Page 265 of Troubled Blood

“What? Why?”

“We’ve found out what he’s blackmailing SB about, but,” she hesitated, imagining the jokes she’d have to hear at SB’s expense, if she told Morris what Elinor Dean was doing for him, “it’s nothing illegal and he’s not hurting anyone. We want to talk to Shifty’s PA again, so we need her contact details.”

“No, I don’t think we should go back to her,” said Morris. “Bad idea.”

“Why?” Robin asked, as she dropped the foil tins into the pedal bin, suppressing her frown because it made her bruised face ache.

“Because… fuck’s sake,” said Morris, who usually avoided swearing to Robin. “You were the one who said we shouldn’t use her.”

Behind Robin, in the inner office, Barclay laughed at something Strike had said. For the third time that evening, Robin had a feeling of impending trouble.

“Saul,” she said, “you aren’t still seeing her, are you?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Robin picked up the plates from the desk and put them in the sink, waiting for his answer.

“No, of course I’m not,” he said, with an attempt at a laugh. “I just think this is a bad idea. You were the one who said, before, that she had too much to lose—”

“But we wouldn’t be asking her to entrap him or set him up this time—”

“I’ll need to think about this,” said Morris.

Robin put the knives and forks into the sink, too.

“Saul, this isn’t up for debate. We need her contact details.”

“I don’t know whether I kept them,” said Morris, and Robin knew he was lying. “Where’s Strike right now?”

“Denmark Street,” said Robin. Not wanting another sly joke about her and Strike being together after dark, she purposely didn’t say she was there, too.

“OK, I’ll ring him,” said Morris, and before Robin could say anything else, he’d hung up.

The whisky she’d drunk was still having a slightly anesthetic effect. Robin knew that if she were entirely sober, she’d be feeling still more incensed at yet another example of Morris treating her not as a partner in the firm, but as Strike’s secretary.

Turning on the taps in the cramped kitchen area, she began rinsing off the plates and forks, and as curry sauce dripped down the drain, her thoughts drifted again to those moments before Barclay had arrived, while she and Strike had still been sitting in semi-darkness.

Out on Charing Cross Road, a car passed, blaring Rita Ora’s “I Will Never Let You Down,” and softly, under her breath, Robin sang along:

“Tell me baby what we gonna do

I’ll make it easy, got a lot to lose…”

Putting the plug into the sink, she began to fill it, squirting washing-up liquid on top of the cutlery. Singing, her eyes fell on the unopened vodka Strike had bought, but which neither of them had touched. She thought of Oakden stealing vodka at Margot’s barbecue…

“You’ve been tired of watching me

forgot to have a good time…”

… and claiming that he hadn’t spiked the punch. Yet Gloria had vomited… At the very moment Robin drew breath into her lungs to call to Strike, and tell him her new idea, two hands closed on her waist.

Twice in Robin’s life, a man had attacked her from behind: without conscious thought, she simultaneously stamped down hard with her high heel on the foot of the man behind her, threw back her head, smashing it into his face, grabbed a knife in the sink and spun around as the grip at her waist disappeared.

“FUCK!” bellowed Morris.

She hadn’t heard him coming up the stairs over the noise of water splashing into the sink and her own singing. Morris was now doubled up, hands clamped over his nose.

“FUCK!” he shouted again, taking his hands away from his face, to reveal that his nose was bleeding. He hopped backward, the imprint of her stiletto imprinted in his shoe, and collapsed onto the sofa.

“What’s going on?” said Strike, emerging at speed from the inner office and looking from Morris on the sofa to Robin, who was still holding the knife. She turned off the taps, breathing hard.