Her good mood had vanished; she ought to have stopped at two whiskies, or have eaten more at lunch. Her breath rose in a cloud on the wintry air as she looked right, towards Chapman Lane, and then, with a funny inward start, she thought what a coincidence
Strike would laugh at her, for that… mystic mumbo jumbo…
She had to make it up with her mother, especially now that she’d seen Martin and Carmen together…
Linda.
Rita Linda.
Rita Linda.
Robin raised her phone to eye level and typed in ‘Rita Linda’.
Linda Rita Clay was a hairdresser in Nantwich. Rita Linde was a German composer. Linda Mae Ritter lived in Detroit and had seven children, including a set of triplets.
Robin tried different spellings. Reeta Linder. Reena Lynda. Reata Lindar.
‘All right, Rob?’
Robin looked round. Her ex-husband was standing there, a packet of Marlboro Lights in his hand. He’d smoked occasionally as a student, but never afterwards, at least while they were together.
‘Hi,’ said Robin.
He lit up.
‘Working?’ he said, with a half-smile.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Huh,’ said Matthew.
They stood in silence for a while. The church where they’d got married, where Strike had gatecrashed the ceremony, knocking over one of the flower arrangements, was barely five minutes’ walk away from where they stood.
‘Who’s the Paul Newman lookalike?’
‘What? Oh – Ryan? He’s a CID officer.’
‘Ah,’ said Matthew, nodding as he blew out smoke. ‘I always thought you’d end up with Strike.’
‘You hid that well,’ said Robin sarcastically. Matthew laughed.
‘How long you home for?’
‘Until the twenty-ninth.’
‘We’re here till New Year.’
When Robin didn’t respond, he added,
‘Takes it out of you, coming back.’
Robin, who didn’t see why it should take anything out of Matthew, turned her attention back to her phone –
‘No kids yet, then?’
‘Nine,’ said Robin, trying to read about Reata Lindvall on her phone, but her vision was unaccountably blurred, ‘but I had them all adopted.’
He laughed again.
‘Not a bad idea. I’m going to be up all hours again, soon. Bloody nappies and—’
‘There you are.’
Sarah’s voice was icy. She was holding two coats. Robin looked at her, but the woman who’d slept with Robin’s husband in their bedroom in Deptford, and left a diamond earring in the sheets for Robin to find, no longer wanted to look back.
‘I was just having a fag,’ said Matthew, throwing the cigarette away.
‘I’m tired,’ said Sarah, pushing her husband’s coat at him.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘See you,’ he said to Robin.
‘Bye,’ said Robin.
The Cunliffes walked away. Deciding that the effort to focus on her phone’s screen was too onerous in her present condition, Robin took a deep lungful of night air, then headed back into the pub.
40
A. E. Housman
Strike arrived at Lucy’s party in Bromley at half past nine. His objective had been to miss as much of the party as he could without being rude, and above all to avoid the painful early stage of every such gathering, where the crowd is sparse, small talk particularly laboured, and the choice of company so limited that you risked being trapped with a bore who’d then stick to you all evening.
However, he was later than he’d meant to be, because he’d lost track of time while trying to identify the blonde he believed had put the cipher note through the agency’s door. Frustratingly, immediately before he’d realised he was late, and been forced to set out for Bromley with a bag of presents and an overnight bag in the boot of his BMW, he’d found her.