Career of Evil

And that woman was going to marry Matthew! Matthew, who had been banking on her working in human resources, with a nice salary to complement his own, who sulked and bitched about her long, unpredictable hours and her lousy paycheck... couldn’t she see what a stupid bloody thing she was doing? Why the fuck had she put that ring back on? Hadn’t she tasted freedom on that drive up to Barrow, which Strike looked back on with a fondness that discomposed him?

She’s making a fucking huge mistake, that’s all.

That was all. It wasn’t personal. Whether she was engaged, married or single, nothing could or ever would come of the weakness he was forced to acknowledge that he had developed. He would reestablish the professional distance that had somehow ebbed away with her drunken confessions and the camaraderie of their trip up north, and temporarily shelve his half-acknowledged plan to end the relationship with Elin. It felt safer just now to have another woman within reach, and a beautiful one at that, whose enthusiasm and expertise in bed ought surely to compensate for an undeniable incompatibility outside it.

He fell to wondering how long Robin would continue working for him after she became Mrs. Cunliffe. Matthew would surely use every ounce of his husbandly influence to pry her away from a profession as dangerous as it was poorly paid. Well, that was her lookout: her bed, and she could lie in it.

Except that once you had broken up, it was much easier to do so again. He ought to know. How many times had he and Charlotte split? How many times had their relationship fallen to pieces, and how many times had they tried to reassemble the wreckage? There had been more cracks than substance by the end: they had lived in a spider’s web of fault lines, held together by hope, pain and delusion.

Robin and Matthew had just two months to go before the wedding.

There was still time.

41

See there a scarecrow who waves through the mist.

                        Blue Öyster Cult, “Out of the Darkness”

It happened quite naturally that Strike saw Robin very little over the following week. They were staking out different locations and exchanged information almost exclusively over their mobiles.

As Strike had expected, neither Wollaston Close nor its environs had revealed any trace of the ex-King’s Own Royal Borderer, but he had been no more successful in spotting his man in Catford. The emaciated Stephanie entered and left the flat over the chip shop a few more times. Although he could not be there around the clock, Strike was soon pretty sure that he had seen her entire wardrobe: a few pieces of dirty jersey and one tatty hoodie. If, as Shanker had confidently asserted, she was a prostitute, she was working infrequently. While he took care never to let her see him, Strike doubted that her hollow eyes would retain much of an impression even if he had moved into plain view. They had become shuttered, full of inner darkness, no longer taking in the outside world.

Strike had tried to ascertain whether Whittaker was almost permanently inside or almost constantly absent from the flat in Catford Broadway, but there was no landline registered for the address and the property was listed online as owned by a Mr. Dareshak, who was either renting it or unable to get rid of his squatters.

The detective was standing smoking beside the stage door one evening, watching the lit windows and wondering whether he was imagining movement behind them, when his mobile buzzed and he saw Wardle’s name.

“Strike here. What’s up?”

“Bit of a development, I think,” said the policeman. “Looks like our friend’s struck again.”

Strike moved the mobile to his other ear, away from the passing pedestrians.

“Go on.”

“Someone stabbed a hooker down in Shacklewell and cut off two of her fingers as a souvenir. Deliberately cut ’em off — pinned her arm down and hacked at them.”

“Jesus. When was this?”

“Ten days ago — twenty-ninth of April. She’s only just come out of an induced coma.”

“She survived?” said Strike, now taking his eyes entirely off the windows behind which Whittaker might or might not have been lurking, his attention all Wardle’s.

“By a fucking miracle,” said Wardle. “He stabbed her in the abdomen, punctured her lung, then hacked off her fingers. Miracle he missed major organs. We’re pretty sure he thought she was dead. She’d taken him down a gap between two buildings for a blow job, but they were disturbed: two students walking down Shacklewell Lane heard her scream and went down the alley to see what was going on. If they’d been five minutes later she’d’ve been a goner. It took two blood transfusions to keep her alive.”

“And?” said Strike. “What’s she saying?”