Page 135 of The Hallmarked Man
‘We weren’t talking aboutyou—’
‘“She gets ratty.” “She can’t bear to think he’s not perfect.”’
‘We were—’
‘Our agency found out the wife of that journalist is having an affair,’ said Robin. ‘That was the journalist’s revenge, claiming we hired a sex worker to entrap a man.’
‘He didn’t sayallof you had done it,’ said Linda.
‘None of us did it,’ said Robin forcefully, now turning to glare at her mother. ‘Noneof us.’
‘OK, well, if you say it’s not true, it’s not true,’ said Linda. She still had the dinner plate and tea towel in her hands, but was doing nothing with them.
‘And Strikeissuing,’ said Robin, out of sheer temper. ‘So be sure and keep an eye out for the retraction, so you can alert the neighbours when it comes in.’
‘Robin—’
‘If you want to bitch about my partner, do it to my face, not my boyfriend’s,’ said Robin, whose temper was increasing rather than diminishing as she vented it; she hadn’t realised how much anger she had stored up (because she was the easy child, the placator, the one primed not to make a fuss, amid three rambunctious brothers). ‘I’m sick and tired of this constant chipping away at Strike, and the agency. Maybe if this didn’t happen every single bloody time I see you, I’d want to come home more often!’
She knew how much she’d hurt her mother by Linda’s involuntary gasp,but didn’t care. Robin was thinking of the aftermath of the operation she’d gone through alone, rather than endure Linda’s insistence that her heavy work schedule had led to the mistake; of the week she’d spent with her parents after her long undercover job, during which Linda had increased rather than soothed her anxiety; of the countless jibes about the dangers she ran, whereas Jenny, the pregnant vet, got off with ‘we were worried’, not with a loud insistence that she should give up the career she loved, and for which she’d worked so hard.
‘Strike doesn’t need to try and intimidate sex workers into screwing him,’ Robin said, on a roll now. ‘Seeing as you’re so interested, you should know he does bloody well for himself with women, he doesn’t need to hire them. I seem to remember you liking him, and telling me he’s “got something about him”, before you decided he’s the Devil incarnate – and given his background, he doesn’t needRyanto tell him it’s criminal to try and coerce women into sex by withholding payment.’
‘Robin—’
‘Just say it to my face!Sayyou don’t like him,sayyou’d rather I’d stayed the girl I was after I got raped!’
‘You can’t – how can you say that to me?’ whispered Linda.
‘Easily. I’m where I belong, where I was always meant to be. It just took me longer to get there, because of what happened, but you’d rather I had a kind of half-life, you’d rather—’
‘I wouldn’t rather you were still with Matthew,’ said Linda. ‘We never liked him. I was glad when you called off the wedding, I never wanted to say it, but I was, we always thought he was wrong for you—’
‘Pity you’re not as smart when it comes to what’s right for me,’ said Robin.
‘Robin—’
‘I’m not still in that bloody stairwell,’ said Robin, her voice becoming louder, ‘but you make me feel like I never left it, the way you treat me!’
She’d overfilled her mug with black coffee, which had spilled over the sides. Betty, who hadn’t liked the raised voices, had skittered away and was now worrying a rubber bone in the corner. Robin knew she’d hurt Linda worse than she’d ever done before, even in her teens, when a certain amount of door slamming and mutual recrimination had of course taken place. She and her mother had been close, once; but for the last four years, ever since Robin had received the injury that had left an eight-inch scar on her forearm, a gulf had been steadily widening between mother and daughter. Robin was infuriated and insulted by Linda’s constant, implicit suggestion that her daughter was a malleable fool who did whatever her business partner wanted, without agency, without sense; her mother had no idea how often Strike had urged caution on his best female operative, how little he wanted to see her hurt.
‘You haven’t got children,’ said Linda in a low voice.
‘Thanks for pointing that out,’ said Robin. ‘I was worried I’d left them somewhere.’
‘You don’t know what it’s like, to worry yourself sick about your daughter—’
‘Youdon’t know what it’s like to havemyworries,’ said Robin, thinking of the icy ultrasound wand on her stomach, and the rubbergorilla hidden in her sock drawer in London, and MI5 being angry at the agency for investigating, and DCI Malcolm Truman and his masonic lodge. ‘So we’re even.’
She’d just tipped some of her brimming cup of coffee into the sink when she heard the front door open and her father, Stephen and Annabel entered the kitchen, all pink-faced, cheerful and talkative. Linda hastily wiped her eyes on the tea towel as Michael Ellacott set a bulging bag of shopping on the table.
‘Auntie Bobbin,’ said Annabel, trotting over to Robin to show her a stick. ‘I’ve got Stick Man.’
‘We’re in a big Stick Man phase,’ Stephen informed his sister.
‘Lovely,’ Robin said to Annabel, who was big for her age, brunette, like her mother, but with her father’s dimples. ‘You need to look after him.’
‘Or a dog will take him,’ said Annabel, nodding gravely.
