Page 145 of Troubled Blood

“You know,” said Robin, turning to look at the room, “people who’re manic often think they’re receiving supernatural messages. Things the sane would call coincidences.”

“I was thinking exactly that,” said Strike, turning to look at the figure of Pallas Athena, on top of the ugly mantel clock. “To a man in Talbot’s state of mental confusion, I’m guessing this room would’ve seemed crammed with astrological—”

Roy’s voice sounded in the hall outside.

“—then don’t blame me—”

The door opened and the family filed back inside.

“—if she hears things she doesn’t like!” Roy finished, addressing Cynthia, who was immediately behind him, and looked scared. Roy’s face was an unhealthy purple again, though the skin around his eyes remained a jaundiced yellow.

He seemed startled to see Strike and Robin standing at the window.

“Admiring your garden,” said Strike, as he and Robin returned to their sofa.

Roy grunted and took his seat again. He was breathing heavily.

“Apologies,” he said, after a moment or two. “You aren’t seeing the family at its best.”

“Very stressful for everyone,” said Strike, as Anna and Kim re-entered the room and resumed their seats on the sofa, where they sat holding hands. Cynthia perched herself beside them, watching Roy anxiously.

“I want to say something,” Roy told Strike. “I want to make it perfectly clear—”

“Oh for God’s sake, I’ve had one phone call with her!” said Anna.

“I’d appreciate it, Anna,” said Roy, his chest laboring, “if I could finish.”

Addressing Strike, he said,

“Oonagh Kennedy disliked me from the moment Margot and I first met. She was possessive toward Margot, and she also happened to have left the church, and she was one of those who had to make an enemy of everyone still in it. Moreover—”

“Dr. Phipps,” interrupted Strike, who could foresee the afternoon degenerating into a long row about Oonagh Kennedy. “I think you should know that when we interviewed Oonagh, she made it quite clear that the person she thought we should be concentrating our energies on is Paul Satchwell.”

For a second or two, Roy appeared unable to fully grasp what had just been said to him.

“See?” said Anna furiously. “You just implied that there was more between my mother and Satchwell than one drink. What did you mean? Or were you,” she said, and Robin heard the underlying hope, “just angry and lashing out?”

“People who insist on opening cans of worms, Anna,” said Roy, “shouldn’t complain when they get covered in slime.”

“Well, go on then,” said Anna, “spill your slime.”

“Anna,” whispered Cynthia, and was ignored.

“All right,” said Roy. “All right, then.” He turned back to Strike and Robin. “Early in our relationship, I saw a note of Satchwell’s Margot had kept. ‘Dear Brunhilda’ it said—it was his pet name for her. The Valkyrie, you know. Margot was tall. Fair.”

Roy paused and swallowed.

“Some three weeks before she disappeared, she came home and told me she’d run into Satchwell in the street and that they’d gone for an… innocent drink.”

He cleared his throat. Cynthia poured him more tea.

“After she—after she’d disappeared, I had to go and collect her things from the St. John’s practice. Among them I found a small—”

He held his fingers some three inches apart.

“—wooden figure, a stylized Viking which she’d been keeping on her desk. Written in ink on this figure’s base was ‘Brunhilda,’ with a small heart.”

Roy took a sip of coffee.