‘If that’s ever occurred to him, he’ll have dismissed it as the product of a diseased mind. He’s a funny bloke, Hardy, in both the odd and ha-ha senses. Good investigator, though.’
As he said it, Strike remembered that Hardacre had sent him an email several months previously which he, busy with both work and personal matters, had neglected to answer. Their paths had diverged dramatically since Strike had left the army for a London-based life, while Hardacre remained in the Special Investigation Branch of the Royal Military Police. Hardacre had done Strike a couple of favours in the early days of the agency, but it now occurred to Strike that they hadn’t met face to face for five years.
‘Well, it’ll be interesting to hear from Murphy how much truth there was in the Abiff rumours,’ said Strike.
‘Why do men do it?’ asked Robin.
‘What, murder people?’
‘No, why are they so keen on closed societies with rituals and things? Women don’t go in for that kind of thing as much.’
‘Dunno,’ said Strike, but after a few seconds’ thought he added, ‘Think we might like the hierarchical thing more than you do. And we tend to need a reason to meet. Go out and do something or watch something, together. We don’t hang around in each other’s houses a lot, unless there are women involved.’
‘So Freemasonry’s like five-a-side football?’
‘Except that there’s not as much emphasis on funny handshakes in five-a-side football and you don’t often hear players asking each other how old their grandmothers are.’
‘What?’ said Robin, utterly confused.
‘It’s how masons ask each other what lodge they belong to. The lodges are all numbered. “How old’s your grandmother?” “Two thousand and fifty-three.”’
‘Did Hardacre tell you all this?’
‘Some of it. You can look most of it up. From what I gleaned from Hardacre, you’re supposed to help out the needy – with an emphasis on fellow masons – and generally be a model citizen. And you’ve got your duty of admonishment.’
‘What’s that?’
‘No public exposure. Just a quiet brotherly word in the ear.’
‘Would that extend to something criminal?’ asked Robin curiously.
‘“Murder and treason excepted”,’ quoted Strike. ‘There are bits of it that aren’t for public consumption. Hardacre wouldn’t tell me the big stuff.’
Robin checked her watch, then said reluctantly, because she was interested in the conversation,
‘I’d better go, I’m taking over from Midge for a couple of hours. Does seven tonight suit you? I’ll order some pizza or something.’
‘Yeah, great,’ said Strike. ‘See you then.’
Robin headed off, leaving Strike to wonder what an evening spent in her and Murphy’s company was going to be like, because it would be the first time he’d ever been with them, alone, as a couple. Possibly, he thought, he’d be able to find a way to make Murphy look like a prick.
On this undoubtedly puerile but satisfying thought, he turned back to his computer to type out an update for Mr A.
Only after Robin had left the Denmark Street office did a certain trepidation about the forthcoming evening creep over her.
She was well aware that her detective partner and her boyfriend, who’d been reasonably friendly before she and Murphy began their relationship, were now antagonistic to each other. Murphy had more than once revealed his suspicion of Robin and Strike’s friendship, and she’d finally succeeded in shutting that down by telling her boyfriend that Strike was in a relationship with a lawyer, even though it was untrue; Strike’s brief affair with Bijou Watkins had ended before she’d told Murphy about it. Robin hadn’t corrected the story since, as it continued to serve her purpose. She completely understood why Murphy was uptight about her closeness to Strike, because his ex-wife had left him for a male friend, but she didn’t need more unnecessary displays of jealousy, having had quite enough of those from her ex-husband.
The reasons for Strike’s antipathy towards Murphy were more mysterious to Robin, but she had a suspicion it was because he was afraid he was going to lose his business partner to marriage and children. If that was indeed his concern, Robin found it both insulting and infuriating, because she’d surely proven her commitment to the job and the agency ten times over by now. Of course, there was another possible explanation for Strike’s attitude, but she wasn’t going to think about that – except that she did think about it, more often than she wanted to admit.
