“So?”
“Brian showed us the map, Strike! Dennis Creed was a regular visitor to the Archer Hotel in Islington in the early seventies, when he was delivering their dry cleaning. There was a well on the property, in the back garden. Boarded up, and now covered over with a conservatory.”
A pair of jolly men with matching beer bellies walked into the pub across the road. Strike barely registered them. He’d even forgotten to take drags of the cigarette burning between his fingers.
“Think this through,” said Robin in his ear. “Creed’s got a body he didn’t expect in the van, but he can’t take it to Epping Forest, because there was still an active crime scene there. They’d just found the remains of Vera Kenny. I don’t know why he didn’t take the body to the basement—”
“I do,” said Strike. “He’s just told me. He drove past the house and Vi Cooper was awake and at the window.”
“OK—right—so he’s got to empty the van before work. He knows his way around the Archer garden, and he knows there’s a back gate. He’s got tools in the back of the van, he could prize those boards up easily. Cormoran, I’m sure she’s in the old Archer well.”
There was a brief pause, then hot ash fell into Strike’s lap from his neglected cigarette.
“Bollocks—”
He flicked the end out of the window, earning himself a look of disapproval from a passing old woman pulling a tartan shopping trolley.
“All right, here’s what we’re going to do,” he told Robin. “I’ll phone Tucker and tell him what’s just happened, including your deduction. You call George Layborn and tell him about the well at the Archer. The quicker the police search it, the better for the Tuckers, especially if the news leaks that Creed’s confessed.”
“OK, I’ll get on to that right—”
“Hang on, I haven’t finished,” said Strike. He’d closed his eyes now, and he was rubbing his temples as he thought through everything the agency needed to do, and quickly. “When you’ve spoken to Layborn, I want you to ring Barclay and tell him he’s going on a job with you, tomorrow morning. He can forget Miss Jones’s boyfriend for a few hours. Or, most probably, all day, if what I think’s going to happen happens.”
“What job are Barclay and I doing?” asked Robin.
“Isn’t it obvious?” said Strike, opening his eyes again. “We’re up against the clock if Douthwaite talks to anyone.”
“So Barclay and I are…?”
“Finding Margot’s body,” said Strike. “Yes.”
There was a long silence. Strike’s stomach rumbled again. Now a pair of young women entered the pub, giggling at something one had shown the other on her phone.
“You really think she’s there?” said Robin, a little shaken.
“I’m sure of it,” said Strike.
“And you’re—?”
“I’m going to call Brian Tucker, eat some chips, make that long-distance phone call—I think they’re three hours ahead of us, so that should work fine—then drive back to the office. I’ll be back late afternoon and we can talk it all over properly.”
“Right,” said Robin, “good luck.”
She rang off. Strike hesitated for a moment before calling Brian Tucker: he’d have liked to do it with a pint in his hand, but he still needed to drive back to London, and being arrested for drink driving on the eve of catching Margot Bamborough’s killer was a complication he really didn’t want to risk. Instead, he lit himself a second cigarette, and prepared to tell a grieving father that after a forty-two year wait, he might soon be in a position to bury his daughter.
70
… and lastly Death;
Death with most grim and griesly visage seene…
Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene
The morning was so mild it might have been summer, but the leaves of the plane trees beside the telephone box at the mouth of Albemarle Way were starting to turn yellow. A patchwork blue and white sky gave and withdrew warmth as the sun slid in and out behind clouds, and Robin felt shivery in spite of the sweater she was wearing beneath her raincoat, as though a cold wind was blowing up Albemarle Way, the short side street whose tall, unbroken buildings kept it forever in shadow.
She was standing beside the telephone box where once, nearly forty years previously, the killer of Margot Bamborough had waited and watched, feeling, Robin imagined, much as she did now. There must have been fear, and nervousness, and doubt that the plan could possibly work, and terror of the consequences of failure. But this sense of kinship didn’t make Robin feel any more kindly to the killer. Looking across the road at the ancient arch of St. John’s Gate, she could imagine Margot Bamborough walking through it on a rainy evening forty years previously, or perhaps weaving, feeling strangely groggy and not knowing why… or had she realized? Possibly. Margot was a clever woman, and that was why she’d had to die…
Clerkenwell Road was busy with traffic and pedestrians. Robin felt entirely isolated from all of them. Nobody passing Robin could have the slightest idea of what she was about to try and do. How bizarre they’d think her morning’s plans, how macabre… a trickle of panic ran down Robin’s spine…
Think about something else.
There’d been a picture in the Metro that morning of Charlotte Ross wearing sunglasses and a long dark coat, walking along a street in Mayfair with her sister, Amelia. There had been no sign of Charlotte’s husband or young twins, and the short non-story beneath the picture had told Robin nothing she wanted to know.
Charlotte Campbell was spotted enjoying a morning walk in London with her sister, Amelia Crichton, yesterday. Charlotte, who is married to Jago, heir to the Viscountcy of Croy, was recently released from hospital, following a prolonged stay in Symonds House, an addiction and mental health facility much favored by the rich and famous.
Charlotte, who once topped Tatler’s list of 100 Most Beautiful Londoners, has been a favorite of the gossip columns since she first ran away from school, aged 14. Daughter of…
Think about something else, Robin told herself, and consciously groped around for another subject.
It was September the twentieth. A person born today would be born under the sign of Virgo. Robin wondered how long it was going to take to rid herself of the mental tic of tying dates to star signs. She thought of Matthew, who was the Virgoan she knew best. The sign was supposed to be clever, and organized, and nervous. He was certainly organized, and bright in a book-smart way… she remembered Oonagh Kennedy saying, “I sometimes t’ink, the cleverer they are with books, the stupider they are with sex,” and wondered whether he was now happy about the pregnancy he’d said was accidental…
Think about something else.
She checked her watch. Where was Barclay? True, Robin had arrived very early, and technically Barclay wasn’t late, but she didn’t like standing here alone, trying to distract herself from thoughts of what they were about to do.
Theo had once stood almost exactly where Robin now was, watching the traffic roll up and down Clerkenwell Road, dark-haired Theo of the Kuchi earrings and the painful abdomen, waiting for the silver van that would take her away. Why Theo had never come forward afterward, why she’d never felt enough gratitude to the woman who’d seen her at short notice, at least to rule herself out of suspicion and stop Talbot haring after a delusion, remained a minor mystery. But of course, that assumed that Theo felt grateful. Nobody ever really knew what happened between a doctor and patient: it was the secular equivalent of the confession box. Robin’s thoughts had moved to Douthwaite when, at last, she spotted Barclay, who was approaching, carrying a holdall. When he got close enough, Robin heard the tools inside it clinking.
“Havin’ a wee bit o’ déjà vu, here,” he said, coming to halt beside her. “Didn’t we once go diggin’ fer a body before?”
“I don’t think this qualifies as digging,” said Robin.
“What’s the latest?”
“He’s gone out,” said Robin. “Strike says we’ve got to wait until he comes back.”
“What’s in there?” asked Barclay, nodding at the carrier bag in Robin’s hand.
“Chocolate biscuits,” said Robin.
“Bribe?”
“Basically.”
“And has Strike—?”
“Not yet. He’s in position. He wants us to…”
Robin waited for a group of what looked like students to walk out of earshot.
“… do our bit, first. Were you pleased,” Robin continued, still trying not to think about what they were about to do until it was absolutely necessary, “about the referendum result?”