For the first time since he’d met Robin, Strike had no interest in pursuing a separate sexual relationship as a distraction from and a sublimation of any inconvenient feelings he might have for his partner. The last time he’d sought solace with another woman, beautiful as she’d been, he’d ended up with a stiletto heel puncture on his leg and a sense of grim futility. He still didn’t know whether, in the event of Robin’s relationship with Murphy ending, as he devoutly hoped it would, he’d force a conversation he’d once have resisted to the utmost, with a view to ascertaining Robin’s own true feelings. The objections to an affair with her remained. On the other hand (‘It suits you!’ that prick Murphy had said, seeing Robin with a baby in her arms), he feared the business partnership might break up in any case, because Robin would decide marriage and children appealed more than a detective career. So here stood Cormoran Strike, slimmer, fitter, clearer of lung, alone in his attic, poking broccoli angrily with a wooden spoon, thinking about not thinking about Robin Ellacott.
The ringing of his mobile came as a welcome distraction. Taking salmon, rice and vegetables off the heat, he answered.
‘Awright, Bunsen?’ said a familiar voice.
‘Shanker,’ said Strike. ‘What’s up?’
The man on the phone was an old friend, though Strike would have been hard pressed to remember his real name. Strike’s mother, Leda, had scraped the motherless and incurably criminal sixteen-year-old Shanker off the street after he’d been stabbed and brought him home to their squat. Shanker had subsequently become a kind of stepbrother to Strike, and was probably the only human being who’d never seen any flaws in the incurably flighty, novelty-chasing Leda.
‘Need some ’elp,’ said Shanker.
‘Go on,’ said Strike.
‘Need to find a geezer.’
‘What for?’ said Strike.
‘Nah, it ain’t what you fink,’ said Shanker. ‘I ain’ gonna mess wiv ’im.’
‘Good,’ said Strike, taking a drag on the vape pen that continued to supply him with nicotine. ‘Who is he?’
‘Angel’s farver.’
‘Whose father?’
‘Angel,’ said Shanker, ‘me stepdaughter.’
‘Oh,’ said Strike, surprised. ‘You got married?’
‘No,’ said Shanker impatiently, ‘but I’m living wiv ’er mum, in’ I?’
‘What is it, child support?’
‘Nah,’ said Shanker. ‘We’ve just found out Angel’s got leukaemia.’
‘Shit,’ said Strike, startled. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘An’ she wants to see ’er real dad an’ we ain’ got no idea where ’e is. ’E’s a cunt,’ said Shanker, ‘just not my kind o’ cunt.’
Strike understood this, because Shanker’s contacts throughout the criminal world of London were extensive, and could have found a professional con with ease.
‘All right, give me a name and date of birth,’ said Strike, reaching for a pen and notebook. Shanker did so, then asked,
‘’Ow much?’
‘You can owe me one,’ said Strike.
‘Serious?’ said Shanker, sounding surprised. ‘Awright, then. Cheers, Bunsen.’
Always impatient of unnecessary phone talk, Shanker then hung up and Strike returned to his broccoli and salmon, sorry to hear about the ill child who wanted to see her father, but nevertheless reflecting that it would be useful to have a favour in hand with Shanker. The small tip-offs and bits of information Strike got from his old friend, which were sometimes useful when Strike needed bait for police contacts, had escalated sharply in price as Strike’s agency had become more successful.
Meal made, Strike carried his plate to the small kitchen table, but before he could sit down his mobile rang for a second time. The call had been forwarded from the office landline. He hesitated before picking it up, because he had a feeling he knew who he was about to hear.
‘Strike.’
‘Hey, Bluey,’ said a slightly slurred voice. There was a lot of background noise, including voices and music.
It was the second time Charlotte had phoned him in a week. As she no longer had his mobile number, the office line was the only way of contacting him.
‘I’m busy, Charlotte,’ he said, his voice cold.
‘I knew you’d say that… ’m’in a horrible club. You’d hate it…’
‘I’m busy,’ he repeated, and hung up. He expected her to call again, and she did. He let the call go to voicemail as he shrugged off his suit jacket. As he did so, he heard a rustle in his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper that shouldn’t have been there. Unfolding it, he saw a mobile number and the name ‘Bijou Watkins’. She must be pretty deft, he thought, to have slipped that into his pocket without him feeling it. He tore the piece of paper in half, binned it, and sat down to eat his meal.
At eleven o’clock on the last Tuesday in February, Strike and Robin travelled together by taxi from their office to the Reform Club, a large, grey nineteenth-century building that stood on Pall Mall.
