Struggling to understand why she’d set her alarm so early, she sat up in bed, the cream walls of her bedroom a blueish mauve in the dawn light, then remembered that Strike had planned a full team meeting, the first in two months, and that he’d asked her to come in an hour earlier than the others again, so that they could discuss the Bamborough case before everyone else got there.
Extremely tired, as she always seemed to be these days, Robin showered and dressed, fumbling over buttons, forgetting where she’d put her phone, realizing there was a stain on her sweater only when halfway upstairs to the kitchen and generally feeling disgruntled at life and early starts. When she reached the upper floor, she found Max sitting at the dining table in his dressing gown, poring over a cookbook. The TV was on: the breakfast television presenter was asking whether Valentine’s Day was an exercise in commercial cynicism or an opportunity to inject some much-needed romance into a couple’s life.
“Has Cormoran got any special dietary requirements?” Max asked her, and when Robin looked blank, he said, “For tonight. Dinner.”
“Oh,” said Robin, “no. He’ll eat anything.”
She checked her emails on her phone as she drank a mug of black coffee. With a small stab of dread, she saw one from her lawyer titled “Mediation.” Opening it, she saw that an actual date was being proposed: Wednesday, March the nineteenth, over a month away. She pictured Matthew talking to his own lawyer, consulting his diary, asserting his power, as ever. I’m tied up for the whole of next month. Then she imagined facing him across a boardroom table, their lawyers beside them, and felt panic mixed with rage.
“You should eat breakfast,” said Max, still reading cookbooks.
“I’ll get something later,” said Robin, closing her email.
She picked up the coat she’d left draped over the arm of the sofa and said,
“Max, you haven’t forgotten my brother and his friend are spending the weekend, have you? I doubt they’ll be around much. It’s just a base.”
“No, no, all good,” said Max vaguely, lost in recipes.
Robin headed out into the cool, damp early morning, getting all the way to the Tube before she realized that she didn’t have her purse on her.
“Shit!”
Robin was usually tidy, efficient and organized; she rarely made this kind of mistake. Hair flying, she ran back to the flat, asking herself what the hell she could have done with it, and wondering, now panicking, whether she’d dropped it in the street or had it stolen out of her bag.
Meanwhile, in Denmark Street, the groggy Strike was hopping on his one foot out of the shower, eyes puffy, and similarly exhausted. The after-effects of a week spent covering Barclay’s and Hutchins’s shifts were now catching up with him, and he slightly regretted having asked Robin to come into work so early.
However, just after pulling on his trousers, his mobile rang and with a stab of fear, he saw Ted and Joan’s number.
“Ted?”
“Hi, Corm. There’s no need to panic, now,” said Ted. “I just wanted to give you an update.”
“Go on,” said Strike, standing bare-chested and frozen in the cold gray light filtered by the too-thin curtains of his attic flat.
“She’s not looking too clever. Kerenza was talking about trying to get her to hospital, but Joanie doesn’t want to go. She’s still in bed, she—didn’t get up, yesterday,” said Ted, his voice cracking. “Couldn’t manage it.”
“Shit,” muttered Strike, sinking down onto his bed. “Right, Ted, I’m coming.”
“You can’t,” said his uncle. “We’re surrounded by flood water. It’s dangerous. Police are telling everyone to stay put, not to travel. Kerenza can… she says she can manage her pain at home. She’s got drugs they can inject… because she’s not eating a lot now. Kerenza doesn’t think it’s… you know… she thinks it’ll be…”
He began to cry in earnest.
“… not immediate, but… she says… not long.”
“I’m coming,” said Strike firmly. “Does Lucy know how bad Joan is?”
“I called you first,” said Ted.
“I’ll tell her, don’t worry about that. I’ll ring you when we’ve put a plan together, all right?”
Strike hung up and called Lucy.
“Oh God, no,” his sister gasped, when he’d given her an unemotional summary of what Ted had said. “Stick, I can’t leave right now—Greg’s stuck in Wales!”
“The hell’s Greg doing in Wales?”
“It’s for work—oh God, what are we going to do?”
“When’s Greg back?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“Then we’ll go down Sunday morning.”
“How? The trains are all off, the roads are flooded—”
“I’ll hire a jeep or something. Polworth’ll meet us the other end with a boat if we have to. I’ll ring you back when I’ve got things sorted.”
Strike dressed, made himself tea and toast, carried them downstairs to the partners’ desk in the inner office and called Ted back, overriding his objections, telling him that, like it or not, he and Lucy were coming on Sunday. He could hear his uncle’s yearning for them, his desperate need for company to share the burden of dread and grief. Strike then called Dave Polworth, who thoroughly approved of the plan and promised to be ready with boat, tow ropes and scuba equipment if
