The Running Grave, page 15
Before either could say anything else, Robin’s mobile rang.
‘Sorry,’ she said to Strike, on checking it. ‘It’s Ryan.’
Strike got up and headed into the outer office. His ruminations on Littlejohn’s strange behaviour were disrupted by Robin’s voice, and her burst of laughter. Evidently evening plans were being changed, due to the weather. Then his own mobile rang.
‘Strike.’
‘Hi,’ said Ilsa’s voice. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine,’ said Strike, while Robin lowered her voice in the inner office, and his feeling of irritation increased. ‘What’s up?’
‘Look, I hope you don’t think I’m interfering.’
‘Tell me what you’ve got to say, then I’ll tell you if you’re interfering,’ said Strike, without bothering to sound too friendly.
‘Well, you’re about to get a call from Bijou.’
‘Which you know, because—?’
‘Because she just told me. Actually, she told me, and three other people I was having a conversation with.’
‘And?’
‘She says you haven’t answered her texts, so—’
‘You’ve called to tell me off for not answering texts?’
‘God, no, the reverse!’
In the inner office, Robin was laughing at something else Ryan had said. The man simply couldn’t be that fucking funny.
‘Go on,’ Strike said to Ilsa, striding towards the inner door and closing it rather more firmly than was necessary. ‘Say your piece.’
‘Corm,’ said Ilsa quietly, and he could tell she was trying not to be overheard by colleagues, ‘she’s crazy. She’s already told—’
‘You’ve called to give me unsolicited advice on my love life, is that right?’
Robin, who’d just finished her call with Ryan, got to her feet and opened the door in time to hear Strike say,
‘—no, I don’t. So, yeah, don’t interfere.’
He hung up.
‘Who was that?’ said Robin, surprised.
‘Ilsa,’ said Strike curtly, walking back past her and sitting back down at the partners’ desk.
Robin, who suspected she knew what Ilsa had just called about, settled back into her chair without saying anything. Noticing this unusual lack of curiosity, Strike made the correct deduction that Ilsa and Robin had already discussed his night with Bijou.
‘Did you know Ilsa was planning to tell me how to conduct my private life?’
‘What?’ said Robin, startled by both question and tone. ‘No!’
‘Really?’ said Strike.
‘Yes, really!’ said Robin, which was true: she might have told Ilsa to talk to Strike, but she hadn’t known she was going to do it.
Strike’s mobile now rang for a second time. He hadn’t bothered to save Bijou’s number to his contacts, but, certain who he was about to hear, he answered.
‘Hi, stranger,’ said her unmistakeably loud, husky voice.
‘Hi,’ said Strike. ‘How’re you?’
Robin got up and walked into the next room, on the pretext of fetching more coffee. Behind her, she heard Strike say,
‘Yeah, sorry about that, been busy.’
As it was Robin’s determined habit these days not to think about her partner in any terms other than those of friendship and work, she chose to believe the mingled feelings of annoyance and hurt now possessing her were caused by Strike’s irritability and the near slamming of the office door, while she’d been talking to Ryan. It was entirely his business if he wanted to sleep with that vile woman again, and more fool him if he didn’t realise she was after him for the fortune he didn’t possess, or the baby he didn’t want.
‘Yeah, OK,’ she heard Strike say. ‘I’ll see you there.’
Making a determined effort to look neutral, Robin returned to the partners’ desk with fresh coffee, ignoring her partner’s air of truculent defiance.
16
The line at the beginning has good fortune, the second is favourable; this is due to the time.
The third line bears an augury of misfortune, the fifth of illness…
The I Ching or Book of Changes
For the next couple of days, Strike and Robin communicated only by matter-of-fact texts, with neither jokes nor extraneous chat. Robin was more annoyed with herself for dwelling on the door slamming and the accusation that she’d been gossiping with Ilsa behind her partner’s back than she was at Strike for doing either of these two things.
Strike, who knew he’d behaved unreasonably, made no apology. However, a nagging sense of self-recrimination was added to his irritation at Ilsa, and both were intensified by his second date with Bijou.
He’d known he was making a mistake within five minutes of meeting her again. While she’d roared with laughter at her own anecdotes and talked loudly about top QCs who fancied her, he’d sat in near silence, asking himself what the hell he was playing at. Determined at least to get what he’d come for, he left her flat a few hours later with a faint feeling of self-disgust and a strong desire never to set eyes on her again. The only small consolation was that his hamstring hadn’t suffered this time, because he’d indicated a preference for being horizontal while having sex.
While it was hardly the first time Strike had slept with a woman he wasn’t in love with, never before had he screwed someone he actively disliked. The whole episode, which he now considered firmly closed, had intensified rather than alleviated his low mood, forcing him back up against his feelings for Robin.
Little did Strike know that Robin and Murphy’s relationship had suffered its first serious blow, a fact that Robin had no intention whatsoever of sharing with her business partner.
The row happened on Wednesday evening in a bar near Piccadilly Circus. Robin, who was due to leave for Coventry at five o’clock the following morning, hadn’t really fancied a mid-week trip to the cinema in the first place. However, as Murphy had already bought the tickets, she felt she couldn’t object. He seemed determined not to slide into a pattern whereby they merely met at each other’s flats for food and sex. Robin guessed this was due to a fear of taking her for granted or getting into a rut, which she’d deduced, from oblique comments, had been a complaint of his ex-wife’s.
The trigger for their argument was a casual remark of Robin’s about her planned stay at Chapman Farm. It then became clear that Murphy was labouring under a misapprehension. He’d thought she’d only be gone for seven days if she managed to be recruited, and was shocked to discover that, in reality, she’d committed to an open-ended undercover job that might last several weeks. Murphy was nettled that Robin hadn’t explained the situation fully, while Robin was irate at the fact he hadn’t listened properly. It might not be Murphy’s fault that he was bringing back unpleasant memories of her ex-husband’s assumed right to dictate the limits of her professional commitment, but the comparison was unavoidable, given that Murphy seemed to think Strike had pressured Robin into doing this onerous job, and she hadn’t been assertive enough to refuse.
‘I happen to want to do it,’ Robin told Murphy, speaking in an angry whisper, because the bar was crowded. The moment they should have left for the cinema had slid past twenty minutes previously, unnoticed. ‘I volunteered because I know I’m the best person for the job – and for your information, Strike’s been actively trying to persuade me out of it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it might take so long,’ said Robin, lying by omission.
‘And he’s going to miss you, is that what you’re saying?’
‘You know what, Ryan? Sod off.’
Indifferent to the curious looks of a group of girls standing nearby, who’d been casting the handsome Murphy sidelong glances, Robin dragged her coat back on.
‘I’m going home. I’ve got to get up at the crack of dawn to drive to Coventry, anyway.’
‘Robin—’
But she was already striding towards the door.
Murphy caught up with her a hundred yards down the road. His apology, which was fulsome, was made within sight of the cupid-topped Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain where her ex-husband had proposed, which did nothing to dispel Robin’s sense of déjà vu. However, as Murphy gallantly took all the blame on himself, Robin felt she had no choice but to relent. Given that Hail, Caesar! was already half over, they went instead for a cheap Italian meal and parted, at least superficially, on good terms.
Nevertheless, Robin’s mood remained low as she set off north in her old Land Rover the following morning. Yet again, she’d been forced to face the difficulty of reconciling any kind of normal personal life with her chosen line of work. She’d thought it might be easier with Ryan, given his profession, but here she was again, justifying commitments she knew he wouldn’t have given a second thought to, had he been the one making them.
Her journey up the M1 was uneventful and therefore offered few distractions from her unsatisfactory musings. However, as she approached Newport Pagnell service station, where she’d been planning to stop for a coffee, Ilsa called. The Land Rover didn’t have Bluetooth, so Robin waited until she was in Starbucks before ringing Ilsa back.
‘Hi,’ she said, trying to sound more cheerful than she felt, ‘what’s up?’
‘Nothing, really,’ said Ilsa. ‘Just wondered whether Corm’s said anything to you.’
‘About Bijou?’ said Robin, who couldn’t be bothered to pretend she didn’t know what Ilsa was talking about. ‘Other than accusing me of talking to you behind his back, no.’
‘Oh God,’ groaned Ilsa. ‘I’m sorry. I was only trying to warn him—’
‘I know,’ sighed Robin, ‘but you know what he’s like.’
‘Nick says I should apologise, which is nice bloody solidarity from my husband, I must say. I’d like to see Nick’s face if Bijou gets herself knocked up on purpose. I don’t s’pose you know—?’
‘Ilsa,’ said Robin, cutting across her friend, ‘if you’re about to ask me whether I quiz Strike on his contraceptive habits—’
‘You realise she told me – with five other people within earshot, incidentally – that she took a used condom out of the bin, while she was having an affair with that married QC, and inserted it inside herself?’
‘Jesus,’ said Robin, startled, and very much wishing she hadn’t been given this information, ‘well, I – I suppose that’s Strike’s lookout, isn’t it?’
‘I was trying to be a good friend,’ said Ilsa, sounding frustrated. ‘However much of a dickhead he is, I don’t want him paying child support to bloody Bijou Watkins for the next eighteen years. She’d make a nightmarish mother, nearly as bad as Charlotte Campbell.’
By the time Robin got back in the Land Rover, she felt more miserable than ever, and it took a considerable effort of will to refocus her attention on the job in hand.
She arrived in Sheila Kennett’s road at five minutes to twelve. As she locked up the Land Rover, Robin wondered how, given what Kevin Pirbright had said about church members sinking all of their money into the UHC, Sheila had managed to afford even this small bungalow, shabby though it looked.
When she rang the doorbell she heard footsteps of a speed that surprised her, given that Sheila Kennett was eighty-five years old.
The door opened to reveal a tiny old woman whose thinning grey hair was worn in a bun. Her dark eyes, of which both irises showed marked arcus senilis, were enormously enlarged by a pair of powerful bifocals. Slightly stooped, Sheila wore a loose red dress, navy carpet slippers, an oversize hearing aid, a tarnished gold wedding ring and a silver cross around her neck.
‘Hello,’ said Robin, smiling down at her. ‘We spoke on the phone. I’m Robin Ellacott, the—’
‘Private detective, are you?’ said Sheila, in her slightly cracked voice.
‘Yes,’ said Robin, holding out her driving licence. ‘This is me.’
Sheila blinked at the licence for a few seconds, then said,
‘That’s all right. Come in, then,’ and moved aside for Robin to pass into the hall, which was carpeted in dark brown. The bungalow smelled slightly fusty.
‘You go in there,’ said Sheila, pointing Robin into the front room. ‘Want tea?’
‘Thank you – can I help?’ asked Robin, as she watched the fragile-looking Sheila shuffling away towards the kitchen. Sheila made no answer. Robin hoped the hearing aid was turned up.
The peeling wallpaper and the sparse, shabby furniture spoke of poverty. A green sofa sat at right angles to a faded tartan chair with a matching footstool. The television was old, and beneath it sat an equally antiquated video player, while a rickety bookcase held a mixture of large-print novels. The only photograph in the room stood on top of the bookcase, and showed a 1960s wedding. Sheila and her husband, Brian, whose name Robin knew from the census reports, were pictured standing outside a registry office. Sheila, who’d been very pretty in her youth, wore her dark hair in a beehive, her full-skirted wedding dress falling to just beneath her knees. The picture was made touching by the fact that the slightly goofy-looking Brian was beaming, as though he couldn’t believe his luck.
Something brushed Robin’s ankle: a grey cat had just entered the room and was now staring up at her with its clear green eyes. As Robin bent to tickle it behind the ears, a tinkling sound announced the reappearance of Sheila, who was holding an old tin tray on which were two mugs, a jug and a plate of what Robin recognised as Mr Kipling’s Bakewell slices.
‘Let me,’ said Robin, as some of the hot liquid had already spilled. Sheila let Robin lift the tray out of her hands and set it on the small coffee table. Sheila took her own mug, placed it on the arm of the tartan armchair, sat down, put her tiny feet on the stool, then said, peering at the tea tray,
‘I forgot the sugar. I’ll go—’
She began to struggle out of the chair again.
‘That’s fine, I don’t take it,’ said Robin hastily. ‘Unless you do?’
Sheila shook her head and relaxed back into her chair. When Robin sat down on the sofa, the cat leapt up beside her and rubbed itself against her, purring.
‘He’s not mine,’ said Sheila, watching the cat’s antics. ‘He’s next door’s, but he likes it here.’
‘Clearly,’ said Robin, smiling, as she ran her hand over the cat’s arched back. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Smoky,’ said Sheila, raising her mug to her mouth. ‘He likes it here,’ she repeated.
‘Would you mind if I take notes?’ asked Robin.
‘Write things down? That’s all right,’ said Sheila Kennett. While Robin took out her pen, Sheila made a kissing sound in the direction of Smoky the cat, but he ignored her, and continued to rub his head against Robin. ‘Ungrateful,’ said Sheila. ‘I gave him tinned salmon last night.’
Robin smiled again before opening her notebook.
‘So, Mrs Kennett—’
‘You can call me Sheila. Why’ve you done that to your hair?’
‘Oh – this?’ said Robin self-consciously, raising a hand to the blue edges of her bob. ‘I’m just trying it out.’
‘Punk rock, is it?’ said Sheila.
Deciding against telling Sheila she was approximately forty years out of date, Robin said,
‘A bit.’
‘You’re a pretty girl. You don’t want blue hair.’
‘I’m thinking of changing it back,’ said Robin. ‘So… could I ask when did you and your husband go to live at Chapman Farm?’
‘Wasn’t called Chapman Farm then,’ said the old lady. ‘It was Forgeman Farm. Brian and me were hippies,’ said Sheila, blinking at Robin through the thick lenses of her glasses. ‘You know what hippies are?’
‘Yes,’ said Robin.
‘Well, that’s what me and Brian was. Hippies,’ said Sheila. ‘Living on a commune. Hippies,’ she said yet again, as though she liked the sound of the word.
‘Can you remember when—?’
‘Sixty-nine we went there,’ said Sheila. ‘When it was all starting. We grew pot. Know what pot is?’
‘I do, yes,’ said Robin.
‘We used to smoke a lot of that,’ said Sheila, with another little cackle.
‘Who else was there at the beginning, can you remember?’
‘Yes, I can remember all that,’ said Sheila proudly. ‘Rust Andersen. American, he was. Living in a tent up the fields. Harold Coates. I remember all that. Can’t remember yesterday sometimes, but I remember all that. Coates was a nasty man. Very nasty man.’
‘Why d’you say that?’
‘Kids,’ said Sheila. ‘Don’t you know about all that?’
‘Are you talking about when the Crowther brothers were arrested?’
‘That’s them. Nasty people. Horrible people. Them and their friends.’
The cat’s purrs filled the room as it lolled on its back, Robin stroking it with her left hand.
‘Brian and me never knew what they were up to,’ said Sheila. ‘We never knew what was going on. We were busy growing and selling veg. Brian had pigs.’
‘Did he?’
‘He loved his pigs, and his chickens. Kids running around everywhere… I couldn’t have none of my own. Miscarriages. I had nine, all told.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ said Robin.
‘Never had none of our own,’ repeated Sheila. ‘We wanted kids, but we couldn’t. There was loads of kids running around at the farm, and I remember your friend. Big lad. Bigger than some of the older boys.’
‘Sorry?’ said Robin, flummoxed.
‘Your partner. Condoman Strike or something, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right,’ said Robin, looking at her curiously, and wondering whether the old lady, who might repeat herself a lot, but had seemed basically alert, was in fact senile.
‘When I told Next Door you was coming to see me, she read me out an article about you and him. He was there, with his sister and his mum. I remember, because my Brian fancied Leda Strike and I could tell, and we had rows about it. Jealous. I’d see him watching her all the time. Jealous,’ Sheila repeated. ‘I don’t think Leda would’ve looked at my Brian, though. He was no rock star, Brian.’
