Why had Strike turned up drunk? Why did they have to talk about rape and porn? Her attacker had been a voracious consumer of violent pornography, with a particular emphasis on choking, but his internet search history had been deemed inadmissible evidence by the judge. Robin didn’t want to know whether Strike used porn; she didn’t want to think about trafficked children being filmed, just as she didn’t want to remember Morris’s dick pic on her phone, or the snuff movie Bill Talbot had stolen. Tired and low, she asked herself why Strike couldn’t leave the students alone, if not out of consideration for his host, then for her, his partner.
She headed back upstairs. Halfway to the living area she heard Kyle’s heated voice and knew the argument had escalated. Arriving on the top floor, Robin saw the other five sitting around the coffee table, on which stood a cafetière, a bottle and the chocolates Jonathan had brought. Strike and Max were both holding glasses of brandy while Courtney, who was now very obviously drunk, though nowhere near as much as Strike, was nodding along with Kyle’s argument, a cup of coffee balanced precariously in her hands. Robin sat back down at the abandoned dining table, away from the rest of the group, took a piece of beef out of the casserole and fed it to a pathetically grateful Wolfgang.
“The point is to destigmatize and reclaim derogatory language about women,” Kyle was saying to Strike. “That’s the point.”
“And that’ll be ’chieved by a bunch’f nice middle-class girls going f’ra walk in their underwear, will it?” said Strike, his voice thick with alcohol.
“Well, not necessar’ly under—” began Courtney.
“It’s about ending victim-blaming,” said Kyle loudly. “Surely you can—?”
“An’ how’s it end victim-blaming?”
“Well, obv’sly,” said Courtney loudly, “by changing the adertu—the underlying attitudes—”
“You think rapists’ll see you all marching ’long and think ‘better jack in the raping,’ do you?”
Courtney and Kyle both began shouting at Strike. Jonathan glanced anxiously at his sister, who felt another of those sickening drops in her stomach.
“It’s about destigmatizing—”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, plen’y of men will enjoy watching you all strut past in your bras,” said Strike, taking a sloppy gulp of brandy, “’n’ I’m sure you’ll look great on Instagram—”
“It’s not about Instagram!” said Courtney, who sounded almost tearful now. “We’re making a serious point about—”
“Men who call women sluts, yeah, you said,” said Strike, talking over her again. “I’m sure they’ll feel properly rebuked, watching you prounce—prance by in your mini-skirt.”
“It’s not about rebuking,” said Kyle, “you’re missing the—”
“I’m not missing your super-subtle fucking point,” snapped Strike. “I’m telling you that in the real world, this f’cking Whore Walk—”
“SlutWalk,” said Kyle and Courtney loudly.
“—’ll make fuck-all difference. The kind of man who calls women sluts’ll look at your fucking sideshow and think ‘there go a load of sluts, look.’ Reclaim fucking language all you fucking like. You don’t change real altit—att—real-world attitudes by deciding slurs aren’t derug—derogat’ry.”
Wolfgang, who was still quivering at Robin’s ankle in the hope of getting more beef, emitted a loud whimper, which made Strike glance around. He saw Robin sitting there, pale and impassive.
“What d’you think ’bout all this?” Strike asked her loudly, waving his glass in the direction of the students, so that brandy slopped over the rim onto the carpet.
“I think it would be a good idea to change the subject,” said Robin, whose heart was beating so fast it hurt.
“Would you go on a fucking Whore—?”
“I don’t know, maybe,” said Robin, blood thumping in her ears, wanting only for the conversation to end. Her rapist had grunted “whore” over and over again during the attack. If her would-be killer had squeezed her neck for another thirty seconds, it would have been the last word she heard on earth.
“She’s b’ng polite,” said Strike, turning back to the students.
“Talking for women now, are you?” sneered Kyle.
“For an actual rape victim!” said Courtney.
The room seemed to warp. A clammy silence descended. On the edge of Robin’s field of vision she saw Max turn to look at her.
Strike got to his feet at the second attempt. Robin knew he was saying something to her, but it was all noise: her ears felt full of cotton wool. Strike lurched off toward the door: he was leaving. He bounced off the doorframe and disappeared from sight.
Everyone continued to stare at Robin.
“Oh God, I’m really sorry if I shouldn’t have said that,” whispered Courtney through the fingers she’d pressed to her mouth. Her eyes were brimming with tears. From downstairs came the sound of the door slamming.
“It’s fine,” said a distant voice that sounded quite like Robin’s own. “Excuse me a moment.”
She got to her feet, and followed Strike.
41
With that they gan their shiuering speares to shake,
And deadly points at eithers breast to bend,
Forgetfull each to haue bene euer others frend.
Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene
The dark, unfamiliar road took the exceptionally drunk Strike by surprise. Rain and high winds battered him as he stood, swaying, wondering which direction the Tube was. His usually reliable sense of direction was telling him to turn right, so he lurched off that way, searching his pockets for cigarettes as he went, savoring the delicious release of tension and temper he’d just enjoyed. The memory of what had just happened presented itself in a few scattered fragments: Kyle’s angry red face. Tosser. Fucking students. Max laughing at something Strike had said. Lots of food. Even more drink.
Rain sparkled in the street lights and blurred Strike’s vision. Objects seemed to shrink and enlarge around him, particularly the parked car that suddenly put itself in his path as he attempted to walk in a straight line down the street. His thick fingers fumbled fruitlessly in his pockets. He couldn’t find his cigarettes.
That last brandy might have been a mistake. He could still taste it. He didn’t like brandy, and he’d had a hell of a lot of Doom Bar with Nick in the pub.
It was a mighty effort to walk in these high winds. His glow of well-being was wearing off, but he definitely didn’t feel sick, even after all that beef casserole and a sizable bit of cheesecake, though he didn’t really want to think about them, nor about the forty or so cigarettes he’d consumed in the past twenty-four hours, nor about the brandy he could still taste.
Without warning, his stomach contracted. Strike staggered to a gap between two cars, bent double and vomited as copiously as he’d done at Christmas, over and over, for several minutes, until he was standing with his hands on his knees, still heaving, but bringing nothing else up.
Sweaty-faced, he stood up, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, pistons banging in his head. It was several seconds before he became aware of the pale figure standing watching him, its fair hair blowing wildly in the wind.
“Wh—? Oh,” he said, as Robin came into focus. “It’s you.”
It occurred to him that she might have followed him to bring his forgotten cigarettes and looked hopefully at her hands, but they were empty. Strike moved away from the puddle of vomit in the gutter and leaned up against another parked car.
“I was in the pub with Nick all afternoon,” he said thickly, under the impression that Robin might be concerned about him.
Something hard was pressing into his buttock. Now he realized that he did have his cigarettes on him, after all, and he was glad of this, because he’d rather taste tobacco than vomit. He tugged the pack out of his back pocket and, after a few false starts, managed to light up.
At last, it penetrated his consciousness that Robin’s demea
nor was unusual. Focusing on her face, he registered it as white and oddly pinched.
“What?”
“‘What?’” she repeated. “Fucking ‘what?’”
Robin swore far less often than Strike did. The damp night air, which felt icy on Strike’s sweaty face, was rapidly sobering him up. Robin appeared to be angry: angrier, in fact, than he’d ever seen her. But drink was still slowing his reactions, and nothing better occurred to him than to repeat,
“What?”
“You arrive late,” she said, “because of course you do, because when have you ever shown me the common fucking courtesy of turning up on time—”
“Wha—?” said Strike again, this time less because he was looking for information than in disbelief. She was the unique woman in his life who’d never tried to change him. This wasn’t the Robin he knew.
“You arrive rat-arsed, because of course you do, because what do I matter? It’s only Robin who’ll be embarrassed, and my flatmate, and my fam—”
“He wasn’t bothered,” Strike managed to say. His memories of the evening weren’t particularly distinct, but he was sure of that, at least: Max hadn’t minded him being drunk. Max had given him more booze. Max had laughed at a joke he’d made, which he couldn’t now remember. He liked Max.
“And then you launch an attack on my guests. And then,” said Robin, “you lay me open to having something I wanted to keep priv—to keep—”
Her eyes were suddenly wet, her fists clenched, her body rigid.
“—to keep private bandied about in a fucking argument, in front of strangers. Did it once occur—”
“Hang on,” said Strike, “I never—”
“—once occur to you that I might not want rape discussed, in front of people I barely know?”
“I never—”
“Why were you asking me whether I think SlutWalks are a good idea?”
“Well, obv’sly b’cause—”
“Did we need to talk about child rape over dinner?”
“I was making a p—”
“And then you walk out, and leave me to—”
“Well,” said Strike, “by the sounds of it, the sooner I left, the bett—”
“Better for you,” she said, advancing on him, her teeth bared: he’d never seen her like this before, “because you got to dump all your aggression at my house, then walk out and let me clean up your fucking mess, as per usual!”
“‘As per fucking usual?’” said Strike, eyebrows raised. “Wait a—”
“Now I’ve got to go back in there, and make it all right, soothe everyone’s feelings—”
“No, you haven’t,” Strike contradicted her. “Go to fucking bed if you—”
“It’s. What. I. DO!” shouted Robin, thumping herself hard on the sternum with each word. Shocked into silence, Strike stared at her. “Like I remember to say please and thank you to the secretary, when you don’t give a toss! Like I excuse your bad moods to other people when they get offended! Like I suck up a ton of shit on your behalf—”
“Whoa,” said Strike, pushing himself off the stationary car, and looking down at her from his full height. “Where’s all this—?”
“—and you can’t be fucking bothered, with all I do for you, to arrive sober for one dinner—”
“If you must know,” said Strike, temper rising anew from the ashes of his previous euphoria, “I was in the pub with Nick, who—”
“—whose wife just lost their baby! I know—and what the fuck was he doing in the pub with you, leaving her to—”
“She threw him out!” barked Strike. “Did she tell you that, during the Great Sisterhood Grievance Meeting? And I’m not going to apologize for wanting some fucking R&R after the week I’ve just had—”
“—whereas I don’t need R&R, do I? I haven’t forfeited half my annual leave—”
“How many times have I thanked you for covering for me when I’m in Corn—?”
“So what was with you being an arsehole to me this morning, when I was late for the first fucking time ever—”
“I’d had three and a half hours’ sleep—”
“You live over the bloody office!”
“Fuck this,” said Strike, throwing his cigarette down. He began to walk away from her, certain now of the direction to the Tube, thinking of the things he could have said: that it was guilt about the pressure he was putting on Robin that had kept him in London, when he should be in St. Mawes with his dying aunt; Jonny Rokeby on the phone that morning; and Nick’s tears in the pub, and the relief it had been to sit with an old mate and drink, and listen to someone else’s troubles instead of fret about his own.
“And don’t,” bellowed Robin from behind him, “buy me any more fucking flowers!”
“No danger of that!” yelled Strike over his shoulder, as he strode away into the darkness.
42
… his late fight
With Britomart, so sore did him offend,
That ryde he could not, till his hurts he did amend.
Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene
When Strike woke on Saturday morning, with a thumping headache and a foul-tasting mouth, it took him a while to piece together exactly what had happened the previous evening. Aside from the memory of vomiting, which he felt he’d done far too much of lately, all he could at first recall were Kyle’s bright red face and Robin’s pinched white one.
But then, slowly, he reconstructed Robin’s complaints: arriving late and drunk, being rude to her brother and upsetting a dinner party by telling a couple of students what he considered home truths about the real world. He also thought there’d been mention of him being insufficiently touchy-feely with staff.
Gingerly, he got out of bed and, with the aid of the furniture, hopped his way to the bathroom and then into the shower.
As Strike washed, two separate impulses did battle within him. One was the urge to self-justify, which patted him on the back and awarded him a win for what he could remember of his argument with the students. The other was an innate honesty about his motives that forced him to recognize that his instant antagonism to Robin’s guests had been rooted in their resemblance to the kinds of people toward whom his mother would have instantly gravitated.
Leda Strike’s whole life had been a battle against constraint of any kind: going for a march in her underwear would have seemed to her just one more fabulous blow against limitations. Strike, who never forgot Leda’s generous heart or her ineradicable love of the underdog, was nevertheless clear-eyed about the fact her activism had mostly taken the form of enthusiastic exhibitionism. Not for Leda the tedious toil of door-to-door canvassing, the difficult business of compromise, or the painstaking work structural change entailed. Never a deep or critical thinker, she’d been a sucker for what Strike thought of as intellectual charlatans. The basis for her life’s philosophy, if such a word could be used for the loose collection of whims and kneejerk reactions she called beliefs, was that everything of which the bourgeoisie disapproved must be good and right. Naturally, she’d have sided with Kyle and Courtney in championing pornography and SlutWalks, and she’d have seen her son’s quibbles as something he must have picked up from her killjoy sister-in-law.
While Strike dried himself and put on his prosthesis, moving cautiously in deference to his throbbing head, the idea of phoning Robin occurred, only to be dismissed. His long-established habit, in the aftermath of a row with a woman, was to wait for her to make the next move, which he considered mere common sense. If she apologized, all well and good; if she wanted further discussion, there was a chance she’d be calmer after a spell of reflection; if she was still angry, it was simply masochistic to volunteer for further grief until she came looking for it. While Strike wasn’t in principle opposed to offering an unsolicited apology in the event that he felt himself to have been in the wrong, in practice his apologies tended to be delivered late, and only when it became clear that resolution would come no other way.
This modus operandi owed much to his experiences with Charlotte. Attempting to make up with Charlotte before every last ounce of her fury had been spent had been like trying to rebuild a house during an earthquake. Sometimes, after he refused to accede to some new demand—usually leaving the army, but sometimes giving up contact with another female friend or refusing to spend money he didn’t have, all of which were seen by Charlotte as proof he didn’t love her—Charlotte would walk out, and only after she came back, by which time Strike might well have met or slept with someone else, would the row be discussed. Their arguments had often lasted a week or more. A couple of times, Strike had returned to postings abroad before anything was resolved.
Yet, as he ate a much-needed bacon roll, drank coffee and downed a couple of Nurofen; after he’d called Ted, heard that Joan was still holding out, and assured him that he and Lucy would be there the following day; while opening a couple of bits of post, and ripping up a large gilt-edged invitation to the Deadbeats’ fiftieth anniversary party in May; while food shopping in the everlasting wind and rain, stocking up for what might be a journey of many hours; while he packed clothes for the trip, spoke to Lucy and checked the weather forecast, his thoughts kept returning to Robin.
Gradually he realized that what was bothering him most was the fact that he’d got used to Robin being on his side, which was one of the main reasons he tended to seek reasons to call her if he was at a loose end or feeling low. Over time, they’d developed a most soothing and satisfying camaraderie, and Strike hadn’t imagined it could be disrupted by what he categorized as a dinner party row.
When his phone rang at four o’clock in the afternoon, he surprised himself by snatching it up in hopes that it was his partner, only to see yet another unknown number. Wondering whether he was about to hear Rokeby again, or some other unknown blood relative, he answered.
“Strike.”
“What?” said a sharp, middle-class female voice.
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