Troubled Blood

“We talked about the Playboy Club, because I was leaving. I’d got my flat and I was thinking of going and studying. Margot was all for it. What I didn’t tell her was, I was thinking of a t’eology degree, what with her attitude to religion.

“We talked about politics, a bit. We both wanted Wilson to win the election. And I told her I was worried I still hadn’t found The One. Over t’irty, I was. That was old, then, for finding a husband.

“Before we said goodbye that night, I said, ‘Don’t forget, there’s always a spare room at my place. Room for a bassinet, as well.’”

Tears welled again in Oonagh’s eyes and trickled down her cheeks. She picked up her napkin and pressed it to her face.

“I’m sorry. Forty years ago, but it feels like yesterday. They don’t disappear, the dead. It’d be easier if they did. I can see her so clearly. If she walked up those steps now, part of me wouldn’t be surprised. She was such a vivid person. For her to disappear like that, just thin air where she was…”

Robin said nothing until Oonagh had wiped her face dry, then asked,

“What can you remember about arranging to meet on the eleventh?”

“She called me, asked to meet same place, same time. I said yes, o’ course. There was something funny in the way she said it. I said, ‘Everything all right?’ She said, ‘I need to ask your advice about something. I might be going mad. I shouldn’t really talk about it, but I t’ink you’re the only one I can trust.’”

Strike and Robin looked at each other.

“Was that not written down anywhere?”

“No,” said Strike.

“No,” said Oonagh, and for the first time she looked angry. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“Why not?” asked Robin.

“Talbot was away with the fairies,” said Oonagh. “I could see it in the first five minutes of my interview. I called Roy, I said, ‘That man isn’t right. Complain, tell them you want someone else on the case.’ He didn’t, or if he did, nothing was done.

“And Lawson t’ought I was some silly little Bunny Girl,” said Oonagh. “Probably t’ought I was tellin’ fibs, trying to make myself interesting off the back of my best friend disappearing. Margot Bamborough was more like a sister than a friend to me,” said Oonagh fiercely, “and the on’y person I’ve ever really talked to about her is my husband. I cried all over him, two days before we got married, because she should’ve been there. She should’ve been my matron of honor.”

“Have you got any idea what she was going to ask your advice about?” asked Robin.

“No,” said Oonagh. “I’ve t’ought about it often since, whether it could have had anything to do with what happened. Something about Roy, perhaps, but then why would she say she shouldn’t talk about it? We’d already talked about Roy. I’d told her as plain as I could, the last time we met, she could come and live with me if she left, Anna as well.

“Then I t’ought, maybe it’s something a patient has told her, because like I said, she was scrupulous about confidentiality.

“Anyway, I walked up that hill in the rain to the pub on the eleventh. I was early, so I went to have a look at that church there, over the road, big—”

“Wait,” said Strike sharply. “What kind of coat were you wearing?”

Oonagh didn’t seem surprised by the question. On the contrary, she smiled.

“You’re t’inking of the old gravedigger, or whoever he was? The one who t’ought he saw Margot going in there? I told them at the time it was me,” said Oonagh. “I wasn’t wearing a raincoat, but it was beige. My hair was darker than Margot’s, but it was the same kind of length. I told them, when they asked me, did I think Margot might’ve gone into the church before meeting me—I said, no, she hated church. I went there! That was me!”

“Why?” asked Strike. “Why did you go in there?”

“I was being called,” said Oonagh simply.

Robin repressed a smile, because Strike looked almost embarrassed at the answer.

“God was calling me back,” said Oonagh. “I kept going into Anglican churches, t’inking, is this the answer? There was so much about the Catholics I couldn’t take, but still, I could feel the pull back toward Him.”

“How long d’you think you were in the church?” asked Robin, to give Strike time to recover himself.

“Five minutes or so. I said a little prayer. I was asking for guidance. Then I walked out again, crossed the road and went into the pub.

“I waited nearly the full hour before I called Roy. At first I t’ought, she’s been delayed by a patient. Then I t’ought, no, she must’ve forgotten. But when I called the house, Roy said she wasn’t there. He was quite short with me. I wondered whether somethin’ more had happened between them. Maybe Margot had snapped. Maybe I was going to get home and find her on the doorstep with Anna. So I went dashin’ home, but she wasn’t there.

“Roy called at nine to see whether I’d had any contact. That’s when I started to get really worried. He said he was going to call the police.

“You’ll know the rest,” said Oonagh quietly. “It was like a nightmare. You put all your hopes on t’ings that are less and less likely. Amnesia. Knocked down by a car and unconscious somewhere. She’s run away somewhere to t’ink.

“But I knew, really. She’d never’ve left her baby girl, and she’d never have left without telling me. I knew she was dead. I could tell the police t’ought it was the Essex Butcher, but me…”

“But you?” prompted Robin gently.

“Well, I kept t’inking, t’ree weeks after Paul Satchwell comes back into her life, she vanishes forever. I know he had his little alibi, all his arty friends backing him up. I said to Talbot and Lawson: ask him about the pillow dream. Ask him what that means, the pillow dream he was so frightened Margot would tell people about.

“Is that in the police notes?” she asked Strike, turning to look at him. “Did either of them ask Satchwell about the pillow dream?”

“No,” said Strike slowly. “I don’t think they did.”



25



All those were idle thoughtes and fantasies,

Deuices, dreames, opinions vnsound,

Shewes, visions, sooth-sayes, and prophesies;

And all that fained is, as leasings, tales, and lies.

Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene

Three evenings later, Strike was to be found sitting in his BMW outside a nondescript terraced house in Stoke Newington. The Shifty investigation, now in its fifth month, had so far yielded no results. The restive trustees who suspected that their CEO was being blackmailed by the ambitious Shifty were making ominous noises of discontent, and were clearly considering taking their business elsewhere.

Even after being plied with gin by Hutchins, who’d succeeded in befriending him at the rifle club, Shifty had remained as close lipped as ever about the hold he had over his boss, so it was time, Strike had decided, to start tailing SB himself. It was just possible that the CEO, a rotund, pinstriped man with a bald patch like a monk’s tonsure, was still indulging in the blackmailable behavior that Shifty had uncovered and that had leveraged him into a promotion that neither Shifty’s CV, nor his personality, justified.

Strike was sure Shifty wasn’t exploiting a simple case of infidelity. SB’s current wife had the immaculate, plastic sheen of a doll newly removed from cellophane and Strike suspected it would take more than her husband having an affair to make her relinquish her taloned grip on a black American Express card, especially as she’d been married barely two years and had no children to guarantee a generous settlement.

Christmas tree lights twinkled in almost every window surrounding Strike. The roof of the house beside him had been hung with brilliant blue-white icicles that burned the retina if looked at too long. Wreaths on doors, glass panels decorated with fake snow and the sparkle of orange, red and green reflected in the dirty puddles all reminded Strike that he really did need to start buying Christmas gifts to take to Cornwall.

Joan had been released from hospital that morning, her drugs adjusted, and determined to get home and start preparing for the family festivities. Strike would need to buy presents not only for Joan and Ted but for his sister, brother-in-law and nephews. This was an irksome extra chore, given the amount of work the agency currently had on its books. Then he reminded himself that he had to buy something for Robin, too, something better than flowers. Strike, who disliked shopping in general, and buying gifts in particular, reached for his cigarettes to ward off a dim sense of persecution.

Having lit up, Strike took from his pocket the copy of Whatever Happened to Margot Bamborough? which Robin had given him, but which he hadn’t yet had time to read. Small tags marked the places Robin thought might be of some interest to the investigation.