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There was a short pause

“I take it you don’t want to do this exchange over the phone?”

“That’s right,” said Strike “Is there anywhere you like to have a pint after a hard day’s work?”

Having jotted down the nareed that a week today (failing any nearer date) would suit hi off

It had not always been thus A couple of years ago, he had been able to command the compliance of witnesses and suspects; he had been like Wardle, a man whose time had more value than most of those ho intervieould be Like Wardle, he had needed no unifore Now, he was a li on old acquaintances, trying to do deals with policelad to take his calls

“Arsehole,” said Strike aloud, into his echoing glass The third pint had slid down so easily that there was barely an inch left

Hisat the screen, he saw his office nu to tell hiht to voicelass and left

The street was bright and cold, the pavement damp, and the puddles intermittently silver as clouds scudded across the sun Strike lit another cigarette outside the front door, and stood s the workarette finished, he ambled off down Oxford Street to kill time until the Temporary Solution had left, and he could sleep in peace

6

ROBIN HAD WAITED TEN MINUTES, to make sure that Strike was not about to cohtful telephone calls froement was received by her friends with either squeals of exciteave Robin equal pleasure At lunchtiazines and a packet of replacement biscuits (which put the petty cash box, a labeled shortbread tin, into her debt to the tune of forty-two pence), and returned to the e bouquets and bridal gowns, and tingling all over with excitement

When her self-appointed lunch hour was over, Robin washed and returned Mr Crowdy’s cups and tray, and his biscuits Noting how eagerly he attempted to detain her in conversation on her second appearance, his eyes wandering distractedly from her mouth to her breasts, she resolved to avoid him for the rest of the week

Still Strike did not return For want of anything else to do, Robin neatened the contents of her desk drawers, disposing of what she recognized as the accumulated waste of other temporaries: two squares of dusty milk chocolate, a bald e anonymous telephone numbers and doodles There was a box of old-fashioned metal acro clips, which she had never come across before, and a considerable nuh unmarked, had an air of officialdo that they ht have been pinched from an institutional store cupboard

The office telephone rang occasionally Her new boss seey”; another for “Monkey Boy,” while a dry, clipped voice asked that “Mr Strike” return Mr Peter Gillespie’s call as soon as possible On each occasion, Robin contacted Strike’s mobile phone, and reached only his voicees, wrote down each caller’s name and number on a Post-it note, took it into Strike’s office and stuck it neatly on his desk

The pneumatic drill ruan to creak as the occupant of the flat overhead becaht have been alone in the whole building Gradually solitude, coupled with the feeling of pure delight that threatened to burst her ribcage every ti on her left hand, ean to clean and tidy the tiny room under her interim control

In spite of its general shabbiness, and an overlying grubbiness, Robin soon discovered a firanizational structure that pleased her own neat and orderly nature The brown card folders (oddly old-fashioned, in these days of neon plastic) lined up on the shelves behind her desk were arranged in date order, each with a handwritten serial number on the spine She opened one of them, and saw that the acro clips had been used to secure loose leaves of paper into each file Much of the material inside was in a deceptive, difficult-to-read hand Perhaps this was how the police worked; perhaps Strike was an ex-policeman

Robin discovered the stack of pink death threats to which Strike had alluded in thecabinet, beside a slireements She took one of these out and read it: a sinatory refrain fro, outside hours, any of the na day Robin pondered for a ned and dated one of the docuh to Strike’s inner office, and placed it on his desk, so that hethis one-sided vow of secrecy gave back to her soined lay beyond the engraved glass door, before it had flown open and Strike had nearly bowled her down the stairwell

It was after placing the for stuffed away in a corner behind the filing cabinet The edge of his dirty shirt, an alar peeked fro’s zip Robin closed the door between inner and outer offices as though she had accidentally witnessed soether the dark-haired beauty fleeing the building that , Strike’s various injuries and what seehtly delayed, but determined, pursuit In her new and joyful condition of betrothal, Robin was disposed to feel desperately sorry for anyone with a less fortunate love life than her own—if desperate pity could describe the exquisite pleasure she actually felt at the thought of her own comparative paradise

At five o’clock, and in the continuing absence of her teo home She hu into song as she buttoned up her trench coat; then she locked the office door, slid the spare key back through the letter box and proceeded, with some caution, back down the metal stairs, towards Matthew and home

7

STRIKE HAD SPENT THE EARLY afternoon at the University of London Union building, where, by dint of walking deterht scowl on his face, he had gained the shoithout being challenged or asked for his student card He had then eaten a stale ham roll and a bar of chocolate in the café After that he had wandered, blank-eyed in his tiredness, s between the cheap shops he visited to buy, with Bristow’s cash, the few necessities he needed now that bed and board were gone Early evening found hie boxes propped up at the back, beside the bar, and spinning out his beer until he had half forgotten why he was killing time

It was nearly eight before he returned to the office This was the hour when he found Londonday over, her pub ere warm and jewel-like, her streets thrued buildings, softened by the street lights, beca We have seen plenty like you, they see Oxford Street carrying a boxed-up ca in close proxi old city, andwearily past closing shops, while the heavens turned indigo above him, Strike found solace in vastness and anonymity

It was some feat to force the camp bed up the metal stairwell to the second floor, and by the ti his na was excr

uciating He leaned for a ainst the glass door, watching it mist

“You fat cunt,” he said aloud “You knackered old dinosaur”

Wiping the sweat off his forehead, he unlocked the door, and heaved his various purchases over the threshold In the inner office he pushed his desk aside and set up the bed, unrolled the sleeping bag, and filled his cheap kettle at the sink outside the glass door

His dinner was still in a Pot Noodle, which he had chosen because it reminded him of the fare he used to carry in his ration pack: some deep-rooted association between quickly heated and rehydrated food andplaces hadWhen the kettle had boiled, he added the water to the tub, and ate the rehydrated pasta with a plastic fork he had taken fro down into the alht at the end of the road, and listening to the determined thud of a bass from two floors below, in the 12 Bar Café

He had slept in worse places There had been the stone floor of a ola, and the bombed-outup black soot in the s; and, worst of all, the dank dored hiht and six respectively He remembered the comfortless ease of hospital beds in which he had lain for months, and various squats (also with hiswoods in which he had ca the caht bulb, it was luxurious compared with all of them

The act of shopping for what he needed, and of setting up the bare necessities for himself, had lulled Strike back into the fa what needed to be done, without question or complaint He disposed of the Pot Noodle tub, turned on the lamp and sat himself down at the desk where Robin had spent most of the day

As he assembled the raw components of a new file—the hardback folder, the blank paper and an acro clip; the notebook in which he had recorded Bristow’s interview; the pamphlet from the Tottenham; Bristow’s card—he noticed the new tidiness of the drawers, the lack of dust on the computer monitor, the absence of ee Mildly intrigued, he opened the petty cash tin, and saw there, in Robin’s neat, rounded writing, the note that he owed her forty-two pence for chocolate biscuits Strike pulled forty of the pounds Bristow had given him from his wallet and deposited theht, counted out forty-two pence in coins and laid it on top