“How about,” said Robin triumphantly, “I drive you in my new—well, it’s ancient, but it goes fine—Land Rover!”

“Since when have you had a Land Rover?”

“Since Sunday. It’s my parents’ old car.”

“Ah,” he said. “Well, that sounds great—”

“But?”

“No, it’d be a real help—”

“But?” repeated Robin, who could tell that he had some reservations.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be up there.”

“That doesn’t matter. You’ve just told me I’ll be moldering at home in any case.”

Strike hesitated. How much of her desire to drive him was rooted in the hope of wounding Matthew, he wondered. He could well imagine how the accountant would view an open-ended trip north, the two of them alone, staying overnight. A clean and professional relationship ought not to include using each other to make partners jealous.

“Oh shit,” he said suddenly, plunging his hand into his pocket for his mobile.

“What’s the matter?” asked Robin, alarmed.

“I’ve just remembered—I was supposed to be meeting Elin last night. Fuck—totally forgot. Wait there.”

He walked out into the street, leaving Robin to her lunch. Why, she wondered, her eyes on Strike’s large figure as he paced up and down outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, phone pressed to his ear, hadn’t Elin called or texted to ask where Strike was? From there it was an easy step to wondering—for the first time, no matter what Strike had suspected—what Matthew was going to say if she returned home only to pick up the Land Rover and disappeared with several days’ worth of clothes in a bag.

He can’t complain, she thought, with a bold attempt at defiance. It’s nothing to do with him anymore.

Yet the thought of having to see Matthew, even briefly, was unnerving.

Strike returned, rolling his eyes.

“Doghouse,” he said succinctly. “I’ll meet her tonight instead.”

Robin did not know why the announcement that Strike was off to meet Elin should lower her spirits. She supposed that she was tired. The various strains and emotional shocks of the last thirty-six hours were not to be overcome in one pub lunch. The office workers nearby were now screeching with laughter as a pair of fluffy handcuffs fell out of another package.

It isn’t her birthday, Robin realized. She’s getting married.

“Well, am I driving you, or what?” she asked curtly.

“Yeah,” said Strike, who appeared to be warming to the idea (or was he merely cheered by the thought of his date with Elin?). “You know what, that’d be great. Thanks.”

23

Moments of pleasure, in a world of pain.

Blue Öyster Cult, “Make Rock Not War”

Mist lay in thick, soft layers like cobweb over the treetops of Regent’s Park next morning. Strike, who had swiftly silenced his alarm so as not to wake Elin, stood balancing on his single foot at the window, the curtain behind him to block out the light. For a minute he looked out upon the ghostly park and was transfixed by the effect of the rising sun on leafy branches rising from the sea of vapor. You could find beauty nearly anywhere if you stopped to look for it, but the battle to get through the days made it easy to forget that this totally cost-free luxury existed. He carried memories like this from his childhood, especially those parts of it that he had spent in Cornwall: the glitter of the sea as you first saw it on a morning as blue as a butterfly’s wing; the mysterious emerald-and-shadow world of the Gunnera Passage at Trebah Garden; distant white sails bobbing like seabirds on blustery gunmetal waves.