Page 183 of Troubled Blood

“Yeah, well,” said Robin, now laughing and crying simultaneously as she reached for tissues, “you see how that isn’t the same thing as telling me?”

“Yeah, I s’pose,” said Strike. “Now you mention it.”

He was smoking at his small Formica kitchen table while the eternal rain fell outside his attic window. Somehow, the texts from Charlotte had made him realize he had to call Robin, had to make things right with her before he set off for Cornwall and Joan. Now the sound of her voice, and her laughter, acted on him as it usually did, by making everything seem fractionally less awful.

“When are you leaving?” Robin asked, drying her eyes.

“Tomorrow at eight. Lucy’s meeting me at the car hire. We’ve got a jeep.”

“Well, be careful,” said Robin. She’d heard on the news that day about the three people who’d died, trying to travel through the wind and the floods.

“Yeah. Can’t pretend I don’t wish you were driving. Lucy’s bloody terrible behind the wheel.”

“You can stop flattering me now. I’ve forgiven you.”

“I’m serious,” said Strike, his eyes on the relentless rain. “You and your advanced driving course. You’re the only person who doesn’t scare the shit out of me behind the wheel.”

“D’you think you’ll make it?”

“Possibly not all the way in the jeep. But Polworth’s standing by to rescue us. He’s got access to dinghies. We’ve got to do it. Joan might only have days.”

“Well, I’ll be thinking about you,” said Robin. “Keeping everything crossed.”

“Cheers, Robin. Keep in touch.”

After Strike had hung up, Robin sat for a while, savoring the sudden feeling of lightness that had filled her. Then she pulled her laptop toward her, ready to shut it down before she left for her night’s surveillance in the Land Rover. Casually, as she might have thrown the dice one last time before turning away from the craps table, she typed “Paul Satchwell artist” into Google.

… artist Paul Satchwell has spent most of his career on the Greek island of…

“What?” said Robin aloud, as though the laptop had spoken to her. She clicked on the result, and the website of the Leamington Spa Museum and Art Gallery filled the screen. She hadn’t once seen it, in all her hours of searching for Satchwell. This page had either just been created or amended.

Temporary Exhibition March 3rd—7th 2014

Local Artists

The Leamington Spa Museum and Art Gallery will be hosting a temporary exhibition of artists from the Warwickshire area. Entrance free.

Robin scrolled down the page past sundry artists’ photos until she saw him.

It was, without a doubt, the same man. His face might be leathery and cracked, his teeth might have yellowed, his thick, curly hair turned whiter and thinner, but it still hung to his shoulders, while his open shirt showed thick white chest hair.

Born in Leamington Spa and raised in Warwick, artist Paul Satchwell has spent most of his career on the Greek island of Kos. Working mainly in oils, Paul’s Hellenic-influenced exploration of myths challenge the viewer to face primal fears and examine preconceptions through sensual use of line and color…

44

Huge sea of sorrow, and tempestuous griefe,

Wherein my feeble barke is tossed long,

Far from the hoped hauen of reliefe,

Why doe thy cruel billowes beat so strong,

And thy moyst mountaines each on others throng,

Threatning to swallow vp my fearefull lyfe?

Edmund Spenser