Page 178 of Troubled Blood

“Cormoran Strike here. Who’s this?”

“Clare Spencer, the Athorns’ social worker. You left a message for me.”

“Oh, yes,” said Strike, pulling out a kitchen chair and sitting down. “Thanks for getting back to me, Mrs.—er—Ms. Spencer.”

“Mrs.,” she said, sounding very slightly amused. “Can I just ask—are you the Cormoran Strike?”

“I doubt there are many others,” said Strike.

He reached for his cigarettes, then pushed them away again. He really did need to cut down.

“I see,” said Clare Spencer. “Well, it was a bit of a shock to get a message from you. How d’you know the Athorns?”

“Their name came up,” said Strike, thinking how very inaccurate a statement that was, “in the course of a case I’m investigating.”

“Was it you who went into their downstairs neighbor’s shop, and threatened him?”

“I didn’t threaten him,” said Strike. “But his attitude seemed aggressive, so I pointed out that they had friends who might take it amiss if he bullied them.”

“Ha,” said Clare, sounding warmer. “He’s a horror, that man. He’s been trying to get them out of that flat for ages. Wants to buy the whole building. He removed a supporting wall, then tried to blame Deborah and Samhain for his ceiling sagging. He’s caused them a lot of stress.”

“The flat was—” Strike almost said “mucked out,” but tried to find a politer way of saying it, “—thoroughly cleaned recently, he said?”

“Yes. I’m not denying it was pretty messy, but we’ve sorted that out now, and as for saying they’ve caused structural damage, we got a surveyor in who went through the whole place and agreed there’s nothing wrong with it. What a chancer the man is. Anyway, you did a good thing, there, warning him off. He thinks because they haven’t got many close relatives, he can get away with browbeating them. So, what’s this case you’re investigating?”

Briefly, Strike told her about Margot Bamborough, her disappearance in 1974, and the information that had led him to the Athorns’ door.

“… and so,” he concluded, “I wanted to talk to someone who could tell me how much reliance I can put on what they’ve told me.”

There was a brief silence.

“I see,” said Clare, who sounded a little more guarded now. “Well, I’m afraid I’ve got a duty of confidentiality as their social worker, so—”

“Could I ask you some questions? And if you can’t answer, obviously I’ll accept that.”

“All right,” she said. He had the impression that his actions with regard to the bullying ironmonger had put her on his side.

“They’re clearly competent to live alone,” said Strike.

“With support, yes,” said Clare. “They’ve done very well, actually. They’ve got a strong mutual bond. It’s probably kept both of them out of institutionalized care.”

“And what exactly—?” Strike wondered how to word the ­question sensitively. Clare came to his aid.

“Fragile X syndrome,” she said. “Deborah’s relatively high-functioning, although she’s got some social difficulties, but she can read and so forth. Samhain copes better socially, but his cognitive impairment’s greater than his mother’s.”

“And the father, Gwilherm—?”

Clare laughed.

“I’ve only been their social worker for a couple of years. I never knew Gwilherm.”

“You can’t tell me how sane he was?”

There was a longer pause.

“Well,” she said, “I suppose… it seems to be common knowledge that he was very odd. Various family members have spoken to me about him. Apparently he thought he could hex people. With black magic, you know.”

“Deborah told me something I found… slightly concerning. It involved a doctor called Dr. Brenner, who was a partner of Dr. Bamborough’s at the St. John’s practice. She might’ve been referring to a medical examination, but—”