The further west Robin drove, the lusher and greener the landscape became. Yorkshire-born, she’d found it extraordinary to see palm trees actually flourishing on English soil, back in Torquay. These twisting, verdant lanes, the luxuriance of the vegetation, the almost sub-tropical greenness was a surprise to a person raised among bare, rolling moors and hillside. Then there were the glints to her left of a quicksilver sea, as wide and gleaming as plate glass, and the tang of the salt now mixed with the citrus of her hastily purchased cologne. In spite of her tiredness she found her spirits buoyed by the glorious morning, and the idea of Strike waiting at journey’s end.
She arrived in Falmouth at eleven o’clock, and drove in search of a parking space through streets packed with tourists and past shop doorways accreted in plastic toys and pubs covered in flags and multi-colored window boxes. Once she’d parked in The Moor itself—a wide open market square in the heart of the town—she saw that beneath the gaudy summertime trappings, Falmouth boasted some grand old nineteenth-century buildings, one of which housed the Palacio Lounge café and restaurant.
The high ceilings and classical proportions of what looked like an old courthouse had been decorated in a self-consciously whimsical style, which included garish orange floral wallpaper, hundreds of kitschy paintings in pastel frames, and a stuffed fox dressed as a magistrate. The clientele, which was dominated by students and families, sat on mismatched wooden chairs, their chatter echoing through the cavernous space. After a few seconds Robin spotted Strike, large and surly-looking at the back of the room, seeming far from happy beside a pair of families whose many young children, most of whom were wearing tie-dyed clothing, were racing around between tables.
Robin thought she saw the idea of standing to greet her cross Strike’s mind as she wound her way through the tables toward him, but if she was right, he decided against. She knew how he looked when his leg was hurting him, the lines around his mouth deeper than usual, as though he had been clenching his jaw. If Robin had looked tired in the dusty bed and breakfast mirror three hours previously, Strike looked utterly drained, his unshaven jaw appearing dirty, the shadows under his eyes dark blue.
“Morning,” he said, struggling to make himself heard over the merry shrieking of the hippy children. “Get parked OK?”
“Just round the corner,” she said, sitting down.
“I chose this place because I thought it would be easy to find,” he said.
A small boy knocked into their table, causing Strike’s coffee to slop over onto his plate, which was littered with croissant flakes, and ran off again. “What d’you want?”
“Coffee would be great,” said Robin loudly, over the cries of the children beside them. “How’re things in St. Mawes?”
“Same,” said Strike.
“I’m sorry,” said Robin.
“Why? It’s not your fault,” grunted Strike.
This was hardly the greeting Robin had expected after a two-and-a-half drive to pick him up. Possibly her annoyance showed, because Strike added,
“Thanks for doing this. Appreciate it. Oh, don’t pretend you can’t see me, dipshit,” he added crossly, as a young waiter walked away without spotting his raised hand.
“I’ll go to the counter,” said Robin. “I need the loo anyway.”
By the time she’d peed and managed to order a coffee from a harassed waiter, a tension headache had begun to pound on the left-hand side of her head. On her return to the table she found Strike looking like thunder, because the children at the next tables were now shrieking louder than ever as they raced around their oblivious parents, who simply shouted over the din. The idea of giving Strike Charlotte’s telephone message right now passed through Robin’s mind, only to be dismissed.
In fact, the main reason for Strike’s foul mood was that the end of his amputated leg was agony. He’d fallen (like a total tit, as he told himself) while getting onto the Falmouth ferry. This feat required a precarious descent down worn stone steps without a handhold, then a step down into the boat with only the boatman’s hand for assistance. At sixteen stone, Strike was hard to stabilize when he slipped, and slip he had, with the result that he was now in a lot of pain.
Robin took paracetamol out of her bag.
“Headache,” she said, catching Strike’s eye.
“I’m not bloody surprised,” he said loudly, looking at the parents shouting at each other over the raucous yells of their offspring, but they didn’t hear him. The idea of asking Robin for painkillers crossed Strike’s mind, but this might engender inquiries and fussing, and he’d had quite enough of those in the past week, so he continued to suffer in silence.
“Where’s the client?” she asked, after downing her pills with coffee.
“About five minutes’ drive away. Place called Wodehouse Terrace.”
At this point, the smallest of the children racing around nearby tripped and smacked her face on the wooden floor. The child’s shrieks and wails of pain pounded against Robin’s eardrums.
“Oh, Daffy!” said one of the tie-dyed mothers shrilly, “what have you done?”
The child’s mouth was bloody. Her mother crouched beside their table, loudly castigating and soothing, while the girl’s siblings and friends watched avidly. The ferry-goers this morning had worn similar expressions when Strike had hit the deck.
“He’s got a false leg,” the ferryman had shouted, partly, Strike suspected, in case anyone thought the fall was due to his negligence. The announcement had in no way lessened Strike’s mortification or the interest of his fellow travelers.
“Shall we get going?” Robin asked, already on her feet.
“Definitely,” said Strike, wincing as he stood and picked up his holdall. “Bloody kids,” he muttered, limping after Robin toward the sunlight.
6
Faire Lady, hart of flint would rew
The vndeserued woes and sorrowes, which ye shew.
Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene
Wodehouse Terrace lay on a hill, with a wide view of the bay below. Many of the houses had had loft conversions, but Anna and Kim’s, as they saw from the street, had been more extensively modified than any other, with what looked like a square glass box where once there had been roof.
“What does Anna do?” asked Robin, as they climbed the steps toward the deep blue front door.
“No idea,” said Strike, “but her wife’s a psychologist. I got the impression she isn’t keen on the idea of an investigation.”
He pressed the doorbell. They heard footsteps on what sounded like bare wood, and the door was opened by Dr. Sullivan, tall, blonde and barefoot in jeans and a shirt, the sun glinting off her spectacles. She looked from Strike to Robin, apparently surprised.
“My partner, Robin Ellacott,” Strike explained.
“Oh,” said Kim, looking displeased. “You do realize—this is only supposed to be an exploratory meeting.”
“Robin happened to be just up the coast on another case, so—”
“I’m more than happy to wait in the car,” said Robin politely, “if Anna would rather speak to Cormoran alone.”
“Well—we’ll see how Anna feels.”
Standing back to admit them, Kim added, “Straight upstairs, in the sitting room.”
The house had clearly been remodeled throughout and to a high standard. Everywhere was bleached wood and glass. The bedroom, as Robin saw through an open door, had been relocated to the ground floor, along with what looked like a study. Upstairs, in the glass box they’d seen from the street, was an open-plan area combining kitchen, dining and sitting room, with a dazzling view of the sea.
Anna was standing beside a gleaming, expensive coffee machine, wearing a baggy blue cotton jumpsuit and white canvas shoes, which to Robin looked stylish and to Strike, frumpy. Her hair was tied back, revealing the delicacy of her bone structure.
“Oh, hello,” she said, starting at the sight of them. “I didn’t hear the door over the coffee machine.”
“Annie,” said Kim, following Strike and Robin into the room, “this is Robin Ellacott, er—Cameron’s partner. She’s happy to go if you’d rather just talk to—”
“Cormoran,” Anna corrected Kim. “Do people get that wrong a lot?” she asked Strike.
“More often than not,” he said, but with a smile. “But it’s a bloody stupid name.”
Anna laughed.
“I don’t mind you staying,” she told Robin, advancing and offering a handshake. “I think I read about you, too,” she added, and Robin pretended that she didn’t notice Anna glancing down at the long scar on her forearm.
“Please, sit down,” said Kim, gesturing Strike and Robin to an inbuilt seating area around a low Perspex table.
“Coffee?” suggested Anna, and both of them accepted.