Page 24 of The Hallmarked Man
‘Fuck’s sake.’
The glass door opened again. Strike turned and saw Robin.
‘Morning,’ she said, smiling.
‘You look remarkably good, for someone who’s just got off their sickbed.’
‘Yes, well, that’s blusher and concealer for you,’ said Robin, with unfeigned cheerfulness. She felt significantly better than she had at the weekend, and much happier for being back in the office. ‘Happy birthday, by the way.’
She headed a little awkwardly towards Strike to give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek, which he accepted gladly.
‘And I got you this,’ said Robin, pulling a weighty wrapped package out of her tote bag, which made the operation site twinge, and handing it to him. ‘That one,’ she said, indicating the large present on Pat’s desk, ‘is from all of us. You can open mine now. It isn’t very imaginative.’
She didn’t say that she’d had to ask Murphy to buy it while she was temporarily housebound, which was why it was fairly impersonal. Strike unwrapped the box and found a bottle of what had once been his favourite whisky. Robin wasn’t to know it now reminded him of his dead ex-fiancée, so he said,
‘Fantastic, thanks very much.’
‘So why are we having a team meeting?’
‘Opportunity,’ said Strike. ‘Mrs A’s away. Midge is on Plug, but she’s going to dial in – and Two-Times—’
‘You’re kidding me,’ said Robin, freezing in the act of hanging up her jacket. ‘Two-Times is back?’
‘Morning,’ said Kim, entering the office before Strike could answer. ‘Happy birthday, Cormoran!’
‘Cheers,’ said Strike, now heading for the cupboard where they kept the fold-up plastic chairs. ‘I haven’t agreed to take Two-Times on yet,’ he told Robin over his shoulder. ‘Until we’ve made a firm decision on Decima Mullins, I don’t know whether we’ll have room for him.’
‘I should have something soon, on how certain they are that bodywas Knowles,’ Kim informed Strike confidently. ‘I’ve tapped a couple of contacts. People are being weirdly cagey about it, though. The lead investigator, Malcolm Truman, has been suspended.’
‘Has he?’ said Robin. ‘Why?’
The glass door opened again.
‘Morning,’ said Glaswegian Barclay. Tall, beaky-nosed and prematurely grey-haired, he, like Strike, was ex-military. ‘Oh yeah,’ he added, spotting the package on Pat’s desk. ‘Happy birthday.’
‘Cheers,’ said Strike again.
‘Told Robin about Two-Times yet?’ asked Barclay.
‘Who’s Two-Times?’ said Kim.
‘Guy who likes being cheated on,’ said Barclay. ‘He pays people tae catch his girlfriends in the act.’
‘Ah, cuckolding fetish,’ said Kim with authority.
‘Who’s the lucky woman this time?’ Robin asked Strike.
‘His wife.’
‘Oh my God – someonemarriedhim?’
‘We’ve all made mistakes,’ said Kim. ‘Admittedly, I nevermarriedone of mine.’
She laughed. Robin, the sole divorcee among the detectives present, felt the rise of an increasingly familiar antagonism, but told herself that Kim meant no offence.
When Shah, who was shorter than both his male colleagues, and so good-looking he was generally selected to sweet-talk female witnesses or suspects, had arrived, Pat dialled in Midge Greenstreet on FaceTime.
‘Happy birthday, Cormoran,’ said Midge, who had short, slicked-back dark hair, clear grey eyes, and was currently sitting in her car. ‘What are you now, forty-five?’
