Career of Evil

“Brittany?” said Robin in astonishment. “I’m not Brittany!”

She yanked her purse out of her jacket pocket. “Look at my credit card — look at it! I’m Robin Ellacott and I work with Cormoran Strike—”

“The fucker who gave him brain dam—”

“D’you know why Cormoran went to arrest him?”

“’Cause his fucking wife framed—”

“Nobody framed him! He raped Brittany and he’s been sacked from jobs all over the country because he interferes with little girls! He did it to his own sister — I’ve met her!”

“Fucking liar!” shouted Alyssa, making to get up from the sofa again.

“I — am — not — LYING!” roared Robin, shoving Alyssa back against the cushions.

“You mad bitch,” gasped Alyssa, “get out of my fucking house!”

“Ask your daughter whether he’s hurt her! Ask her! Angel?”

“Don’t you dare talk to my kids, you bitch!”

“Angel, tell your mother whether he’s—”

“Th’fook’s going on?”

Zahara had been screaming so loudly that they had not heard the key in the lock.

He was massive, dark-haired and bearded, wearing an all-black tracksuit. One eye socket was sunken, caved in towards his nose, making his stare intense and unnerving. His dark, shadowed eyes on Robin, he bent down slowly and picked up the toddler, who beamed and cuddled close to him. Angel, on the other hand, shrank backwards into the wall. Very slowly, his eyes on Robin, Brockbank lowered Zahara into her mother’s lap.

“Nice t’see thoo,” he said with a smile that was no smile, but a promise of pain.

Cold all over, Robin tried to slide her hand discreetly into her pocket for her rape alarm, but Brockbank was on her in seconds, seizing her wrist and compressing her stitches.

“You’re fookin’ phonin’ no one, sneakly larl bitch — thought A didn’ know it was thoo, din’t thoo—”

She tried to twist away from him, her stitches pulling under his grasp, and screamed:

“SHANKER!”

“A shoulda fuckin’ killed thoo when A ’ad th’chance, larl bitch!”

And then came a splintering crash of wood that was the front door caving in. Brockbank released Robin and whirled around to see Shanker hurtling into the room, knife to the fore.

“Don’t stab him!” gasped Robin, clutching her forearm.

The six people crammed into the small bare box of a room froze for a fraction of a second, even the toddler clinging to her mother. Then a thin voice piped up, desperate, trembling, but liberated at last by the presence of a scarred, gold-toothed man whose tattooed knuckles were tight around a knife.

“He done it to me! He done it to me, Mum, he did! He done it to me!”

“What?” said Alyssa, looking towards Angel. Her face was suddenly slack with shock.

“He done it to me! What that lady said. He done it to me!”

Brockbank made a small, convulsive movement, swiftly curbed as Shanker raised his knife, pointing it at the bigger man’s chest.

“You’re all right, babes,” Shanker said to Angel, his free hand shielding her, his gold tooth glinting in the sun falling slowly behind the houses opposite. “’E ain’t gonna do that no more. You fuckin’ nonce,” he breathed into Brockbank’s face. “I’d like to skin ya.”

“Whatchoo talkin’ abou’, Angel?” said Alyssa, still clutching Zahara, her face now a study in dread. “He never—?”

Brockbank suddenly put his head down and charged Shanker like the flanker he had once been. Shanker, who was less than half his width, was knocked aside like a dummy; they heard Brockbank pushing his way past the caved-in door as Shanker, swearing furiously, gave chase.

“Leave him — leave him!” Robin screamed, watching through the window as the two men streaked off down the street. “Oh God — SHANKER! — the police will — where’s Angel—?”

Alyssa had already left the room in pursuit of her daughter, leaving behind her the much-tried toddler to wail and scream on the sofa. Robin, who knew she could not hope to catch the two men, felt suddenly so shivery that she dropped into a crouch, holding her head as waves of sickness passed over her.

She had done what she had meant to do and she had been aware all along that there would almost certainly be collateral damage. Brockbank escaping or being stabbed by Shanker had been possibilities she had foreseen. Her only present certainty was that she could do nothing to prevent either. After taking a couple of deep breaths she stood up again and moved to the sofa to try to comfort the terrified toddler, but unsurprisingly, given that Robin was associated in the little girl’s mind with scenes of violence and hysteria, Zahara screamed harder than ever, and lashed out at Robin with a tiny foot.

“I never knew,” said Alyssa. “Oh God. Oh God. Why didn’t you tell me, Angel? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Evening was drawing in. Robin had turned on the lamp, which threw pale gray shadows up onto the magnolia walls. Three flat hunchbacked ghosts seemed to crouch on the back of the sofa, mimicking Alyssa’s every movement. Angel was curled, sobbing, on her mother’s lap as the pair of them rocked backwards and forwards.