Page 116 of Troubled Blood

“I most certainly don’t,” said Joan, with a spark of her old fight, and they smiled at each other.

Ted popped his head around the door.

“That’s Kerenza here, love,” he said. “Her car’s just pulled up.”

The Macmillan nurse, whom Strike had met on his first day there, was a blessing such as he could never have imagined. A slender, freckled woman his age, she brought into the house no aura of death, but of life continuing, simply with more comfort and support. Strike’s own prolonged exposure to the medical profession had inured him to a certain brand of hearty, impersonal cheerfulness, but Kerenza seemed to see Ted and Joan as individuals, not as simple-minded children, and he heard her talking to Ted, the ex-lifeguard, about people trying to take selfies with their backs to the storm waves while she took off her raincoat in the kitchen.

“Exactly. Don’t understand the sea, do they? Respect it, or stay well away, my dad would’ve said… Morning, Joan,” she said, coming into the room. “Hello, Cormoran.”

“Morning, Kerenza,” said Strike, getting to his feet. “I’ll get out of the way.”

“And how’re you feeling today, my love?” the nurse asked Joan.

“Not too bad,” said Joan. “I’m just a bit…”

She paused, to let her nephew pass out of earshot. As Strike closed the door on the two women, he heard more crunching footsteps on the gravel path outside. Ted, who was reading the local paper at the table, looked up.

“Who’s that, now?”

A moment later, Dave Polworth appeared at the glass panel in the back door, a large rucksack on his back. He entered, rainswept and grinning.

“Morning, Diddy,” he said, and they exchanged the handshake and hug that had become the standard greeting in their later years. “Morning, Ted.”

“What’re you doing here?” asked Ted.

Polworth swung his rucksack off, undid it and lifted out a couple of polythene-wrapped, frozen dishes onto the table.

“Penny baked a couple of casseroles. I’m gonna get some provisions in, wanted to know what you needed.”

The flame of pure, practical kindness that burned in Dave Polworth had never been more clearly visible to Strike, except perhaps on his very first day at primary school, when the diminutive Polworth had taken Strike under his protection.

“You’re a good lad,” said Ted, moved. “Say thanks very much to Penny, won’t you?”

“Yeah, she sent her love and all that,” said Polworth dismissively.

“Wanna keep me company while I have a smoke?” Strike asked him.

“Go on, then,” said Polworth.

“Use the shed,” suggested Ted.

So Strike and Polworth headed together across the waterlogged garden, heads bowed against the strong wind and rain, and entered Ted’s shed. Strike lit up with relief.

“You been on a diet?” asked Polworth, looking Strike up and down.

“Flu and food poisoning.”

“Oh, yeah, Lucy said you’d been ill.” Polworth jerked his head in the direction of Joan’s window. “How is she?”

“Not great,” said Strike.

“How long you down for?”

“Depends on the weather. Listen, seriously, I really appreciate everything you’ve been—”

“Shut up, you ponce.”

“Can I ask another favor?”