When they stepped out into the courtyard they found it full of church members heading towards the dining hall. There was something of a crowd around the pool of the Drowned Prophet as people waited to ask for her blessing.
‘Actually,’ Robin said to Jiang, ‘I might just nip to the bathroom before lunch.’
She left before he could protest, heading into the women’s dormitory, which was deserted. Having used the bathroom, she hurried to her bed. To her surprise, a second object lay on her pillow beside her nightly journal: a very old, dog-eared copy of the same paperback she held in her hands. Opening it, she saw a flamboyant handwritten inscription inside.
Robin remembered Danny Brockles’ insistence that she return the book to him, so she placed her own copy of
Clive Littlejohn returned to work on Wednesday. Strike texted him at nine to say he wanted a face-to-face talk at one o’clock at the office, once both had handed over their separate surveillance jobs to other subcontractors.
Unfortunately, this plan went awry. At ten past nine, shortly after Strike had taken up position outside the Frank brothers’ block of flats in Bexleyheath, Barclay called him.
‘Ye on the Franks?’
‘Yeah,’ said Strike.
‘Aye, well, I thought ye should know: it’s both o’ them,’ said Barclay. ‘Not jus’ the younger one. I’ve been looking at the pictures I took outside her house last night an’ it was the older one who was skulkin’ around there at midnight. They’re in it taegether. Pair o’ fuckin’ freaks.’
‘Shit,’ said Strike.
They’d just taken on another case of possible marital infidelity, so the news that they’d need double the manpower on the Franks was unwelcome.
‘You’re off today, right?’ said Strike.
‘Aye,’ said Barclay. ‘Dev’s on the new cheatin’ wife an’ Midge is tryin’ tae talk tae that sex worker you photographed talking tae Bigfoot.’
‘All right,’ said Strike, briefly considering but rejecting the idea of asking Barclay to forgo his day off, ‘thanks for letting me know. I’ll look at the rota, see how we can keep both under surveillance going forwards.’
Immediately after Barclay had hung up, Strike received a text from Littlejohn, saying that Bigfoot, who rarely went into his office, had chosen today to drive out to the company in Bishop’s Stortford, which lay forty miles away from where Strike was currently standing. Much as Strike had wanted to look Littlejohn in the face when asking him about the omission of Patterson Inc from his CV, he now decided it would be quickest and cleanest to do the job by phone, so called Littlejohn back.
‘Hi,’ said Littlejohn, on answering.
‘Forget the meeting at one,’ Strike told him. ‘We can talk now. Wanted to ask you why you didn’t tell me you worked for Mitch Patterson for three months, before coming to me.’
The immediate response to these words was silence. Strike waited, watching the Franks’ windows.
‘Who told you that?’ said Littlejohn at last.
‘Never mind who told me. Is it true?’
More silence.
‘Yeah,’ said Littlejohn at last.
‘Mind telling me why you didn’t mention it?’
The third long pause didn’t improve Strike’s temper.
‘Listen—’
‘I got the heave ho,’ said Littlejohn.
‘Why?’
‘Patterson didn’t like me.’
‘Why didn’t he?’
‘Dunno,’ said Littlejohn.
‘Did you fuck up?’
‘No… personality clash,’ said Littlejohn.
‘There was a row, was there?’
‘No,’ said Littlejohn. ‘He just told me he didn’t need me any more.’
Strike was certain there was something he wasn’t being told.
‘There’s another thing,’ he said. ‘What were you doing at the office on Easter Monday?’
‘Receipts,’ said Littlejohn.
‘Pat was off. It was a bank holiday. Nobody should’ve been at the office.’
‘I forgot,’ said Littlejohn.
Strike stood with his phone pressed to his ear, thinking. His gut was issuing a warning, but his brain reminded him they wouldn’t be able to cover all present cases without Littlejohn.
