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“There were four cars—but Deeby himself ith me”
“Where did you wait for hihtclub?”
“I just parked the car and waited,” said Kolovas-Jones “Just off Glasshouse Street”
“With the other three cars? Were you all together?”
“You don’t find four parking spaces side by side in the middle of London, mate,” said Kolovas-Jones “I dunno where the others were parked”
Still holding the driver’s door open, he glanced at Wilson, then back at Strike
“How’s any of this matter?” he demanded
“I’m just interested,” said Strike, “in hoorks, when you’re with a client”
“It’s fucking tedious,” said Kolovas-Jones, with a sudden flash of irritation, “that’s what it is Driving’saround”
“Have you still got the control for the doors to the underground garage that Lula gave you?” Strike asked
“What?” said Kolovas-Jones, although Strike would have taken an oath that the driver had heard hiuised now, and it seemed to extend not only to Strike, but also to Wilson, who had listened without co aloud that Kolovas-Jones was an actor
“Have you still got—”
“Yeah, I’ve still got it I still drive Mr Bestigui, don’t I?” said Kolovas-Jones “Right, I gotta go See ya, Derrick”
He threw his half-sot into the car
“If you re else,” said Strike, “like the naive me a call?”
He handed Kolovas-Jones a card The driver, already pulling on his seat belt, took it without looking at it
“I’onna be late”
Wilson raised his hand in farewell Kolovas-Jones slaine and reversed out of the parking space, scowling
“He’s a bit of a star-fucker,” said Wilson, as the car pulled away It was a kind of apology for the younger man “He loved drivin’ her He tries to drive all the fa for two years He ell pissed off when he didn’t get that part”
“What was it?”
“Drug dealer Some film”
They walked off together in the direction of Brixton underground station, past a gaggle of black schoolgirls in unifor beaded hair ain, of his sister, Lucy
“Bestigui’s still living at nuhteen, is he?” asked Strike
“Oh yeah,” said Wilson
“What about the other two flats?”
“There’s a Ukrainian co Flat T Got a Russian interested in Three, but he hasn’t made an offer yet”
“Is there any chance,” asked Strike, as they were momentarily impeded by a tiny hooded, bearded man like an Old Testament prophet, who stopped in front of theue, “that I could come and have a look inside sometime?”
“Yeah, all right,” said Wilson after a pause in which his gaze slid furtively over Strike’s lower legs “Buzz ui’s out, y’understand He’s one quarrelsome man, and I need my job”
8
THE KNOWLEDGE THAT HE WOULD be sharing his office again on Monday added piquancy to Strike’s weekend solitude, rendering it less irksome, more valuable The camp bed could stay out; the door between inner and outer offices could remain open; he was able to attend to bodily functions without fear of causing offense Sick of the sed to force open the painted-shutbehind his desk, which allowed a cold, clean breeze to wipe the fusty corners of the two s every CD, every track, that transported hi periods he had shared with Charlotte, he selected Toht he would never see again, and which he had found at the bottoht fro up his portable television, with its paltry indoor aerial; he loaded his worn clothes into a black bin bag and walked to a launderette half aup his shirts and underwear on a rope he slung across one side of the inner office, then watched the three o’clock match between Arsenal and Spurs
Through all these h he was acco his months in hospital It lurked in the corners of his shabby office; he could hear it whispering to hirew slack It urged hie; his penury; his shattered love life; his ho to show for all your years of graft except a few cardboard boxes and a massive debt The specter directed his eyes to cans of beer in the superht more Pot Noodles; it mocked him as he ironed shirts on the floor As the day wore on, it jeered at hi outside in the street, as though he were still in the arh this petty self-discipline could impose foran to s in a cheap tin ashtray he had swiped, long ago, from a bar in Germany
But he had a job, he kept re himself; a paid job Arsenal beat Spurs, and Strike was cheered; he turned off the television and, defying the specter, ht to his desk and resumed work
At liberty, now, to collect and collate evidence in whatever way he chose, Strike continued to conforation Act The fact that he believed hiination hness and accuracy hich he norote up the notes he hadhis intervieith Bristow, Wilson and Kolovas-Jones
Lucy telephoned hih his sister was younger than Strike by two years, she seee, a stolid husband, three children and an onerous job, Lucy seeh she could never have enough anchors Strike had always suspected that she wanted to prove to herself and the world that she was nothing like their fly-by-night ed the two of them all over the country, from school to school, house to squat to camp, in pursuit of the next enthusiass hom Strike had shared a childhood; he was fonder of her than of almost anyone else in his life, and yet their interactions were often unsatisfactory, laden with fauise the fact that her brother worried and disappointed her In consequence, Strike was less inclined to be honest with her about his present situation than he would have been with many a friend
“Yeah, it’s going great,” he told her, s people drift in and out of the shops below “Business has doubled lately”
“Where are you? I can hear traffic”
“At the office I’ve got paperwork to do”
“On Saturday? How does Charlotte feel about that?”
“She’s away; she’s gone to visit her mother”
“How are things going between you?”
“Great,” he said
“Are you sure?”