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.’
‘I know. I wanted to talk over the silver vault case in person. I’ve just had Decima Mullins on the phone again.’
‘Hang on,’ said Robin, eyes on the door of Balenciaga, ‘Mrs A’s on the move.’
The brunette, who was wearing a long black coat of faux-fur and very high-heeled boots, had emerged from the shop carrying a large shopping bag, and now sauntered on up the street. Robin and Strike set off on the opposite pavement, keeping pace with her, though twenty yards behind.
‘What did you tell Decima?’ asked Robin.
‘The truth,’ said Strike, ‘leaving out the plainclothes bloke, obviously. I said the circumstantial evidence points strongly towards it being Jason Knowles, but that there’s no absolute confirmation yet that it’s him.’
‘And what did she say?’ said Robin.
‘She begged me to try and prove who Wright was,’ said Strike. ‘So, what d’you think?’
‘I thought you didn’t want the job?’
‘I’m not going to lie,’ said Strike. ‘I’m getting interested in that body.’
But this, of course, wasn’t the whole truth.
Since realising how little Murphy wanted them to investigate the corpse in the vault, Strike had come to see how many opportunities this case offered with regard to the furtherance of his plans regarding Robin. Given the sensitivity around the undercover NCA agent, Strike had a perfect excuse to insist he and Robin did the bulk of this case together, excluding the subcontractors. The need for confidentiality would justify regular closed meetings between the two of them and, as a bonus, they might need to visit the home towns of the other candidates for William Wright, so as to rule them out. That would mean long car trips, plenty of joint interviews and debriefs and, with luck, overnight stays. He even had an excellent excuse to bring up Charlotte’s suicide note again, when outlining why Sacha Legard and Valentine Longcaster might not be keen on talking to him.
Strike didn’t doubt that some would call him cynical, but that didn’t trouble him in the slightest. After all, he fully intended to give Decima Mullins value for money, and if they managed to prove that Fleetwood hadn’t been the man in the vault, their client would have the resolution she needed.
The brunette on the other side of the road entered a jewellers. Strike and Robin turned automatically to look into a window opposite, watching the reflected shopfront.
‘But,’ said Strike, ‘if investigating is going to cause trouble between you and Murphy, we’ll pass.’
Caught off-guard, Robin looked up at him.
‘I – even if it did, that’s not a good reason not to take it,’ she said, without thinking.
‘Well, that’d be my view in your position, but some might say that’s why I’m still single. You haven’t asked me how my date with Bijou went,’ he added, looking down at her.
‘Oh God, I’m sorry about that,’ said Robin, blushing. ‘I never – I forgot to tell Ryan you’d stopped seeing her, I – you didn’t have to—’
‘Doesn’t bother me,’ said Strike. ‘She makes a far better imaginary girlfriend than she did a real one. Not,’ he added, ‘that she was ever a girlfriend.’
‘What would you call her, then?’ said Robin, thoroughly taken aback by the turn the conversation had taken. Strike’s usual form was resolute tight-lipped-ness about his private life.
‘A misguided exercise in distraction and instant gratification that’s cured me of the practice. That was quick,’ Strike added, as Mr A’s ex-wife emerged from the jewellers opposite.