Career of Evil

“What they didn’t take into account,” said Strike, who had known and liked several other men with traumatic brain injury, “was that he was a cunt to start with.”

“True that,” said Hardacre, sipping his coffee while he worked.

Strike closed down Brockbank’s files and opened Laing’s. His photograph tallied exactly with Strike’s memories of the Borderer, who had been only twenty when they had first met: broad and pale, his hair growing low on his forehead, with the small, dark eyes of a ferret.

Strike had good recall of the details of Laing’s brief army career, which he himself had ended. Having taken a note of Laing’s mother’s address in Melrose, he skim-read the rest of the document and then opened the attached psychiatric report.

Strong indications of anti-social and borderline personality disorders… likely to present continuing risk of harm to others…

A loud knock on the office door caused Strike to close down the records on screen and get to his feet. Hardacre had barely reached the door when a severe-looking woman in a skirt suit appeared.

“Got anything for me on Timpson?” she barked at Hardacre, but she gave Strike a suspicious glare and he guessed that she had already been well aware of his presence.

“I’ll cut away now, Hardy,” he said at once. “Great to catch up.”

Hardacre introduced him briefly to the Warrant Officer, gave a potted version of his and Strike’s previous association and walked Strike out.

“I’ll be here late,” he said as they shook hands at the door. “Ring me when you know what time you’ll have the car back. Happy travels.”

As Strike made his way carefully down the stone stairs, it was impossible not to reflect that he could have been here, working alongside Hardacre, subject to the familiar routines and demands of the Special Investigation Branch. The army had wanted to keep him, even with his lower leg gone. He had never regretted his decision to leave, but this sudden, brief re-immersion in his old life gave rise to an inevitable nostalgia.

As he stepped out into the weak sunshine that was gleaming through a rupture in the thick clouds, he had never been more conscious of the change in his status. He was free, now, to walk away from the demands of unreasonable superiors and the confinement of a rock-bound office, but he had also been stripped of the might and status of the British Army. He was completely alone as he resumed what might well prove a wild goose chase, armed only with a few addresses, in pursuit of the man who had sent Robin a woman’s leg.

15

Where’s the man with the golden tattoo?

Blue Öyster Cult, “Power Underneath Despair”

As Strike had expected, driving the Mini, even once he had made every possible adjustment to the seat, was extremely uncomfortable. The loss of his right foot meant that he operated the accelerator with his left. This required a tricky and uncomfortable angling of his body in such a cramped space. Not until he was out of the Scottish capital and safely on the quiet and straight A7 to Melrose did he feel able to turn his thoughts from the mechanics of driving the borrowed car to Private Donald Laing of the King’s Own Royal Borderers, whom he had first met eleven years previously in a boxing ring.

The encounter had happened by evening in a stark, dark sports hall that rang with the raucous cries of five hundred baying squaddies. He had been Corporal Cormoran Strike of the Royal Military Police then, fully fit, toned and muscled with two strong legs, ready to show what he could do in the Inter-Regimental Boxing Tournament. Laing’s supporters had outnumbered Strike’s by at least three to one. It was nothing personal. The military police were unpopular on principle. Watching a Red Cap being knocked senseless would be a satisfying end to a good night’s boxing. They were two big men and this would be the last bout of the night. The roar of the crowd had thundered through both fighters’ veins like a second pulse.

Strike remembered his opponent’s small black eyes and his bristle cut, which was the dark red of fox fur. A tattoo of a yellow rose spa

Four rounds and they were evenly matched, the younger man perhaps faster on his feet, Strike superior in technique.

In the fifth, Strike parried, feinted to the face then struck Laing with a blow to the kidneys that floored him. The anti-Strike faction fell silent as his opponent hit the canvas, then boos echoed throughout the hall like the bellowing of elephants.

Laing was back on his feet by the count of six, but he had left some of his discipline behind him on the canvas. Wild punches; a temporary refusal to break that earned a stern reproof from the ref; an extra jab after the bell: a second warning.

One minute into the sixth round, Strike managed to capitalize on his opponent’s disintegrating technique and forced Laing, whose nose was now pouring blood, onto the ropes. When the referee separated them, then signaled to continue, Laing shed the last thin membrane of civilized behavior and attempted to land a headbutt. The referee tried to intervene and Laing became crazed. Strike narrowly avoided a kick to the crotch, then found himself locked in Laing’s arms, with the other’s teeth digging into his face. Indistinctly Strike heard the ref’s shouts, the sudden drop in noise from the crowd as enthusiasm turned to unease at the ugly force emanating from Laing. The referee forced the boxers apart, bellowing at Laing, but he seemed to hear none of it, merely gathering himself again then swinging at Strike who sidestepped and landed a hard punch to Laing’s gut. Laing doubled over, winded, and hit the floor on his knees. Strike left the ring to weak applause, blood trickling from the stinging bite on his cheekbone.

Strike, who finished the tournament as ru

Even then, years before he had gained the additional knowledge of Laing that had led Strike to this country road in a borrowed Mini, he had not believed that a dead fetus meant anything to the animal he had sensed seething beneath Laing’s hairless, milk-white skin. Laing’s incisor marks had still been visible on his face as he left the country.

Three years later, Strike had arrived in Cyprus to investigate an alleged rape. On entering the interrogation room he came face to face for the second time with Donald Laing, who was now carrying a little more weight and sporting a few new tattoos, his face heavily freckled from the Cyprus sun and creases etched around the deep-set eyes.

Unsurprisingly, Laing’s lawyer objected to the investigation being undertaken by a man whom his client had once bitten, so Strike swapped cases with a colleague who was in Cyprus investigating a drugs ring. When he met this colleague for a drink a week later Strike found, to his surprise, that he was inclined to believe Laing’s story, which was that he and the alleged victim, a local waitress, had had clumsy, drunken, consensual sex which she now regretted because her boyfriend had heard rumors that she had left her place of work with Laing. There were no witnesses to the alleged attack, which the waitress claimed had taken place at knifepoint.