Page 270 of Troubled Blood

Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene

In the first week of June, a blind item appeared in the Metro, concerning Strike’s presence in the American Bar on the night of his father’s party.

Which famous son of a famous father preferred to spend the night of his old man’s celebrations brawling in a bar five hundred yards from the party, rather than hobnobbing with his family? Our spies tell us a punch was thrown, and his faithful assistant was unable to Hold It Back. A father-son competition for publicity? Dad definitely won this round.

As Hold It Back was the name of one of Jonny Rokeby’s albums, nobody could really be in much doubt which father and son were in question. A couple of journalists called Strike’s office, but as neither he nor Rokeby were disposed to comment, the story fizzled out for lack of details. “Could’ve been worse,” was Strike’s only comment. “No photos, no mention of Bamborough. Looks like Oakden’s been frightened out of the idea of selling stories about us.”

Feeling slightly guilty, Robin had already scrolled through the pictures of Jonny Rokeby’s party on her phone, while on surveillance outside Miss Jones’s boyfriend’s house. Rokeby’s guests, who included celebrities from both Hollywood and the world of rock ’n’ roll, had all attended in eighteenth-century costumes. Buried in the middle of all the famous people was a single picture of Rokeby surrounded by six of his seven adult children. Robin recognized Al, grinning from beneath a crooked powdered wig. She could no more imagine Strike there, trussed up in brocade, with patches on his face, than she could imagine him pole-vaulting.

Relieved as she was that Oakden appeared to have given up the idea of discussing the agency with the press, Robin’s anxiety mounted as June progressed. The Bamborough case, which mattered to her more than almost anything else, had come to a complete standstill. Gloria Conti had met Anna’s request for her cooperation with silence, Steve Douthwaite remained as elusive as ever, Robin had heard no news about the possibility of interviewing Dennis Creed, and Mucky Ricci remained cloistered inside his nursing home, which, owing to the agency’s reduced manpower, nobody was watching any more.

Even temporary replacements for Morris were proving impossible to find. Strike had contacted everyone he knew in the Special Investigation Branch, Hutchins had asked his Met contacts, and Robin had canvassed Vanessa, but nobody was showing any interest in joining the agency.

“Summer, isn’t it?” said Barclay, as he and Robin crossed paths in the office one Saturday afternoon. “People don’t want tae start a new job, they want a holiday. I ken how they feel.”

Both Barclay and Hutchins had booked weeks off with their wives and children months in advance, and neither partner could begrudge their subcontractors a break. The result was that by mid-July, Strike and Robin were the only two left working at the agency.

While Strike devoted himself to following Miss Jones’s boyfriend, still trying to find out anything that might prove that he was an unsuitable person to have custody of his daughter, Robin was trying to kindle an acquaintance with Shifty’s PA, which wasn’t proving easy. So far that month, wearing a different wig and colored contacts each time, Robin had tried to engage her in conversation in a bar, deliberately tripped over her in a nightclub, and followed her into the ladies in Harvey Nichols. While the PA didn’t seem to have the slightest idea that it was the same woman opportuning or inconve­niencing her, she showed no inclination to chat, let alone confess that her boss was a lech or a coke user.

Having tried and failed to sit next to the PA in a sandwich bar in Holborn one lunchtime, Robin, who today had dark hair and dark brown eyes courtesy of hair chalk and contact lenses, decided the moment had come to try and wheedle information out of a very old man, instead of a pretty young woman.

She hadn’t reached this decision lightly, nor did she approach it in any casual spirit. While Robin was vaguely fond of Strike’s old friend Shanker, she was under no illusions about how evil a person would have to be to scare a man who’d been steeped in criminal violence since the age of nine. Accordingly, she’d worked out a plan, of which the first step was to have a full and effective disguise. Today’s happened to be particularly good: she’d learned a lot about makeup since starting the job with Strike, and she’d sometimes had the satisfaction of seeing her partner double-take before he realized who she was. After checking her reflection carefully in the mirror of a McDonald’s bathroom, and reassuring herself that she not only looked utterly unlike Robin Ellacott, but that nobody would guess she’d recently had two black eyes, she set off for the Tube, and just under twenty minutes later, arrived at Angel station.

The garden where the old residents of St. Peter’s sometimes sat was empty as she passed it, in spite of the warm weather. The pansies were gone, replaced by pink asters and the broad, sunny street where the nursing home lay was almost deserted.

The quotation from St. Peter gleamed gold in the sunshine as Robin approached the front door.

… it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed… but with the precious blood of Christ…

Robin rang the bell. After a few moments, a chubby black-haired woman in the familiar blue uniform opened it.

“Afternoon,” she said, sounding Spanish.

“Hi,” said Robin, her North London accent copied from her friend Vanessa. “I’m here to visit Enid? I’m her great-granddaughter.”

She’d stored up the only first name she’d heard for any of the old ladies in the home. Her great fear had been that Enid might have died before she got to use it, or that Enid had no family.

“Oh, that’s nice,” said the nurse, smiling and gesturing toward a visitors’ book just inside the door. “Sign in, please, and don’t forget to sign out when you leave. She’s in her room. Might be asleep!”

Robin stepped into a dark, wood-paneled hall. She deliberately hadn’t asked which number Enid’s room was, because she intended to get lost finding it.

A number of walking frames and a couple of collapsible wheelchairs were lined up against the wall. The hall was dominated by an enormous crucifix facing the door, on which a pallid plaster Jesus hung, his six-pack rendered with startling precision, scarlet blood dripping from hands, feet and the punctures left by his crown of thorns. The home smelled better than Betty Fuller’s sheltered accommodation: though there was a definite undertone of old cooking smells, it mingled with that of furniture wax.

Sunlight poured through the fan window behind Robin as she bent over the visitors’ book and wrote in the date, the time she’d entered the building and the fake name she’d decided on: Vanessa Jones. Over the table where the visitors’ book lay hung a board showing the name of each resident. Beside each was a little sliding door, which could be adjusted to show whether the occupant was “in” or “out.” Niccolo Ricci was currently—and, Robin suspected, almost permanently—“in.”

There was a lift, but she chose to take the red-carpeted and wooden-banistered stairs, passing the Trinidadian nurse she’d often seen while on surveillance, who was descending. He smiled and wished her a good afternoon, his arms laden with packs of incontinence pads.

A doorway led off the first landing, a small sign beside it announc­ing that this way lay bedrooms 1 to 10. Robin set off along the corridor, reading names off doors. Unfortunately, “Mrs. Enid Billings” lived behind door number 2 and, as Robin swiftly discovered, Ricci wasn’t on her floor. Aware that this was going to make any claim of having got lost on the way to Enid’s room implausible in the extreme, Robin doubled back, and climbed up to the second floor.

A few steps along an identical corridor to the one below, she heard a woman with a strong Polish accent in the distance, and backed hastily into an alcove where a sink and cupboard had been placed.

“D’you need the bathroom? Do—you—need—the—bathroom, Mister—Ricci?”

A low moan answered.

“Yes?” said the voice. “Or no?”