Career of Evil

“Why aren’t you writing that down?” he asked the officers who sat in silence, staring at him. The younger man made a cursory note.

“I also,” Strike continued, “wrote a letter and sent it to DI Carver, recorded delivery. He should have got it yesterday.”

“You sent it recorded delivery?” repeated the older of the two officers, a sad-eyed man with a mustache.

“That’s right,” said Strike. “Thought I’d make sure it was good and hard to lose.”

The policeman made a far more detailed note.

Strike’s story was that, suspecting the police weren’t convinced by his suspicions about Laing, he had never stopped watching him. He had followed Laing to the nightclub, worried about whether he was going to try to pick up a woman, then tailed him to his flat where he had decided to confront him. About Alyssa, who had played the part of his temp with such aplomb, and Shanker, whose enthusiastic intervention had certainly spared Strike several more stab wounds, he said nothing.

“The clincher,” Strike told the officers, “is going to be finding this guy Ritchie, sometimes known as Dickie, whose motorbike Laing’s been borrowing. Hazel will be able to tell you all about him. He’s been giving Laing alibis all over the shop. I reckon he’s a petty criminal himself and probably thought he was just helping Laing cheat on Hazel or do a bit of benefit fraud. He doesn’t sound like a smart guy. I think he’ll crack pretty quickly once he realizes it was murder.”

The doctors and police finally decided that they needed nothing more from Strike at five o’clock in the morning. He refused the policemen’s offer of a lift, which he suspected was made partly to keep tabs on him as long as they could.

“We wouldn’t want this to get out before we’ve had a chance to speak to the families,” said the younger officer, whose white-blond hair stood out in the drab dawn on the forecourt where the three men were taking leave of one another.

“I’m not going to the press,” said Strike, yawning widely as he felt in his pockets for his remaining cigarettes. “I’ve got other stuff to do today.”

He had begun to walk away when a thought occurred to him.

“What was the church connection? Brockbank—what made Carver think it was him?”

“Oh,” said the mustached officer. He did not seem particularly eager to share the information. “There was a youth worker who’d transferred from Finchley to Brixton… didn’t lead anywhere, but,” he added, with an air of faint defiance, “we’ve got him. Brockbank. Got a tip-off from a homeless hostel yesterday.”

“Nice one,” said Strike. “Press love a pedophile. I’d lead with that when you talk to them.”

Neither officer smiled. Strike bade them good morning and left, wondering whether he had any money on him for a taxi, smoking left-handed because the local anesthetic was wearing off in his right hand, his broken nose stinging in the cool morning air.

“Fuckin’ Yorkshire?” Shanker said over the phone when he called to tell Strike he had a car and the detective had told him where he wanted to go. “Yorkshire?”

“Masham,” Strike had replied. “Look, I’ve already told you: I’ll pay you anything you like when I get the money. It’s a wedding and I don’t want to miss it. Time’s going to be tight as it is—anything you like, Shanker, you’ve got my word on it, and I’ll pay you when I can.”

“’Oo’s gettin’ married?”

“Robin,” said Strike.

“Ah,” said Shanker. He had sounded pleased. “Yeah, well, in that case, Bunsen, I’ll drive ya. I toldja you shouldn’t’ve—”

“—yeah—”

“—Alyssa toldja—”

“Yeah, she did, bloody loudly too.”

Strike had a strong suspicion that Shanker was now sleeping with Alyssa. He could think of few other explanations for the speed with which he had suggested her when Strike had explained the need for a woman to play a safe but essential part in the entrapment of Donald Laing. She had demanded a hundred pounds for doing the job and had assured Strike that it would have been considerably more had she not considered herself deep in his partner’s debt.

“Shanker, we can talk about all this on the way. I need food and a shower. We’re going to be bloody lucky to make it.”

So here they were, speeding north in the Mercedes Shanker had borrowed; from where, Strike did not inquire. The detective, who had had barely any sleep in the previous couple of nights, dozed for the first sixty miles, waking with a snort only when his mobile buzzed in his suit pocket.

“Strike,” he said sleepily.

“Bloody good job, mate,” said Wardle.

His tone did not match his words. After all, Wardle had been in charge of the investigation when Ray Williams had been cleared of all suspicion in relation to Kelsey’s death.

“Cheers,” said Strike. “You realize you’re now the only copper in London still prepared to talk to me.”

“Ah well,” said Wardle, rallying slightly. “Quality over quantity. I thought you’d like to know: they’ve already found Richard and he’s sung like a canary.”

“Richard…” mumbled Strike.

He felt as though his exhausted brain had been purged of the details that had obsessed him for months. Trees poured soothingly past the passenger window in a rush of summer greenery. He felt as though he could sleep for days.

“Ritchie—Dickie—motorbike,” said Wardle.

“Oh yeah,” said Strike, absentmindedly scratching his stitched ear, then swearing. “Shit, that hurt—sorry—he’s talked already, has he?”

“He’s not what you’d call a bright boy,” said Wardle. “We found a bunch of stolen gear at his place as well.”

“I thought that might be how Donnie was funding himself. He’s always been a handy thief.”

“There was a little gang of them. Nothing major, just a lot of petty pilfering. Ritchie was the only one who knew Laing had a double identity; he thought he was working a benefits scam. Laing asked three of them to back him up and pretend their camping trip to Shoreham-by-Sea had been the weekend he killed Kelsey. Apparently he told them he had another bird somewhere and Hazel wasn’t to know.”

“He could always get people on side, Laing,” said Strike, remembering the investigating officer in Cyprus who had been so ready to clear him of rape.

“How did you realize they weren’t there that weekend?” asked Wardle curiously. “They had photos and everything… how did you know they weren’t on the stag the weekend she died?”

“Oh,” said Strike. “Sea holly.”

“What?”

“Sea holly,” repeated Strike. “Sea holly isn’t in bloom in April. Summer and autumn—I spent half my childhood in Cornwall. The picture of Laing and Ritchie on the beach… there was sea holly. I should’ve realized then… but I kept getting sidetracked.”

After Wardle had hung up, Strike stared through the windscreen at the passing fields and trees, thinking back over the past three months. He doubted that Laing had ever known about Brittany Brockbank, but he had probably dug around enough to know the story of Whittaker’s trial, the quoting of “Mistress of the Salmon Salt” from the dock. Strike felt as though Laing had laid drag trails for him, without any idea how successful they would be.

Shanker turned on the radio. Strike, who would have preferred to go back to sleep, did not complain, but wound down the window and smoked out of it. In the steadily brightening sunshine he realized that the Italian suit he had pulled on automatically was flecked with small amounts of gravy and red wine. He rubbed off the worst of the dried-on stains, until reminded suddenly of something else.

“Oh, fuck.”

“Whassamatter?”

“I forgot to ditch someone.”

Shanker began to laugh. Strike smiled ruefully, which was painful. His whole face ached.

“Are we tryina stop this wedding, Bunsen?”

“’Course not,” said Strike, pulling out another cigarette. “I was invited. I’m a friend. A guest.??

?

“You sacked ’er,” said Shanker. “Which ain’t a mark of friendship where I come from.”

Strike refrained from pointing out that Shanker knew hardly anyone who had ever had a job.

“She’s like your mum,” said Shanker, after a long silence.

“Who is?”

“Your Robin. Kind. Wanted to save that kid.”

Strike found it difficult to defend a refusal to save a child to a man who had been rescued, bleeding, from the gutter at the age of sixteen.

“Well, I’m going to try and get her back, aren’t I? But the next time she calls you—if she calls you—”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll tell ya, Bunsen.”

The wing mirror showed Strike a face that might have belonged to the victim of a car crash. His nose was enormous and purple and his left ear looked black. By daylight he saw that his hasty attempt to shave using his left hand had not been entirely successful. As he imagined himself sliding into the back of the church he realized how conspicuous he was going to be, what a scene it would make if Robin decided she did not want him there. He didn’t want to spoil her day. At the first request to leave, he vowed inwardly, he would do so.

“BUNSEN!” shouted Shanker excitedly, making Strike jump. Shanker turned up the radio.

“… arrest has been made in the case of the Shacklewell Ripper. After a thorough search of a flat in Wollaston Close, London, police have charged thirty-four-year-old Donald Laing with the murders of Kelsey Platt, Heather Smart, Martina Rossi and Sadie Roach, the attempted murder of Lila Monkton and a serious assault on a sixth, unnamed woman…”

“They didn’t mention you!” said Shanker when the report ended. He sounded disappointed.

“They wouldn’t,” said Strike, fighting an uncharacteristic nervousness. He had just seen the first sign to Masham. “But they will. Good thing too: I need the publicity if I’m gonna get my business back off the ground.”

He automatically checked his wrist, forgetting that there was no watch there, and instead consulted the dashboard clock.

“Put your foot down, Shanker. We’re going to miss the start as it is.”

Strike became increasingly anxious as they approached their destination. The service had been scheduled to start twenty minutes before they finally tore up the hill to Masham, Strike checking his phone for the location of the church.

“It’s over there,” he said, pointing frantically to the opposite side of the broadest market square he had ever seen, which was packed with people at food stalls. As Shanker drove none too slowly around the periphery of the market several bystanders scowled and one man in a flat cloth cap shook his fist at the scarred man driving so dangerously in the sedate heart of Masham.

“Park here, anywhere here!” said Strike, spotting two dark blue Bentleys adorned with white ribbons parked at the far end of the square, the chauffeurs talking with their hats off in the sunshine. They looked around as Shanker braked. Strike threw off his seatbelt; he could see the church spire over the treetops now. He felt almost sick, due, no doubt, to the forty cigarettes he must have smoked overnight, the lack of sleep and Shanker’s driving.

Strike had hurried several steps away from the car before dashing back to his friend.

“Wait for me. I might not be staying.”

He hurried away again past the staring chauffeurs, nervously straightened his tie, then remembered the state of his face and suit and wondered why he bothered.

Through the gates and into the deserted churchyard Strike limped. The impressive church reminded him of St. Dionysius in Market Harborough, back when he and Robin had been friends. The hush over the sleepy, sunlit graveyard felt ominous. He passed a strange, almost pagan-looking column covered in carvings to his right as he approached the heavy oak doors.

Grasping the handle with his left hand he paused for a second.

“Fuck it,” he breathed to himself, and opened it as quietly as he could.

The smell of roses met him: white roses of Yorkshire blooming in tall stands and hanging in bunches at the ends of the packed queues. A thicket of brightly colored hats stretched away towards the altar. Hardly anybody looked around at Strike as he shuffled inside, although those that did stared. He edged along the rear wall, staring at the far end of the aisle.

Robin was wearing a coronet of white roses in her long, wavy hair. He could not see her face. She was not wearing her cast. Even at this distance, he could see the long, purple scar running down the back of her forearm.

“Do you,” came a ringing voice from an unseen vicar, “Robin Venetia Ellacott, take this man, Matthew John Cunliffe, to be your lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward—”

Exhausted, tense, his gaze fixed on Robin, Strike had not realized how near he was to the flower arrangement that stood on a fine, tulip-like bronze stand.

“—for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death—”

“Oh shit,” said Strike.

The arrangement he had hit toppled as though in slow motion and fell with a deafening clang to the floor. Congregation and couple turned and looked back.

“I’m—Christ, I’m sorry,” said Strike hopelessly.

Somewhere in the middle of the congregation a man laughed. Most returned their gazes to the altar at once, but a few guests continued to glare at Strike before remembering themselves.

“—do you part,” said the vicar with saintly tolerance.

The beautiful bride, who had not once smiled in the entire service, was suddenly beaming.

“I do,” said Robin in a ringing voice, looking straight into the eyes, not of her stony-faced new husband, but of the battered and bloodied man who had just sent her flowers crashing to the floor.