Robin had often passed the famous store since she had lived in London, but never gone inside. The ornate frontage was duck-egg blue and the windows, dressed for Christmas, some of the most beautiful in the city. Robin peered through clear circles of glass surrounded by artificial snow, at heaps of jewel-like crystallized fruits, silk scarves, gilded tea canisters, and wooden nutcrackers shaped like fairy-tale princes. A gust of particularly cold, rain-flecked wind whipped at her, and, without conscious thought, Robin allowed herself to be swept inside the sumptuous seasonal fantasy, through a door flanked by a doorman in an overcoat and top hat.
The store was carpeted in scarlet. Everywhere were mountains of duck-egg blue packaging. Close at hand she saw the very truffles that Morris had bought her for her birthday. Past marzipan fruits and biscuits she walked, until she glimpsed the café at the back of the ground floor where they’d agreed to meet Oonagh. Robin turned back. She didn’t want to see the retired vicar before the allotted time, because she wanted to reason herself into a more business-like frame of mind before an interview.
“Excuse me,” she asked a harried-looking woman selecting marzipan fruits for a client, “d’you sell anything for children in—?”
“Third floor,” said the woman, already moving away.
The small selection of children’s goods available were, in Robin’s view, exorbitantly priced, but as Annabel’s only aunt, and only London-based relative, she felt a certain pressure to give a suitably metropolitan gift. Accordingly, she purchased a large, cuddly Paddington bear.
Robin was walking away from the till with her duck-egg carrier bag when her mobile rang. Expecting it to be Strike, she saw instead an unknown number.
“Hi, Robin here.”
“Hi, Robin. It’s Tom,” said an angry voice.
Robin couldn’t for the life of her think who Tom was. She mentally ran through the cases the agency was currently working on—Two-Times, Twinkletoes, Postcard, Shifty and Bamborough—trying in vain to remember a Tom, while saying with what she intended to be yes-of-course-I-know-who-you-are warmth,
“Oh, hi!”
“Tom Turvey,” said the man, who didn’t appear fooled.
“Oh,” said Robin, her heart beginning to beat uncomfortably fast, and she drew back into an alcove where pricey scented candles stood on shelves.
Tom Turvey was Sarah Shadlock’s fiancé. Robin had had no contact with him since finding out that their respective partners had been sleeping together. She’d never particularly liked him, nor had she ever found out whether he knew about the affair.
“Thanks,” said Tom. “Thanks a fucking bunch, Robin!”
He was close to shouting. Robin distanced the mobile a little from her ear.
“Excuse me?” she said, but she suddenly seemed to have become all nerves and pulse.
“Didn’t bother fucking telling me, eh? Just walked away and washed your hands, did you?”
“Tom—”
“She’s told me fucking everything, and you knew a year ago and I find out today, four weeks before my wedding—”
“Tom, I—”
“Well, I hope you’re fucking happy!” he bellowed. Robin removed the phone from her ear and held it at arm’s length. He was still clearly audible as he yelled, “I’m the only one of us who hasn’t been fucking around, and I’m the one who’s been fucked over—”
Robin cut him off. Her hands were shaking.
“Excuse me,” said a large woman, who was trying to see the candles on the shelves behind Robin, who mumbled an apology and walked away, until she reached a curving iron banister, beyond which was a large, circular expanse of thin air. Looking down, she saw the floors had been cut out, so that she was able to see right into the basement, where compressed people were criss-crossing the space with baskets laden with expensive hams and bottles of wine. Head spinning, hardly aware of what she was doing, Robin turned and headed blindly back toward the department exit, trying not to bump into tables piled with fragile china. Down the red carpeted stairs she walked, trying to breathe herself back to calm, trying to make sense of what she’d just heard.
“Robin.”
She walked on, and only when somebody said “Robin” again did she turn and realize Strike had just entered the store via a side door from Duke Street. The shoulders of his overcoat were studded with glimmering raindrops.
“Hi,” she said, dazed.
“You all right?”
For a split-second she wanted to tell him everything: after all, he knew about Matthew’s affair, he knew how her marriage had ended and he’d met Tom and Sarah. However, Strike himself looked tense, his mobile gripped in his hand.
“Fine. You?”
“Not great,” he said.
The two of them moved aside to allow a group of tourists into the store. In the shadow of the wooden staircase Strike said,
“Joan’s taken a turn for the worse. They’ve readmitted her to hospital.”
“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” said Robin. “Listen—go to Cornwall. We’ll cope. I’ll interview Oonagh, I’ll take care of everything—”
“No. She specifically told Ted she didn’t want us all dashing down there again. But that’s not like her…”
Strike seemed every bit as scattered and distracted as Robin felt, but now she pulled herself together. Screw Tom, screw Matthew and Sarah.
“Seriously, Cormoran, go. I can take care of work.”
“They’re expecting me in a fortnight for Christmas. Ted says she’s desperate to have us all at home. It’s supposed to be just for a couple of days, the hospital thing.”
“Well, if you’re sure…” said Robin. She checked her watch. “We’ve got ten minutes until Oonagh’s supposed to be here. Want to go to the café and wait for her?”
“Yeah,” said Strike. “Good thinking, I could use a coffee.”
“God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” trilled from the speakers as they entered the realm of crystallized fruits and expensive teas, both lost in painful thought.
24
… my delight is all in ioyfulnesse,
In beds, in bowres, in banckets, and in feasts:
And ill becomes you with your lofty creasts,
To scorne the ioy, that Ioue is glad to seeke…
Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene
The café was reached by a flight of stairs that placed it on
