Page 10 of The Hallmarked Man
Too late Strike remembered that he didn’t want to suggest to Robin that there was anything wrong with age gaps between romantic partners.
‘I’m only – she’s not the kind of thirty-eight-year-old I can see your average twenty-six-year-old going for.’
‘Well, if he’s really in New York, it shouldn’t be too hard to prove.’
‘Except that she doesn’t want us to prove it. She’d literally rather believe he’s dead than that he left her. She’s called the baby “Lion”,’ Strike added inconsequentially.
‘As in Aslan?’ said Robin, smiling. She knew perfectly well how ludicrous Strike would find the name ‘Lion’.
‘Yeah.’
‘A lot of posh people call their kids strange things,’ said Robin.
‘As do nutters,’ said Strike. ‘Anyway, I’m calling for your opinion, because I don’t think it’s ethical to take her money.’
‘No… but it sounds as though she’ll just try and hire someone else.’
‘Oh, she will,’ said Strike, ‘and it’s the sort of case where you could bleed the client dry, if you were unscrupulous.’
There was a short silence, during which Robin stared at the ceiling of her hospital room, and Strike watched his exhaled vapour unfurl across the rain-spattered windscreen.
‘I think,’ said Strike at last, ‘I’ll tap a couple of police contacts and find out just how certain they are the body was Knowles. If it’s become a hundred per cent certainty since the news reports, I’ll tell Decima free of charge it wasn’t Fleetwood, and then maybe she’ll face up to reality.’
‘And if it’s still ninety-nine per cent?’ asked Robin, checking the time on her phone, because visiting hour was fast approaching.
‘Well,’ said Strike, whose Google search on Decima had confirmed that she was exactly who she claimed to be, ‘I’d say we could investigate just to put paid to her delusions, because at least we wouldn’t string her along, but in the interests of full disclosure, I should say that she and Fleetwood are both connected to people I hoped never to speak to again.’
‘Who?’
‘Valentine Longcaster and Sacha Legard.’
‘Sacha Legard, the actor?’ said Robin. ‘Why d—?Oh.’
The realisation had been a little delayed by the morphine.
‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘Sacha’s Rupert Fleetwood’s cousin, and Valentine’s Decima’s brother, who was one of Charlotte’s best friends.’
Immediately, both Strike and Robin thought about the last time Strike’s late fiancée had been mentioned between them, which had been over a month previously, on the day Strike had told Robin that Charlotte had been certain he was in love with his detective partner. In spite of the morphine, Robin now felt a strange mixture of anticipation and panic. Strike had opened his mouth to speak again when Robin suddenly said,
‘Strike, I’m really sorry, I’m going to have to go.’
Without waiting for his response, she hung up.
5
But oh, my man, the house is fallen
That none can build again…
A. E. Housman
XVIII, Last Poems
Robin had just seen visitors passing the glass panel in the door of her room, and sure enough – here was her boyfriend, tall, handsome, wearing a look of extreme anxiety and holding a bunch of red roses, several magazines and a large box of Maltesers.
‘Christ, Robin,’ muttered Murphy, taking in the drip and the hospital gown.
‘It’s fine,’ said Robin. ‘I’m fine.’
