Career of Evil

Alone, smoking in his office, Strike contemplated the forthcoming evening with a dispassion he was no longer able to bring to the thought of the Shacklewell Ripper. On the plus side, there would be excellent food, which was an enticing prospect given the fact that he was skint and had last night dined on baked beans on toast. He supposed that there would be sex too, in the pristine whiteness of Elin’s flat, the soon-to-be-vacated home of her disintegrating family. On the minus side — he found himself staring the bald fact in the face as he had never done before — he would have to talk to her, and talking to Elin, he had finally admitted to himself, was far from one of his favorite pastimes. He always found the conversation especially effortful when it came to his own work. Elin was interested, yet strangely unimaginative. She had none of the innate interest in and easy empathy for other people that Robin displayed. His would-be humorous word portraits of the likes of Two-Times left her perplexed rather than amused.

Then there were those two ominous words “my treat.” The increasing imbalance in their respective incomes was about to become painfully obvious. When Strike had met Elin, he had at least been in credit. If she thought that he was going to be able to return the treat with dinner at Le Gavroche on another night, she was destined to be sorely disappointed.

Strike had spent sixteen years with another woman who had been far richer than he was. Charlotte had alternately brandished money as a weapon and deplored Strike’s refusal to live beyond his means. Memories of Charlotte’s occasional fits of pique that he could not or would not fund treats on which she had set her capricious heart made his hackles rise when Elin spoke of having a decent dinner “for a change.” It had mostly been he who had footed the bills for French and Indian meals in out-of-the-way bistros and curry houses where Elin’s ex-husband had been unlikely to see them. He did not appreciate the fruits of his hard-earned cash being disparaged.

His state of mind was not entirely propitious, therefore, when he headed off to Mayfair at eight o’clock that evening, wearing his best Italian suit, thoughts of a serial killer still chasing each other around his overtired brain.

Upper Brook Street comprised grand eighteenth-century houses and the frontage of Le Gavroche, with its wrought iron canopy and ivy-covered railings, the expensive solidity and security implied by its heavy mirrored front door, was dissonant to Strike’s uneasy frame of mind. Elin arrived shortly after he had been seated in the green and red dining room, which was artfully lit so that puddles of light fell only where needed onto snow-white tablecloths, over gilt-framed oil paintings. She looked stunning in a pale blue form-fitting dress. As he rose to kiss her, Strike momentarily forgot his latent unease, his disgruntlement.

“This makes a nice change,” she said, smiling, as she sank down onto the curved, upholstered bench at their round table.

They ordered. Strike, who craved a pint of Doom Bar, drank burgundy of Elin’s choosing and wished, despite having smoked more than a pack that day, that he could have a cigarette. Meanwhile, his dinner companion launched into a barrage of property talk: she had decided against the Strata penthouse and had now looked at a property in Camberwell, which seemed promising. She showed him a picture on her phone: another columned and porticoed vision of Georgian whiteness met his tired eyes.

As Elin discussed the various pros and cons of a move to Camberwell, Strike drank in silence. He even begrudged the wine’s deliciousness, throwing it back like the cheapest plonk, trying to blunt the edges of his resentment with alcohol. It did not work: far from dissolving, his sense of alienation deepened. The comfortable Mayfair restaurant with its low lighting and its deep carpet felt like a stage set: illusory, ephemeral. What was he doing here, with this gorgeous but dull woman? Why was he pretending to be interested in her expensive lifestyle, when his business was in its death throes and he alone in London knew the identity of the Shacklewell Ripper?

Their food arrived and the deliciousness of his fillet of beef did something to assuage his resentment.

“So what have you been up to?” asked Elin, punctiliously polite as usual.