Troubled Blood

“Don’t get too excited,” said Robin, still trudging along in the rain. Elinor seemed to be heading for the shops. Robin could see a Tesco in the distance. “I haven’t managed to speak to her yet, but I’m almost sure it’s her. I found the family in the 1961 census: mother, father, one older son and a daughter, Gloria, middle name Mary. By the looks of things, Gloria’s now in France, N?mes, to be precise, and married to a Frenchman. She’s dropped the ‘Gloria,’ and she’s now going by Mary Jaubert. She’s got a Facebook page, but it’s private. I found her through a genealogical website. One of her English cousins is trying to put together a family tree. Right date of birth and everything.”

“Bloody good work,” said Strike. “You know, I’m not sure she isn’t even more interesting than Satchwell or Douthwaite. Last to see Margot alive. Close to her. The only living person to have seen Theo, as well.”

Strike’s enthusiasm did much to allay Robin’s suspicion that he’d added himself to her action points because he thought she wasn’t up to the job.

“I’ve tried to ‘friend’ her on Facebook,” Robin continued, “but had no response yet. If she doesn’t answer, I know the company her husband works for, and I thought I might email him to get a message to her. I thought it was more tactful to try the private route first, though.”

“I agree,” said Strike. He took a sip of Doom Bar. It was immensely consoling to be in the warm, dry pub, and to be talking to Robin.

“And there’s one more thing,” said Robin. “I think I might have found out which van was seen speeding away from Clerkenwell Green the evening Margot disappeared.”

“What? How?” said Strike, stunned.

“It occurred to me over Christmas that what people thought might’ve been a flower painted on the side could have been a sun,” she said. “You know. The planet.”

“It’s technically a st—”

“Sod off, I know it’s a star.”

The hooded blonde, as Robin had suspected, was heading into Tesco. Robin followed, enjoying the warm blast of heat as she entered the shop, though the floor underfoot was slippery and dirty.

“There was a wholefoods shop in Clerkenwell in 1974 whose logo was a sun. I found an ad for it in the British Library newspaper archive, I checked with Companies House and I’ve managed to talk to the director, who’s still alive. I know I couldn’t talk to him if he weren’t,” she added, forestalling any more pedantry.

“Bloody hell, Robin,” said Strike, as the rain battered the window behind him. Good news and Doom Bar were certainly helping his mood. “This is excellent work.”

“Thank you,” said Robin. “And get this: he sacked the bloke he had making deliveries, he thinks in mid-1975, because the guy got done for speeding while driving the van. He remembered his name—Dave Underwood—but I haven’t had time to—”

Elinor turned abruptly, midway up the aisle of tinned foods, and walked back toward her. Robin pretended to be absorbed in choos-ing a packet of rice. Letting her quarry pass, she finished her sentence.

“—haven’t had time to look for him yet.”

“Well, you’re putting me to shame,” admitted Strike, rubbing his tired eyes. Though he now had a spare bedroom to himself rather than the sofa, the old mattress was only a small step up in terms of comfort, its broken springs jabbing him in the back and squealing every time he turned over. “The best I’ve done is to find Ruby Elliot’s daughter.”

“Ruby-who-saw-the-two-women-struggling-by-the-phone-boxes?” Robin recited, watching her blonde target consulting a shopping list before disappearing down a new aisle.

“That’s the one. Her daughter emailed to say she’s happy to have a chat, but we haven’t fixed up a time yet. And I called Janice,” said Strike, “mainly because I couldn’t face Irene, to see whether she can remember the so-called Applethorpe’s real name, but she’s in Dubai, visiting her son for six weeks. Her answer machine message literally says ‘Hi, I’m in Dubai, visiting Kevin for six weeks.’ Might drop her a line advising her it’s not smart to advertise to random callers that you’ve left your house empty.”

“So did you call Irene?” Robin asked. Elinor, she saw, was now looking at baby food.

“Not yet,” said Strike. “But I have—”

At that very moment, a bleeping on his phone told him that someone else was trying to reach him.

“Robin, that might be him. I’ll call you back.”

Strike switched lines.

“Cormoran Strike.”

“Yes, hello,” said Gregory Talbot. “It’s me—Greg Talbot. You asked me to call.”

Gregory sounded worried. Strike couldn’t blame him. He’d hoped to divest himself of a problem by handing the can of old film to Strike.

“Yeah, Gregory, thanks very much for calling me back. I had a couple more questions, hope that’s OK.”

“Go on.”

“I’ve been through your father’s notebook and I wanted to ask whether your father happened to know, or mention, a man called Niccolo Ricci? Nicknamed ‘Mucky’?”

“Mucky Ricci?” said Gregory. “No, he didn’t really know him. I remember Dad talking about him, though. Big in the Soho sex shop scene, if that’s the one I’m thinking of?”

It sounded as though talking about the gangster gave Gregory a small frisson of pleasure. Strike had met this attitude before, and not just in members of the fascinated public. Even police and lawyers were not immune to the thrill of coming within the orbit of criminals who had money and power to rival their own. He’d known senior officers talk with something close to admiration of the orga-nized crime they were attempting to prevent, and barristers whose delight at drinking with high-profile clients went far beyond the hope of an anecdote to tell at a dinner party. Strike suspected that to Gregory Talbot, Mucky Ricci was a name from a fondly remembered childhood, a romantic figure belonging to a lost era, when his father was a sane copper and a happy family man.

“Yeah, that’s the bloke,” said Strike. “Well, it looks as though Mucky Ricci was hanging around Margot Bamborough’s practice, and your father seems to have known about it.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” said Strike, “and it seems odd that information never made it into the official records.”

“Well, Dad was ill,” said Gregory defensively. “You’ve seen the notebook. He didn’t know what he was up to, half the time.”

“I appreciate that,” said Strike, “but once he’d recovered, what was his attitude to the evidence he’d collected while on the case?”

“What d’you mean?”

Gregory sounded suspicious now, as though he feared Strike was leading him somewhere he might not want to go.

“Well, did he think it was all worthless, or—?”

“He’d been ruling out suspects on the basis of their star signs,” said Gregory quietly. “He thought he saw a demon in the spare room. What d’you think he thought? He was… he was ashamed. It wasn’t his fault, but he never got over it. He wanted to go back and make it right, but they wouldn’t let him, they forced him out. The Bamborough case tainted everything for him, all his memories of the force. His mates were all coppers and he wouldn’t see them any more.”

“He felt resentful at the way he was treated, did he?”

“I wouldn’t say—I mean, he was justified, I’d say, to feel they hadn’t treated him right,” said Gregory.

“Did he ever look over his notes, afterward, to make sure he’d put everything in there in the official record?”

“I don’t know,” said Gregory, a little testy now. “I think his attitude was, they’ve got rid of me, they think I’m a big problem, so let Lawson deal with it.”

“How did your father get on with Lawson?”

“Look, what’s all this about?” Before Strike could answer, Gregory said, “Lawson made it quite clear to my father that his day was done. He didn’t want him hanging around, didn’t want him anywhere near the case. Lawson did his best to completely discredit my father, I don’t mean just because of his illness. I mean, as a man, and as the officer he’d been before he got ill. He told everyone on the case they were to stay away from my father, even out of working hours. So if information didn’t get passed on, it’s down to Lawson as much as him. Dad might’ve tried and been rebuffed, for all I know.”

“I can certainly see it from your father’s point of view,” said Strike. “Very difficult situation.”

“Well, exactly,” said Gregory, slightly placated, as Strike had intended.

“To go back to Mucky Ricci,” Strike said, “as far as you know, your father never had direct dealings with him?”

“No,” said Gregory, “but Dad’s best mate on the force did, name of Browning. He was Vice Squad. He raided one of Mucky’s clubs, I know that. I remember Dad talking about it.”

“Where’s Browning now? Can I talk to him?”

“He’s dead,” said Gregory. “What exactly—?”

“I’d like to know where that film you passed to me came from, Gregory.”

“I’ve no idea,” said Gregory. “Dad just came home with it one day, Mum says.”

“Any idea when this was?” asked Strike, hoping not to have to find a polite way of asking whether Talbot had been quite sane at the time.

“It would’ve been while Dad was working on the Bamborough case. Why?”

Strike braced himself.

“I’m afraid we’ve had to turn the film over to the police.”

Hutchins had volunteered to take care of this, on the morning that Strike had headed down to Cornwall. As an ex-policeman who still had good contacts on the force, he knew where to take it and how to make sure it got seen by the right people. Strike had asked Hutchins not to talk to Robin about the film, or to tell her what he’d done with it. She was currently in ignorance of the contents.