Troubled Blood: A Cormoran Strike Novel

by Galbraith, Robert

  “Which one was it?” Deborah asked Samhain.

  “Bluey,” he said. “Bluey’s cleverer’n Billy Bob.”

  Strike waited for them to lose interest in the budgerigars, which took a couple of minutes. When both Athorns’ attention had returned to their hot chocolates, he said,

  “Dr. Bamborough disappeared and I’m trying to find out what happened to her. I’ve been told that Gwilherm talked about Dr. Bamborough, after she went missing.”

  Deborah didn’t respond. It was hard to know whether she was listening, or deliberately ignoring him.

  “I heard,” said Strike—there was no point not saying it; this was the whole reason he was here, after all—“that Gwilherm told people he killed her.”

  Deborah glanced at Strike’s left ear, then back at her hot chocolate.

  “You’re like Tudor,” she said. “You know what’s what. He probably did,” she added placidly.

  “You mean,” said Strike carefully, “he told people about it?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “… or you think he killed the doctor?”

  “Was My-Dad-Gwilherm doing magic on her?” Samhain inquired of his mother. “My-Dad-Gwilherm didn’t kill that lady. My uncle Tudor told me what really happened.”

  “What did your uncle tell you?” asked Strike, turning from mother to son, but Samhain had just crammed his mouth full of chocolate biscuit, so Deborah continued the story.

  “He woke me up one time when I was asleep,” said Deborah, “and it was dark. He said, ‘I killed a lady by mistake.’ I said, ‘You’ve had a bad dream.’ He said, ‘No, no, I’ve killed her, but I didn’t mean it.’”

  “Woke you up to tell you, did he?”

  “Woke me up, all upset.”

  “But you think it was just a bad dream?”

  “Yes,” said Deborah, but then, after a moment or two, she said, “but maybe he did kill her, because he could do magic.”

  “I see,” said Strike untruthfully, turning back to Samhain.

  “What did your Uncle Tudor say happened to the lady doctor?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” said Samhain, suddenly grinning. “Uncle Tudor said not to tell. Never.” But he grinned with a Puckish delight at having a secret. “My-Dad-Gwilherm did that,” he went on, pointing at the ankh on the wall.

  “Yes,” said Strike, “your mum told me.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Deborah placidly, looking at the ankh. “I’d like it if the walls were all the same.”

  “I like it,” said Samhain, “because it’s different from the other walls… you silly woman,” he added abstractedly.

  “Did Uncle Tudor—” began Strike, but Samhain, who’d finished his biscuit, now got to his feet and left the room, pausing in the doorway to say loudly,

  “Clare says it’s nice I still got things of Gwilherm’s!”

  He disappeared into his bedroom and closed the door firmly behind him. With the feeling he’d just seen a gold sovereign bounce down a grate, Strike turned back to Deborah.

  “Do you know what Tudor said happened to the doctor?”

  She shook her head, uninterested. Strike looked hopefully back toward Samhain’s bedroom door. It remained closed.

  “Can you remember how Gwilherm thought he’d killed the doctor?” he asked Deborah.

  “He said his magic killed her, then took her away.”

  “Took her away, did it?”

  Samhain’s bedroom door suddenly opened again and he trudged back into the room, holding a coverless book in his hand.

  “Deborah, is this My-Dad-Gwilherm’s magic book, is it?”

  “That’s it,” said Deborah.

  She’d finished her hot chocolate, now. Setting down the empty mug, she picked up her crochet again.

  Samhain held the book wordlessly out to Strike. Though the cover had come off, the title page was intact: The Magus by Francis Barrett. Strike had the impression that being shown this book was a mark of esteem, and he therefore flicked through it with an expression of deep interest, his main objective to keep Samhain happy and close at hand for further questioning.

  A few pages inside was a brown smear. Strike halted the cascade of pages to examine it more closely. It was, he suspected, dried blood, and had been wiped across a few lines of writing.

  This I will say more, to wit, that those who walk in their sleep, do, by no other guide than the spirit of the blood, that is, of the outward man, walk up and down, perform business, climb walls and manage things that are otherwise impossible to those that are awake.

  “You can do magic, with that book,” said Samhain. “But it’s my book, because it was My-Dad-Gwilherm’s, so it’s mine now,” and he held out his hand before Strike could examine it any further, suddenly jealous of his possession. When Strike handed it back, Samhain clutched the book to his chest with one hand and bent to take a third chocolate biscuit.

  “No more, Sammy,” said Deborah.

  “I went in the rain and got them,” said Samhain loudly. “I can have what I want. Silly woman. Stupid woman.”

  He kicked the ottoman, but it hurt his bare foot, and this increased his sudden, childish anger. Pink-faced and truculent, he looked around the room: Strike suspected he was looking for something to disarrange, or perhaps break. His choice landed on the budgies.

  “I’ll open the cage,” he threatened his mother, pointing at it. He let The Magus fall onto the sofa as he clambered onto the seat, looming over Strike.

  “No, don’t,” said Deborah, immediately distressed. “Don’t do that, Sammy!”

  “And I’ll open the window,” said Samhain, now trying to walk his way along the sofa seats, but blocked by Strike. “Hahaha. You stupid woman.”

  “No—Samhain, don’t!” said Deborah, frightened.

  “You don’t want to open the cage,” said Strike, standing up and moving in front of it. “You wouldn’t want your budgies to fly away. They won’t come back.”

  “I know they won’t,” said Samhain. “The last ones didn’t.”

  His anger seemed to subside as fast as it had come, in the face of rational opposition. Still standing on the sofa, he said grumpily, “I went out in the rain. I got them.”

  “Have you got Clare’s phone number?” Strike asked Deborah.

  “In the kitchen,” she said, without asking why he wanted it.

  “Can you show me where that is?” Strike asked Samhain, although he knew perfectly well. The whole flat was as big as Irene Hickson’s sitting room. Samhain frowned at Strike’s midriff for a few moments, then said,

  “All right, then.”

  He walked the length of the sofa, jumped off the end with a crash that made the bookcase shake, and then lunged for the biscuits.

  “Hahaha,” he taunted his mother, both hands full of Penguins. “I got them. Silly woman. Stupid woman.”

  He walked out of the room.

  As Strike inched back out of the space between ottoman and sofa, he stooped to pick up The Magus, which Samhain had dropped, and slid it under his coat. Crocheting peacefully by the window, Deborah Athorn noticed nothing.

  A short list of names and numbers was attached to the kitchen wall with a drawing pin. Strike was pleased to see that several people seemed interested in Deborah and Samhain’s welfare.

  “Who’re these people?” he asked, but Samhain shrugged and Strike was confirmed in his suspicion that Samhain couldn’t read, no matter how proud he was of The Magus. He took a photo of the list with his phone, then turned to Samhain.

  “It would really help me if you could remember what your Uncle Tudor said happened to the lady doctor.”

  “Hahaha,” said Samhain, who was unwrapping another Penguin. “I’m not telling.”

  “Your Uncle Tudor must have really trusted you, to tell you.”

  Samhain chewed in silence for a while, then swallowed and said, with a proud little upward jerk of the chin, “Yer.”

  “It’s good to have people you can trust
with important information.”

  Samhain seemed pleased with this statement. He ate his biscuit and, for the first time, glanced at Strike’s face. The detective had the impression that Samhain was enjoying another man’s presence in the flat.

  “I did that,” he said suddenly and, walking to the sink, he picked up a small clay pot, which was holding a washing-up brush and a sponge. “I go to class on Tuesdays and we make stuff. Ranjit teaches us.”

  “That’s excellent,” said Strike, taking it from him and examining it. “Where were you, when your uncle told you what happened to Dr. Bamborough?”

  “At the football,” said Samhain. “And I made this,” he told Strike, prising a wooden photo frame off the fridge, where it had been attached with a magnet. The framed picture was a recent one of Deborah and Samhain, both of whom had a budgerigar perched on their finger.

  “That’s very good,” said Strike, admiring it.

  “Yer,” said Samhain, taking it back from him and slapping it on the fridge. “Ranjit said it was the best one. We were at the football and I heard Uncle Tudor telling his friend.”

  “Ah,” said Strike.

  “And then he said to me, ‘Don’t you tell no one.’”

  “Right,” said Strike. “But if you tell me, I can maybe help the doctor’s family. They’re really sad. They miss her.”

  Samhain cast another fleeting look at Strike’s face.

  “She can’t come back now. People can’t be alive again when they’re dead.”

  “No,” said Strike. “But it’s nice when their families know what happened and where they went.”

  “My-Dad-Gwilherm died under the bridge.”

  “Yes.”

  “My Uncle Tudor died in the hospital.”

  “You see?” said Strike. “It’s good you know, isn’t it?”

  “Yer,” said Samhain. “I know what happened.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Uncle Tudor told me it was Nico and his boys done it.”

  It came out almost indifferently.

  “You can tell her family,” said Samhain, “but nobody else.”

  “Right,” said Strike, whose mind was working very fast. “Did Tudor know how Nico and the boys did it?”

  “No. He just knew they did.”

  Samhain picked up another biscuit. He appeared to have no more to say.

  “Er—can I use your bathroom?”

  “The bog?” said Samhain, with his mouth full of chocolate.

  “Yes. The bog,” said Strike.

  Like the rest of the flat, the bathroom was old but perfectly clean. It was papered in green, with a pattern of pink flamingos on it, which doubtless dated from the seventies and now, forty years later, was fashionably kitsch. Strike opened the bathroom cabinet, found a pack of razor blades, extracted one and cut the blood-stained page of The Magus out with one smooth stroke, then folded it and slipped it in his pocket.

  Out on the landing, he handed Samhain the book back.

  “You left it on the floor.”

  “Oh,” said Samhain. “Ta.”

  “You won’t do anything to the budgies if I leave, will you?”

  Samhain looked up at the ceiling, grinning slightly.

  “Will you?” asked Strike.

  “No,” sighed Samhain at last.

  Strike returned to the doorway of the sitting room.

  “I’ll be off now, Mrs. Athorn,” he said. “Thanks very much for talking to me.”

  “Goodbye,” said Deborah, without looking at him.

  Strike headed downstairs, and let himself back onto the street. Once outside, he stood for a moment in the rain, thinking hard. So unusually still was he, that a passing woman turned to stare back at him.

  Reaching a decision, Strike turned left, and entered the iron­monger’s which lay directly below the Athorns’ flat.

  A sullen, grizzled and aproned man behind the counter looked up at Strike’s entrance. One of his eyes was larger than the other, which gave him an oddly malevolent appearance.

  “Morning,” said Strike briskly. “I’ve just come from the Athorns, upstairs. I gather you want to talk to Clare Spencer?”

  “Who’re you?” asked the ironmonger, with a mixture of surprise and aggression.

  “Friend of the family,” said Strike. “Can I ask why you’re putting letters to their social worker through their front door?”

  “Because they don’t pick up their phones at the bloody social work department,” snarled the ironmonger. “And there’s no point talking to them, is there?” he added, pointing his finger at the ceiling.

  “Is there a problem I can help with?”

  “I doubt it,” said the ironmonger shortly. “You’re probably feeling pretty bloody pleased with the situation, are you, if you’re a friend of the family? Nobody has to put their hand in their pocket except me, eh? Quick bit of a cover-up and let someone else foot the bill, eh?”

  “What cover-up would this be?” asked Strike.

  The ironmonger was only too willing to explain. The flat upstairs, he told Strike, had long been a health risk, crammed with the hoarded belongings of many years and a magnet for vermin, and in a just world, it ought not to be he who was bearing the costs of living beneath a pair of actual morons—

  “You’re talking about friends of mine,” said Strike.

  “You do it, then,” snarled the ironmonger. “You pay a bleeding fortune to keep the rats down. My ceiling’s sagging under the weight of their filth—”

  “I’ve just been upstairs and it’s perfectly—”

  “Because they mucked it out last month, when I said I was going to bloody court!” snarled the ironmonger. “Cousins come down from Leeds when I threaten legal action—nobody give a shit until then—and I come back Monday morning and they’ve cleaned it all up. Sneaky bastards!”

  “Didn’t you want the flat cleaned?”

  “I want compensation for the money I’ve had to spend! Structural damage, bills to Rentokil—that pair shouldn’t be living together without supervision, they’re not fit, they should be in a home! If I have to take it to court, I will!”

  “Bit of friendly advice,” said Strike, smiling. “If you behave in any way that could be considered threatening toward the Athorns, their friends will make sure it’s you who ends up in court. Have a nice day,” he added, heading for the door.

  The fact that the Athorns’ flat had recently been mucked out by helpful relatives tended to suggest that Margot Bamborough’s remains weren’t hidden on the premises. On the other hand, Strike had gained a bloodstain and a rumor, which was considerably more than he’d had an hour ago. While still disinclined to credit supernatural intervention, he had to admit that deciding to eat breakfast on St. John Street that morning had been, at the very least, a most fortuitous choice.

  39

  … they thus beguile the way,

  Vntill the blustring storme is ouerblowne…

  They cannot finde that path, which first was showne,

  But wander too and fro in waies vnknowne…

  Edmund Spenser

  The Faerie Queene

  Robin’s alarm went off at half past six on Friday morning, in the middle of a dream about Matthew: he’d come to her in the Earl’s Court flat, and begged her to return to him, saying that he’d been a fool, promising he’d never again complain about her job, imploring her to admit that she missed what they’d once had. He’d asked her whether she honestly liked living in a rented flat, without the security and companionship of marriage, and in the dream Robin felt a pull back toward her old relationship, before it had become complicated by her job with Strike. He was a younger Matthew in the dream, a far kinder Matthew, and Sarah Shadlock was dismissed as a mistake, a blip, a meaningless error. In the background hovered Robin’s flatmate, no longer the disengaged and courteous Max, but a pale, simpering girl who echoed Matthew’s persuasions, who giggled when he looked at her and urged Robin to give him what he wanted. Only when she’d mana
ged to silence her alarm, and dispel the fog of sleep, did Robin, who was lying face down on her pillow, realize how closely the dream-flatmate had resembled Cynthia Phipps.

  Struggling to understand why she’d set her alarm so early, she sat up in bed, the cream walls of her bedroom a blueish mauve in the dawn light, then remembered that Strike had planned a full team meeting, the first in two months, and that he’d asked her to come in an hour earlier than the others again, so that they could discuss the Bamborough case before everyone else got there.

  Extremely tired, as she always seemed to be these days, Robin showered and dressed, fumbling over buttons, forgetting where she’d put her phone, realizing there was a stain on her sweater only when halfway upstairs to the kitchen and generally feeling disgruntled at life and early starts. When she reached the upper floor, she found Max sitting at the dining table in his dressing gown, poring over a cookbook. The TV was on: the breakfast television presenter was asking whether Valentine’s Day was an exercise in commercial cynicism or an opportunity to inject some much-needed romance into a couple’s life.

  “Has Cormoran got any special dietary requirements?” Max asked her, and when Robin looked blank, he said, “For tonight. Dinner.”

  “Oh,” said Robin, “no. He’ll eat anything.”

  She checked her emails on her phone as she drank a mug of black coffee. With a small stab of dread, she saw one from her lawyer titled “Mediation.” Opening it, she saw that an actual date was being proposed: Wednesday, March the nineteenth, over a month away. She pictured Matthew talking to his own lawyer, consulting his diary, asserting his power, as ever. I’m tied up for the whole of next month. Then she imagined facing him across a boardroom table, their lawyers beside them, and felt panic mixed with rage.

  “You should eat breakfast,” said Max, still reading cookbooks.

  “I’ll get something later,” said Robin, closing her email.

  She picked up the coat she’d left draped over the arm of the sofa and said,

  “Max, you haven’t forgotten my brother and his friend are spending the weekend, have you? I doubt they’ll be around much. It’s just a base.”