Page 86 of Troubled Blood

“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” said Robin. “Listen—go to Cornwall. We’ll cope. I’ll interview Oonagh, I’ll take care of everything—”

“No. She specifically told Ted she didn’t want us all dashing down there again. But that’s not like her…”

Strike seemed every bit as scattered and distracted as Robin felt, but now she pulled herself together. Screw Tom, screw Matthew and Sarah.

“Seriously, Cormoran, go. I can take care of work.”

“They’re expecting me in a fortnight for Christmas. Ted says she’s desperate to have us all at home. It’s supposed to be just for a couple of days, the hospital thing.”

“Well, if you’re sure…” said Robin. She checked her watch. “We’ve got ten minutes until Oonagh’s supposed to be here. Want to go to the café and wait for her?”

“Yeah,” said Strike. “Good thinking, I could use a coffee.”

“God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” trilled from the speakers as they entered the realm of crystallized fruits and expensive teas, both lost in painful thought.

24

… my delight is all in ioyfulnesse,

In beds, in bowres, in banckets, and in feasts:

And ill becomes you with your lofty creasts,

To scorne the ioy, that Ioue is glad to seeke…

Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene

The café was reached by a flight of stairs that placed it on a higher level than the shop floor, which it overlooked. Once he and Robin had sat down at a table for four by the window, Strike sat silently looking down into Jermyn Street, where passers-by were reduced to moving mushrooms, eclipsed by their umbrellas. He was a stone’s throw from the restaurant in which he’d last seen Charlotte.

He’d received several more calls from her since the nude photograph on his birthday, plus several texts, three of which had arrived the previous evening. He’d ignored all of them, but somewhere at the back of his anxiety about Joan scuttled a familiar worry about what Charlotte’s next move was going to be, because the texts were becoming increasingly overwrought. She had a couple of suicide attempts in her past, one of which had almost succeeded. Three years after he’d left her, she was still trying to make him responsible for her safety and her happiness, and Strike found it equally infuriating and saddening. When Ted had called Strike that morning with the news about Joan, the detective had been in the process of looking up the telephone number of the merchant bank where Charlotte’s husband worked. If Charlotte threatened suicide, or sent any kind of final message, Strike intended to call Jago.

“Cormoran,” Robin said.

He looked round. A waiter had arrived at the table. When both had ordered coffee, and Robin some toast, each relapsed into silence. Robin was looking away from the window toward the shoppers stocking up on fancy groceries for Christmas down on the shop floor and re-running Tom Turvey’s outburst in her head. The aftershocks were still hitting her. Four weeks before my fucking wedding. It must have been called off. Sarah had left Tom for Matthew, the man she’d wanted all along, and Robin was sure she wouldn’t have left Tom unless Matthew had shown himself ready to offer her what Tom had: diamonds and a change of name. I’m the only one of us who hasn’t been fucking around. Everyone had been unfaithful, in Tom’s opinion, except poor Tom… so Matthew must have told his old friend that she, Robin, had been sleeping with someone else (which meant Strike, of course, of whom Matthew had been perennially jealous and suspicious from the moment Robin had gone to work for him). And even now that Tom knew about Matthew and Sarah, after his old friend’s duplicity and treachery had been revealed, Tom still believed the lie about Robin and Strike. Doubtless he thought his current misery was all Robin’s fault, that if she hadn’t succumbed to Strike, the domino effect of infidelity would never have been started.

“You sure you’re all right?”

Robin started and looked around. Strike had come out of his own reverie and was looking at her over his coffee cup.

“Fine,” she said. “Just knackered. Did you get my email?”

“Email?” said Strike, reaching for the phone in his pocket. “Yeah, but I haven’t read it, sorry. Dealing with other—”

“Don’t bother now,” said Robin hastily, inwardly cringing at the thought of that accidental kiss, even in the midst of her new troubles. “It isn’t particularly important, it’ll keep. I did find this, though.”

She took the copy of Whatever Happened to Margot Bamborough? out of her bag and passed it over the table, but before Strike could express his surprise, she muttered,

“Give it back, give it back now,” tugged it back out of his hand and stuffed it into her bag.

A stout woman was heading toward them across the café. Two bulging bags of Christmas fare were dangling from her hands. She had the full cheeks and large square front teeth of a cheerful-looking chipmunk, an aspect that in her youthful photos had added a certain cheeky charm to her prettiness. The hair that once had been long, dark and glossy was now chin-length and white, except at the front, where a dashing bright purple streak had been added. A large silver and amethyst cross bounced on her purple sweater.

“Oonagh?” said Robin.

“Dat’s me,” she panted. She seemed nervous. “The queues! Well, what do I expect, Fortnum’s at Christmas? But fair play, dey do a lovely mustard.”

Robin smiled. Strike drew out the chair beside him.