However, when she opened the email she simply read:
FYI: summary of Talbot’s horoscope notes and action points.
Robin knew her face must have fallen when she looked up and saw Linda watching her.
“Bad news?”
“No, just Strike.”
“On Christmas Day?” said Linda sharply.
And Robin had realized in that instant that Geoffrey, her ex-father-in-law, must have been spreading it around Masham that if Matthew had been unfaithful, it was only after being heinously betrayed himself. She read the truth in her mother’s face, and in Jenny’s sudden interest in Annabel, whom she was jiggling in her arms, and in the sharp look flung at her by Jonathan, her youngest brother, who was tipping bottled cranberry sauce into a dish.
“It’s work,” Robin had said coldly. Each of her silent accusers had returned hastily to their tasks.
It was, therefore, with very mixed feelings toward the author that Robin now settled down to read Strike’s document. Emailing her on Christmas Day had felt reproachful, as though she’d let him down by going back to Masham instead of remaining in London and single-handedly running the agency while he, Barclay and Morris were down with flu. Moreover, if he was going to email at all on Christmas Day, some kind of personal message might be seen as common politeness. Perhaps he’d simply treated her Christmas present with the same indifference she’d treated his.
Robin had just read to the bottom of “Possible leads” and was digesting the idea that a professional gangster had been, on at least one occasion, in close proximity to Margot Bamborough, when the kitchen door opened, admitting baby Annabel’s distant wails. Linda entered the room, wearing a dressing gown and slippers.
“What are you doing down here?” she asked, sounding disapproving, as she crossed to the kettle.
Robin tried not to show how irked she felt. She’d spent the last few days smiling until her face ached, helping as much as was physically possible, admiring baby Annabel until she doubted that a pore had been left unpraised; she’d joined in charades and poured drinks and watched films and unwrapped chocolates or cracked nuts for Jenny, who was constantly pinned to the sofa by the demands of breastfeeding. She’d shown an intelligent and sympathetic interest in Jonathan’s university friends’ exploits; she’d listened to her father’s opinions on David Cameron’s agricultural policy and she’d noticed, but shown no resentment about, the fact that not a single member of her family had asked what she was doing at work. Was she not allowed to sit quietly in the kitchen for half an hour, while Annabel rendered sleep impossible?
“Reading an email,” said Robin.
“They think,” said Linda (and Robin knew “they” must be the new parents, whose thoughts and wishes were of all-consuming importance just now) “it was the sprouts. She’s been colicky all night. Jenny’s exhausted.”
“Annabel didn’t have sprouts,” said Robin.
“She gets it all through the breast milk,” explained Linda, with what felt to Robin like condescension for being excluded from the mysteries of motherhood.
Bearing two cups of tea for Stephen and Jenny, Linda left the room again. Relieved, Robin opened her notebook and jotted down a couple of thoughts that had occurred to her while reading “Possible leads,” then returned to Strike’s document to read his short list of “Probably irrelevant” items gleaned from Talbot’s notebook.
Paul Satchwell
After a few months, Talbot’s mental state clearly deteriorated, judging by his notes, which become progressively more detached from reality.
Toward the end of the notebook he goes back to the other two horned signs of the zodiac, Aries and Taurus, presumably because he’s still fixated on the devil. As stated above, Wilma comes in for a lot of unfounded suspicion, but he also goes to the trouble of calculating Satchwell’s complete birth horoscope, which means he must have got a birth time from him. Probably means nothing, but strange that he went back to Satchwell and spent this much time on his birth chart, which he didn’t do for any other suspect. Talbot highlights aspects of the chart that supposedly indicate aggression, dishonesty and neuroses. Talbot also keeps noting that various parts of Satchwell’s chart are “same as AC” without explanation.
Roy Phipps and Irene Hickson
As mentioned above, the signs Talbot uses for Roy Phipps and Irene Hickson (who was then Irene Bull) haven’t ever been used in astrology and seem to be inventions of Talbot’s.
Roy’s symbol looks like a headless stickman. Exactly what it’s supposed to represent I can’t find out—presumably a constellation? Quotations about snakes recur around Roy’s name.
Irene’s invented sign looks like a big fish and—
The kitchen door opened again. Robin looked around. It was Linda again.
“You still here?” she said, still with a slight sense of disapproval.
“No,” said Robin, “I’m upstairs.”
Linda’s smile was reluctant. As she took more mugs from the cupboard, she asked,
“D’you want another tea?”
“No thanks,” said Robin, closing her laptop. She’d decided to finish reading Strike’s document in her room. Maybe she was imagining it, but Linda seemed to be making more noise than usual.
“He’s got you working over Christmas as well, then?” said Linda.
For the past four days, Robin had suspected that her mother wanted to talk to her about Strike. The looks she’d seen on her surprised family’s faces yesterday had told her why. However, she felt under no obligation to make it easy for Linda to interrogate her.
“As well as what?” asked Robin.
“You know what I mean,” said Linda. “Christmas. I’d have thought you were owed time off.”
“I get time off,” said Robin.
She took her empty mug over to the sink. Rowntree now struggled to his feet and Robin let him out of the back door, feeling the icy air on every bit of exposed skin. Over the garden hedge she could see the sun turning the horizon green as it made its
