The Hallmarked Man полностью

Robin paused on the stairs. She’d slept until half past nine, which she hadn’t done for months, and had woken to find her boyfriend gone from the bed. Judging by the quietness of the house, Robin guessed that one or both of Annabel’s parents had taken her out for a trip to the shops or the park. Robin had been halfway downstairs to the kitchen when she’d heard Murphy talking, and something in his tone made her pause between walls on which family photographs were displayed, listening.

‘Has she talked to you about it?’ said Linda.

‘No,’ said Murphy, ‘and I haven’t brought it up. She gets ratty.’

‘I don’t think she can bear to admit he’s not perfect, in case we all tell her she should get a different job, but it’s not as though there aren’t other places she could work. But this is a whole other level, this is really… really grubby. Has he got a girlfriend currently, do you know?’

‘Yeah, some lawyer, apparently,’ said Murphy.

‘I wonder what she said when she saw it.’

‘Christ knows,’ said Murphy. ‘He probably told her it was rubbish. What else could he say?’

‘It said in the Telegraph he was going to sue.’

Robin’s heart was thumping uncomfortably fast, but she told herself to remain calm. It would be playing right into her mother’s hands, and, indeed, Murphy’s, to become overly emotional. She tiptoed down the last few stairs.

‘She hasn’t mentioned court action to me.’

‘Well, if he isn’t suing—’

‘Talking about Strike and Candy?’ said Robin, entering the kitchen, forcing herself to sound brisk rather than incensed.

Murphy looked startled and guilty. Linda had frozen in the act of drying a dinner plate. The puppy, Betty, gambolled towards Robin, barking a welcome. Robin bent automatically to pet her, but she was looking at her boyfriend as she did it.

‘I left you to sleep because I thought you needed it,’ said Murphy, who was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt, and holding his water bottle. ‘I was going to go for a run.’

‘Well, don’t let me stop you,’ said Robin, in a tone that said I’ll deal with you later.

Not entirely to her surprise, Murphy headed for the back door, looking sheepish. When it had closed behind him, Robin said to her mother,

‘If you’re interested in Strike, it’s probably best to ask me for details rather than Ryan. I’m the one who works with him.’

The Telegraph was lying on the kitchen table, which exacerbated Robin’s bad temper. Possibly her mother had been skimming it to check whether there were any more unpleasant stories about Strike she could discuss with Murphy, while Robin was out of earshot.

‘I was only—’ began Linda.

‘I know what you were “only”,’ said Robin, heading for the coffee pot with Betty lolloping around her slippered feet. ‘So ask away.’

‘I just saw the story about that – that woman, and – well, people round here know you work with him, so they asked me about it.’

‘OK, well, here’s your chance to get a full bulletin for the neighbours,’ said Robin.

‘Robin, don’t be like—’

‘If you want to talk about me behind my back—’

‘We weren’t talking about you—’

‘“She gets ratty.” “She can’t bear to think he’s not perfect.”’

‘We were—’

‘Our agency found out the wife of that journalist is having an affair,’ said Robin. ‘That was the journalist’s revenge, claiming we hired a sex worker to entrap a man.’

‘He didn’t say all of you had done it,’ said Linda.

‘None of us did it,’ said Robin forcefully, now turning to glare at her mother. ‘None of us.’

‘OK, well, if you say it’s not true, it’s not true,’ said Linda. She still had the dinner plate and tea towel in her hands, but was doing nothing with them.

‘And Strike is suing,’ said Robin, out of sheer temper. ‘So be sure and keep an eye out for the retraction, so you can alert the neighbours when it comes in.’

‘Robin—’

‘If you want to bitch about my partner, do it to my face, not my boyfriend’s,’ said Robin, whose temper was increasing rather than diminishing as she vented it; she hadn’t realised how much anger she had stored up (because she was the easy child, the placator, the one primed not to make a fuss, amid three rambunctious brothers). ‘I’m sick and tired of this constant chipping away at Strike, and the agency. Maybe if this didn’t happen every single bloody time I see you, I’d want to come home more often!’

She knew how much she’d hurt her mother by Linda’s involuntary gasp, but didn’t care. Robin was thinking of the aftermath of the operation she’d gone through alone, rather than endure Linda’s insistence that her heavy work schedule had led to the mistake; of the week she’d spent with her parents after her long undercover job, during which Linda had increased rather than soothed her anxiety; of the countless jibes about the dangers she ran, whereas Jenny, the pregnant vet, got off with ‘we were worried’, not with a loud insistence that she should give up the career she loved, and for which she’d worked so hard.