“Which is why I wanted to speak to you face to face,” said Judith, smiling. “We often find that when the two parties have to sit down in the same room, and answer for themselves, especially with impartial witnesses present—I’d be with you, obviously—they become far less intransigent than they are by letter.”

“You said yourself,” Robin replied (blood was thumping in her ears: the sensation of not being heard was becoming increasingly common during these interactions), “the last time we met—you agreed that Matthew seems to be trying to force this into court. He isn’t really interested in the joint account. He can outspend me ten times over. He just wants to beat me. He wants a judge to agree that I married him for his bank account. He’ll think it money well spent if he can point to some ruling that says the divorce was all my fault.”

“It’s easy,” said Judith, still smiling, “to attribute the worst possible motives to ex-partners, but he’s clearly an intelligent—”

“Intelligent people can be as spiteful as anyone else.”

“True,” said Judith, still with an air of humoring Robin, “but refusing to even try mediation is a bad move for both of you. No judge will look kindly on anyone who refuses to at least try and settle matters without recourse to the courts.”

The truth, as perhaps Judith and Robin both equally knew, was that Robin dreaded having to sit face to face with Matthew and the lawyer who had authored all those cold, threatening letters.

“I’ve told him I don’t want the inheritance he got from his mother,” said Robin. “All I want back out of that joint account is the money my parents put into our first property.”

“Yes,” said Judith, with a hint of boredom: Robin knew that she’d said exactly this, every time they’d met each other. “But as you’re aware, his position—”

“Is that I contributed virtually nothing to our finances, so he ought to keep the whole lot, because he went into the marriage out of love and I’m some kind of gold-digger.”

“This is obviously upsetting you,” said Judith, no longer smiling.

“We were together ten years,” said Robin, trying, with little success, to remain calm. “When he was a student and I was working, I paid for everything. Should I have kept the receipts?”

“We can certainly make that point in mediation—”

“That’ll just infuriate him,” said Robin.

She raised a hand to her face purely for the purpose of hiding it. She felt suddenly and perilously close to tears.

“OK, fine. We can try mediation.”

“I think that’s the sensible thing to do,” said Judith Cobbs, smiling again. “So, I’ll contact Brophy, Shenston and—”

“I suppose I’ll get a chance to tell Matthew he’s a total shit, at least,” said Robin, on a sudden wave of fury.

Judith gave a small laugh.

“Oh, I wouldn’t advise that,” she said.

Oh, wouldn’t you really? thought Robin, as she hitched on another fake smile, and got up to leave.

A blustery, damp wind was blowing when she left the solicitor’s. Robin trudged back toward Finborough Road, until finally, her face numb, her hair whipping into her eyes, she turned into a small café where, in defiance of her own healthy eating rules, she bought a large latte and a chocolate brownie. She sat and stared out at the rainswept street, enjoying the comfort of cake and coffee, until her mobile rang again.

It was Strike.

“Hi,” she said, through a mouthful of brownie. “Sorry. Eating.”

“Wish I was,” he said. “I’m outside the bloody theater again. I think Barclay’s right: we’re not going to get anything on Twinkletoes. I’ve got Bamborough news.”

“So’ve I,” said Robin, who had managed to swallow the mouthful of brownie, “but it isn’t good news. Wilma Bayliss’s children don’t want to talk to us.”

“The cleaner’s kids? Why not?”

“Wilma wasn’t a cleaner by the time she died,” Robin reminded him. “She was a social worker.”

Even as she said it, Robin wondered why she felt the need to correct him. Perhaps it was simply that if Wilma Bayliss was to be forever referred to as a cleaner, she, Robin, might as well be forever called “the temp.”

“All right, why don’t the social worker’s kids want to talk to us?” asked Strike.

“The one who called me—Eden, she’s the eldest—said they didn’t want to drag up what had been a difficult time for the family. She said it had nothing to do with Margot—but then she contradicted herself, because when I said we only wanted to talk about Margot—I can’t remember her exact words, but the sense was that talking about Margot’s disappearance would involve them talking about the family’s personal stuff.”

“Well, their father was in jail in the early seventies and Margot was urging Wilma to leave him,” said Strike. “It’s probably that. Think it’s worth calling her back? Trying a bit more persuasion?”

“I don’t think she’s going to change her mind.”

“And she said she was speaking for her brothers and sisters, as well?”

“Yes. One of them’s having chemotherapy. She warned me specif-ically away from her.”

“OK, avoid her, but one of the others might be worth a shot.”

“That’ll annoy Eden.”

“Probably, but we’ve got nothing to lose now, have we?”

“S’pose not,” said Robin. “So what’s your news?”

“The practice nurse and the receptionist, the one who isn’t Gloria Conti—”

“Irene Bull,” said Robin.

“Irene Bull, now Hickson, exactly—they’re both happy to talk to us. Turns out they’ve been friends since the St. John’s practice days. Irene will be delighted to host Janice and us at her house on Saturday afternoon. I think we should both go.”

Robin turned her mobile to speakerphone so that she could check the rota she kept on her phone. The entry for Saturday read: Strike’s birthday/TT girlfriend.

“I’m supposed to be following Two-Times’ girlfriend,” said Robin, switching back from speakerphone.

“Sod that, Morris can do it,” said Strike. “You can drive us—if you don’t mind,” he added, and Robin smiled.

“No, I don’t mind,” she said.

“Well, great,” said Strike. “Enjoy the rest of your day off.”

He rang off. Robin picked up the rest of the brownie and finished it slowly, savoring every bite. In spite of the prospect of mediation with Matthew, and doubtless because of a much-needed infusion of chocolate, she felt a good deal happier than she had ten minutes previously.

19

There did I finde mine onely faithfull frend

In heauy plight and sad perplexitie;

Whereof I sorie, yet my selfe did bend,

Him to recomfort with my companie.

Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene

Strike never told anyone that his birthday was imminent and avoided announcing it on the day itself. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate people remembering: indeed, he tended to be far more touched when they did than he ever let show, but he had an innate dislike of scheduled celebration and forced jollity, and of all inane practices, having “Happy Birthday” sung to him was one of his least favorites.

As far back as he could remember, the day of his birth had brought up unhappy memories on which he chose, usually successfully, not to dwell. His mother had sometimes forgotten to buy him anything when he was a child. His biological father had never acknowledged the date. Birthdays were inextricably linked with the knowledge, which had long since become part of him, that his existence was accidental, that his genetic inheritance had been contested in court, and that the birth itself had been “fucking hideous, darling, if men had to do it the human race would be extinct in a year.”

To his sister, Lucy, it would have been almost cruel to let a loved one’s birthday pass without a card, a gift, a phone call or, if she could manage it, a party or at the very least a meal. This was why he usually lied to Lucy, pretending to have plans so as to avoid having to go all the way out to her house in Bromley and participate in a family dinner that she’d enjoy far more than he would. Not long ago, he’d happily have celebrated with a takeaway at his friends Nick and Ilsa’s, but Ilsa had suggested Robin accompany Strike, and as Strike had decided many weeks ago that Ilsa’s increasingly open attempts at matchmaking could only be successfully countered by a blanket refusal to cooperate, he’d pretended that he was going to Lucy’s instead. The one joyless hope Strike had for his thirty-ninth birthday was that Robin would have forgotten it, because, if she did, his own omission would be canceled out: they’d be quits.

He descended the metal stairs to the office on Friday morning and saw, to his surprise, two packages and four envelopes sitting beside the usual pile of mail on Pat’s desk. The envelopes were all of different colors. Apparently, friends and family had decided to make sure birthday greetings reached him in time for the weekend.

“Is it your birthday?” Pat asked in her deep, gravelly voice, still staring at her monitor and typing, electronic cigarette jammed between her teeth as usual.

“Tomorrow,” said Strike, picking up the cards. He recognized the handwriting on three of them, but not the fourth.

“Many happy returns,” grunted Pat, over the clacking of her keyboard. “You should’ve said.”

Some spirit of mischief prompted Strike to ask,