The Running Grave, page 3
Behind the blondes stood a brunette in a shocking pink dress, who Strike had noticed back at the church. She’d talked and giggled loudly from her pew before the service had started, and had drawn a lot of attention to herself by saying ‘aww’ loudly while the holy water was being poured over the sleeping baby’s head, so that half the congregation was looking at her, rather than towards the font. Their eyes now met. Hers were a bright sea-blue, and expertly made up so that they stood out like aquamarines against her olive skin and long dark brown hair. Strike broke eye contact first. Just as the lopsided fascinator and slow reactions of the proud grandmother told Strike she’d already drunk too much, so that glance had told him that the woman in pink was trouble.
‘And the Shacklewell Ripper,’ said the bespectacled blonde, ‘did you actually physically catch him?’
No, I did it all telepathically.
‘Sorry,’ said Strike, because he’d just glimpsed Ilsa, his godson’s mother, through the French doors leading into the kitchen. ‘Need to give him back to his mum.’
He manoeuvred past the disappointed blondes and the woman in pink and headed out of the marquee, his fellow guests parting before him as though the baby’s wails were a siren.
‘Oh, God, I’m sorry, Corm,’ said fair-haired, bespectacled Ilsa Herbert. She was leaning up against the side talking to Strike’s detective partner Robin Ellacott, and Robin’s boyfriend, CID officer Ryan Murphy. ‘Give him here, he needs a feed. Come with me,’ she added to Robin, ‘we can talk – couldn’t grab me a glass of water, could you, please?’
Fucking great, thought Strike, watching Robin walk away to fill a glass at the sink, leaving him alone with Ryan Murphy who, like Strike, was well over six feet tall. There, the resemblance ended. Unlike the private detective, who resembled a broken-nosed Beethoven, with dark, tightly curling hair and a naturally surly expression, Murphy was classically good looking, with high cheekbones and wavy light brown hair.
Before either man could find a subject of conversation, they were joined by Strike’s old friend Nick Herbert, a gastroenterologist, and father of the baby who’d just been assaulting Strike’s eardrums. Nick, whose sandy hair had begun receding in his twenties, was now half bald.
‘So, how’s it feel to have renounced Satan?’ Nick asked Strike.
‘Bit of a wrench, obviously,’ said the detective, ‘but we had a good run.’
Murphy laughed, and so did somebody else, right behind Strike. He turned: the woman in pink had followed him out of the marquee. Strike’s late Aunt Joan would have thought the pink dress inappropriate for a christening: a clinging, wraparound affair with a low V neckline and a hemline that showed a lot of tanned leg.
‘I was going to offer to hold the baby,’ she said in a loud, slightly husky voice, smiling up at Strike, who noticed Murphy’s gaze sliding down to the woman’s cleavage and back up to her eyes. ‘I love babies. But then you left.’
‘Wonder what you’re supposed to do with a christening cake?’ said Nick, contemplating the large, uncut slab of iced fruitcake that lay on the island in the middle of the kitchen, topped with a blue teddy bear.
‘Eat it?’ suggested Strike, who was hungry. He’d had only a couple of sandwiches before Ilsa had handed him the baby and, as far as he could see, his fellow guests had demolished most of the available food while he’d been trapped in the marquee. Again, the woman in pink laughed.
‘Yeah, but are there supposed to be pictures taken first, or what?’ said Nick.
‘Pictures,’ said the woman in pink, ‘definitely.’
‘We’ll have to wait, then,’ said Nick. Looking Strike up and down through his wire-rimmed glasses, he asked, ‘How much have you lost now?’
‘Three stone,’ said Strike.
‘Good going,’ said Murphy, slim and fit in his single-breasted suit.
Fuck off, you smug bastard.
2
Six in the fifth place means…
The companion bites his way through the wrappings.
If one goes to him,
How could it be a mistake?
The I Ching or Book of Changes
Robin was sitting on the end of the double bed in the marital bedroom. The room, which was decorated in shades of blue, was tidy except for two drawers lying open at the base of the wardrobe. Robin had been acquainted with the Herberts long enough to know Nick would have left them like this: it was one of his wife’s perennial complaints that he neither pushed in drawers nor closed cupboard doors.
Lawyer Ilsa was currently settled in a rocking chair in the corner, the baby already gulping greedily at her breast. As she came from a farming family, Robin was unfazed by the snuffling noises the baby was making. Strike would have found them vaguely indecent.
‘It makes you so damn thirsty,’ said Ilsa, who’d just gulped down most of her glass of water. Having handed Robin the empty glass she added, ‘I think my mum’s drunk.’
‘I know. I’ve never met anyone happier to be a grandmother,’ said Robin.
‘True,’ sighed Ilsa. ‘Bloody Bijou, though.’
‘Bloody what?’
‘The loud woman in pink! You must’ve noticed her, her tits are virtually hanging out of her dress. I detest her,’ said Ilsa vehemently, ‘she’s got to be the centre of attention all the bloody time. She was in the room when I invited two other people at her chambers, and she just assumed I meant her, too, and I couldn’t think of any way of telling her no.’
‘Her name’s Bijou?’ said Robin incredulously. ‘As in residence?’
‘As in man-hungry pain in the arse. Her real name’s Belinda,’ said Ilsa, who then affected a booming, sultry voice, ‘“but everyone calls me Bijou”.’
‘Why do they?’
‘Because she tells them to,’ said Ilsa crossly, and Robin laughed. ‘She’s having an affair with a married QC, and I hope to God I don’t meet him in court any time soon, because she’s told us way too much about what they get up to in bed. She’s quite open about trying to get pregnant by him, to get him to leave his wife… but maybe I’m bitter… well, I am bitter. I don’t need women who’re size eight around me, right now. This is a size sixteen,’ she said, looking down at her navy dress. ‘I’ve never been this big in my life.’
‘You’ve just given birth and you look absolutely lovely,’ said Robin firmly. ‘Everyone’s been saying so.’
‘See, this is why I like you, Robin,’ said Ilsa, wincing slightly at the enthusiastic sucking of her son. ‘How’re things going with Ryan?’
‘Good,’ said Robin.
‘What’s it been now? Seven months?’
‘Eight,’ said Robin.
‘Hm,’ said Ilsa, now smiling down at her baby.
‘What’s that mean?’
‘Corm’s hating it. His face when you and Ryan were holding hands outside the church. And I notice Corm’s lost a ton of weight.’
‘He had to,’ said Robin, ‘because his leg got so bad last year.’
‘If you say so… Ryan doesn’t drink at all?’
‘No, I told you: he’s an alcoholic. Sober two years.’
‘Ah… well, he seems nice. He wants kids,’ added Ilsa, shooting a glance at her friend. ‘He was telling me so, earlier.’
‘We’re hardly going to start trying for a baby when we’ve known each other barely eight months, Ilsa.’
‘Corm’s never wanted kids.’
Robin ignored this comment. She knew perfectly well that Ilsa and Nick had hoped for several years that she and Strike would become more to each other than detective partners and best friends.
‘Did you see Charlotte in the Mail?’ asked Ilsa, when it became clear Robin wasn’t going to discuss Strike’s paternal urges or lack thereof. ‘With that Thingy Dormer?’
‘Mm,’ said Robin.
‘I’d say “poor bloke”, but he looks tough enough to handle her… mind you, so did Corm, and that didn’t stop her fucking up his life as badly as she could.’
Charlotte Campbell was Strike’s ex-fiancée, with whom he’d been entangled on and off for sixteen years. Recently separated from her husband, Charlotte was now featuring heavily in gossip columns alongside her new boyfriend, Landon Dormer, a thrice-married, lantern-jawed billionaire American hotelier. Robin’s only thought on seeing the most recent paparazzi pictures of the couple was that Charlotte, though as beautiful as ever in her red slip dress, looked strangely blank and glassy-eyed.
There was a knock on the bedroom door, and Ilsa’s husband entered.
‘The consensus,’ Nick told his wife, ‘is that we take pictures before cutting the christening cake.’
‘Well, you’ll have to give me a bit longer,’ said the harried Ilsa, ‘because he’s only had one side.’
‘And in other news, your friend Bijou’s trying to chat up Corm,’ Nick added, grinning.
‘She’s not my bloody friend,’ retorted Ilsa, ‘and you’d better warn him she’s a complete nutcase. Ouch,’ she added crossly, glaring down at her son.
Down in the crowded kitchen, Strike was still standing beside the uncut christening cake, while Bijou Watkins, whose Christian name Strike had asked her to repeat because he hadn’t believed it the first time, was subjecting him to a rapid-fire stream of gossip relating to her job punctuated by cackles of laughter at her own jokes. She spoke very loudly: Strike doubted whether there was anyone in the kitchen who wasn’t able to hear her.
‘… with Harkness – you know George Harkness? The QC?’
‘Yeah,’ lied Strike. Either Bijou imagined that private detectives routinely attended court cases, or she was one of those people who imagine that everyone is as interested in the minutiae and personalities of their profession as they are.
‘… so I was on the Winterson case – Daniel Winterson? Insider trading?’
‘Yeah,’ said Strike, glancing around the kitchen. Ryan Murphy had disappeared. Strike hoped he’d left.
‘… and we couldn’t afford another mistrial, obviously, so Gerry said to me, “Bijou, I’ll need you in your push-up bra, we’ve got Judge Rawlins…”’
She cackled again as a few male guests looked around at Bijou, some smirking. Strike, who hadn’t expected the turn the conversation had taken, found himself glancing down at her cleavage. She had an undeniably fabulous figure, small-waisted, long-legged and large-breasted.
‘… you know who Judge Rawlins is, right? Piers Rawlins?’
‘Yeah,’ Strike lied again.
‘Right, so, he’s a real one for the ladies, so I’m walking into court like this…’
She pressed her breasts together with her upper arms and emitted a throaty laugh again. Nick, who’d just reappeared in the kitchen, caught Strike’s eye and grinned.
‘… and so, yeah, we were pulling out all the stops, and when the verdict came in, Gerry said to me, OK, next time it’ll have to be no knickers and you just keep bending over to pick up your pen.’
She burst out laughing for the third time. Strike, who could just imagine how his two female co-workers, Robin and ex-policewoman Midge Greenstreet, would react if he started suggesting these strategies for getting information out of witnesses or suspects, settled for a perfunctory smile.
At this moment, Robin reappeared in the kitchen, alone. Strike’s eyes followed her as she slid through the crowd to Nick to tell him something. He’d rarely seen Robin wear her strawberry blonde hair up, and it suited her. Her light blue dress was far more demure than Bijou’s and looked new: bought in tribute to Master Benjamin Herbert, Strike wondered, or for the benefit of Ryan Murphy? As he watched, Robin turned, saw him, and smiled over the sea of heads.
‘’Scuse me,’ he said, cutting off Bijou mid-anecdote, ‘need to talk to someone.’
He picked up two of the pre-poured glasses of champagne standing beside the christening cake and cleaved his way through the jumble of laughing, drinking friends and relatives to where Robin was standing.
‘Hi,’ he said. There’d been no chance to talk at the church, though they’d stood side by side at the font, jointly renouncing Satan. ‘Want a drink?’
‘Thanks,’ said Robin, taking the glass. ‘Thought you didn’t like champagne?’
‘Couldn’t find any lager. Did you get my email?’
‘About Sir Colin Edensor?’ said Robin, dropping her voice. In unspoken agreement, the pair edged away from the fray into a corner. ‘Yes. Funnily enough, I was reading an article about the Universal Humanitarian Church the other day. You realise their headquarters are about ten minutes from our office?’
‘Rupert Court, yeah,’ said Strike. ‘There were girls out with collecting tins in Wardour Street last time I was there. How d’you fancy meeting Edensor with me on Tuesday?’
‘Definitely,’ said Robin, who’d been hoping Strike would suggest this. ‘Where’s he want to meet?’
‘The Reform Club, he’s a member. Murphy have to leave?’ Strike asked casually.
‘No,’ said Robin, looking around, ‘but he had to make a work call. Maybe he’s outside.’
Robin resented feeling self-conscious as she said this. She ought to be able to talk naturally about her boyfriend with her best friend, but given Strike’s lack of warmth on the rare occasions Murphy called for her at the office, she found it difficult.
‘How was Littlejohn yesterday?’ asked Strike.
‘All right,’ said Robin, ‘but I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as quiet.’
‘Makes a nice change after Morris and Nutley, doesn’t it?’
‘Well, yes,’ said Robin uncertainly, ‘but it’s a bit unnerving to sit next to someone in a car for three hours in total silence. And if you say anything to him, you get a grunt or a monosyllable.’
A month previously, Strike had succeeded in finding a new subcontractor for the detective agency. Slightly older than Strike, Clive Littlejohn, too, was ex-Special Investigation Branch, and had only recently left the army. He was large and square, with heavy-lidded eyes that gave an impression of perennial weariness, and salt-and-pepper hair that he continued to wear military short. At interview, he’d explained that he and his wife wanted a more stable life for their teenage children, after the constant upheavals and absences of army life. On the evidence of the past four weeks, he was conscientious and reliable, but Strike had to admit his taciturnity was taken to an unusual extreme, and he couldn’t remember so far seeing Littlejohn crack a smile.
‘Pat doesn’t like him,’ said Robin.
Pat was the agency’s office manager, an implausibly black-haired, chain-smoking woman of fifty-eight who looked at least a decade older.
‘I don’t go to Pat for character judgement,’ said Strike.
He’d noticed the officer manager’s warmth towards Ryan Murphy whenever the CID man turned up to pick Robin up from the office and didn’t appreciate it. Irrationally, he felt everyone at the agency should feel as hostile to Murphy as he did.
‘Sounds as though Patterson really messed up the Edensor case,’ said Robin.
‘Yeah,’ said Strike, with an unconcealed satisfaction that stemmed from the fact that he and the head of the rival detective agency, Mitch Patterson, detested each other. ‘They were bloody careless. I’ve been reading up on that church since I got Edensor’s email and I’d say it’d be a big mistake to underestimate them. If we take the job, it might mean one of us going in under deep cover. I can’t do it, the leg’s too distinctive. Probably have to be Midge. She’s not married.’
‘Nor am I,’ said Robin quickly.
‘This wouldn’t be like you pretending to be Venetia Hall or Jessica Robins, though,’ said Strike, referring to undercover personas Robin had adopted during previous cases. ‘It wouldn’t be nine-to-five. Might mean you couldn’t have contact with the outside world for a while.’
‘So?’ said Robin. ‘I’d be up for that.’
She had a strong feeling that she was being tested.
‘Well,’ said Strike, who had indeed found out what he wanted to know, ‘we haven’t got the job yet. If we do, we’ll have to decide who fits the bill best.’
At this moment, Ryan Murphy reappeared in the kitchen. Robin automatically stepped away from Strike, to whom she’d been standing close, so as to keep their conversation private.
‘What’re you two plotting?’ asked Murphy, smiling, though his eyes were alert.
‘No plot,’ said Robin. ‘Just work stuff.’
Ilsa now reappeared in the kitchen, holding her finally sated, sleeping son.
‘Cake!’ shouted Nick. ‘Godparents and grandparents here for pictures, please.’
Robin moved into the heart of the party as people crowded into the kitchen from the marquee. For a moment or two, she’d been reminded of the tensions of her former marriage: she hadn’t liked Murphy’s question, nor had she appreciated Strike pushing to find out whether she was committed to the job as much as the single Midge.
‘You hold Benjy,’ said Ilsa, when Robin reached her. ‘Then I can stand behind you. I’ll look thinner.’
‘You’re being silly, you look great,’ murmured Robin, but she accepted her sleeping godson and turned to face the camera, which was being held by Ilsa’s red-faced uncle. There was much jostling and repositioning behind the island on which the christening cake stood: camera phones were held high. Ilsa’s tipsy mother trod painfully on Robin’s foot and apologised to Strike instead. The sleeping baby was surprisingly heavy.
‘Cheese!’ bellowed Ilsa’s uncle.
‘It suits you!’ called Murphy, toasting Robin.
Out of the corner of her eye, Robin saw a blaze of shocking pink: Bijou Watkins had found her way to Strike’s other side. The flash went off several times, the baby in Robin’s arms stirred but slept on, and the moment was captured for posterity: the proud grandmother’s bleary smile, Ilsa’s anxious expression, the light reflected on Nick’s glasses so that he looked vaguely sinister, and the slightly forced smiles on the faces of both godparents, who were pressed together behind the blue icing teddy bear, Strike ruminating on what Murphy had just said, Robin noticing how Bijou leaned into her detective partner, determined to feature in the picture.
