Роберт Гэлбрейт - Lethal White

‘Oh, you poor thing!’

A drunk, balding man who was probably younger than he looked loomed up behind Sarah.

‘Tom Turvey,’ he said, fixing Strike with unfocused eyes. ‘Bloody good job. Well done, mate. Bloody good job. ’

‘We’ve wanted to meet you for ages,’ said Sarah. ‘We’re old friends of Matt and Robin’s.’

‘Shacklewell Rip – Ripper,’ said Tom, on a slight hiccough. ‘Bloody good job.’

‘ Look at you, you poor thing,’ said Sarah again, touching Strike on the bicep as she smiled up into his bruised face. ‘ He didn’t do that to you, did he?’

‘Ev’ryone wants to know,’ said Tom, grinning blearily. ‘Can hardly contain their bloody selves. You should’ve made a speech instead of Henry.’

‘Ha ha,’ said Sarah. ‘Last thing you’d want to do, I expect. You must have come here straight from catching – well, I don’t know – did you?’

‘Sorry,’ said Strike, unsmiling, ‘police have asked me not to talk about it.’

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said the harried MC, who had been caught unawares by Matthew and Robin’s unobtrusive entrance into the room, ‘please welcome Mr and Mrs Cunliffe!’

As the newlyweds moved unsmilingly into the middle of the dance floor, everybody but Strike began to applaud. The lead singer of the band took the microphone from the MC.

‘This is a song from their past that means a lot to Matthew and Robin,’ the singer announced, as Matthew slid his hand around Robin’s waist and grasped her other hand.

The wedding photographer moved out of the shadows and began clicking away again, frowning a little at the reappearance of the ugly rubber brace on the bride’s arm.

The first acoustic bars of ‘Wherever You Will Go’ by The Calling struck up. Robin and Matthew began to revolve on the spot, their faces averted from each other.

So lately, been wondering,

Who will be there to tak e my place

When I’m gone, you’ll need love

To light the shadows on your face . . .

Strange choice for an ‘our song’, Strike thought . . . but as he watched he saw Matthew move closer to Robin, saw his hand tighten on her narrow waist as he bent his handsome face to whisper something in her ear.

A jolt somewhere around the solar plexus pierced the fug of exhaustion, relief and alcohol that had cushioned Strike all day long from the reality of what this wedding meant. Now, as Strike watched the newlyweds turn on the dance floor, Robin in her long white dress, with a circlet of roses in her hair, Matthew in his dark suit, his face close to his bride’s cheek, Strike was forced to recognise how long, and how deeply, he had hoped that Robin would not marry. He had wanted her free, free to be what they had been together. Free, so that if circumstances changed . . . so the possibility was there . . . free, so that one day, they might find out what else they could be to each other.

Fuck this.

If she wanted to talk, she would have to call him. Setting down his empty glass on a windowsill, he turned and made his way through the other guests, who shuffled aside to let him pass, so dark was his expression.

As she turned, staring into space, Robin saw Strike leaving. The door opened. He was gone.

‘Let go of me.’

‘What?’

She pulled free, hoisted up her dress once more for freedom of movement, then half-walked, half-ran off the dance floor, almost careering into her father and Aunt Sue, who were waltzing sedately nearby. Matthew was left standing alone in the middle of the room as Robin fought her way through the startled onlookers towards the door that had just swung shut.

‘Cormoran!’

He was already halfway down the stairs, but on hearing his name he turned back. He liked her hair in its long loose waves beneath the crown of Yorkshire roses.

‘Congratulations.’

She walked down another couple of steps, fighting the lump in her throat.

‘You really want me back?’

He forced a smile.

‘I’ve just driven for bloody hours with Shanker in what I strongly suspect is a stolen car. Of course I want you back.’

She laughed, though tears sprang to her eyes.

‘Shanker’s here? You should have brought him in!’

‘Shanker? In here? He’d have been through everyone’s pockets then nicked the reception till.’

She laughed some more, but tears spilled out of her brimming eyes and bounced down her cheek.

‘Where are you going to sleep?’

‘In the car, while Shanker drives me home. He’s going to charge me a fortune for this. Doesn’t matter,’ he added gruffly, as she opened her mouth. ‘Worth it if you’re coming back. More than worth it.’

‘I want a contract this time,’ said Robin, the severity of her tone belied by the expression of her eyes. ‘A proper one.’

‘You’ve got it.’

‘OK, then. Well, I’ll see you . . . ’

When would she see him? She was supposed to be on honeymoon for two weeks.

‘Let me know,’ said Strike.

He turned and began to descend the stairs again.

‘Cormoran!’

‘What?’

She walked towards him until she stood on the step above. Their eyes were on a level now.

‘I want to hear all about how you caught him and everything.’

He smiled.

‘It’ll keep. Couldn’t have done it without you, though.’

Neither of them could tell who had made the first move, or whether they acted in unison. They were holding each other tightly before they knew what had happened, Robin’s chin on Strike’s shoulder, his face in her hair. He smelled of sweat, beer and surgical spirits, she, of roses and the faint perfume that he had missed when she was no longer in the office. The feel of her was both new and familiar, as though he had held her a long time ago, as though he had missed it without knowing it for years. Through the closed door upstairs the band played on:

I’ll go wherever y ou will go

If I could make you mine . . .

As suddenly as they had reached for each other, they broke apart. Tears were rolling down Robin’s face. For one moment of madness, Strike yearned to say, ‘Come with me’, but there are words that can never be unsaid or forgotten, and those, he knew, were some of them.

‘Let me know,’ he repeated. He tried to smile, but it hurt his face. With a wave of his bandaged hand, he continued down the stairs without looking back.

She watched him go, wiping the hot tears frantically from her face. If he had said ‘come with me’, she knew she would have gone: but then what? Gulping, wiping her nose on the back of her hand, Robin turned, hoisted up her skirts again, and climbed slowly back towards her husband.

ONE YEAR LATER

1

I hear that he means to enlarge . . . that he is looking for a competent assistant.

Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

Such is the universal desire for fame that those who achieve it accidentally or unwillingly will wait in vain for pity.

For many weeks after the capture of the Shacklewell Ripper, Strike had feared that his greatest detective triumph might have dealt his career a fatal blow. The smatterings of publicity his agency had hitherto attracted seemed now like the two submersions of the drowning man before his final descent to the depths. The business for which he had sacrificed so much, and worked so hard, relied largely on his ability to pass unrecognised in the streets of London, but with the capture of a serial killer he had become lodged in the public imagination, a sensational oddity, a jokey aside on quiz shows, an object of curiosity all the more fascinating because he refused to satisfy it.