Driving along the motorway, Strike thought how very fitting his first contact with Robin had been. He’d been hurtling out of the office, intent on following Charlotte, from whom he’d broken up mere hours previously and afraid (the memory of the overdose and bus in mind) she might be about to throw herself in front of a Tube train. Instead of catching up with his girlfriend he’d collided with Robin, with such force that he’d knocked her backwards off her feet on the landing and only his fast physical reflexes had stopped her falling down the stairs and possibly breaking her neck. Robin blocking his path back to Charlotte, him nearly killing her in exchange: there was a blunt bit of symbolism, if ever he’d met one…
Her ring finger might still be bare, but Strike was certain it was only a matter of time before that changed. This belief was predicated on his knowledge of Robin. She was the kind of person who stuck things out, even when loyalty might be considered unwise, and Strike could hardly complain about this trait, because he’d benefited from it himself. Nobody who’d had her best interests at heart would have advised her to stick with Strike and the agency in the early days, when she could have been earning far more money with a company that didn’t look as though it was going to go bust at any minute. No, Robin was a good and decent person, and good and decent people didn’t walk away when things were tough, nor did they walk out on their romantic partners when they were having crises.
Having resented Murphy for being fit and successful, Strike now deeply begrudged the man his alcoholic lapse and his work troubles.
110
Matthew Arnold
The large, twisted trees lining the road and the stretches of prime farmland were like a landscape seen in a half-forgotten dream. Strike tried to take consolation from the magnificent indifference of nature to all human concerns, but the strategy was so ineffective it was almost a relief to turn up the side road leading to Heberley, and focus his mind on what needed to be done.
The tall wrought-iron gates loomed up before him, set between stone pillars on top of which were carved salmon in tribute to the Legard family arms and, perhaps, the River Tyne, which flowed past the house. Strike got out of the car and approached an intercom, which was new: the old one, he remembered, had been rusty. He pressed the bell, and a woman with an Eastern European accent answered.
‘Who is, please?’
‘Cartier,’ said Strike into the intercom, and by the time he’d got back to his car, the iron gates were slowly opening.
Rhododendrons lined the drive, but it was too early in the year for them to be in flower; instead they formed a dense, glossy dark green guard of honour as he drove up an incline. When the BMW crested the top of the hill, Heberley House came into view in the distance: an enormous rectangular block of reddish ashlar, with long windows and pillars in the Greek Doric style. Strike still had half a mile to cover, the track running through the deer park, where vast mature trees spread welcome pools of shade on sunny days, and the Legard family, if sober enough, had enjoyed the occasional picnic lunch, which wasn’t a matter of scratchy blankets, Tupperware and hard-boiled eggs, as Strike had experienced with Ted and Joan, but involved staff setting up trestle tables with snowy cloths, and carrying silverware across the lawn.
He parked on the gravel forecourt and as he approached the front door it opened to reveal the woman he assumed was a housekeeper: short, thin, light-haired and wearing a black dress. He didn’t recognise her, but hadn’t expected to. If there had ever been aged family retainers at Heberley House, they’d all peeled away since the arrival of Tara, who was notorious for an inability to hold on to staff who had to interact with her regularly.
‘You have necklace?’ said the housekeeper curiously, eyeing Strike’s empty hands.
‘It’s locked in my car,’ he said, pointing at the BMW. ‘I’m not supposed to get it out until Lady Jenson’s present.’
This implausible story seemed to satisfy the housekeeper, who turned to lead him into the marble-floored hall, which had changed very little since Strike had last been here. More carved salmon served as finials at the bottom of the wide staircase, and the eighteenth-century chairs he remembered were still set in front of an enormous stone fireplace.