Meanwhile, Miss Jones’s boyfriend continued to live a frustratingly law-abiding life, but she appeared happy to keep paying the agency’s bills, as long as Strike endured twice-weekly phone calls with her. During these supposed catch-ups, she told Strike all her problems, and hinted broadly that a dinner invitation would be happily accepted.
In addition to these clients, and leapfrogging those on the waiting list, was Shifty’s Boss, who’d been forced into early retirement by the board. SB walked in off Denmark Street one morning looking for Barclay, who’d left his contact details with Elinor Dean. To Strike’s surprise, early retirement seemed not to have spurred SB into despair, but liberated him.
“If you can believe it, I was genuinely thinking of killing myself, just a few months back,” he told Strike. “But I’m out from under that bastard’s thumb now. Now I’ve told my wife about Elinor—”
“Told her, have you?” said Strike, surprised.
“And she’s been very understanding,” said SB. “In my previous marriage, my—well, my needs—were taken care of by my ex-wife, but since we split… anyway, Portia and I have talked it all through, and she’s perfectly happy for my arrangement with Elinor to continue, as long as there’s no infidelity.”
Strike hid his expression behind his mug. He could well imagine that Portia, with her inch-long nails and her professional blow-dries, her thrice-yearly holidays, her black American Express card and her six-bedroomed house with swimming pool in West Brompton, preferred someone else to change SB’s nappy.
“No, all I want now,” said SB, his satisfied smile replaced by a hard glare, “is to make sure that shifty bastard gets what’s coming to him. And I’m prepared to pay.”
So the agency had resumed surveillance on both Shifty and his PA.
The upshot of three demanding cases meant that most of the communication between the two partners was done by phone for the rest of the month. Their paths finally crossed one Thursday afternoon in late August, when Strike entered the office as Robin was about to leave it.
Pat, who was listening to the radio while paying a slew of bills, offered to turn it off on seeing Strike, whose attention had just been caught by the figure-hugging blue dress Robin was wearing.
“No, it’s fine,” he said. “Nice to hear some music.”
“Cormoran, can I have a quick word before I go?” Robin asked, beckoning him into the inner office.
“… next up, in our hundred hits of the seventies, an oldie but goodie from one-hit-wonder Middle of the Road: ‘Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep…’”
“Where’re you off to?” said Strike, closing the internal door on Pat. He’d spent most of the previous night on his feet, watching Shifty get drunk and coked up in a nightclub, and today driving between the various addresses Dopey’s business partner had used over the previous two years. Unshaven and aching all over, he grunted in relief as he sank into his usual chair.
“The Vintry. Wine bar in the City,” said Robin. “Gemma’s going to be there later, Andy heard her arranging it. I’m hoping she’s with girlfriends. I’m going to try and infiltrate the group somehow.”
Gemma was Shifty’s PA. Through the closed door they now heard strains of a jaunty song playing on the radio, with its incongruous lyric,
“Where’s your mamma gone?”
“You’re still working on Bamborough, aren’t you?” Robin asked.
“Just going back over a few things,” Strike admitted.
“And?”
“And nothing. It’s like a maze. Moment I start thinking I’m getting somewhere, I turn a corner and come up against a dead end. Or find myself back where I started. Why are you looking so pleased?”
“I’m just glad you haven’t given up,” said Robin.
“You won’t say that when they cart me off to the same asylum as Bill Talbot. If I never see another fucking star sign, it’ll be too soon… Where the hell is Douthwaite? What happened to him?”
“You think—?”
“I think he’s bloody fishy, I always did. His alibi amounts to fuck all. Then he changes his name. Then, as you found out, another young woman dies in his vicinity—that drowned Redcoat. Then he vanishes again.
“If I could just speak to Douthwaite,” said Strike, drumming his fingers on the desk, “I’d give it up.”
“Really?” said Robin.
He glanced at her, then, frowning, looked away. She was looking particularly sexy in that blue dress, which he’d never seen before.
“Yeah, if I could speak to Douthwaite, that’d do me.”
“Last night I heard my mamma singing a song…”
“And maybe Gloria Conti,” said Strike.
“Woke up this morning, and my mamma was gone…”
“And Creed,” said Strike. “I’d like to talk to Dennis Creed.”
Robin felt a little skip of excitement. She’d received an email earlier, telling her to expect a decision by the end of the day on whether or not Creed could be re-interviewed.
“I’d better get going,” she said. “Gemma’s supposed to be there at six. It was nice of you,” she added, as she reached for the door handle, “to let Pat keep the radio on.”
“Yeah, well,” said Strike, with a shrug. “Trying to be friendly.”
As Robin was putting on her coat in the outer office, Pat said,
“That’s a very good color on you.”
“Thanks. It’s quite old. Miracle it still fits, all the chocolate I’ve been eating lately.”
“Would he like a cuppa, d’you think?”
“I’m sure he would,” said Robin, surprised. Apparently Strike wasn’t the only one who was trying to be friendly.
“Oooh, I used to love this,” said Pat, as the opening bars of “Play That Funky Music” filled the office, and as Robin walked down the stairs, she heard Pat singing along, in her raspy baritone:
Once I was a funky singer,
Playin’ in a rock and roll band…
The Vintry, which Robin reached twenty minutes later, lay near Cannon
