Robin understood only too well why people were scared of telling, of owning up to what had been done to them, of being told that the dirty, shameful, excruciating truth was a figment of their own sick imagination. Neither Holly nor Brittany had been able to face the prospect of open court, and perhaps Alyssa and Angel would be scared away too. Yet nothing, Robin was sure, short of death or incarceration would ever stop Noel Brockbank raping little girls. Even so, she would be glad to know that Shanker had not killed him, because if he had…

“Shanker!” she shouted as a tall, tattooed figure in a shell suit passed under a streetlamp ahead.

“Couldn’t fucking find the bastard, Rob!” came Shanker’s echoing voice. He did not seem to realize that Robin had been sitting on a hard floor in terror for two whole hours, praying for his return. “He can move for a big fucker, can’t ’e?”

“The police’ll find him,” said Robin, whose knees were suddenly weak. “Alyssa’s going to call them, I think. Shanker, will you… please will you drive me home?”

55

Came the last night of sadness

And it was clear she couldn’t go on.

Blue Öyster Cult, “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper”

For twenty-four hours Strike remained in ignorance of what Robin had done. She did not answer when he phoned at lunchtime the next day, but as he was wrestling with his own dilemmas and believed her to be safe at home with her mother he neither found this strange nor troubled to call back. His injured partner was one of the few problems that he believed temporarily solved and he did not intend to encourage her in thoughts of returning to his side by confiding in her the revelation he had experienced outside the hospital.

This, however, was now his overriding preoccupation. After all, there was no longer any competition for his time or attention in the solitary, silent room where no clients called or visited. The only sound was the buzzing of a fly zooming between the open windows in the hazy sunlight, as Strike sat chain-smoking Benson & Hedges.

As he looked back over the almost three months since the severed leg had been delivered, the detective saw his mistakes only too clearly. He ought to have known the identity of the killer after visiting Kelsey Platt’s home. If he had only realized, then—if he had not allowed himself to be taken in by the killer’s misdirection, not been distracted by the competing scents of other deranged men—Lila Monkton would still have all ten fingers and Heather Smart might be safe at work in her Nottingham building society, vowing, perhaps, never again to be as drunk as she had been on her sister-in-law’s birthday jaunt to London.

Strike had not come up through the Special Investigation Branch of the Royal Military Police without learning to manage the emotional consequences of an investigation. The previous evening had been full of self-directed anger, but even as he castigated himself for not seeing what was right in front of him he had acknowledged the killer’s brazen brilliance. There had been artistry in the way that he had used Strike’s background against him, forcing Strike to second guess and question himself, undermining his trust in his own judgment.