‘The punctuation and spelling were too good and they were asking artful questions. They’ll have been disappointed with what they got out of her, because when offered the chance to lay hands on a weapon she started asking whether killing people wasn’t wrong, after all. I can’t see that they’re going to have grounds to keep her forcibly in a psychiatric facility for long. I’ve left a message on the mobile.’
‘Are you sure pursuing her’s—?’
‘Wise? Will it annoy MI5? Will Ralph Lawrence be pissed off I haven’t run for the hills because he told me to?’
‘Yes to all of the above,’ said Robin.
‘He made me climb up onto the fucking roof of that pub to prove a point. I’m not breaking any laws, calling a phone number.’
‘I know, but—’
‘He wears Aviator shades. Case closed.’
Against her better judgement, Robin laughed again.
‘Anything new your end?’ asked Strike.
‘Not much,’ said Robin, taking a deep breath because she wanted to sound casual and offhand when saying the next thing. ‘The guy who jumped me in Beaconsfield has been let out on bail.’
‘Shit,’ said Strike.
He’d known it would happen, but deplored the fact that it had. Strike considered that certain kinds of criminals were treated far too leniently by the criminal justice system, a viewpoint shaped in adolescence by the sight of his stepfather repeatedly committing violence, then being released on bail conditions he ignored.
‘Have they told you anything new about him?’ Strike asked.
‘Not much,’ said Robin. ‘They still seem to think he attacked me at random, even though I told them about the other times I’d seen him—’
‘“Times”, plural?’ said Strike sharply.
‘Please don’t start,’ said Robin, ‘but I – I saw him on Saturday, outside my flat.’
With immense difficulty, Strike prevented himself ‘starting’ by remembering that he’d been a dick to Robin on Saturday, which had presumably disinclined her to call him back and mention Green Jacket being on the prowl.
‘So he knows where you live?’
‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘You know that rubber gorilla, and the masonic dagger he threw at me?’
‘Yeah, strangely enough, both stuck in my mind.’
‘I’ve got them both wrapped up in freezer bags at home. I told the police about them, but nobody’s come round for them yet. They seem to be leaning towards the fact that he’s an opportunist or a stalker, as opposed to someone trying to stop me investigating. They weren’t very interested in me saying a man with the same jacket had been outside my flat on Saturday.’
‘Can’t Murphy make them take this more bloody seriously?’
‘He’s done all he can,’ lied Robin.
‘So that’s all they’ve told you, that he’s out on bail?’
‘And that he lives in a completely different area of London to me. I think they thought that would make me feel safer – though as he definitely knows where I live, it didn’t, really,’ Robin admitted. ‘Anyway, all the usual bail conditions apply: he can’t change address, he’s not allowed to contact me and he’ll be reporting to the police once a week.’
‘Yeah, that’ll stop him,’ said Strike injudiciously, before remembering that that probably wasn’t a very helpful thing to say. ‘What about that older bloke in the Honda Accord? Have you seen him again?’
‘Not since I told you about him.’
‘OK, well, we need to decide how we’re going to deal with this stuff, going forwards.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘You know what I mean,’ said Strike.
He’d deliberately suggested she join him for dinner at the Goring before embarking on this part of the conversation, because he wanted to reassure her she wasn’t being cut off from the case. The lack of response from the other end of the phone told Strike that Robin was waiting on tenterhooks to hear what he was about to say, but the time for prevarication and soft-pedalling was over. He wasn’t going to get as angry as he had in Ironbridge, but nor was he going to shirk what he knew to be his duty, even if Robin didn’t like it. The news that the man in the green jacket had been more persistent than Strike had previously known had more than confirmed his opinion that stricter security measures must be taken.
‘Someone, probably Branfoot, is trying to scare us off, and you’re the one they’re targeting,’ said Strike.
‘Because I’m—’
‘Because they think they’ve spotted a vulnerability,’ said Strike firmly. ‘And when your opponent’s spotted a vulnerability, you don’t keep presenting it to him, you
‘But—’ said Robin, whose eyes had filled with tears when Strike had said she was the best he’d ever worked with.
‘There’s no “but”,’ said Strike. ‘We’ve had this discussion before. If you aren’t shaken up by all this, you bloody well should be. Doesn’t mean you can’t work, just means you’ll be working differently for a while.’