Career of Evil

“That’d be great!” said Robin, and Strike, touched by her enthusiasm, suggested they meet in a sandwich shop on the King’s Road.

43

Freud, have mercy on my soul.

                        Blue Öyster Cult, “Still Burnin’”

The next day, Strike had been in Pret A Manger on the King’s Road for five minutes when Robin arrived, carrying a white bag over her shoulder. He was as uninformed about female fashion as most male ex-soldiers, but even he recognized the name Jimmy Choo.

“Shoes,” he said, pointing, after he had ordered her a coffee.

“Well done,” said Robin, grinning. “Shoes. Yes. For the wedding,” she added, because after all, they ought to be able to acknowledge that it was happening. A strange taboo had seemed to exist around the subject since she had resumed her engagement.

“You’re still coming, right?” she added as they took a table beside the window.

Had he ever agreed that he was attending her wedding, Strike wondered. He had been given the reissued invitation, which like the first had been of stiff cream card engraved in black, but he could not remember telling her that he would be there. She watched him expectantly for an answer, and he was reminded of Lucy and her attempts to coerce him into attending his nephew’s birthday party.

“Yeah,” he said unwillingly.

“Shall I RSVP for you?” Robin asked.

“No,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

He supposed that it would entail calling her mother. This, he thought, was how women roped you in. They added you to lists and forced you to confirm and commit. They impressed upon you that if you didn’t show up a plate of hot food would go begging, a gold-backed chair would remain unoccupied, a cardboard place name would sit shamefully upon a table, announcing your rudeness to the world. Offhand, he could think of literally nothing he wanted to do less than watch Robin marry Matthew.

“D’you want — would you like me to invite Elin?” Robin asked valiantly, hoping to see his expression become a degree or two less surly.

“No,” said Strike without hesitation, but he read in her offer a kind of plea, and his real fondness for her caused his better nature to reassert itself. “Let’s see the shoes then.”

“You don’t want to see the—!”

“I asked, didn’t I?”

Robin lifted the box out of its bag with a reverence that amused Strike, took off the lid and unfolded the tissue paper inside. They were high, glittery champagne-colored heels.

“Bit rock ’n’ roll for a wedding,” said Strike. “I thought they’d be... I dunno... flowery.”

“You’ll hardly see them,” she said, stroking one of the stilettos with a forefinger. “They had some platforms, but—”

She did not finish the sentence. The truth was that Matthew did not like her too tall.

“So how are we going to handle Jason and Tempest?” she said, pushing the lid back down on the shoes and replacing them in the bag.

“You’re going to take the lead,” said Strike. “You’re the one who’s had contact with them. I’ll jump in if necessary.”

“You realize,” said Robin awkwardly, “that Jason’s going to ask you about your leg? That he thinks you — you lied about how you lost it?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“OK. I just don’t want you to get offended or anything.”

“I think I can handle it,” said Strike, amused by her look of concern. “I’m not going to hit him, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“Well, good,” said Robin, “because from his pictures you’d probably break him in two.”

They walked side by side up the King’s Road, Strike smoking, to the place where the entrance to the gallery sat a little retired from the road, behind the statue of a bewigged and stockinged Sir Hans Sloane. Passing through an arch in the pale brick wall, they entered a grassy square that might, but for the noise of the busy street behind them, have belonged to a country estate. Nineteenth-century buildings on three sides surrounded the square. Ahead, contained in what might once have been barracks, was Gallery Mess.

Strike, who had vaguely imagined a canteen tacked on to the gallery, now realized that he was entering a far more upmarket space and remembered with some misgivings both his overdraft and his agreement to pay for what was almost certainly going to be lunch for four.

The room they entered was long and narrow, with a second, wider area visible through arched openings to their left. White tablecloths, suited waiters, high-vaulted ceilings and contemporary art all over the walls increased Strike’s dread of how much this was going to cost him as they followed the maître d’ into the inner portion of the room.