“Exactly how many chippies has Skegness got?” Strike asked, as they came to a halt on the busy intersection beside the clock tower. They were standing right beside two establishments which had tables spilling out onto the pavement, and he could see a further two fish and chip shops on the other side of the junction.
“I never counted,” said Robin. “I was always more interested in the donkeys. Shall we try here?” she asked, pointing at the nearest free table, which was pistachio green and belonged to Tony’s Chippy (“We Sell on Quality not Price”).
“Donkeys?” repeated Strike, grinning, as he sat down on the bench.
“That’s right,” said Robin. “Cod or haddock?”
“Haddock, please,” said Strike, and Robin headed into the chip shop to order.
After a minute or so, looking forward to his chips and enjoying the feeling of sun on his back, Strike became aware that he was still watching Robin, and fixed his eyes instead on a fluttering mass just above him. Even though the top of the yellow railings separating Tony’s from Harry Ramsbottom’s had been fitted with fine spikes to stop birds landing on them, a handful of speckled starlings were doing just that, delicately poised between the needles, and balanced in the iron circles just below them, waiting for the chance to swoop on an abandoned chip.
Watching the birds, Strike wondered what the chances were of Douthwaite ringing the number on his card. He was a man with a long track record of hiding from his past, but Strike had definitely read in his face a desperation he’d only ever seen in the faces of men who could no longer bear the pressure of a terrible secret. Idly rubbing his chin, Strike decided to give the man a short period of grace, then either call him again, or even return, unannounced, to Skegness, where he might waylay Douthwaite in the street or a pub, where Donna couldn’t interfere.
Strike was still watching the starlings when Robin set down two polystyrene trays, two small wooden forks and two cans of Coke on the table.
“Mushy peas,” said Strike, looking at Robin’s tray, where a hefty dollop of what looked like green porridge sat alongside her fish and chips.
“Yorkshire caviar,” said Robin, sitting down. “I didn’t think you’d want any.”
“You were right,” said Strike, picking up a sachet of tomato sauce while watching with something like revulsion as Robin dipped a chip into the green sludge and ate it.
“Soft Southerner, you are,” she said, and Strike laughed.
“Don’t ever let Polworth hear you say that,” he said, breaking off a bit of fish with his fingers, dipping it in ketchup and eating it. He then, without warning, broke into song:
A good sword and a trusty hand!
A merry heart and true!
King James’s men shall understand,
What Cornish lads can do.
“What on earth’s that?” asked Robin, laughing.
“First verse of ‘The Song of the Western Men,’” said Strike. “The gist is that Cornishmen are the antithesis of soft bastards. Bloody hell, this is good.”
“I know. You don’t get fish and chips like this in London,” said Robin.
For a few minutes they ate in silence. The greaseproof paper in which the trays of chips were wrapped was printed with old pages of the Mirror newspaper. Paul Quits the Beatles. There were cartoons too, of the dirty postcard type: a busty blonde in bed with her elderly boss was saying “Business must be booming. You’ve never given me so much overtime.” It reminded her of Gemma the PA, who’d perhaps already called the fake number Robin had given her, and realized that it wasn’t only her ex, “Andy,” who wasn’t all he appeared to be. But Robin had a recording on her phone of everything Gemma knew about Shifty’s insider trading and Pat, at that moment, was transcribing it into a document shorn of anything that might identify the informant. Shifty, Robin hoped, would soon be jobless and, with any luck, in court.
A long stretch of fairground rides on the other side of the road hid the sea from her sight. The seats of the distant Ferris wheel were enclosed in casings shaped like pastel-colored hot-air balloons. Nearby stood a gigantic climbing frame for adults, with ropes and swinging tires, a hundred feet up in the air. Watching the harnessed people navigating the obstacles, Robin felt a strange mixture of contentment and melancholy: the possibility of an unknown development in the Bamborough case, the delicious chips and peas, the companionship of Strike and the sunshine were all cheering, but she was also remembering chasing along the out-of-sight beach as a small child, trying to outrun her brother Stephen to reach the donkeys and have first pick. Why did the memory of innocence sting so much, as you got older? Why did the memory of the child who’d thought she was invulnerable, who’d never known cruelty, give her more pain than pleasure?
Her childhood had been happy, unlike Strike’s; it ought not to hurt. Over the space of summer weekends spread years apart, Robin and her brothers had competed to ride the black donkey called Noddy, who was doubtless long gone. Was it mortality, then, which turned cheerful memories bittersweet? Maybe, Robin thought, she’d bring Annabel here when she was old enough, and treat her to her first donkey ride. It was a nice idea, but she doubted Stephen and Jenny would see Skegness as a desirable weekend destination. Annabel’s great-aunt had moved away from Boston: there was no longer any family connection to the area. Times changed, and so did childhoods.
“You all right?” said Strike, watching Robin’s face.
“Fine,” she said. “Just thinking… I’m going to be thirty in a few weeks.”
Strike snorted.
“Well, you’re getting no sympathy from me,” he said. “I’ll be forty the month after.”
He snapped open his can of Coke and drank. Robin watched a family pass, all four eating ice creams, accompanied by
