She burst out laughing for the third time. Strike, who could just imagine how his two female co-workers, Robin and ex-policewoman Midge Greenstreet, would react if he started suggesting these strategies for getting information out of witnesses or suspects, settled for a perfunctory smile.
At this moment, Robin reappeared in the kitchen, alone. Strike’s eyes followed her as she slid through the crowd to Nick to tell him something. He’d rarely seen Robin wear her strawberry blonde hair up, and it suited her. Her light blue dress was far more demure than Bijou’s and looked new: bought in tribute to Master Benjamin Herbert, Strike wondered, or for the benefit of Ryan Murphy? As he watched, Robin turned, saw him, and smiled over the sea of heads.
‘’Scuse me,’ he said, cutting off Bijou mid-anecdote, ‘need to talk to someone.’
He picked up two of the pre-poured glasses of champagne standing beside the christening cake and cleaved his way through the jumble of laughing, drinking friends and relatives to where Robin was standing.
‘Hi,’ he said. There’d been no chance to talk at the church, though they’d stood side by side at the font, jointly renouncing Satan. ‘Want a drink?’
‘Thanks,’ said Robin, taking the glass. ‘Thought you didn’t like champagne?’
‘Couldn’t find any lager. Did you get my email?’
‘About Sir Colin Edensor?’ said Robin, dropping her voice. In unspoken agreement, the pair edged away from the fray into a corner. ‘Yes. Funnily enough, I was reading an article about the Universal Humanitarian Church the other day. You realise their headquarters are about ten minutes from our office?’
‘Rupert Court, yeah,’ said Strike. ‘There were girls out with collecting tins in Wardour Street last time I was there. How d’you fancy meeting Edensor with me on Tuesday?’
‘Definitely,’ said Robin, who’d been hoping Strike would suggest this. ‘Where’s he want to meet?’
‘The Reform Club, he’s a member. Murphy have to leave?’ Strike asked casually.
‘No,’ said Robin, looking around, ‘but he had to make a work call. Maybe he’s outside.’
Robin resented feeling self-conscious as she said this. She ought to be able to talk naturally about her boyfriend with her best friend, but given Strike’s lack of warmth on the rare occasions Murphy called for her at the office, she found it difficult.
‘How was Littlejohn yesterday?’ asked Strike.
‘All right,’ said Robin, ‘but I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as quiet.’
‘Makes a nice change after Morris and Nutley, doesn’t it?’
‘Well, yes,’ said Robin uncertainly, ‘but it’s a bit unnerving to sit next to someone in a car for three hours in total silence. And if you say anything to him, you get a grunt or a monosyllable.’
A month previously, Strike had succeeded in finding a new subcontractor for the detective agency. Slightly older than Strike, Clive Littlejohn, too, was ex-Special Investigation Branch, and had only recently left the army. He was large and square, with heavy-lidded eyes that gave an impression of perennial weariness, and salt-and-pepper hair that he continued to wear military short. At interview, he’d explained that he and his wife wanted a more stable life for their teenage children, after the constant upheavals and absences of army life. On the evidence of the past four weeks, he was conscientious and reliable, but Strike had to admit his taciturnity was taken to an unusual extreme, and he couldn’t remember so far seeing Littlejohn crack a smile.
‘Pat doesn’t like him,’ said Robin.
Pat was the agency’s office manager, an implausibly black-haired, chain-smoking woman of fifty-eight who looked at least a decade older.
‘I don’t go to Pat for character judgement,’ said Strike.
He’d noticed the officer manager’s warmth towards Ryan Murphy whenever the CID man turned up to pick Robin up from the office and didn’t appreciate it. Irrationally, he felt everyone at the agency should feel as hostile to Murphy as he did.
‘Sounds as though Patterson really messed up the Edensor case,’ said Robin.
‘Yeah,’ said Strike, with an unconcealed satisfaction that stemmed from the fact that he and the head of the rival detective agency, Mitch Patterson, detested each other. ‘They were bloody careless. I’ve been reading up on that church since I got Edensor’s email and I’d say it’d be a big mistake to underestimate them. If we take the job, it might mean one of us going in under deep cover. I can’t do it, the leg’s too distinctive. Probably have to be Midge. She’s not married.’
‘Nor am I,’ said Robin quickly.
‘This wouldn’t be like you pretending to be Venetia Hall or Jessica Robins, though,’ said Strike, referring to undercover personas Robin had adopted during previous cases. ‘It wouldn’t be nine-to-five. Might mean you couldn’t have contact with the outside world for a while.’
‘So?’ said Robin. ‘I’d be up for that.’
She had a strong feeling that she was being tested.
‘Well,’ said Strike, who had indeed found out what he wanted to know, ‘we haven’t got the job yet. If we do, we’ll have to decide who fits the bill best.’
