“God, no,” said Matthew, approaching her from behind and putting his arms around her. “I love you,” he said into her hair.
“I love you too,” said Robin mechanically.
The Land Rover was packed with everything they would need for their stay up north, for the wedding night at Swinton Park Hotel and for their honeymoon “somewhere hot,” which was all that Robin knew about the destination. They set off at ten o’clock the following morning, both wearing T-shirts in the bright sunshine, and as Robin got into the car she remembered that misty morning in April when she had driven away, Matthew in hot pursuit, when she had been desperate to get away, to get to Strike.
She was a much better driver than Matthew, but when the two of them made a journey together, he always took the wheel. Matthew sang Daniel Bedingfield’s “Never Gonna Leave Your Side” as he turned onto the M1. An old song, it dated from the year that they had both started university.
“Could you not sing that?” said Robin suddenly, unable to bear it any longer.
“Sorry,” he said, startled. “It seemed appropriate.”
“Maybe it’s got happy memories for you,” said Robin, turning to look out of the window, “but it hasn’t for me.”
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Matthew look at her, then turn back to the road. After another mile or so she wished she had not said anything.
“That doesn’t mean you can’t sing something else.”
“That’s all right,” he said.
The temperature had fallen slightly by the time they reached Donington Park Services, where they stopped for a coffee. Robin left her jacket hanging over the back of her chair when she went to the bathroom. Alone, Matthew stretched, his T-shirt riding up out of his jeans to reveal a few inches of flat stomach and drawing the attention of the girl serving behind the Costa Coffee bar. Feeling good about himself and life, Matthew grinned and winked at her. She turned red, giggled and turned to her smirking fellow barista, who had seen.
The phone in Robin’s jacket rang. Assuming that it was Linda trying to find out how close they were to home, Matthew reached lazily across—conscious of the girls’ eyes upon him—and tugged the phone out of Robin’s pocket.
It was Strike.
Matthew looked at the vibrating device as though he had inadvertently picked up a tarantula. The phone continued to ring and vibrate in his hand. He looked around: Robin was nowhere to be seen. He answered the call, then immediately cut it. Now Corm Missed Call was written across the screen.
The big ugly bastard wanted Robin back, Matthew was sure of it. Strike had had five long days to realize he’d never get anyone better. Maybe he’d started interviewing people for the position and nobody had come close, or maybe all of them had laughed in his face at the pitiful salary he was offering.
The phone rang again: Strike was calling back, trying to make sure that the hanging up had been deliberate rather than accidental. Matthew looked at the mobile, paralyzed with indecision. He dared not answer on Robin’s behalf or tell Strike to fuck off. He knew Strike: he’d keep calling back until he spoke to Robin.
The call went to voicemail. Now Matthew realized that a recorded apology was the worst thing that could happen: Robin could listen to it again and again and finally be worn down and softened by it…
He looked up: Robin was returning from the Ladies. With her phone in his hand he stood up and pretended to be talking into it.
“It’s Dad,” he lied to Robin, placing a hand over the mouthpiece and praying that Strike would not call back again while he was standing in front of her. “Mine’s out of battery… listen, what’s your passcode? I need to look something up for the honeymoon flights—it’s to tell Dad—”
She gave it to him.
“Give me a sec, I don’t want you to hear anything about the honeymoon,” he said and walked away from her, torn between guilt and pride in his own quick thinking.
Once safe inside the men’s bathroom, he opened up her phone. Getting rid of any record of Strike’s calls meant deleting her entire call history—this he did. Then he called voicemail, listened to Strike’s recorded message and deleted that too. Finally, he went into the settings on Robin’s phone and blocked Strike.
Breathing deeply he turned to his handsome reflection in the mirror. Strike had said on the voicemail message that if he did not hear back from her he would not call again. The wedding was in forty-eight hours’ time, and the anxious, defiant Matthew was counting on Strike keeping his word.
58
Deadline
He was pumped up, on edge, pretty sure he had just done something stupid. As the Tube train rattled south, his knuckles whitened because he was clutching the hanging strap so tightly. Behind his shades, his puffy, reddened eyes squinted at the station signs.
It’s shrill voice still seemed to be piercing his eardrum.
“I don’t believe you. Where’s the money, then, if you’ve got night work? No—I want to talk to you—no—you’re not going out again—”
He had hit her. He shouldn’t have done it, he knew that: the vision of her appalled face was taunting him now, her eyes wide with shock, her hand clamped over the cheek where his fingermarks were turning red against the white.
It was her own fucking fault. He hadn’t been able to stop himself, not after the last couple of weeks, during which It had become more and more strident. After he’d come home with his eyes full of red ink he’d pretended to have had an allergic reaction, but there’d been no sympathy from the cold bitch. All It had done was carp about where he’d been and—for the first time—ask where the money was that he claimed to be earning. There hadn’t been much time for theft with the boys lately, not with all his time devoted to hunting.
She’d brought home a newspaper with a news story in it about the fact that the Shacklewell Ripper might now have red ink stains around his eyes. He had burned the paper in the garden, but he couldn’t stop her reading the story elsewhere. The day before yesterday, he thought he’d surprised It watching him with an odd expression on her face. It wasn’t stupid, not really; was It starting to wonder? This anxiety was the last thing he needed when his attempt on The Secretary had left him almost humiliated.
There was no point going after The Secretary anymore, because she had left Strike forever. He had seen the story online, in the internet café where he sometimes whiled away an hour, just to get away from It. He took some consolation from the idea that his machete had frightened her off, that she would bear forever the long scar down her forearm that he had carved there, but that wasn’t good enough.
His months and months of careful planning had all been with the intention of entangling Strike in murder, tarring him with suspicion. Firstly, embroil him in the death of the stupid little bitch who’d wanted her leg cut off, so that the police swarmed all over him and the dumb public thought he’d had something to do with it. Then, murder his Secretary. Let him try and limp away from that untainted. Let him try and be the famous detective after that.
But the bastard kept wriggling free. There had been no mention of the letters in the press, the letter he had carefully written out “from” Kelsey, and which had been supposed to turn Strike into suspect number one. Then the press had colluded with the fucker, not giving out The Secretary’s name, not drawing the connection between her and Strike.
Perhaps it might be wise to stop now… except that he could not stop. He had come too far. He had never in his life put so much planning into anything as he had into the ruination of Strike. The fat, crippled bastard had already advertised for somebody to replace The Secretary, and that didn’t look like a man who was about to go out of business.
One good thing, though: there was no sign of a police presence around Denmark Street anymore. Someone had called them off. They probably thought nobody was needed now that The Secretary had gone.
Perhaps he ought not to have returned to Strike’s place of work, but he had hoped to see the frightened Secretary leaving with a bo
x in her hands, or get a glimpse of a downcast, beaten Strike, but no—shortly after he’d taken up a well-concealed position to watch the street, the bastard had come striding along Charing Cross Road with a stunning-looking woman, apparently completely unperturbed.
The girl had to be a temp, because Strike had not had time to interview and hire a permanent replacement. No doubt the Big Man needed somebody to open his mail. She wore heels that would not have disgraced that little hooker, teetering along, waggling a fine arse. He liked them dark, he always had. In fact, given the choice, he’d have taken someone like her any time over The Secretary.
She hadn’t had surveillance training; that much was clear. He had watched Strike’s office all morning after his first glimpse of her, watched her nipping out to the post and back, nearly always on the phone, oblivious to her surroundings, so busy tossing her long hair over her shoulders that she was unable to keep eye contact with anyone for long, dropping her keys, gabbling at the top of her voice on her phone or to anyone else with whom she came into casual contact. At one o’clock he had slipped into the sandwich shop behind her and heard her making noisy plans to go to Corsica Studios the following evening.
He knew what Corsica Studios was. He knew where it was. Excitement ripped through him: he had to turn his back on her, pretending to look out of the window, because he thought the expression on his face would give it away to all of them… If he did her while she was still working for Strike, he’d have fulfilled his plan: Strike would be connected to two hacked-up women and nobody, police or public, would ever trust him again.
This would be so much easier too. The Secretary had been a fucking nightmare to pick off, always alert and streetwise, going home by crowded, well-lit paths every evening to her pretty boyfriend, but The Temp was offering herself up on a plate. After telling the whole sandwich shop where she would be meeting her mates, she had strutted back to work on her Perspex heels, dropping Strike’s sandwiches once on the way. He noticed that there was no wedding or engagement ring on her finger as she bent to pick them up. He had been hard pressed to suppress his jubilation as he peeled away, formulating his plan.
If only he hadn’t slapped It, he’d be feeling good now, excited, elated. The slap hadn’t been an auspicious start to the evening. No wonder he felt jumpy. There had been no time to stay and calm her down, turn her sweet: he had simply walked out, determined to get to The Temp, but he still felt jumpy… What if It called the police?
She wouldn’t. It had only been a slap. She loved him, she told him so all the time. When they loved you, they let you get away with fucking murder…
He experienced a tickling sensation at the back of his neck and looked around with the wild idea that he would see Strike looking at him from the corner of the carriage, but nobody remotely resembling that fat bastard was there, only several ill-kempt men grouped together. One of them, who had a scarred face and a gold tooth, was indeed watching him, but as he squinted back through his shades the man ceased his scrutiny and returned to fiddling with his mobile…
Perhaps he should call It when he got off the Tube, before heading for Corsica Studios, and tell It he loved her.
59
With threats of gas and rose motif.
Blue Öyster Cult, “Before the Kiss”
Strike was standing in shadow, his mobile in his hand, waiting. The deep pocket of his secondhand jacket, which was far too heavy in the warmth of this June evening, bulged and sagged with the weight of an object he was keen to conceal. What he planned would be best accomplished under cover of darkness, but the sun was taking its time to sink behind the ill-assorted rooftops visible from his hiding place.
He knew he ought to be concentrating only upon the dangerous business of the night, but his thoughts kept slinking back to Robin. She had not returned his call. He had set a mental deadline for himself: if she doesn’t ring by the end of this evening, she’s never calling. At twelve o’clock the following day she would be getting married to Matthew in Yorkshire, and Strike was sure that constituted a fatal cut-off point. If they did not speak before that ring landed on her finger, he thought that they were unlikely ever to speak again. If anything in the world had been calculated to make him recognize what he had lost, it had been the truculent, noisy presence of the woman with whom he had shared his office for the last few days, staggeringly good-looking though she was.
To the west, the sky over the rooftops blazed with colors as bright as a parakeet’s wing: scarlet, orange, even a faint trace of green. Behind this flamboyant show came a pale wash of violet faintly strewn with stars. Almost time to move.
As though Shanker had heard his thought, Strike’s mobile vibrated and he looked to see a message:
Pint tomorrow?
They had agreed on a code. If all of this came to court, which Strike thought overwhelmingly likely, his intention was to keep Shanker well away from the witness box. There must be no incriminating messages between them tonight. “Pint tomorrow?” meant “he’s in the club.”
Strike slid the mobile back into his pocket and emerged from his hiding place, crossing the dark car park that lay beneath the deserted flat of Donald Laing. The Strata building looked down upon him as he walked, vast and black, its jagged windows reflecting the last traces of bloody light.
Fine netting had been stretched over the front of the balconies of Wollaston Close to prevent birds landing on them and flying in through open doors and windows. Strike moved around to the side entrance, which he had earlier wedged open after a group of teenage girls had left it. Nobody had tampered with the arrangement. People assumed that somebody needed their hands free and feared triggering their wrath. An angry neighbor could be quite as dangerous as an intruder round here, and you had to live with them afterwards.
Halfway up the stairs, Strike stripped off his jacket to reveal a fluorescent one. Carrying the first so that it concealed the canister of propane inside, he proceeded on his way, emerging onto the balcony of Laing’s flat.
Lights shone from the homes sharing the balcony. Laing’s neighbors had opened their windows on this warm summer evening, so that their voices and the sounds of their TVs floated out into the night. Strike walked quietly past towards the dark, empty flat at the end. Outside the door he had so often watched from the car park, he shifted the gas canister wrapped in his jacket into the crook of his left arm and withdrew from his pocket firstly a pair of latex gloves, which he put on, then a mismatched assortment of tools, some of which belonged to Strike himself, but many of which had been lent for the occasion by Shanker. These included a mortice skeleton key, two sets of jigglers and assorted comb picks.
As Strike set to work on the two locks on Laing’s front door a female, American voice floated out into the night through the neighboring window.
“There’s the law and there’s what’s right. I’m gonna do what’s right.”
“What wouldn’t I give to fuck Jessica Alba?” asked a stoned male voice, to laughter and agreement from what sounded like two other men.
“Come on, you bastard,” breathed Strike, fighting with the lower of the two locks and keeping a tight grip on the concealed propane canister. “Move… move…”
The lock turned with a loud click. He pushed the door open.
As he had expected, the place smelled bad. Strike could make out very little in what looked like a dilapidated and unfurnished room. He needed to close the curtains before turning on the lights. Turning left, he immediately knocked into what felt like a box. Something heavy fell off the top and landed with a crash on the floor.
Fuck.
“Oi!” shouted a voice audible through the flimsy dividing wall. “That you, Donnie?”
Strike hastened back to the door, felt frantically up and down the wall beside the doorjamb and found the light switch. Flooded suddenly with light, the room proved to contain nothing except an old, stained double mattress and an orange box on which an iPod dock had clearly been standing, because it now lay on the ground wh
ere it had fallen.
“Donnie?” said the voice, now coming from the balcony outside.
Strike pulled out the propane canister, discharged it and shoved it underneath the orange box. Footsteps from the balcony outside were followed by a knock on the door. Strike opened it.
A spotty, greasy-haired man looked hazily at him. He appeared extremely stoned and was holding a can of John Smith’s.
“Jesus,” he said blearily, sniffing. “’S’that fucking smell?”
“Gas,” said Strike in his fluorescent jacket, stern representative of the National Grid. “We’ve had a report from upstairs. Looks like this is where it’s coming from.”
“Bloody hell,” said the neighbor, looking sick. “Not going to blow up, are we?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out,” Strike said sententiously. “You haven’t got any naked flames next door? Not smoking, are you?”
“I’ll go make sure,” said the neighbor, looking suddenly terrified.
“All right. I might be in to check your place when I’ve finished here,” said Strike. “I’m waiting for back-up.”
He regretted that phrase as soon as it had escaped him, but his new acquaintance did not seem to find such language odd from a gas man. As he turned away, Strike asked:
“Owner’s name’s Donnie, is it?”
“Donnie Laing,” said the jittery neighbor, clearly desperate to go and hide his stash and extinguish all naked flames. “He owes me forty quid.”
“Ah,” said Strike. “Can’t help with that.”
The man scuttled off and Strike closed the door thanking his lucky stars that he’d had the forethought to provide himself with a cover. All he needed was for the police to be tipped off now, before he could prove anything…
He lifted up the orange box, shut off the hissing propane and then replaced the iPod in its dock on top of the box. About to move deeper into the flat, he had a sudden thought and turned back to the iPod. One delicate poke of his latex-covered forefinger and the tiny screen lit up. “Hot Rails to Hell” by—as Strike knew only too well—Blue Öyster Cult.