Robert Galbraith - Career of Evil

He had not been satisfied with her response.

Call me asap.

She had ignored that one on the basis that she might easily have failed to receive it, being close to the Tube when he sent it and shortly afterwards having no reception as she and Platinum rode the Tube back to Tottenham Court Road. On emerging from the station Robin found another missed call from Strike on her phone, as well as a new text from Matthew.

I need to know whether you’re coming home tonight. I’m worried sick about you. Just text to tell me you’re alive, that’s all I’m asking.

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself,” muttered Robin. “Like I’d kill myself over you.”

A strangely familiar paunchy man in a suit walked past Robin, illuminated by the glow of Spearmint Rhino’s canopy. It was Two-Times. Robin wondered whether she imagined the self-satisfied smirk he gave her.

Was he going inside to watch his girlfriend gyrate for other men? Did he get a thrill out of having his sex life documented? Precisely what kind of weirdo was he?

Robin turned away. She needed to make a decision as to what to do tonight. A large man in a beanie hat appeared to be arguing into his mobile phone in a dark doorway a hundred yards away.

The disappearance of Platinum had robbed Robin of purpose. Where was she going to sleep? As she stood there, irresolute, a group of young men walked past her, deliberately close, one of them brushing against her holdall. She could smell Lynx and lager.

“Got your costume in there, darling?”

She became aware of the fact that she was standing outside a lap-dancing club. As she turned automatically in the direction of Strike’s office, her mobile rang. Without thinking, she answered it.

“Where the hell have you been?” said Strike’s angry voice in her ear.

She barely had time to be glad that he wasn’t Matthew before he said:

“I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day! Where are you?”

“On Tottenham Court Road,” she said, walking fast away from the still-jeering men. “Platinum’s only just gone inside and Two—”

“What did I tell you about not staying out after dark?”

“It’s well-lit,” said Robin.

She was trying to remember whether she had ever noticed a Travelodge near here. She needed somewhere clean and cheap. It must be cheap, because she was drawing on the joint account; she was determined not to spend more than she had put in.

“Are you all right?” asked Strike, slightly less aggressively.

A lump rose in her throat.

“Fine,” she said, as forcefully as she could. She was trying to be professional, to be what Strike wanted.

“I’m still at the office,” he said. “Did you say you’re on Tottenham Court Road?”

“I’ve got to go, sorry,” she said, in a tight, cold voice and hung up.

The fear of crying had become so overwhelming that she had to end the call. She thought he had been on the verge of offering to meet her, and if they met she would tell him everything, and she must not do that.

Tears were suddenly pouring down her face. She had no one else. There! She had admitted it to herself at last. The people they had meals with at weekends, the ones they went to watch rugby with: they were all Matthew’s friends, Matthew’s work colleagues, Matthew’s old university friends. She had nobody of her own but Strike.

“Oh God,” she said, wiping her eyes and nose on the sleeve of her coat.

“You all right, sweetheart?” called a toothless tramp from a doorway.

She was not sure why she ended up in the Tottenham, except that the bar staff knew her, she was familiar with where the Ladies was, and it was somewhere that Matthew had never been. All she wanted was a quiet corner in which she could look up cheap places to stay. She was also craving a drink, which was most unlike her. After splashing her face with cold water in the bathroom she bought herself a glass of red wine, took it to a table and pulled out her phone again. She had missed another call from Strike.

Men at the bar were looking over at her. She knew what she must look like, tear-stained and alone, her holdall beside her. Well, she couldn’t help that. She typed into her mobile: Travelodges near Tottenham Court Road, and waited for the slow response, drinking her wine faster than perhaps she ought to have done on a virtually empty stomach. No breakfast, no lunch: a bag of crisps and an apple consumed at the student café where Platinum had been studying were all she had eaten that day.

There was a Travelodge in High Holborn. That would have to do. She felt slightly calmer for knowing where she was going to spend the night. Careful not to make eye contact with any of the men at the bar, she went up to get a second glass of wine. Perhaps she ought to call her mother, she thought suddenly, but the prospect made her feel tearful all over again. She could not face Linda’s love and disappointment, not yet.

A large figure in a beanie hat entered the pub, but Robin was keeping her attention determinedly on her change and her wine, giving none of the hopeful men lurking at the bar the slightest reason to suppose that she wanted any of them to join her.

The second glass of wine made her feel much more relaxed. She remembered how Strike had got so drunk here, in this very pub, that he could barely walk. That had been the only night that he had ever shared personal information. Maybe that was the real reason she had been drawn here, she thought, raising her eyes to the colorful glass cupola overhead. This was the bar where you went to drink when you found out that the person you loved was unfaithful.

“You alone?” said a man’s voice.

“Waiting for someone,” she said.

He was slightly blurred when she looked up at him, a wiry blond man with bleached blue eyes, and she could tell that he did not believe her.

“Can I wait with you?”

“No, you fucking can’t,” said another, familiar voice.

Strike had arrived, massive, scowling, glaring at the stranger, who retreated with ill grace to a couple of friends at the bar.

“What are you doing here?” asked Robin, surprised to find that her tongue felt numb and thick after two glasses of wine.

“Looking for you,” said Strike.

“How did you know I was—?”

“I’m a detective. How many of those have you had?” he asked, looking down at her wineglass.

“Only one,” she lied, so he went to the bar for another, and a pint of Doom Bar for himself. As he ordered, a large man in a beanie hat ducked out of the door, but Strike was more interested in keeping an eye on the blond man who was still staring over at Robin and only seemed to give up on her once Strike reappeared, glowering, with two drinks and sat down opposite her.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t give me that. You look like bloody death.”

“Well,” said Robin, taking a large slurp of wine, “consider my morale boosted.”

Strike gave a short laugh.

“Why have you got a holdall with you?” When she did not answer, he said, “Where’s your engagement ring?”

She opened her mouth to answer but a treacherous desire to cry rose to drown the words. After a short inner struggle and another gulp of wine she said:

“I’m not engaged anymore.”

“Why not?”

“This is rich, coming from you.”

I’m drunk, she thought, as though watching herself from outside her own body. Look at me. I’m drunk on two and a half glasses of wine, no food and no sleep.

“What’s rich?” asked Strike, confused.

“We don’t talk about personal... you don’t talk about personal stuff.”

“I seem to remember spilling my guts all over you in this very pub.”