Роберт Гэлбрейт - Lethal White

‘Doom Bar on draught,’ he said cheerfully, tipping his glass to her before taking a sip. Robin looked blankly at the little bottle of champagne, which she thought resembled bubble bath.

‘What’s this for?’

‘Celebration,’ said Strike, having taken a sizeable gulp of his beer. ‘I know you’re not supposed to say it,’ he went on, rummaging through his pockets for cigarettes, ‘but you’re well shot of him. Sleeping with his mate’s fiancée in the marital bed? He deserves everything that’s coming to him.’

‘I can’t drink. I’m driving.’

‘That’s just cost me twenty-five quid, so you can take a token swig.’

‘Twenty-five quid, for this?’ said Robin, and taking advantage of Strike lighting his cigarette, she surreptitiously wiped her leaking eyes again.

‘Tell me something,’ said Strike, as he waved his match, extinguishing it. ‘D’you ever think about where you see the agency going?’

‘What d’you mean?’ said Robin, looking alarmed.

‘My brother-in-law was giving me the third degree about it, night the Olympics started,’ said Strike. ‘Banging on about reaching a point where I didn’t have to go out on the street any more.’

‘But you wouldn’t want that, would y – wait,’ said Robin, panicking. ‘Are you trying to tell me I’ve got to go back to the desk and answering the phones?’

‘No,’ said Strike, blowing smoke away from her, ‘I just wondered whether you give the future any thought.’

‘You want me to leave?’ asked Robin, still more alarmed. ‘Go and do something el—?’

‘Bloody hell, Ellacott, no! I’m asking you whether you think about the future, that’s all.’

He watched as Robin uncorked the little bottle.

‘Yes, of course I do,’ she said uncertainly. ‘I’ve been hoping we can get the bank balance a bit healthier, so we aren’t living hand to mouth all the time, but I love the—’ her voice wobbled, ‘—the job, you know I do. That’s all I want. Do it, get better at it and . . . I suppose make the agency the best in London.’

Grinning, Strike clinked his beer glass against her champagne.

‘Well, bear in mind we want exactly the same thing while I’m saying the next bit, all right? And you might as well drink. Tegan can’t take a break for forty minutes, and we’ve got a lot of time to kill before we head over to the dell this evening.’

Strike watched her take a sip of champagne before going on.

‘Pretending you’re OK when you aren’t isn’t strength.’

‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong,’ Robin contradicted him. The champagne had fizzed on her tongue and seemed to give her courage even before it hit her brain. ‘Sometimes, acting as though you’re all right, makes you all right. Sometimes you’ve got to slap on a brave face and walk out into the world, and after a while it isn’t an act any more, it’s who you are. If I’d waited to feel ready to leave my room after – you know,’ she said, ‘I’d still be in there. I had to leave before I was ready. And,’ she said, looking him directly in the eyes, her own bloodshot and swollen, ‘I’ve been working with you for two years, watching you plough on no matter what, when we both know any doctor would have told you to put your leg up and rest.’

‘And where did that get me, eh?’ asked Strike reasonably. ‘Invalided out for a week, with my hamstring screaming for mercy every time I walk more than fifty yards. You want to draw parallels, fine. I’m dieting, I’ve been doing my stretches—’

‘And the vegetarian bacon, rotting away in the fridge?’

‘Rotting? That stuff’s like industrial rubber, it’ll outlive me. Listen,’ he said, refusing to be deflected, ‘it’d be a bloody miracle if you hadn’t suffered any after-effects from what happened last year . ’ His eyes sought the tip of the purple scar on her forearm, visible beneath the cuff of her shirt. ‘Nothing in your past precludes you from doing this job, but you need to take care of yourself if you want to keep doing it. If you need time off—’

‘—that’s the last thing I want—’

‘This isn’t about what you want. It’s about what you need.’

‘Shall I tell you something funny?’ said Robin. Whether because of the mouthful of champagne, or for some other reason, she had experienced a startling lift in mood that made her loose-tongued. ‘You’d have thought I’d have had panic attacks galore over the last week, wouldn’t you? I’ve been trying to find a place to live, looking round flats, travelling all over London, I’ve had loads of people coming up unexpectedly behind me – that’s a major trigger,’ she explained. ‘People behind me, when I don’t know they’re there.’

‘Don’t think we need Freud to explain that one.’

‘But I’ve been fine,’ said Robin. ‘I think it’s because I haven’t had to—’

She stopped short, but Strike thought he knew what the end of the sentence would have been. Taking a chance, he said:

‘This job becomes well-nigh impossible if your home life’s screwed up. I’ve been there. I know.’

Relieved to have been understood, Robin drank more champagne then said in a rush:

‘I think it’s made me worse, having to hide what’s going on, having to do the exercises in secret, because any sign I wasn’t a hundred per cent and Matthew would be yelling at me again for doing this job. I thought it was him trying to reach me on the phone this morning, that’s why I didn’t want to take the call. And when Winn started calling me those names, it – well, it felt as though I had taken the call. I don’t need Winn to tell me I’m basically a pair of walking tits, a stupid, deluded girl who doesn’t realise that’s my only useful attribute.’

Matthew’s been telling you that, has he? thought Strike, imagining a few corrective measures from which he thought Matthew might benefit. Slowly and carefully he said:

‘The fact that you’re a woman . . . I do worry about you more when you’re out alone on a job than I would if you were a bloke. Hear me out,’ he said firmly, as she opened her mouth in panic. ‘We’ve got to be honest with each other, or we’re screwed. Just listen, will you?

‘You’ve escaped two killers using your wits and remembering your training. I’d lay odds bloody Matthew couldn’t’ve managed that. But I don’t want a third time, Robin, because you might not be so lucky.’

‘You are telling me to go back to a desk job—’

‘Can I finish?’ he said sternly. ‘I don’t want to lose you, because you’re the best I’ve got. Every case we’ve worked since you arrived, you’ve found evidence I couldn’t have found and got round people I couldn’t have persuaded to talk to me. We’re where we are today largely because of you. But the odds are always going to be against you if you come up against a violent man and I’ve got responsibilities here. I’m the senior partner, I’m the one you could sue—’

‘You’re worried I’d sue —?’

‘No, Robin,’ he said harshly, ‘I’m worried you’ll end up fucking dead and I’ll have to carry that on my conscience for the rest of my life.’

He took another swig of Doom Bar, then said:

‘I need to know you’re mentally healthy if I’m putting you out on the street. I want a cast-iron guarantee from you that you’re going to address these panic attacks, because it isn’t only you who has to live with the consequences if you’re not up to it.’

‘Fine,’ muttered Robin, and when Strike raised his eyebrows, she said, ‘I mean it. I’ll do what it takes. I will.’

The crowd around the paddock was becoming ever denser. Evidently the runners in the next race were about to be paraded.