“What did you do with the body?” said Strike.
“Ah,” said Creed, sitting back in his seat. The wet lips slid over each other, and the wide pupils gaped. “I think I’m going to need a transfer back to Belmarsh before I tell anyone that. You go and tell the newspapers I’ve decided to confess to killing Louise, and that I’m sane, and I should be in Belmarsh, and if I’m transferred, I’ll tell old Brian Tucker where I put his little girl. You go tell the authorities, that’s my offer…
“You never know, I might even feel up to talking about Margot Bamborough when I’m out of here. Let’s get these drugs out of my system, and maybe I’ll remember better.”
“You’re full of shit,” said Strike, getting to his feet, looking angry. “I’m not passing this on.”
“Don’t be like that, because it’s not the one you came for,” said Creed, with a slow smile. “You’re coming across like a proper narcissist, Cormoran.”
“I’m ready to go,” Strike told Dr. Bijral.
“Don’t be like that,” said Creed. “Oi!”
Strike turned back.
“All right… I’ll give you a little clue about where I put Louise’s body, and we’ll see whether you’re as clever as you think you are, all right? We’ll see whether you or the police work it out first. If they find the body, they’ll know I’m sane, and I’m ready to talk about Margot Bamborough, as long as I get moved where I want to go. And if nobody can figure out the clue, someone’ll have to come back and talk to me, won’t they? Maybe even you. We could play chess for more clues, Cormoran.”
Strike could tell that Creed was imagining weeks of front pages, as he laid a trail for investigators to follow. Psychological torture for the Tuckers, manipulation of public opinion, Strike, perhaps, at his beck and call: it was a sadist’s wet dream.
“Go on then,” said Strike, looking down at him. “What’s the clue?”
“You’ll find Louise Tucker’s body where you find M54,” said Creed, and Strike knew Creed had thought out the clue well ahead of time, and was certain that it would have been a clue about Margot, had Strike said he’d been hired by the Tuckers. Creed needed to believe he hadn’t given Strike what he really wanted. He had to come out on top.
“Right,” said Strike. He turned to Dr. Bijral. “Shall we?”
“M54, all right, Cormoran?” called Creed.
“I heard you,” said Strike.
“Sorry not to be able to help with Dr. Bamborough!” called Creed, and Strike could hear his pleasure at the idea that he’d thwarted the detective.
Strike turned back one last time, and now he stopped pretending to be angry, and grinned, too.
“I was here for Louise, you silly fucker. I know you never met Margot Bamborough. She was murdered by a far more skillful killer than you ever were. And just so you know,” Strike added, as the nurse’s keys jangled, and Creed’s slack, fat face registered dismay, “I think you’re a fucking lunatic, and if anyone asks me, I’ll say you should be in Broadmoor till you rot.”
69
Beare ye the picture of that Ladies head?
Full liuely is the semblaunt, though the substance dead.
Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene
After almost an hour’s debrief with Dr. Bijral, during which the shaken psychiatrist phoned Scotland Yard, the detective left the hospital feeling as though he’d been there twice as long as he really had. The village of Crowthorne didn’t lie on Strike’s route back to London, but he was hungry, he wanted to call Robin and he felt a powerful need to place himself among ordinary people going about their lives, to expel the memory of those empty, echoing corridors, the jangle of keys and the widely dilated pupils of Dennis Creed.
He parked outside a pub, lit himself the cigarette he’d been craving for the past two and a half hours, then turned his phone back on. He’d already missed two calls from Brian Tucker, but instead of phoning the old man back, he pressed Robin’s number. She answered on the second ring.
“What happened?”
Strike told her. When he’d finished, there was a short silence.
“Say the clue again,” said Robin, who sounded tense.
“‘You’ll find her where you find M54.’”
“Not the M54? Not the motorway?”
“He could’ve meant that, but he left out the definite article.”
“The M54’s twenty-odd miles long.”
“I know.”
Reaction was setting in: Strike should have felt triumphant, but in fact he was tired and tense. His phone beeped at him and he glanced at the screen.
“That’s Brian Tucker again, trying to ring me,” he told Robin.
“What are you going to tell him?”
“The truth,” said Strike heavily, exhaling smoke out of his open window. “Dr. Bijral’s already called Scotland Yard. Trouble is, if that clue’s meaningless, or unsolvable, it leaves Tucker knowing Creed killed his daughter, but never getting the body back. This could well be Creed’s idea of the ultimate torture.”
“It’s something to have a confession, though, isn’t it?” said Robin.
“Tucker’s been convinced Creed killed her for decades. Confession without a body just keeps the wound open. Creed’ll still have the last laugh, knowing where she is and not telling… How’ve you got on in the British Library?”
“Oh. Fine,” said Robin. “I found Joanna Hammond a couple of hours ago.”
“And?” said Strike, now alert.
“She had a large mole on her face. Left cheek. You can see it in the picture of her wedding in the local paper. I’ll text it to you now.”
“And the holy—?”
“It would’ve been on the back of her obituary. Same local paper.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Strike.
There was a longer silence. Strike’s phone beeped again, and he saw that Robin had texted him a picture.
Opening it, he saw a couple on their 1969 wedding day: a blurry black and white picture of a toothy, beaming brunette bride, her hair worn in ringlets, in a high-necked lace dress, a pillbox hat on top of her veil, a large mole on her left cheekbone. The blond husband loomed over her shoulder, unsmiling. Even minutes into
