<<Δēvōŧėė>>: where do you want to be cut?

TransHopeful: mid-thigh

<<Δēvōŧėė>>: both legs?

“What about tomorrow?” asked Linda.

“No,” said Robin at once. Like Strike, she lied with fluent conviction, “I’m midway through a job. The following week’s better.”

TransHopeful: Yes, both. Do you know anyone who’s done it?

<<Δēvōŧėė>>: Can’t share that on msj board. Where you live?

“I haven’t seen him,” said Linda. “Robin, are you typing?”

“No,” lied Robin again, her fingers suspended over the keyboard. “Who haven’t you seen?”

“Matthew, of course!”

“Oh. Well, no, I didn’t think he’d come calling this weekend.”

She tried typing more quietly.

TransHopeful: London

<<Δēvōŧėė>>: Me too. Got a pic?

“Did you go to Mr. Cunliffe’s birthday party?” she asked, trying to drown out the sound of the laptop keys.

“Of course we didn’t!” said Linda. “Well, let me know what day’s best week after next, and I’ll book my ticket. It’s Easter; it’ll be busy.”

Robin agreed, returned Linda’s affectionate good-bye and directed her full attention to <<Δēvōŧėė>>. Unfortunately, after Robin refused to give him or her (she was almost positive that he was male) a picture, <<Δēvōŧėė>> lost interest in their back and forth on the noticeboards and went quiet.

She had expected Matthew to return from his father’s on Sunday evening, but he did not. When she checked the calendar in the kitchen at eight, she realized that he had always intended to take Monday off. Presumably she had agreed to this, back when the weekend had been planned, and told Matthew that she would ask Strike for a day’s holiday, too. It was lucky that they had split up, really, she told herself bracingly: she had dodged one more row about her working hours.

However, she cried later, alone in the bedroom that was thick with relics of their shared past: the fluffy elephant he had given her on their first Valentine’s Day together—he had not been so suave in those days; she could remember him turning red as he had produced it—and the jewelry box he had given her for her twenty-first. Then there were all the photographs showing them beaming during holidays in Greece and Spain, and dressed up at Matthew’s sister’s wedding. The biggest picture of the lot showed them arm in arm on Matthew’s graduation day. He was in his academic gown and Robin stood beside him in a summer dress, beaming as she celebrated an achievement of which she had been robbed by a man in a gorilla mask.

31

Nighttime flowers, evening roses,

Bless this garden that never closes.

Blue Öyster Cult, “Tenderloin”

Robin’s mood was buoyed next day by the glorious spring morning that greeted her outside her front door. She did not forget to remain aware of her surroundings as she traveled by Tube towards Tottenham Court Road, but saw no sign of any large man in a beanie hat. What leapt to the eye on her morning commute was the mounting journalistic excitement about the royal wedding. Kate Middleton seemed to be on the front of virtually every newspaper held by her fellow travelers. It made Robin hyperaware all over again of that naked, sensitive place on her third finger where an engagement ring had sat for a year. However, excited as she was about sharing the results of her solo investigative work with Strike, Robin refused to be downcast.