performer, a liar.” Talbot seems to have suspected Irene was a liar even before she was proven to have lied about her trip to the dentist, which Talbot never found out about, although there’s no indication as to what he thinks she was lying about.

Margot as Babalon

This is only of relevance in as much as it shows just how ill Talbot was.

On the night he was finally sectioned, he attempted some kind of magic ritual. Judging by his notes, he was trying to conjure Baphomet, presumably because he thought Baphomet would take the form of Margot’s killer.

According to Talbot, what manifested in the room wasn’t Baphomet, but the spirit of Margot “who blames me, who attacks me.” Talbot believed she’d become Babalon in death, Babalon being Baphomet’s second-in-command/consort. The demon he “saw” was carrying a cup of blood and a sword. There are repeated mentions of lions scribbled round the picture of the demon. Babalon rides a seven-headed lion on the card representing Lust in the Thoth tarot.

At some point after Talbot drew the demon, he went back and drew Latin crosses over some of the notes and on the demon itself, and wrote a biblical quotation warning against witchcraft across the picture. The appearance of the demon seems to have pushed him back toward religion, and that’s where his notes end.

Robin heard the bathroom door open and close. Now desperate for a pee, she jumped up and headed out of her room.

Stephen was crossing the landing, holding his washbag, puffy-eyed and yawning.

“Sorry about last night, Rob,” he said. “Jenny thinks it was the sprouts.”

“Yeah, Mum said,” Robin replied, edging around him. “No problem. Hope she feels better.”

“We’re going to take her out for a walk. I’ll see if I can buy you some ear plugs.”

Once she’d showered, Robin returned to her room. Her phone beeped twice while she was dressing.

Brushing her hair in the mirror, her eyes fell on the new perfume she’d received as a Christmas present from her mother. Robin had told her she was looking for a new fragrance, because the old one reminded her too much of Matthew. She’d been touched that Linda remembered the conversation when she opened the gift.

The bottle was round; not an orb, but a flattish circle: Chanel Chance Eau Fraîche. The liquid was pale green. An unfortunate association of ideas now made Robin think of sprouts. Nevertheless, she sprayed some on her wrists and behind her ears, filling the air with the scent of sharp lemon and nondescript flowers. What, she wondered, had made her mother choose it? What was it about the perfume that made her think “Robin”? To Robin’s nostrils it smelled like a deodorant, generic, clean and totally without romance. She remembered her unsuccessful purchase of Fracas, and the desire to be sexy and sophisticated that had ended only in headaches. Musing about the disparity between the way people would like to be seen, and the way others prefer to see them, Robin sat back down on her bed beside her laptop and flipped over her phone.

Morris had texted twice more.

Lonely and hungover this end. Not being with the kids at Christmas is shit.

When Robin hadn’t answered this, he’d texted again.

Sorry, being a maudlin dickhead. Feel free to ignore.

Calling himself a dickhead was the most likable thing she’d ever known Morris do. Feeling sorry for him, Robin replied,

It must be tough, I’m sorry.

She then returned to her laptop and the last bit of Strike’s document, detailing actions to be taken, and with initials beside each to show which of them should undertake it.

Action points