He sat back down in the armchair in which he’d listened to Robin’s police interview, prey to a number of conflicting emotions. Robin seemed less disorientated for having eaten, had a cat nap and spoken to the police, which was a relief, though he couldn’t help wondering whether a dispassionate observer would still think he was taking advantage of the situation if he did, indeed, share a bed with Robin. He couldn’t imagine Murphy being happy about it – not that keeping Murphy happy was any concern of his.
The sound of the shower now running in the bathroom gave rise to thoughts he knew he oughtn’t to be thinking. Getting to his feet again, he cleared away Robin’s used crockery and cutlery, noisily clinking both together as he placed them back on their tray, which he placed outside the door for collection. He then did some wholly unnecessary rearranging of his personal effects, put his phone on to charge and hung up his jacket, taking care to clatter the hangers together as he did so: nobody could accuse him of sitting in a chair, listening to the shower and picturing his business partner naked.
Robin, meanwhile, was soaping her scraped knees, breathing in the smell of the unfamiliar shower gel, and beginning to grasp that she really wasn’t in Chapman Farm any more. Onerous as the police interview had been, it had somehow grounded her. Standing under the hot water, grateful for the privacy, the lockable door and the thought of Strike outside, she reflected that there were worse things than what she’d been through: there was being a child who wasn’t strong enough to run, who had no friends to rescue him and was therefore utterly at the mercy of the regime at Chapman Farm. In spite of her bodily fatigue, she now felt nervily awake again.
Having towelled herself dry, she took a squeeze of Strike’s toothpaste, cleaned her teeth as best she could with the corner of a flannel and put on Strike’s T-shirt, which was the length of a mini dress on her. Then, wishing she could burn them immediately, she took the folded UHC tracksuit and trainers back into the bedroom, put them down on an armchair and, without noticing that Strike was avoiding looking at her, got into bed. The glass of brandy he’d ordered was still sitting on the bedside table. She reached for it and took another large gulp: it contrasted unpleasantly with the taste of toothpaste, but she liked the way it burned her throat.
‘You all right?’ said Strike.
‘Yes,’ said Robin, sitting back on the pillows. ‘God, it’s so… so
‘Glad to hear it,’ said Strike heartily, still avoiding looking at her.
‘They’re evil,’ said Robin, after taking another swig of brandy, ‘
Strike sensed her need to talk, but he was worried about tipping her back into the state of distress she’d been in before talking to the police.
‘You don’t have to tell me now,’ he said, ‘but I’m taking it this last week was bad?’
‘Bad,’ said Robin, whose colour had come back after a few gulps of brandy, ‘is’n understatement.’
Strike sat back down in the armchair, and Robin began to relate the events of the last ten days. She didn’t dwell on how scared she’d been, and she omitted certain details – Strike didn’t need to know she’d peed herself in the box, didn’t have to hear that mere hours ago she’d been convinced she was about to face rape, for the second time in her life, didn’t need to know exactly where Jonathan Wace had put his hands, the night they’d been alone together, in the peacock blue study – but the bald facts were sufficient to confirm some of her partner’s worst fears.
‘Fuck,’ was his first word, when she’d finished talking. ‘Robin, if I’d—’
‘It had to be me,’ she said, correctly anticipating what he was about to say. ‘If you’d put Barclay in there, or Shah, they’d never have got as much. You’d have to be a woman to see everything I did.’
‘That box – that’s a fucking torture technique.’
‘It’s a good one,’ said Robin, with a small laugh, now flushed from the brandy.
‘If—’
‘I chose to go in. This isn’t on you. I wanted it.’
‘But—’
‘At least we know, now.’
‘Know what?’
‘The lengths they’re prepared to go to. I can imagine Wace crying as he pressed the trigger of a gun. “I wish I didn’t have to do this.”’
‘You think they killed Kevin Pirbright?’
‘I do, yes.’
Strike decided not to debate the point, tempting though it was. Letting Robin vent was one thing, theorising about murder was a step too far at nearly midnight, when she was pink-cheeked from alcohol but hollow-eyed with exhaustion.
‘You’re sure about sharing the—?’
‘Yez, no problem,’ said Robin, now slurring slightly.
So Strike repaired to the bathroom himself, emerging ten minutes later in boxer shorts and the T-shirt he’d worn all day. Robin appeared to have fallen asleep where she sat.
