Anger pulsed like a current through Strike all morning. He hated his own rage, as it showed that Rokeby still had some emotional hold on him, and by the time he set out for Earl’s Court, where Robin was picking him up, he was not far off wishing that birthdays had never been invented.
Sitting in the Land Rover just outside the station entrance some forty-five minutes later, Robin watched Strike emerge onto the pavement, carrying a leather-bound notebook, and noted that he looked as grumpy as she’d ever seen him.
“Happy birthday,” she said, when he opened the passenger door. Strike immediately noticed the card and the small wrapped package lying on the dashboard.
Fuck.
“Cheers,” and climbed in beside her, looking even grumpier.
As Robin pulled out onto the road, she said,
“Is it turning thirty-nine that’s upset you, or has something else happened?”
Having no desire to talk about Rokeby, Strike decided an effort was required.
“No, I’m just knackered. I was up late last night, going through the last box of the Bamborough file.”
“I wanted to do that on Tuesday, but you wouldn’t let me!”
“You were owed time off,” said Strike shortly, tearing open the envelope of her card. “You’re still owed time off.”
“I know, but it would’ve been a lot more interesting than doing my ironing.”
Strike looked down at the front of Robin’s card, which featured a watercolor picture of St. Mawes. She must, he thought, have gone to some trouble to find it in London. “Nice,” he said, “thanks.”
Flipping it open, he read,
Many happy returns, love Robin x
She’d never put a kiss on any message to him before, and he liked it being there. Feeling slightly more cheerful, he unwrapped the small package that accompanied the card, and found inside a pair of replacement headphones of the kind Luke had broken while he’d been in St. Mawes over the summer.
“Ah, Robin, that’s—thanks. That’s great. I hadn’t replaced them, either.”
“I know,” said Robin, “I noticed.”
As Strike put her card back in its envelope, he reminded himself that he really did need to get her a decent Christmas present.
“Is that Bill Talbot’s secret notebook?” Robin asked, glancing sideways at the leather-bound book in Strike’s lap.
“The very same. I’ll show you after we’ve talked to Irene and Janice. Batshit crazy. Full of bizarre drawings and symbols.”
“What about the last box of police records? Anything interesting?” Robin asked.
“Yes, as it goes. A chunk of police notes from 1975 had got mixed in with a bunch of later stuff. There were a few interesting bits.
“For instance, the practice cleaner, Wilma, was sacked a couple of months after Margot disappeared, but for petty theft, not drinking, which is what Gupta told me. Small amounts of money disappearing out of people’s purses and pockets. I also found out a call was made to Margot’s marital home on Anna’s second birthday, from a woman claiming to be Margot.”
“Oh my God, that’s horrible,” said Robin. “A prank call?”
“Police thought so. They traced it to a phone box in Marylebone. Cynthia, the childminder-turned-second-wife, answered. The woman identified herself as Margot and told Cynthia to look after her daughter.”
“Did Cynthia think it was Margot?”
“She told police she was too shocked to really take in what the caller said. She thought it sounded a bit like her, but on balance it sounded more like someone imitating her.”
“What makes people do things like that?” Robin asked, in genuine perplexity.
“They’re shits,” said Strike. “There were also a bunch of alleged sightings of Margot after the day she disappeared, in the last box. They were all disproven, but I’ve made a list and I’ll email them to you. Mind if I smoke?”
“Carry on,” said Robin, and Strike wound down the window. “I actually emailed you a tiny bit of information last night, too. Very tiny. Remember Albert Shimmings, the local florist—”
“—whose van people thought they saw speeding away from Clerkenwell Green? Yeah. Did he leave a note confessing to murder?”
“Unfortunately not, but I’ve spoken to his eldest son, who says that his dad’s van definitely wasn’t in Clerkenwell at half past six that evening. It was waiting outside his clarinet teacher’s house in Camden, where his dad drove him every Friday. He says they told the police that at the time. His dad used to wait outside for him in the van and read spy novels.”
“Well, the clarinet lessons aren’t in the records, but both Talbot and Lawson believed Shimmings when they spoke to him. Good to have it confirmed, though,” he added, lest Robin think he was being dismissive of her routine work. “Well, that means there’s still a possibility the van was Dennis Creed’s, doesn’t it?”
Strike lit up a Benson & Hedges, exhaled out of the window, and said,
“There was some interesting material on these two women we’re about to meet, in that last box of notes. More stuff that came out when Lawson took over.”
“Really? I thought Irene had a dental appointment and Janice had house visits on the afternoon Margot disappeared?”
“Yeah, that’s what their original statements said,” said Strike, “and Talbot didn’t check either woman’s story. Took both at their word.”
“Presumably because he didn’t think a woman could be the Essex Butcher?”
“Exactly.”
Strike pulled his own notebook out of his coat pocket and opened it to the pages he’d scribbled on Tuesday.
“Irene’s first statement, which she gave to Talbot, said she’d had a grumbling toothache for a few days before Margot disappeared. Her friend Janice the nurse thought it might be an abscess, so Irene made an emergency appointment for three o’clock, leaving the practice at two-thirty. She and Janice were planning to go to the cinema that evening, but Irene’s face was sore and swollen after having a tooth removed, so when Janice phoned her to see how the dentist’s had gone, and to check whether she still wanted to go out that night, she said she’d rather stay at home.”
“No mobile phones,” mused Robin. “Different world.”
“Exactly what I thought when I was going over this,” said Strike. “These days Irene’s
