“Oh,” said Robin. “So you think the medium did know who Anna’s mother was?”

“If I was in the medium game, I’d sure as hell Google clients’ names before they showed up. But it could’ve been a fancy touch designed to sound comforting, like Anna said. Hints at a decent burial. However bad her end was, it’s purified by where her remains are. Creed admitted to scattering bone fragments in Paradise Park, by the way. Stamped them into the flower-beds.”

Although the car was still stuffy, Robin felt a small, involuntary shudder run through her.

“Fucking ghouls,” said Strike.

“Who?”

“Mediums, psychics, all those shysters… preying on people.”

“You don’t think some of them believe in what they’re doing? Think they really are getting messages from the beyond?”

“I think there are a lot of nutters in the world, and the less we reward them for their nuttery, the better for all of us.”

The mobile rang in Strike’s pocket. He pulled it out.

“Cormoran Strike.”

“Yes, hello—it’s Anna Phipps. I’ve got Kim here, too.”

Strike turned the mobile to speakerphone.

“Hope you can hear us all right,” he said, over the rumble and rattle of the Land Rover. “We’re still in the car.”

“Yes, it is noisy,” said Anna.

“I’ll pull over,” said Robin, and she did so, turning smoothly onto the hard shoulder.

“Oh, that’s better,” said Anna, as Robin turned off the engine. “Well, Kim and I have talked it over, and we’ve decided: we would like to hire you.”

Robin felt a jolt of excitement.

“Great,” said Strike. “We’re very keen to help, if we can.”

“But,” said Kim, “we feel that, for psychological and—well, candidly, financial—reasons we’d like to set a term on the investigation, because if the police haven’t solved this case in nigh on forty years—I mean, you could be looking for the next forty and find nothing.”

“That’s true,” said Strike. “So—”

“We think a year,” said Anna, sounding nervous. “What do you—does that seem reasonable?”

“It’s what I would have suggested,” said Strike. “To be honest, I don’t think we’ve got much chance in anything under twelve months.”

“Is there anything more you need from me to get started?” Anna asked, sounding both nervous and excited.

“I’m sure something will occur to me,” said Strike, taking out his notebook to check a name, “but it would be good to speak to your father and Cynthia.”

The other end of the line became completely silent. Strike and Robin looked at each other.

“I don’t think there’s any chance of that,” said Anna. “I’m sorry, but if my father knew I was doing this, I doubt he’d ever forgive me.”

“And what about Cynthia?”

“The thing is,” came Kim’s voice, “Anna’s father’s been unwell recently. Cynthia is the more reasonable of the two on this subject, but she won’t want anything to upset Roy just now.”

“Well, no problem,” said Strike, raising his eyebrows at Robin. “Our first priority’s got to be getting hold of the police file. In the meantime, I’ll email you one of our standard contracts. Print it out, sign it and send it back, we’ll get going.”

“Thank you,” said Anna and, with a slight delay, Kim said, “OK, then.”

They hung up.

“Well, well,” said Strike. “Our first cold case. This is going to be interesting.”

“And we’ve got a year,” said Robin, pulling back out onto the motorway.

“They’ll extend that if we look as though we’re onto something,” said Strike.

“Good luck with that,” said Robin sardonically. “Kim’s prepared to give us a year so she can tell Anna they’ve tried everything. I’ll bet you a fiver right now we don’t get any extensions.”

“I’ll take that bet,” said Strike. “If there’s a hint of a lead, Anna’s going to want to see it through to the end.”

The remainder of the journey was spent discussing the agency’s four current investigations, a conversation that took them all the way to the top of Denmark Street, where Strike got out.

“Cormoran,” said Robin, as he lifted the holdall out of the back of the Land Rover, “there’s a message on your desk from Charlotte Campbell. She called the day before yesterday and asked you to ring her back. She said she’s got something you want.”

There was a brief moment where Strike simply looked at Robin, his expression unreadable.

“Right. Thanks. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow. No, I won’t,” he instantly contradicted himself, “you’ve got time off. Enjoy.”

And with a slam of the rear door he limped off toward the office, head down, carrying his holdall over his shoulder, leaving an exhausted Robin no wiser as to whether he did or didn’t want whatever it was that Charlotte Campbell had.

PART TWO

Then came the Autumne all in yellow clad…

Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene

8

Full dreadfull thinges out of that balefull booke

He red…

Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene

When Strike and Robin broke the news of her husband’s bigamy, the white-faced woman they now called the Second Mrs. Tufty had sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Her small but charming house in central Windsor was quiet that Tuesday morning, her son and daughter at primary school, and she’d cleaned before they arrived: there was a smell of Pledge in the air and Hoover marks on the carpet. Upon the highly polished coffee table lay ten photographs of Tufty in Torquay, minus his toupee, laughing as he walked out of the pizza restaurant with the teenage boys who so strongly resembled the young children he’d fathered in Windsor, his arm around a smiling woman who might have been their client’s older sister.

Robin, who could remember exactly how she’d felt when Sarah Shadlock’s diamond earring had fallen out of her own marital bed, could only guess at the scale of pain, humiliation and shame behind the taut face. Strike was speaking conventional words of sympathy, but Robin would have bet her entire bank account that Mrs. Tufty hadn’t heard a word—and knew she’d been right when Mrs. Tufty suddenly stood up, shaking so badly that Strike also struggled to his feet, mid-sentence, in case she needed catching. However, she walked jerkily past him out of the room. Shortly afterward, they heard the front door open and spotted their client through the net curtain, approaching a red Audi Q3 parked in front of the house with a golf club in her hand.

“Oh shit,” said Robin.

By the time they reached her, the Second Mrs. Tufty had smashed the windscreen and put several deep dents in the roof of the car. Gawping neighbors had appeared at windows and a pair of Pomeranians were yapping frenziedly behind glass in the house opposite. When Strike grabbed the four iron out of her hand, Mrs. Tufty swore at him, tried to wrestle it back, then burst into a storm of tears.

Robin put her arm around their client and steered her firmly back into the house, Strike bringing up the rear, holding the golf club. In the kitchen, Robin instructed Strike to make strong coffee and find brandy. On Robin’s advice, Mrs. Tufty called her brother and begged him to come, quickly, but when she’d hung up and begun scrolling to find Tufty’s number, Robin jerked the mobile out of her well-manicured hand.

“Give it back!” said Mrs. Tufty, wild-eyed and ready to fight. “The bastard… the bastard… I want to talk to him… give it back!”

“Bad idea,” said Strike, putting coffee and brandy in front of her. “He’s already proven he’s adept at hiding money and assets from you. You need a shit-hot lawyer.”

They remained with the client until her brother, a suited HR executive, arrived. He was annoyed that he’d been asked to leave work early, and so slow at grasping what he was being told that Strike became almost irate and Robin felt it necessary to intervene to stop a row.

“Fuck’s sake,” muttered Strike, as they drove back toward London. “He was already married to someone else when he married your sister. How hard is that to grasp?”

“Very hard,” said Robin, an edge to her voice. “People don’t expect to find themselves in these kinds of situations.”

“D’you think they heard me when I asked them not to tell the press we were involved?”

“No,” said Robin.