“I get time off,” said Robin.

She took her empty mug over to the sink. Rowntree now struggled to his feet and Robin let him out of the back door, feeling the icy air on every bit of exposed skin. Over the garden hedge she could see the sun turning the horizon green as it made its way steadily up through the icy heavens.

“Is he seeing anyone?” Linda asked. “Strike?”

“He sees lots of people,” said Robin, willfully obtuse. “It’s part of the job.”

“You know what I mean,” said Linda.

“Why the interest?”

She expected her mother to back off, but was surprised.

“I think you know why,” she said, turning to face her daughter.

Robin was furious to find herself blushing. She was a twenty-nine-year-old woman. At that very moment, her mobile emitted a beep on the kitchen table. She was convinced that it would be Strike texting her, and so, apparently, was Linda, who, being nearer, picked up the phone to hand it to Robin, glancing at the sender’s name as she did so.

It wasn’t Strike. It was Saul Morris. He’d written:

Hope you’re not having as shit a Christmas as I am.

Robin wouldn’t normally have answered. Resentment at her family, and something else, something she didn’t particularly want to admit to, made her text back, while Linda watched:

Depends how shit yours is. Mine’s fairly shit.

She sent the message, then looked up at Linda.

“Who’s Saul Morris?” her mother asked.

“Subcontractor at the agency. Ex-police,” said Robin.

“Oh,” said Linda.

Robin could tell that had given Linda fresh food for thought. If she was honest with herself, she’d meant to do exactly that. Picking her laptop off the table, she left the kitchen.

The bathroom was, of course, occupied. Robin returned to her room. By the time she lay back down on her bed, laptop open again, Morris had texted her again.

Tell me your troubles and I’ll tell you mine. Problem shared and all that.

Slightly regretting that she’d answered him, Robin turned the mobile face down on her bed and continued reading Strike’s document.

Irene’s invented sign looks like a big fish and Talbot’s blunt about what he thinks it represents: “the monster Cetus, Leviathan, the biblical whale, superficial charm, evil in depths. Headstrong, enjoys spotlight, a performer, a liar.” Talbot seems to have suspected Irene was a liar even before she was proven to have lied about her trip to the dentist, which Talbot never found out about, although there’s no indication as to what he thinks she was lying about.

Margot as Babalon

This is only of relevance in as much as it shows just how ill Talbot was.

On the night he was finally sectioned, he attempted some kind of magic ritual. Judging by his notes, he was trying to conjure Baphomet, presumably because he thought Baphomet would take the form of Margot’s killer.

According to Talbot, what manifested in the room wasn’t Baphomet, but the spirit of Margot “who blames me, who attacks me.” Talbot believed she’d become Babalon in death, Babalon being Baphomet’s second-in-command/consort. The demon he “saw” was carrying a cup of blood and a sword. There are repeated mentions of lions scribbled round the picture of the demon. Babalon rides a seven-headed lion on the card representing Lust in the Thoth tarot.

At some point after Talbot drew the demon, he went back and drew Latin crosses over some of the notes and on the demon itself, and wrote a biblical quotation warning against witchcraft across the picture. The appearance of the demon seems to have pushed him back toward religion, and that’s where his notes end.

Robin heard the bathroom door open and close. Now desperate for a pee, she jumped up and headed out of her room.

Stephen was crossing the landing, holding his washbag, puffy-eyed and yawning.

“Sorry about last night, Rob,” he said. “Jenny thinks it was the sprouts.”

“Yeah, Mum said,” Robin replied, edging around him. “No problem. Hope she feels better.”

“We’re going to take her out for a walk. I’ll see if I can buy you some ear plugs.”

Once she’d showered, Robin returned to her room. Her phone beeped twice while she was dressing.

Brushing her hair in the mirror, her eyes fell on the new perfume she’d received as a Christmas present from her mother. Robin had told her she was looking for a new fragrance, because the old one reminded her too much of Matthew. She’d been touched that Linda remembered the conversation when she opened the gift.

The bottle was round; not an orb, but a flattish circle: Chanel Chance Eau Fra?che. The liquid was pale green. An unfortunate association of ideas now made Robin think of sprouts. Nevertheless, she sprayed some on her wrists and behind her ears, filling the air with the scent of sharp lemon and nondescript flowers. What, she wondered, had made her mother choose it? What was it about the perfume that made her think “Robin”? To Robin’s nostrils it smelled like a deodorant, generic, clean and totally without romance. She remembered her unsuccessful purchase of Fracas, and the desire to be sexy and sophisticated that had ended only in headaches. Musing about the disparity between the way people would like to be seen, and the way others prefer to see them, Robin sat back down on her bed beside her laptop and flipped over her phone.

Morris had texted twice more.

Lonely and hungover this end. Not being with the kids at Christmas is shit.

When Robin hadn’t answered this, he’d texted again.

Sorry, being a maudlin dickhead. Feel free to ignore.

Calling himself a dickhead was the most likable thing she’d ever known Morris do. Feeling sorry for him, Robin replied,

It must be tough, I’m sorry.

She then returned to her laptop and the last bit of Strike’s document, detailing actions to be taken, and with initials beside each to show which of them should undertake it.

Action points

Talk to Gregory Talbot again—CS

I want to know why, even after he got well, Bill Talbot never told colleagues about the leads in this notebook he’d withheld from colleagues during the investigation, ie, sighting of Brenner in Skinner Street the night Margot disappeared/blood on the Phippses’ carpet/a death Margot might have been worried about/Mucky Ricci leaving the practice one night.

Speak to Dinesh Gupta again—CS

He might know who Brenner was visiting in Skinner Street that night. Could have been a patient. He might also be able to shed light on Mucky Ricci appearing at the party. Will also ask him about “Scorpio” in case this refers to a patient whose death seemed suspicious to Margot.

Interview Roy Phipps—CS/RE

We’ve tiptoed around Phipps too long. Time to ring Anna and see whether she can persuade him to give us an interview.

Try and secure interview with one of Wilma Bayliss’s children—CS/RE

Especially important if we can’t get to Roy. Want to re-examine Wilma’s story (Roy walking, blood on the carpet).

Find C. B. Oakden—CS/RE

Judging from his book, he’s full of shit, but there’s an outside possibility he knows things about Brenner we don’t, given that his mother was the closest person to Brenner at the practice.

Find & interview Paul Satchwell—CS/RE

Find & interview Steven Douthwaite—CS/RE

Robin couldn’t help but feel subtly criticized. Strike had now added his initials to action points that had previously been Robin’s alone, such as finding Satchwell, and persuading Wilma Bayliss’s children to give them interviews. She set the laptop down again, picked up her phone and headed back to the kitchen for breakfast.

An abrupt silence fell when she walked into the room. Linda, Stephen and Jenny all wore self-conscious looks of those who fear they might have been overheard. Robin put bread in the toaster, trying to tamp down her rising resentment. She seemed to sense mouthed speech and gesticulations behind her back.

“Robin, we just ran into Matthew,” said Stephen suddenly. “When we were walking Annabel round the block.”

“Oh,” said Robin, turning to face them, trying to look mildly interested.

It was the first time Matthew had been spotted. Robin had avoided midnight mass out of conviction that he and Sarah would be there, but her mother had reported that none of the Cunliffes had attended. Now Linda, Stephen and Jenny were all looking at her, worried, pitying, waiting for her reaction and her questions.

Her phone beeped.

“Sorry,” she said, picking it up, delighted to have a reason to look away from them all.

Morris had texted:

Why’s your Christmas so shit?

While the other three watched, she typed back:

My ex-father-in-law lives locally and my ex has brought his new girlfriend home. We’re currently the local scandal.

She didn’t like Morris, but at this moment he felt like a welcome ally, a lifeline from the life she had forged, with difficulty, away from Matthew and Masham. Robin was on the point of setting down the phone when it beeped again and, still with the other three watching her, she read: