“Yeah, why not?” said Strike, after a slight hesitation. God knew he could use a pint away from work, from family, from his hundred other problems.

Through the open door he saw Robin enter the outer office, followed by Saul Morris, who was holding a bunch of flowers. He closed the dividing door on them, then his tired brain processed the flowers and the date.

“Hang on. Aren’t you busy with Valentine’s shit?” he asked Nick.

“Not this year,” said Nick.

There was a short silence. Strike had always considered Nick and Ilsa, a gastroenterologist and a lawyer respectively, the happiest couple he knew. Their house on Octavia Street had often been a place of refuge to him.

“I’ll explain over a pint,” said Nick. “I need one. I’ll come to you.”

They agreed a pub and a time and rang off. Strike checked his watch again: he and Robin had fifteen minutes left of what he’d hoped would be an hour on Bamborough. Opening the door, he said,

“Ready? We haven’t got long.”

“Sorry,” said Robin, hurrying inside. “You got my text, didn’t you? About the purse?”

“Yeah,” said Strike, closing the door on Morris and pointing at the page from The Magus, which he’d laid in front of Robin’s seat. “That’s the page from the book in the Athorns’ house.”

He’d called Robin about finding the Athorns straight after leaving the ironmonger, and she’d responded with excitement and congratulations. His present grumpiness aggravated her. Presumably it was due to her lateness, but was she not allowed a little human fallibility, after all the extra hours she’d put in lately, covering her own work and Strike’s, managing the subcontractors, trying as hard as she could not to put extra stress on him when his aunt was dying? However, outside she could hear Barclay and Hutchins entering the outer office, which reminded her that not so very long ago, she’d been the temp, that Strike had laid down his expectations of a partner in uncompromising terms at the start of their professional relationship. There were three men outside who undoubtedly considered themselves better qualified for her position than she was. So, Robin simply sat down, picked up the page and read the passage beneath the smear.

“The writing mentions blood.”

“I know.”

“How fresh does blood have to be, to analyze?”

“The oldest sample I’ve heard of that was successfully analyzed was twenty-something years old,” said Strike. “If this is blood, and it dates from when Gwilherm Athorn was alive, it’s a good decade older. On the other hand, it’s been kept away from light and damp, inside that book, which might help. Anyway, I’m going to call Roy Phipps and ask him what Margot’s blood group was and then I’ll try and find someone to analyze it for us. Might try that bloke your friend Vanessa used to date in forensics, what was his name?”

“Oliver,” said Robin, “and he’s now her fiancé.”

“Well, him, yeah. One other interesting thing came out of my conversation with Samhain…”

He told her about Uncle Tudor’s belief that “Nico and his boys” had killed Margot Bamborough.

“‘Nico’—d’you think—?”

“Niccolo ‘Mucky’ Ricci? Odds on,” said Strike. “He wasn’t living far away and he must’ve been a local personality, although no one from the practice seems to have realized who’d walked into their Christmas party.

“I’ve left a message with the Athorns’ social worker, because I want to know how much store we can put in Deborah and Samhain’s memories. Shanker’s supposed to be digging around on Ricci for me, but I’ve heard sod all from him. Might give him a prod.”

He held out his hand and Robin passed the blood-smeared page back.

“Anyway, the only other development is that I’ve found C. B. Oakden,” said Strike.

“What? How?”

“Last night,” said Strike. “I was thinking about names. Irene getting them wrong—Douthwaite and Duckworth, Athorn and Applethorpe. Then I started thinking about how people often don’t stray too far from their original name if they change it.”

He swung his computer monitor around to face her, and Robin saw a picture of a man in early middle age. He was slightly freckled, his eyes fractionally too close together and his hair thinning, though he still had enough to sweep across his narrow forehead. He was still just recognizable as the boy screwing up his face at the camera, at Margot Bamborough’s barbecue.

The story below read:

SERIAL SWINDLER GETS JAIL SENTENCE

“Despicable Betrayal of Trust”

A serial fraudster who conned over ￡75,000 from elderly widows over a two-year period has been jailed for four years, nine months.

Brice Noakes, 49, of Fortune Street, Clerkenwell, who was born Carl Oaken, persuaded a total of nine “vulnerable and trusting women” to part with jewelry and cash, which in one case amounted to ￡30,000 of life savings.

Noakes was described by Lord Justice McCrieff as “a cunning and unscrupulous man who capitalized shamelessly on his victims’ vulnerability.”

Smartly dressed and well-spoken Noakes targeted widows living alone, usually offering valuations on jewelry. Noakes persuaded his victims to allow him to remove valuable items from their houses, promising to return with an expert assessment.

On other occasions he posed as a representative from the council, who claimed that the householder was in arrears with council tax and about to be prosecuted.

“Using plausible but entirely fraudulent paperwork, you pressured and bullied vulnerable women into transferring money into an account set up for your own benefit,” said Lord Justice McCrieff, while sentencing.

“Some of the women concerned were initially too embarrassed to tell their families that they’d let this individual into their homes,” said Chief Inspector Grant. “We believe there may be many more victims who are too ashamed to admit that they’ve been defrauded, and we would urge them, if they recognize Noakes’ picture, to contact us.”

“The paper’s misspelled his real name,” said Robin. “They’ve printed ‘Oaken,’ not Oakden.”

“Which is why he wouldn’t have shown up on a basic Google search,” said Strike.

Feeling subtly criticized, because she was the one who was supposed to be looking for Oakden, Robin glanced at the date on the news story, which was five years old.

“He’ll be out of jail by now.”

“He is,” said Strike, turning the monitor back toward himself, typing another couple of words and turning it to face Robin again. “I did a bit more searching on variations of his name, and…”

She saw an author page of the Amazon website, listing the books written by an author called Carl O. Brice. The photograph showed the same man from the newspaper, a little older, a little balder, a little more creased around the eyes. His thumbs hooked in his jeans pockets, he wore a black T-shirt with a white logo on it: a clenched fist inside the Mars symbol.

Carl O. Brice

Carl O. Brice is a life coach, entrepreneur and award-winning writer on men’s issues including masculism, fathers’ rights, gynocentrism, men’s mental health, female privilege and toxic feminism. Carl’s personal experience of the gynocentric family court system, cultural misandry and male exploitation give him the tools and skills to guide men from all walks of life to healthier, happier lives. In his award-winning book series, Carl examines the catastrophic impact that modern feminism has had on freedom of speech, the workplace, men’s rights and the nuclear family.

Robin glanced down the list of books beneath the author biography. The covers were cheap and amateurish. All featured pictures of women in various slightly pornified costumes and poses. A scantily dressed blonde wearing a crown was sitting on a throne for From Courtly Love to Family Courts, A History of Gynocentrism, whereas a brunette dressed in a rubber stormtrooper outfit pointed at the camera for Shamed: The Modern War on Masculinity.

“He’s got his own website,” said Strike, turning the monitor back to himself. “He self-publishes books, offers to coach men on how to get access to their kids, and flogs protein shakes and vitamins. I don’t think he’ll pass up the chance to talk to us. He seems the type to come running at the sniff of notoriety or money.

“Speaking of which,” said Strike, “how’re you getting on with that woman who thinks she saw Margot at the window on—?”

“Amanda Laws,” said Robin. “Well, I went back to her offering her expenses if she’ll come into the office, and she hasn’t answered yet.”

“Well, chase her,” said Strike. “You realize we’re now six months in—?”

“Yes, I do realize that,” said Robin, unable to help herself. “I learned counting at school.”

Strike raised his eyebrows.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “I’m just tired.”

“Well, so am I, but I’m also mindful of the fact we still haven’t traced some fairly important people yet. Satchwell, for instance.”

“I’m working on him,” said Robin, glancing at her watch and getting to her feet. “I think they’re all out there, waiting for us.”

“Why’s Morris brought flowers?” said Strike.

“They’re for Pat. For Valentine’s Day.”