“What?” she said stupidly, because he had asked her something. The noises had been meaningless.

“Who was the man you took with you?”

“That’s none of your business,” she whispered after a short hesitation.

“They said he threatened Brockbank with a kni—Shanker!” said Strike, light dawning only now, and in that instant she saw a trace of the Strike she knew in the reanimated, infuriated face. “How the fuck did you get Shanker’s number?”

But she could not speak. Nothing mattered beside the fact that she was fired. She knew that Strike did not relent when he decided that a relationship had run its course. His girlfriend of sixteen years had never heard from him again after he had ended it, although Charlotte had tried to initiate contact since.

He was already leaving. She followed him into the hall on numb legs, feeling herself to be acting like a beaten dog who still slinks after the punisher, hoping desperately for forgiveness.

“Goodnight,” Strike called to Linda and Matthew, who had retreated into the sitting room.

“Cormoran,” Robin whispered.

“I’ll send your last month’s salary on,” he said without looking at her. “Quick and clean. Gross misconduct.”

The door closed behind him. She could hear his size fourteens moving away up the path. With a gasp, she began to cry. Linda and Matthew both came hurrying into the hall, but too late: Robin had fled to the bedroom, unable to face their relief and delight that, at last, she would have to give up her dream of being a detective.

56

When life’s scorned and damage done

To avenge, this is the pact.

Blue Öyster Cult, “Vengeance (The Pact)”

Half past four the following morning found Strike awake after virtually no sleep. His tongue ached from the amount of smoking he had done overnight at the Formica table in his kitchen, while contemplating the decimation of his business and his prospects. He could barely bring himself to think about Robin. Fine cracks, like those in thick ice during a thaw, were starting to appear in what had been implacable fury, but what lay beneath was scarcely less cold. He could understand the impulse to save the child—who couldn’t? Hadn’t he, as she had so injudiciously pointed out, knocked Brockbank out cold after viewing Brittany’s taped evidence?—but the thought of her heading off with Shanker, without telling him, and after Carver had warned them not to go anywhere near the suspects, made rage thunder through his veins all over again as he upended his cigarette pack and found it empty.

He pulled himself to his feet, picked up his keys and left the flat, still wearing the Italian suit in which he had dozed. The sun was coming up as he trudged down Charing Cross Road in a dawn that made everything look dusty and fragile, a gray light full of pale shadows. He bought cigarettes in a corner shop in Covent Garden and continued to walk, smoking and thinking.

After two hours spent walking the streets, Strike reached a decision about his next move. Heading back towards the office, he saw a waitress in a black dress unlocking the doors to the Caffè Vergnano 1882 on Charing Cross Road, realized how hungry he was and turned inside.