Page 38 of Troubled Blood

“Bridge,” Pat had said. “That’s a proper game. I like a nice game of bridge.”

As both women pulled on their coats, Pat asked,

“Going anywhere nice tonight?”

“For a drink with a couple of friends,” said Robin. “But I’ve got a Selfridges voucher burning a hole in my pocket. Think I might treat myself first.”

“Lovely,” croaked Pat. “What d’you fancy?”

Before Robin could answer, the glass door behind her opened and Saul Morris entered, handsome, smiling and a little breathless, his black hair sleek, his blue eyes bright. With some misgiving, she saw the wrapped present and card clutched in his hand.

“Happy birthday!” he said. “Hoped I’d catch you.”

And before Robin could prevent it, he’d bent down and kissed her on the cheek; no air kiss, this, but proper contact of lips and skin. She took half a step backward.

“Got you a little something,” he said, apparently sensing nothing amiss, but holding out to her the gift and card. “It’s nothing really. And how’s Moneypenny?” he said, turning to Pat, who had already removed her electronic cigarette to smile at him, displaying teeth the color of old ivory.

“Moneypenny,” repeated Pat, beaming. “Get on with you.”

Robin tore the paper from her gift. Inside was a box of Fortnum & Mason salted caramel truffles.

“Oh, very nice,” said Pat approvingly.

Chocolates, it seemed, were a far more appropriate gift for a young woman than a pack of cards with Al-Qaeda members on them.

“Remembered you like a bit of salted caramel,” said Morris, looking proud of himself.

Robin knew exactly where he’d got this idea, and it didn’t make her any more appreciative.

A month previously, at the first meeting of the entire expanded agency, Robin had opened a tin of fancy biscuits that had arrived in a hamper sent by a grateful client. Strike had inquired why everything these days was salted caramel flavor, and Robin had replied that it didn’t seem to be stopping him eating them by the handful. She’d expressed no personal fondness for the flavor, but Morris had evidently paid both too little and too much attention, treasuring up his lazy assumption for use at some later date.

“Thanks very much,” she said, with a bare minimum of warmth. “I’m afraid I’ve got to dash.”

And before Pat could point out that Selfridges would still be there in a half an hour, Robin had slid past Morris and started down the metal stairs, his card still unopened in her hand.

Exactly why Morris grated on her so much, Robin was still pondering as she moved slowly around Selfridges’ great perfume hall half an hour later. She’d decided to buy herself some new perfume, because she’d been wearing the same scent for five years. Matthew had liked it, and never wanted her to change, but her last bottle was down to the dregs, and she had a sudden urge to douse herself in something that Matthew wouldn’t recognize, and possibly wouldn’t even like. The cheap little bottle of 4711 cologne she’d bought on the way to Falmouth was nowhere near distinctive enough for a new signature scent, and so she wandered through a vast maze of smoked mirrors and gilded lights, between islands of seductive bottles and illuminated pictures of celebrities, each little domain presided over by black-clad sirens offering squirts and testing strips.

Was it pompous of her, she wondered, to think that Morris the subcontractor ought not to assume the right to kiss an agency partner? Would she mind if the generally reserved Hutchins kissed her on the cheek? No, she decided, she wouldn’t mind at all, because she’d now known Andy over a year, and in any case, Hutchins would do the polite thing and make the greeting a matter of brief proximity of two faces, not a pressing of lips into her face.

And what about Barclay? He’d never kissed her, though he had recently called her “ya numpty” when, on surveillance, she had accidentally spilled hot coffee all over him in her excitement at seeing their target, a civil servant, leaving a known brothel at two o’clock in the morning. But she hadn’t minded Barclay calling her a numpty in the slightest. She’d been a numpty.

Turning a corner, Robin found herself facing the Yves Saint Laurent counter, and with a sudden sharpening of interest, her eyes focused on a blue, black and silver cylinder bearing the name Rive Gauche. Robin had never knowingly smelled Margot Bamborough’s favorite perfume before.

“It’s a classic,” said the bored-looking salesgirl, watching Robin spraying Rive Gauche onto a fresh testing strip and inhaling.

Robin tended to rate perfumes according to how well they reproduced a familiar flower or foodstuff, but this wasn’t a smell from nature. There was a ghostly rose there, but also something strangely metallic. Robin, who was used to fragrances made friendly with fruit and candy, set down the strip with a smile and a shake of her head and walked on.

So that was how Margot Bamborough had smelled, she thought. It was a far more sophisticated scent than the one Matthew had loved on Robin, which was a natural-smelling concoction of figs, fresh, milky and green.

Robin turned a corner and saw, standing on a counter directly ahead of her, a faceted glass bottle full of pink liquid: Flowerbomb, Sarah Shadlock’s signature scent. Robin had seen it in Sarah and Tom’s bathroom whenever she and Matthew had gone over for dinner. Since leaving Matthew, Robin had had ample time to realize that the occasions on which he had changed the sheets mid-week, because he’d “spilled tea” or “thought I’d do it today, save you doing it tomorrow” must have been as much to wash away that loud, sweet scent, as any other, more obviously incriminating traces that might have leaked from careful condoms.

“It’s a modern classic,” said the hopeful salesgirl, who’d noticed Robin looking at the glass hand grenade. With a perfunctory smile, Robin shook her head and turned away. Now her reflection in the smoked glass looked simply sad, as she picked up bottles and smelled strips in a joyless hunt for something to improve this lousy birthday. She suddenly wished that she were heading home, and not out for drinks.

“What are you looking for?” said a sharp-cheekboned black girl, whom Robin passed shortly afterward.

Five minutes later, after a brief, professional interchange, Robin was heading back toward Oxford Street with a rectangular black bottle in her bag. The salesgirl had been highly persuasive.

“… and if you want something totally different,” she’d said, picking up a fifth bottle, spraying a little onto a strip and wafting it around, “try Fracas.”