Career of Evil

“Sorry, I need to take this,” he told his disgruntled client, and did so.

“Hi, Wardle.”

“Malley’s ruled out,” said Wardle.

It was a mark of Strike’s exhaustion that these words meant nothing to him for a second or two. Then the realization dawned that Wardle was talking about the gangster who had once cut off a man’s penis, and of whose probable guilt in the matter of the leg Wardle had seemed convinced.

“Digger—right,” said Strike, to show that he was paying attention. “He’s out, is he?”

“It can’t’ve been him. He was in Spain when she was killed.”

“Spain,” repeated Strike.

Two-Times drummed his thick fingers on the arm of the sofa.

“Yeah,” said Wardle, “bloody Menorca.”

Strike took a swig of coffee so strong he might as well have emptied boiling water straight into the jar. A headache was building in the side of his skull. He rarely got headaches.

“But we’ve made progress with those two whose pictures I showed you,” said Wardle. “The bloke and the girl who were posting on that freaks’ website where Kelsey was asking questions about you.”

Strike dimly remembered the pictures Wardle had shown him of a young man with lopsided eyes and a woman with black hair and glasses.

“We’ve interviewed them and they never met her; they only had online contact. Plus, he’s got a rock-solid alibi for the date she died: he was doing a double shift at Asda—in Leeds. We’ve checked.

“But,” said Wardle, and Strike could tell he was leading up to something he thought promising, “there’s a bloke who’s been hanging round the forum, calls himself ‘Devotee,’ who’s been freaking them all out a bit. He’s got a thing for amputees. He liked to ask the women where they wanted to be amputated and apparently he tried to meet a couple of them. He’s gone very quiet lately. We’re trying to track him down.”

“Uh huh,” said Strike, very conscious of Two-Times’s mounting irritation. “Sounds hopeful.”

“Yeah, and I haven’t forgotten that letter you got from the bloke who liked your stump,” said Wardle. “We’re looking into him, too.”

“Great,” said Strike, hardly aware of what he was saying, but holding up a hand to show Two-Times—who was on the verge of getting up from the sofa—that he was almost done. “Listen, I can’t talk now, Wardle. Maybe later.”

When Wardle had hung up, Strike attempted to placate Two-Times, who had worked himself up into a state of weak anger while forced to wait for the phone call to end. Precisely what he thought Strike could do about the fact that his girlfriend had chucked him was a question that the detective, who could not afford to jettison possible repeat business, did not ask. Swigging tar-black coffee while the pain built in his head, Strike’s dominant emotion was a fervent wish that he was in a position to tell Two-Times to fuck off.

“So what,” asked his client, “are you going to do about it?”

Strike was unsure whether he was being asked to force Platinum back into the relationship, track her all over London in the hopes of discovering another boyfriend or refund Two-Times’s money. Before he could answer, however, he heard more footsteps on the metal stairs, and female voices. Two-Times barely had time for more than a startled, questioning look at Strike before the glass door opened.

Robin looked taller to Strike than the Robin he kept in his memory: taller, better-looking and more embarrassed. Behind her—and under normal circumstances he would have been interested and amused by the fact—was a woman who could only be her mother. Though a little shorter and definitely broader, she had the same strawberry-blonde hair, the same blue-gray eyes and an expression of beneficent shrewdness that was deeply familiar to Robin’s boss.

“I’m so sorry,” said Robin, catching sight of Two-Times and halting abruptly. “We can wait downstairs—come on, Mum—”

Their unhappy client got to his feet, definitely cross.

“No, no, not at all,” he said. “I didn’t have an appointment. I’ll go. Just my final invoice, then, Strike.”

He pushed his way out of the office.

An hour and a half later, Robin and her mother were sitting in silence as their taxi moved towards King’s Cross, Linda’s suitcase swaying a little on the floor.

Linda had been insistent that she wanted to meet Strike before she left for Yorkshire.

“You’ve been working for him for over a year. Surely he won’t mind if I look in to say hello? I’d like to see where you work, at least, so I can picture it when you’re talking about the office…”

Robin had resisted as hard as she could, embarrassed by the very idea of introducing her mother to Strike. It felt childish, incongruous and silly. She was particularly concerned that appearing with her mother in tow would reinforce Strike’s evident belief that she was too shaken up to deal with the Kelsey case.

Bitterly did Robin now regret betraying her distress when the Vettriano card had arrived. She ought to have known better than to let any hint of fear show, especially after telling him about the rape. He said it had made no difference, but she knew better: she’d had plenty of experience of people telling her what was, and wasn’t, good for her.

The taxi bowled along the I

Linda and Strike had chatted away while Robin made tea, keeping deliberately quiet. She strongly suspected that one of the reasons Linda wanted to meet Strike was to assess the precise degree of warmth that existed between him and her daughter. Helpfully, Strike looked appalling, a good ten years older than his real age, with that blue-jawed, sunken-eyed look that he got when he forfeited sleep for work. Linda would surely be hard pressed to imagine that Robin was nursing a secret infatuation now she had seen her boss.

“I liked him,” said Linda as the red-brick palace of St. Pancras came into view, “and I have to say, he might not be pretty, but he’s got something about him.”

“Yes,” said Robin coldly. “Sarah Shadlock feels the same way.”

Shortly before they had left for the station, Strike had asked for five minutes with her alone in the i

“The more I think about it,” Strike had said, “the more I think he’ll still be working as a heavy or a bouncer. What else is there for him, big bloke with brain damage and his history?”

Out of deference to the listening Linda, Strike had omitted to add that he was sure Brockbank would still be working in the sex industry, where vulnerable women might be most easily found.

“OK,” Robin had replied, leaving Strike’s list where he had put it on her desk. “I’ll see Mum off and come back—”

“No, I want you to do it from home. Keep a record of all the calls; I’ll reimburse you.”

A mental picture of the Destiny’s Child Survivor poster had flickered in Robin’s mind.

“When do I come back into the office?”

“Let’s see how long that takes you,” he said. Correctly reading her expression, he had added: “Look, I think we’ve just lost Two-Times for good. I can cover Mad Dad alone—”

“What about Kelsey?”

“You’re trying to trace Brockbank,” he said, pointing at the list in her hand. Then (his head was pounding, though Robin did not know it), “Look, everyone’ll be off work tomorrow, it’s a bank holiday, the royal wedding—”