Robert Galbraith - The Cuckoo's Calling

Alternatively, of course, Strike had gone to Charlotte and she had turned him away. In that case, the matter of his current whereabouts became a matter of more pressing, less personal concern. What if he had gone out, unchecked and unprotected, hell-bent on intoxication again? Robin’s busy fingers slowed and stopped, mid-sentence. She swiveled on her computer chair to look at the silent office telephone.

She might well be the only person who knew that Cormoran Strike was not where he was supposed to be. Perhaps she ought to call him on his mobile? And if he did not pick up? How many hours ought she to let elapse before contacting the police? The idea of ringing Matthew at his office and asking his advice came to her, only to be swatted away.

She and Matthew had rowed when Robin arrived home, very late, after walking a drunken Strike back to the office from the Tottenham. Matthew had told her yet again that she was naive, impressionable and a sucker for a hard-luck story; that Strike was after a secretary on the cheap, and using emotional blackmail to achieve his ends; that there was probably no Charlotte at all, that it was all an extravagant ploy to engage Robin’s sympathy and services. Then Robin had lost her temper, and told Matthew that if anybody was blackmailing her it was he, with his constant harping on the money she ought to be bringing in, and his insinuation that she was not pulling her weight. Hadn’t he noticed that she was enjoying working for Strike; hadn’t it crossed his insensitive, obtuse accountant’s mind that she might be dreading the tedious bloody job in human resources? Matthew had been aghast, and then (though reserving the right to deplore Strike’s behavior) apologetic; but Robin, usually conciliatory and amiable, had remained aloof and angry. The truce effected the following morning had prickled with antagonism, mainly Robin’s.

Now, in the silence, watching the telephone, some of her anger at Matthew spilled over on to Strike. Where was he? What was he doing? Why was he acting up to Matthew’s accusations of irresponsibility? She was here, holding the fort, and he was presumably off chasing his ex-fiancée, and never mind their business…

… his business…

Footsteps on the stairwell: Robin thought she recognized the very slight unevenness in Strike’s tread. She waited, glaring towards the stairs, until she was sure that the footfalls were proceeding beyond the first landing; then she turned her chair resolutely back to face the monitor and began pounding at the keys again, while her heart raced.

“Morning.”

“Hi.”

She accorded Strike a fleeting glance while continuing to type. He looked tired, unshaven and unnaturally well dressed. She was instantly confirmed in her view that he had attempted a reconciliation with Charlotte; by the looks of it, successfully. The next two sentences were pockmarked with typos.

“How’re things?” asked Strike, noting Robin’s clench-jawed profile, her cold demeanor.

“Fine,” said Robin.

She now intended to lay her perfectly typed report in front of him, and then, with icy calm, discuss the arrangements for her departure. She might suggest that he hire another temp this week, so that she could instruct her replacement in the day-to-day management of the office before she left.

Strike, whose run of appalling luck had been broken in fabulous style just a few hours previously, and who was feeling as close to buoyant as he had been for many months, had been looking forward to seeing his secretary. He had no intention of regaling her with an account of his night’s activities (or at least, not those that had done so much to restore his battered ego), for he was instinctively close-lipped about such matters, and he was hoping to shore up as much as remained of the boundaries that had been splintered by his copious consumption of Doom Bar. He had, however, been planning an eloquent speech of apology for his excesses of two nights before, an avowal of gratitude, and an exposition of all the interesting conclusions he had drawn from yesterday’s interviews.

“Fancy a cup of tea?”

“No thanks.”

He looked at his watch.

“I’m only eleven minutes late.”

“It’s up to you when you arrive. I mean,” she attempted to backtrack, for her tone had been too obviously hostile, “it’s none of my business what you—when you get here.”

From having mentally rehearsed a number of soothing and magnanimous responses to Strike’s imagined apologies for his drunken behavior of forty-eight hours previously, she now felt that his attitude was distastefully free of shame or remorse.

Strike busied himself with kettle and cups, and a few minutes later set down a mug of steaming tea beside her.

“I said I didn’t—”

“Could you leave that important document for a minute while I say something to you?”

She saved the report with several thumps of the keys and turned to face him, her arms folded across her chest. Strike sat down on the old sofa.

“I wanted to say sorry about the night before last.”

“There’s no need,” she said, in a small, tight voice.

“Yeah, there is. I can’t remember much of what I did. I hope I wasn’t obnoxious.”

“You weren’t.”

“You probably got the gist. My ex-fiancée’s just got engaged to an old boyfriend. It took her three weeks after we split to get another ring on her finger. That’s just a figure of speech; I never actually bought her a ring; I never had the money.”

Robin gathered, from his tone, that there had been no reconciliation; but in that case, where had he spent the night? She unfolded her arms and unthinkingly picked up her tea.

“It wasn’t your responsibility to come and find me like that, but you probably stopped me collapsing in a gutter or punching someone, so thanks very much.”

“No problem,” said Robin.

“And thanks for the Alka-Seltzer,” said Strike.

“Did it help?” asked Robin, stiffly.

“I nearly puked all over this,” said Strike, dealing the sagging sofa a gentle punch with his fist, “but once it kicked in, it helped a lot.”

Robin laughed, and Strike remembered, for the first time, the note she had pushed under the door while he slept, and the excuse she had given for her tactful absence.

“Right, well, I’ve been looking forward to hearing how you got on yesterday,” he lied. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

Robin expanded like a water blossom.

“I was just typing it up…”

“Let’s have it verbally, and you can put it into the file later,” said Strike, with the mental reservation that it would be easy to remove if useless.

“OK,” said Robin, both excited and nervous. “Well, like I said in my note, I saw that you wanted to look into Professor Agyeman, and the Malmaison Hotel in Oxford.”

Strike nodded, grateful for the reminder, because he had not been able to remember the details of the note, read once in the depths of his blinding hangover.

“So,” said Robin, a little breathlessly, “first of all I went along to Russell Square, to SOAS; the School of Oriental and African Studies. That’s what your notes meant, isn’t it?” she added. “I checked a map: it’s walking distance from the British Museum. Isn’t that what all those scribbles meant?”

Strike nodded again.

“Well, I went in there and pretended I was writing a dissertation on African politics, and I wanted some information on Professor Agyeman. I ended up speaking to this really helpful secretary in the politics department, who’d actually worked for him, and she gave me loads of information on him, including a bibliography and a brief biography. He studied at SOAS as an undergraduate.”

“He did?”

“Yes,” said Robin. “And I got a picture.”