The Running Grave полностью

‘Ah. Well, I just wanted to tell you, I’ve persuaded that journalist I mentioned to talk to me. Fergus Robertson, meeting him later at the Westminster Arms. Have you read his article yet?’

‘Yes,’ said Robin, ‘and I read his follow-up, too, about what the church did to him after the first one was published. They don’t like criticism, do they?’

‘I’d say that’s an understatement,’ said Strike. ‘In other news, I’ve just spotted Will Edensor. He’s collecting in Soho again today.’

‘Oh wow, really?’

‘Yeah. I didn’t approach him, just to be on the safe side, but he looks bloody terrible. He’s over six foot tall and probably weighs less than you do.’

‘Did he look happy? All the temple attendants were beaming non-stop.’

‘No, definitely not happy. I’ve also got Pat to have a look at the rota. You could go up to Coventry in the latter half of next week, if that suits you. I’ve got Sheila Kennett’s number – the old woman who lived at Chapman Farm for years. If I text it to you, could you ring her? See whether she’d be amenable to an interview?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Robin.

She’d barely returned her phone to her pocket when it rang again: Ilsa.

‘Hi,’ said Robin, ‘what’s up?’

‘What the hell is he playing at?’ said Ilsa hotly.

‘What’s who playing at?’

‘Corm!’

‘I don’t—’

‘He’s slept with bloody Bijou Watkins! Well – I say “slept” – apparently it was standing up, against her bedroom wall.’

Robin realised she was gaping, and closed her mouth.

‘He – hasn’t mentioned it to me.’

‘No, I’ll bet he bloody hasn’t,’ said Ilsa angrily. ‘She made up some bullshit reason to get his number off me, and I couldn’t think of any way of not giving it to her, but I thought he’d have the sense, after meeting her and seeing what she’s like, of not going within a hundred miles of her. You need to warn him: she’s insane. She can’t keep her bloody mouth shut, half of Chambers will have heard all the details by now—’

‘Ilsa, I can’t tell him who to sleep with. Or shag standing up against a bedroom wall,’ Robin added.

‘But she’s a total nutcase! All she wants is a rich husband and a baby, she’s completely open about it!’

‘Strike’s not rich,’ said Robin.

‘She might not realise that, after all those high-profile cases he keeps solving. You’ve got to warn him—’

‘Ilsa, I can’t. You warn him, if you want to. His sex life’s hardly my business.’

Ilsa groaned.

‘But why her, if he wants a displacement fuck?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Robin, completely honestly, and then, dropping her voice, she asked, ‘and what d’you mean, a “displacement fuck”?’

‘Oh, please,’ said Ilsa irritably. ‘You know perfectly well what—shit, that’s my QC, I’ll have to go. Bye.’

This conversation left Robin watching Frank One’s reflection in the dirty train window, prey to many conflicting emotions she wasn’t sure she wanted to disentangle. A very vivid mental picture had presented itself to her while Ilsa talked, of Bijou in her shocking pink dress, long tanned legs wrapped around Strike, and it wasn’t immediately possible to erase the image, especially as her imagination had given Strike quite a hairy arse.

The train stopped at last at Waterloo East. Robin followed her target on foot and then onto a Tube train, where he disembarked at Piccadilly Circus.

They were now so close to Theatreland that Robin’s hopes were rising that she’d picked the right brother to follow. However, instead of heading towards Shaftesbury Avenue and the theatre where Tasha Mayo’s play was showing, Frank One walked into Soho, and ten minutes later, entered a comic-book shop.

As everyone she could see through the windows was male, Robin decided she’d made herself conspicuous by following him, so she retreated a few yards and took out her phone to call the number Strike had sent her.

An out-of-breath voice, slightly cracked, either from age, smoking, or both, answered.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, is that Mrs Kennett?’ said Robin.

‘Yes. Who’s this?’

‘My name’s Robin Ellacott. I’m a private detective.’

‘You’re a what?’ said the elderly woman.

‘A private detective,’ said Robin.

Understandably, there was a short pause.

‘What d’you want?’ said the voice on the end of the line suspiciously.

‘I’ve been hired by somebody who’s very concerned about a relative of theirs, who’s a member of the Universal Humanitarian Church. I was hoping you might talk to me about the UHC. Just for background. You used to live at Chapman Farm, didn’t you?’

‘How d’you know that?’ said Sheila Kennett sharply; she certainly seemed to have all her faculties.

‘Just from records,’ said Robin, deliberately vague: she didn’t want to bandy about the fact that Strike had obtained census reports.

‘That was a long time ago,’ said Sheila Kennett.

‘We’re really just after background,’ said Robin. ‘I think you were there at the same time as the Pirbright family?’

‘I was, yeah,’ said Sheila, still sounding suspicious.

‘Well, we’re looking into some claims Kevin Pirbright made about the church, so we wondered whether—’

‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’

‘I – yes, he is,’ said Robin.