‘I know,’ said Robin, reaching for his hand. ‘This is on both of us. I should have gone for the morning-after pill, it was really stupid not to. But I’m going to restart the pill, because as I – as I say, the surgeon said there’s a high chance…’
Her voice broke. Murphy made to hug her again, but Robin held him off.
‘Sorry – I’m just sore…’
He passed her some tissues, then clasped her hand again.
‘Thank you for my flowers, they’re lovely,’ said Robin, blowing her nose.
‘When will they let you come home?’
‘Tomorrow,’ said Robin.
‘Shit, that quickly?’
‘What, you wanted a longer break from me?’ said Robin, forcing herself to smile.
‘No, but I’m supposed to be – I could see if I can get time off—’
‘Ryan, it’s fine, I’ll get a taxi back. It was keyhole surgery, it’s not a big deal. I haven’t even got an overnight bag to carry.’
‘But you’ll need help at home – let me call your parents—’
‘
‘OK,’ he said uneasily, ‘but I still think—’
‘I’ll order takeaways and lie on the sofa and watch TV,’ said Robin. ‘I don’t need anyone else – apart from you,’ she added, ‘obviously.’
As it was Saturday, Denmark Street was full of shoppers when Strike arrived back there that afternoon. As he limped past the familiar guitar shops and record stores, even more tired, sore and depressed than when he’d left them that morning, the opening chords of ‘House of the Rising Sun’ issued from an open door. In spite of his low mood, this caused Strike a brief moment of amusement: the owner of that particular shop had once told him he slapped an extra hundred quid on the price of any guitar bought by someone who played the riff in front of him.
He climbed the metal stairs with difficulty, let himself into his deserted place of work, made himself a mug of creosote-coloured tea, then took a pile of files through to the inner office, because he wanted to catch up on what he’d missed during the ten days he’d spent in Cornwall. However, before opening these, he turned again to Google and scrolled slowly down through the search results, pausing on a picture of Decima in a white chef’s coat and hat, which belonged to the website for the Happy Carrot. Here, she looked far younger and fairly pretty, with her hair swept back in a shining bun and a dimpled smile.
In a spirit of masochism, he then Googled Valentine Longcaster, which resulted in myriad images of Charlotte and Valentine together, falling out of clubs, attending launch parties and opening nights, Charlotte darkly beautiful, Valentine foppishly dressed, and both of them either beaming or bellowing with laughter.
Charlotte and Valentine hadn’t been just friends. To their great amusement, they’d been step-siblings during their childhood. For two acrimonious and explosive years, Charlotte’s mother, Tara, had been married to Dino, Valentine’s father, although their respective children had never lived under the same roof, because Valentine (and presumably Decima) had been spirited off to Los Angeles by their own mother, who’d rebounded onto a composer of film scores.
In the days when Strike had known her, Tara had often held forth when drunk on ‘that fucking bastard Longcaster’. Strike had often suspected that the friendship Charlotte struck up with Valentine in adulthood had been at least partly in defiance of the mother she loathed, although it was undeniable that Charlotte and Valentine had also had much in common: a waspish sense of humour, a love of cocaine, an endless quest for distraction and drama, and a detestation of all that was worthy and dull.
Looking at these pictures was the reverse of cheering, but Strike kept scrolling, pausing on a picture of Charlotte flanked by Valentine and her half-brother, the actor Sacha Legard, who strongly resembled her, except that he had vivid blue eyes instead of Charlotte’s hazel-flecked green. Legard was the product of Tara’s third and longest marriage, to a lord who owned a stately home called Heberley House. Strike couldn’t remember Sacha ever talking about a younger cousin in Switzerland, though this wasn’t much of a surprise: when Strike had known him, Sacha’s conversation had generally turned on himself.
