‘I saw it online,’ said Robin, nettled by his tone, especially in front of Strike. ‘Someone commenting on the story said he had the letter “G” carved onto him.’
‘My contact told me it was a hallmark.’ Murphy closed his notebook. ‘And that’s all I’ve got.’
‘Well, thanks, Ryan,’ said Robin. ‘This has—’
‘So now what?’ said Murphy. He was looking at Strike rather than Robin.
‘We wanted to find out whether the Met had a definite ID,’ said Strike, ‘and now we know. They don’t.’
‘You can’t go fucking around with the Knowles family,’ said Murphy.
‘Not intending to. We haven’t got forensic labs, we can’t analyse DNA.’
‘So you won’t be taking the case?’ said Murphy.
‘Robin and I will have to discuss that,’ said Strike.
‘Does anyone want more—?’ Robin began.
‘It’s Knowles,’ said Murphy, glaring at Strike. ‘You’d just be stringing this woman along, pretending there’s a chance it’s her toyboy.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said Strike, deliberately calm. Let Robin watch Murphy getting aggressive and trying to dictate what the agency investigated. ‘There are a lot of similarities between Rupert Fleetwood and the body, he had good reasons for wanting to lie low for a while, and he had a valuable bit of silver to sell.’
Robin, who knew perfectly well Strike didn’t believe Rupert Fleetwood had been William Wright, assumed he was saying this because he’d been as aggravated by Murphy’s dictatorial tone as she was.
‘Anyway,’ said Strike, setting down his plate and getting to his feet, ‘I’d better get going.’
‘Already?’ said Robin, disconcerted. ‘There’s more pizza. And pudding.’
‘I’m meeting Bijou,’ said Strike, looking Robin straight in the eye. Though she’d have given anything not to, Robin felt herself turn red. ‘Thanks, though,’ Strike added, looking down at the clearly fuming Murphy. ‘This has been extremely helpful.’
The work rota was so arranged that Strike and Robin didn’t meet again until Friday, which was cold and cloudless. Central London was now fully decked in its Christmas finery, and eleven o’clock found Robin in Mount Street in Belgravia, standing beneath one of the extravagant banners of silver lights that stretched across the road, pretending to be talking on her phone while the ex-wife of their professional cricketer client shopped in Balenciaga.
Though she was gloved and coated, the chill nipped at every exposed bit of Robin’s skin. She felt low and tired, because she was still not sleeping well. Strike’s visit had left an uncomfortable undercurrent in its wake. Murphy had returned to the subject of the body in the vault the following morning, outlining the dangers of provoking a man who’d already ordered his own nephew killed and reminding Robin, yet again, that more people than Strike would be put in danger if Lynden Knowles came to believe he was being investigated for Jason’s death. Robin had tried very hard not to sound defensive or angry as she reiterated that neither she nor Strike had any intention of going near Jason’s uncle, and assured him that the secret of the plainclothes man was completely safe with them.
She might have said far more. She might have reminded Murphy that she stood in no need of lectures on the dangers of tangling with career criminals, because she and Strike had already come up against a criminal family every bit as sociopathic as Lynden Knowles’ appeared to be. She might even have said aloud the thing that both of them knew, which was that everything Murphy was saying was coloured by his dislike of her partner. She’d refrained, though. She didn’t want an argument.
Robin would ordinarily have texted Strike to ask what he thought about taking Decima’s case, but lurking embarrassment at having been caught out in the lie about Bijou Watkins prevented her doing so. Now she stood staring across the road at a motif carved in stone over the windows of Balenciaga; it was either a tree or a sheaf of corn. Possibly she was being influenced by the masonic symbolism she’d been reading up on during her Tube journey that morning: the sheaf of corn, she now knew, represented bounty and charity to Freemasons.
Hearing her name, Robin started and looked round. Strike was walking towards her. She’d been expecting to hand over to Shah, and then only in an hour’s time. Pretending to finish her call, Robin slipped her phone back into her pocket.
‘Plug’s heading for Ipswich again,’ were Strike’s first words. ‘Christ knows what he’s up to there. Anyway, Shah’s tailing him, and he told me you were here.’
‘You’re early,’ said Robin. ‘I’m still on her for another hour.’
