Page 196 of Troubled Blood

“Yes,” said Robin.

“Then you know perfectly well,” said Satchwell, waggling his fork at her, “that it was just the once. Don’t you?”

He was smiling, trying to pass off the implied admonition as waggish, but Robin felt the spindle-thin spike of aggression.

“So you went for a drink, and talked?” said Robin, smiling, as though she hadn’t noticed the undertone, daring him to become defensive, and he continued, in a milder tone,

“Yeah, we went to some bar in Camden, not far from my flat. She’d been on an ’ouse call to some patient.”

Robin made a note.

“And can you remember what you talked about?”

“She told me she’d met ’er husband at medical school, ’e was an ’igh-flier and all that. What was ’e?” said Satchwell, with what seemed to Robin a forced unconcern. “A cardiologist or something?”

“Hematologist,” said Robin.

“What’s that, blood? Yeah, she was always impressed by clever people, Margot. Didn’t occur to ’er that they can be shits like anyone else.”

“Did you get the impression Dr. Phipps was a shit?” asked Robin lightly.

“Not really,” said Satchwell. “But I was told ’e had a stick up his arse and was a bit of a mummy’s boy.”

“Who told you that?” asked Robin, pausing with her pen suspended over her notebook.

“Someone ’oo’d met him,” he replied with a slight shrug. “You not married?” he went on, his eyes on Robin’s bare left hand.

“Living with someone,” said Robin, with a brief smile. It was the answer she’d learned to give, to shut down flirtation from witnesses and clients, to erect barriers. Satchwell said, “Ah. I always know, if a bird’s living with a bloke without marriage, she must be really keen on him. Nothing but ’er feelings holding her, is there?”

“I suppose not,” said Robin, with a brief smile. She knew he was trying to disconcert her. “Did Margot mention anything that might be worrying her, or causing her problems? At home or at work?”

“Told you, it was all window dressing,” said Satchwell, munching on fries. “Great job, great ’usband, nice kid, nice ’ouse: she’d made it.” He swallowed. “I did the same thing back: told her I was having an exhibition, won an award for one of me paintings, in a band, serious girlfriend… which was a lie,” he added, with a slight snort. “I only remember that bird because we split up later that evening. Don’t ask me her name now. We ’adn’t been together long. She had long black hair and a massive tattoo of a spider’s web round her navel, that’s what I mainly remember—yeah, anyway, I ended it. Seeing Margot again—”

He hesitated. His uncovered eye unfocused, he said,

“I was thirty-five. It’s a funny age. It starts dawning on you forty’s really gonna happen to you, not just to other people. What are you, twenty-five?”

“Twenty-nine,” said Robin.

“Happens earlier for women, that worrying about getting old thing,” said Satchwell. “Got kids yet?”

“No,” said Robin, and then, “so Margot didn’t say anything to you that might suggest a reason for disappearing voluntarily?”

“Margot wouldn’t have gone away and left everyone in the lurch,” said Satchwell, as positive on the point as Oonagh. “Not Margot. Responsible was her middle name. She was a good girl, you know? School prefect sort.”

“So you didn’t make any plans to meet again?”

“No plans,” said Satchwell, munching on chips. “I mentioned to ’er my band was playing at the Dublin Castle the following week. Said, ‘drop in if you’re passing,’ but she said she wouldn’t be able to. Dublin Castle was a pub in Camden,” Satchwell added. “Might still be there.”

“Yes,” said Robin, “it is.”

“I told the investigating officer I’d mentioned the gig to her. Told ’im I’d’ve been up for seeing her again, if she’d wanted it. I ’ad nothing to hide.”

Robin remembered Strike’s opinion that Satchwell volunteering this information seemed almost too helpful, and, trying to dissemble her sudden suspicion, asked:

“Did anyone spot Margot at the pub, the night you were playing?”

Satchwell took his time before swallowing, then said,