“All right, boy?” said his uncle, over the crackling phone line.
“Fine. How are you?”
“Oh, I’m fine,” said Ted. “Just having some breakfast. Joanie’s still asleep.”
“How is she?”
“No change. Bearing up.”
“What about food, have you got enough?”
“We’re fine for food, don’t you worry about that,” said Ted. “Little Dave Polworth come over yesterday with enough to feed us for a week.”
“How the hell did he get to you?” asked Strike, who knew that a large chunk of the land between his aunt and uncle and Polworth’s house was under several feet of water.
“Rowed part of the way,” said Ted, sounding amused. “He made it sound like one of his Ironman competitions. All covered in oilskins he was when he got here. Big backpack full of shopping. He’s all right, that Polworth.”
“Yeah, he is,” said Strike, momentarily closing his eyes. It oughtn’t to be Polworth looking after his aunt and uncle. It should be him. He ought to have left earlier, knowing the weather was looking bad, but for months now he’d been juggling guilt about his aunt and uncle with the guilt he felt about the load he was putting on his subcontractors, and Robin especially. “Ted, I’ll be there as soon as they put the trains back on.”
“Aye, I know you will, lad,” said Ted. “Don’t worry about us. I won’t take you to her, because she needs her rest, but I’ll tell her you called. She’ll be chuffed.”
Tired, hungry and wondering where he might get some breakfast, Strike typed out a text to Dave Polworth, his cigarette jammed between his teeth, using the nickname he’d had for Polworth ever since the latter had got himself bitten by a shark at the age of eighteen.
Ted’s just told me what you did yesterday. I’ll never be able to repay all this, Chum. Thank you.
He flicked his cigarette end out of the car, wound up the window and had just turned on the engine when his mobile buzzed. Expecting to see a response from Polworth, doubtless asking him when he’d turned into such a poof or a big girl (Polworth’s language being always as far from politically correct as you could get), he looked down at the screen, already smiling in anticipation, and read:
Dad wants to call you. When would be a good time?
Strike read the text twice before understanding that it was from Al. At first, he felt only blank surprise. Then anger and profound resentment rose like vomit.
“Fuck off,” he told his phone loudly.
He turned out of the side street and drove away, jaw clenched, wondering why he should be hounded by Rokeby now, of all times in his life, when he was so worried about relatives who’d cared about him when there’d been no kudos to be gained from the association. The time for amends had passed; the damage was irreparable; blood wasn’t thicker than fucking water. Consumed by thoughts of frail Joan, with whom he shared no shred of DNA, marooned in her house on the hill amid floods, anger and guilt writhed inside him.
A matter of minutes later, he realized he was driving through Clerkenwell. Spotting an open café on St. John Street he parked, then headed through the rain into warmth and light, where he ordered himself an egg and tomato sandwich. Choosing a table by the window, he sat down facing the street, eye to eye with his own unshaven and stony-faced reflection in the rain-studded window.
Hangovers apart, Strike rarely got headaches, but something resembling one was starting to build on the left side of his skull. He ate his sandwich, telling himself firmly that food was making him feel better. Then, after ordering a second mug of tea, he pulled out his mobile again and typed out a response to Al, with the dual objective of shutting down Rokeby once and for all, and of concealing from both his half-brother and his father how much their persistence was disturbing his peace.
I’m not interested. It’s too late. I don’t want to fall out with you, but take this “no” as final.
He sent the text and then cast around immediately for something else to occupy his tired mind. The shops opposite were ablaze with red and pink: February the fourteenth was almost here. It now occurred to him that he hadn’t heard from Charlotte since he’d ignored her text at Christmas. Would she send him a message on Valentine’s Day? Her desire for contact seemed to be triggered by special occasions and anniversaries.
Automatically, without considering what he was doing, but with the same desire for comfort that had pushed him into this café, Strike pulled his phone out of his pocket again and called Robin, but the number was engaged. Shoving the mobile back in his pocket, stressed, anxious and craving action, he told himself he should make use of being in Clerkenwell, now he was here.
This café was only a short walk from the old St. John’s surgery. How many of these passers-by, he wondered, had lived in the area forty years previously? The hunched old woman in her raincoat with her tartan shopping trolley? The gray-whiskered man trying to flag down a cab? Perhaps the aging Sikh man in his turban, texting as he walked? Had any of them consulted Margot Bamborough? Could any of them remember a dirty, bearded man called something like Applethorpe, who’d roamed these very streets, insisting to strangers that he’d killed the doctor?
Strike’s absent gaze fell on a man walking with a strange, rolling gait on the opposite side of the road. His fine, mousy hair was rain-soaked and plastered to his head. He had neither coat nor umbrella, but wore a sweatshirt with a picture of Sonic the Hedgehog on the front. The lack of coat, the slightly lumbering walk, the wide, childlike stare, the slightly gaping mouth, the stoic acceptance of becoming slowly drenched to the skin: all suggested some kind of cognitive impairment. The man passed out of Strike’s line of vision as the detective’s mobile rang.
“Hi. Did you just call me?” said Robin, and Strike felt a certain release of tension, and decided the tea was definitely soothing his head.
“I did, yeah. Just for an update.”
He told her the story of the tracksuited man who’d visited Elinor Dean overnight.
“And he was covering up his mouth when he left? That’s weird.”
“I know. There’s definitely something odd going on in that house. I’ve asked Morris to dig a bit on the new bloke.”
“Pentonville’s right beside Clerkenwell,” said Robin.
“Which is where I am right now. Café on St. John Street. I th—think,” a yawn overtook Strike, “sorry—I think, seeing as I’m in the area, I might have another dig around on the late Applethorpe. Try and find someone who remembers the family, or knows what might’ve happened to them.”
“How’re you going to do that?”
“Walk the area,” said Strike, and he became conscious of his aching knee even as he said it, “have an ask around in any businesses that look long-established. I kn—know,” he yawned again, “it’s a long shot, but we haven’t got anyone else claiming to have killed Margot.”
“Aren’t you knackered?”
“Been worse. Where are you right now?”
“Office,” said Robin, “and I’ve got a bit of Bamborough news, if you’ve got time.”
“Go on,” said Strike, happy to postpone the moment when he had to go back out into the rain.
“Well, firstly, I’ve had an email from Gloria Conti’s husband. You know, the receptionist who was the last to see Margot? It’s short. ‘Dear Mr. Ellacott—’”
“Mister?”
“‘Robin’ often confuses people. ‘I write for my wife, who is been very afflicted by your communications. She has not proofs or information that concern Margot Bamborough and it is not convenient that you contact her at my offices. Our family is private and desires to remain like that. I would like your assurances that you will not contact my wife another time. Yours sincerely, Hugo Jaubert.’”
“Interesting,” agreed Strike, scratching his unshaven chin. “Why isn’t Gloria emailing back herself? Too afflicted?”
“I wonder why she’s so affli—upset, I mean? Maybe,” Robin said, answering her own question, “because I contacted
her through her husband’s office? But I tried through Facebook and she wouldn’t answer.”
“You know, I think it might be worth getting Anna to contact Gloria. Margot’s daughter might tug at her heartstrings better than we can. Why don’t you draft another request and send it over to Anna, see whether she’d be comfortable letting you put her name to it?”
“Good thinking,” said Robin, and he heard her scribbling a note. “Anyway, in better news, when you called me just now, I was talking to Wilma Bayliss’s second-oldest daughter, Maya. She’s the deputy headmistress. I think I’m close to persuading her to talk to us. She’s worried about her older sister’s reaction, but I’m hopeful.”
“Great,” said Strike, “I’d like to hear more about Wilma.”
“And there’s one other thing,” said Robin. “Only, you might think this is a bit of a long shot.”
“I’ve just told you I’m about to go door to door asking about a dead nutter who definitely wasn’t called Applethorpe,” said Strike, and Robin laughed.
“OK, well, I was back online last night, having another look for Steve Douthwaite, and I found this old ‘Memories of Butlin’s’ website, where ex-Redcoats chat to each other and reminisce and organize reunions and stuff—you know the kind of thing. Anyway, I couldn’t find any mention of Douthwaite, or Jacks, as he was calling himself in Clacton-on-Sea, but I did find—I know it’s probably totally irrelevant,” she said, “and I don’t know whether you remember, but a girl called Julie Wilkes was quoted in Whatever Happened to Margot Bamborough? She said she was shocked that Stevie Jacks hadn’t told his friends that he’d been caught up in a missing woman case.”
“Yeah, I remember,” said Strike.
“Well… that girl drowned,” said Robin. “Drowned at the holiday camp at the end of the 1985 holiday season. Her body was found one morning in the camp swimming pool. A group of them were discussing her death on the message boards on the website. They think she got drunk, slipped, hit her head and slid into the pool.
“Maybe it’s horrible luck,” said Robin, “but women do have a habit of dying in Douthwaite’s vicinity, don’t they? His married girlfriend kills herself, his doctor goes missing, and then there’s this co-worker who drowns… Everywhere he goes, unnatural death follows… it’s just odd.”
“Yeah, it is,” said Strike, frowning out at the rain. He was about to wonder aloud where Douthwaite had hidden himself, when Robin said in a slight rush,
“Listen, there’s something else I wanted to ask you, but it’s absolutely fine if the answer’s no. My flatmate Max—you know he’s an actor? Well, he’s just been cast in a TV thing as an ex-soldier and he doesn’t know anyone else to ask. He wondered whether you’d come over to dinner so he can ask you some questions.”
“Oh,” said Strike, surprised but not displeased. “… yeah, OK. When?”
“I know it’s short notice, but would tomorrow suit you? He really needs it soon.”
“Yeah, that should be all right,” said Strike. He was holding himself ready to travel down to St. Mawes as soon as it became practicable, but the sea wall looked unlikely to be repaired by the following day.
When Robin had hung up, Strike ordered a third mug of tea. He was procrastinating, and he knew why. If he was genuinely going to have a poke around Clerkenwell for anyone who remembered the dead man who claimed to have killed Margot Bamborough, it would help if he knew the man’s real name, and as Janice Beattie was still in Dubai, his only recourse was Irene Hickson.
The rain was as heavy as ever. Minute to minute, he postponed the call to Irene, watching traffic moving through the rippling sheets of rain, pedestrians navigating the puddle-pocked street, and thinking about the long-ago death of a young Redcoat, who’d slipped, knocked her head and drowned in a swimming pool.
Water everywhere, Bill Talbot had written in his astrological notebook. It had taken Strike some effort to decipher that particular passage. He’d concluded that Talbot was referring to a cluster of water signs apparently connected with the death of the unknown Scorpio. Why, Strike asked himself now, sipping his tea, was Scorpio a water sign? Scorpions lived on land, in heat; could they even swim? He remembered the large fish sign Talbot had used in the notebook for Irene, which at one point he’d described as “Cetus.” Picking up his mobile, Strike Googled the word.
The constellation Cetus, he read, known also as the whale, was named for a sea monster slain by Perseus when saving Andromeda from the sea god Poseidon. It resided in a region of the sky known as “The Sea,” due to the presence there of many other water-associated constellations, including Pisces, Aquarius the water bearer, and Capricorn, the fish-tailed goat.
Water everywhere.
The astrological notes were starting to tangle themselves around his thought processes, like an old net snagged in a propeller. A pernicious mixture of sense and nonsense, they mirrored, in Strike’s opinion, the appeal of astrology itself, with its flattering, comforting promise that your petty concerns were of interest to the wide universe, and that the stars or the spirit world would guide you where your own hard work and reason couldn’t.
Enough, he told himself sternly. Pressing Irene’s number on his mobile, he waited, listening to her phone ringing and visualizing it beside the bowl of pot-pourri, in the over-decorated hall, with the pink flowered wallpaper and the thick pink carpet. At exactly the point where he’d decided, with a mixture of relief and regret, that she wasn’t in, she answered.
“Double four five nine,” she trilled, making it into a kind of jingle. Joan, too, always answered her landline by telling the caller the number they’d just dialed.
“Is that Mrs. Hickson?”
“Speaking.”
“It’s Cormoran Strike here, the—”
“Oh, hello!” she yelped, sounding startled.
“I wondered whether you might be able to help me,” said Strike, taking out his notebook and opening it. “When we last met, you mentioned a patient of the St. John’s practice who you thought might’ve been called Apton or Applethorpe—”
“Oh, yes?”
“—who claimed to have—”
“—killed Margot, yes,” she interrupted him. “He stopped Dorothy in broad daylight—”
“Yes—”
“—but she thought it was a load of rubbish. I said to her, ‘What if he really did, Dorothy—?’”
“I haven’t been able to find anyone of that name who lived in the area in 1974,” said Strike loudly, “so I wondered whether you might’ve misremembered his na—”
“Possibly, yes, I might have done,” said Irene. “Well, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Have you tried directory inquiries? Not directory inquiries,” she corrected herself immediately. “Online records and things.”
“It’s difficult to do a search with the wrong name,” said Strike, just managing to keep his tone free of exasperation or sarcasm. “I’m right by Clerkenwell Road at the moment. I think you said he lived there?”
“Well, he was always hanging around there, so I assumed so.”
“He was registered with your practice, wasn’t he? D’you remember his first—?”
“Um, let me think… It was something like… Gilbert, or—no, I can’t remember, I’m afraid. Applethorpe? Appleton? Apton? Everyone knew him locally by sight because he looked so peculiar: long beard, filthy, blah blah blah. And sometimes he had his kid with him,” said Irene, warming up, “really funny-looking kid—”
“Yes, you said—”
“—with massive ears. He might still be alive, the son, but he’s probably —you know…”
Strike waited, but apparently he was supposed to infer the end of the sentence by Irene’s silence.
“Probably—?” he prompted.
“Oh, you know. In a place.”
“In—?”
“A home or something!” she said, a little impatiently, as though Strike were being obtuse. “He was never going to be right, was he?—with a druggie fathe
r and a retarded mother, I don’t care what Jan says. Jan hasn’t got the same—well, it’s not her fault—her family was—different standards. And she likes to look—in front of strangers—well, we all do—but after all, you’re after the truth, aren’t you?”
Strike noted the fine needle of malice directed at her friend, glinting among the disconnected phrases.
“Have you found Duckworth?” Irene asked, jumping subject.
“Douthwaite?”
“Oh, what am I like, I keep doing that, hahaha.” However little pleased she’d been to hear from him, he was at least someone to talk to. “I’d love to know what happened to him, I really would, he was a fishy character if ever there was one. Jan played it down with you, but she was a bit disappointed when he turned out to be gay, you know. She had a soft spot for him. Well, she was very lonely when I first knew her. We used to try and set her up, Eddie and I—”
“Yes, you said—”
“—but men didn’t want to take on a kid and Jan was a bit you know, when a woman’s been alone, I don’t mean desperate, but clingy—Larry didn’t mind, but Larry wasn’t exactly—”
“I had one other thing I wanted to ask—”
“—only he wouldn’t marry her, either. He’d been through a bad divorce—”
“It’s about Leamington Spa—”
“You’ll have checked Bognor Regis?”
“Excuse me?” said Strike.
“For Douthwaite? Because he went to Bognor Regis, didn’t he? To a holiday camp?”
“Clacton-on-Sea,” said Strike. “Unless he went to Bognor Regis as well?”
“As well as what?”
Jesus fucking Christ.
“What makes you think Douthwaite was ever in Bognor Regis?” Strike asked, slowly and clearly, rubbing his forehead.
“I thought—wasn’t he there, at some point?”
“Not as far as I’m aware, but we know he worked in Clacton-on-Sea in the mid-eighties.”
“Oh, it must’ve been that—yes, someone must’ve told me that, they’re all—old-fashioned seaside —you know.”
Troubled Blood: A Cormoran Strike Novel Page 46