But she both offers and the offerer
Despysde, and all the fawning of the flatterer.
Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene
The television weatherman brought his wife to the catch-up meeting with Robin. Once ensconced in the agency’s inner office, the couple proved hard to shift. The wife had arrived with a new theory to present to Robin, triggered by the most recent anonymous postcard to arrive by post at the television studio. It was the fifth card to feature a painting, and the third to have been bought at the National Portrait Gallery shop, and this had caused the weatherman’s thoughts to turn to an ex-girlfriend, who’d been to art school. He didn’t know where the woman was now, but surely it was worth looking for her?
Robin thought it was highly unlikely that an ex-girlfriend would choose anonymous postcards to reconnect with a lost love, given the existence of social media and, indeed, the publicly available contact details for the weatherman, but she agreed diplomatically that this was worth looking into, and took down as many details of this long-vanished love interest as the weatherman could remember. Robin then ran through all the measures the agency was so far taking to trace the sender of the cards, and reassured husband and wife that they were continuing to watch the house at night, in the hopes that Postcard would show themselves.
The weatherman was a small man with reddish-brown hair, dark eyes and a possibly deceptive air of apology. His wife, a thin woman several inches taller than her husband, seemed frightened by the late-night hand deliveries, and slightly annoyed by her husband’s half-laughing assertions that you didn’t expect this sort of thing when you were a weatherman, because, after all, he was hardly the film star type, and who knew what this woman was capable of?
“Or man,” his wife reminded him. “We don’t know it’s a woman, do we?”
“No, that’s true,” said her husband, the smile fading slowly from his face.
When at last the couple had left, walking out past Pat, who was stoically typing away at her desk, Robin returned to the inner office and re-examined the most recent postcard. The painting on the front featured the portrait of a nineteenth-century man in a high cravat. James Duffield Harding. Robin had never heard of him. She flipped the card over. The printed message read:
HE ALWAYS REMINDS ME OF YOU.
She turned the card over again. The mousy man in side-whiskers did resemble the weatherman.
A yawn caught her by surprise. She’d spent most of the day clearing paperwork, authorizing payment of bills and tweaking the rota for the coming fortnight to accommodate Morris’s request for Saturday afternoon off, so that he could go and watch his three-year-old daughter perform in a ballet show. Checking her watch, Robin saw that it was already five o’clock. Fighting the low mood that had been held at bay by hard work, she tidied away the Postcard file, and switched her mobile ringer back on. Within seconds, it had rung: Strike.
“Hello,” said Robin, trying not to sound peeved, because as the hours had rolled by it had become clear to her that Strike had indeed forgotten her birthday yet again.
“Happy birthday,” he said, over the sound of what Robin could tell was a train.
“Thanks.”
“I’ve got something for you, but I won’t be back for an hour, I’ve only just got on the train back from Amersham.”
Have you hell got something, thought Robin. You forgot. You’re just going to grab flowers on the way back to the office.
Robin was sure Ilsa must have tipped Strike off, because Ilsa had called her just before the client had arrived, to tell Robin that she might be unavoidably late for drinks. She’d also asked, with unconvincing casualness, what Strike had bought her, and Robin had answered truthfully, “Nothing.”
“That’s nice, thanks,” Robin said now, “but I’m just leaving. Going out for a drink tonight.”
“Oh,” said Strike. “Right. Sorry—couldn’t be helped, you know, with coming out here to meet Gupta.”
“No,” said Robin, “well, you can leave them here in the office—”
“Yeah,” said Strike, and Robin noted that he didn’t dispute the word “them.” It was definitely going to be flowers.
“Anyway,” said Strike, “big news. George Layborn’s got hold of a copy of the Bamborough file.”
“Oh, that’s great!” said Robin, enthusiastic in spite of herself.
“Yeah, isn’t it? He’s going to bring it over tomorrow morning.”
“How was Gupta?” asked Robin, sitting down on her side of the partners’ desk which had replaced Strike’s old single one.
“Interesting, especially about Margot herself,” said Strike, who became muffled as, Robin guessed, the train went through a tunnel. Robin pressed the mobile closer to her ear and said,
“In what way?”
“Dunno,” said Strike distantly. “From the old photo, I wouldn’t have guessed an ardent feminist. She sounds much more of a personality than I’d imagined, which is stupid, really—why shouldn’t she have a personality, and a strong one?”
But Robin knew, somehow, what he meant. The hazy picture of Margot Bamborough, frozen in blurry time with her seventies middle parting, her wide, rounded lapels, her knitted tank top, seemed to belong to a long-gone, two-dimensional world of faded color.
“Tell you the rest tomorrow,” said Strike, because their connection was breaking up. “Reception’s not great here. I can hardly hear you.”
“OK, fine,” said Robin loudly. “Speak tomorrow.”
She opened the door into the outer office again. Pat was just turning off Robin’s old PC, electronic cigarette sticking out of her mouth.
“Was that Strike?” she asked, crow-like, with her jet-black hair and her croak, the fake cigarette waggling.
“Yep,” said Robin, reaching for her coat and bag. “He’s on his way back from Amersham. Lock up as usual though, Pat, he can let himself in if he needs to.”
“Has he remembered your birthday yet?” asked Pat, who seemed to have taken sadistic satisfaction in news of Strike’s forgetfulness that morning.
“Yes,” said Robin, and out of loyalty to Strike she added, “he’s got a present for me. I’ll get it tomorrow.”
Pat had bought Robin a
