Troubled Blood: A Cormoran Strike Novel

by Galbraith, Robert

  “I thought you said she didn’t talk about work?”

  “Well, she told me that. They’d had a row or something. I don’t know. It was just something she said in passing. She told me she didn’t like the nurse,” repeated Satchwell.

  It was as though a hard mask had surfaced under the leather dark skin: the slightly comical, crêpey-faced charmer had been replaced by a mean old one-eyed man. Robin remembered how Matthew’s lower face had tautened when angry, giving him the look of a muzzled dog, but she wasn’t intimidated. She sensed in Satchwell the same wily instinct for self-preservation as in her ex-husband. Whatever Satchwell might have meted out to Margot, or to the wives who’d left him, he’d think better of slapping Robin in a crowded pub, in the town where his sister still lived.

  “You seem angry,” Robin said.

  “Gia chári tou, of course I am—that nurse, what’s her name? Trying to implicate me, isn’t she? Making up a story to make it look like Margot ran away to be with me—”

  “Janice didn’t invent the story. We checked with Mr. Ramage’s widow and she confirmed that her late husband told other people he’d met a missing woman—”

  “What else has Janice told you?” he said again.

  “She never mentioned you,” said Robin, now immensely curious. “We had no idea you knew each other.”

  “But she claims Margot was seen in Leamington Spa after she disappeared? No, she knows exactly what she’s bloody doing.”

  Satchwell took another chip, ate it, then suddenly got to his feet and walked past Robin, who looked over her shoulder to see him striding into the gents. His back view was older than his front: she could see the pink scalp through the thin white hair and there was no backside filling out his jeans.

  Robin guessed he considered the interview finished. However, she had something else up her sleeve: a dangerous something, perhaps, but she’d use it rather than let the interview end here, with more questions raised than answered.

  It was fully five minutes before he reappeared and she could tell that he’d worked himself up in his absence. Rather than sitting back down, he stood over her as he said,

  “I don’t think you’re a fucking detective. I think you’re press.”

  Seen from below, the tortoise’s neck was particularly striking. The chain, the turquoise and silver rings and the long hair now seemed like fancy dress.

  “You can call Anna Phipps and check if you like,” said Robin. “I’ve got her number here. Why d’you think the press would be interested in you?”

  “I had enough of them last time. I’m off. I don’t need this. I’m supposed to be recuperating.”

  “One last thing,” said Robin, “and you’re going to want to hear it.”

  She’d learned the trick from Strike. Stay calm, but assertive. Make them worry what else you’ve got.

  Satchwell turned back, his one uncovered eye hard as flint. No trace of flirtation remained, no attempt to patronize her. She was an equal now; an adversary.

  “Why don’t you sit down?” said Robin. “This won’t take long.”

  After a slight hesitation, Satchwell eased himself back into his seat. His hoary head now blocked the stuffed deer head that hung on the brick wall behind him. From Robin’s point of view, the horns appeared to rise directly out of the white hair that fell in limp curls to his shoulders.

  “Margot Bamborough knew something about you that you didn’t want to get out,” said Robin. “Didn’t she?”

  He glared at her.

  “The pillow dream?” said Robin.

  Every line of his face hardened, turning him vulpine. The sunburned chest, wrinkled beneath its white hair, caved as he exhaled.

  “Told someone, did she? Who?” Before Robin could answer, he said, “’Er husband, I suppose? Or that fucking Irish girl, was it?”

  His jaws worked, chewing nothing.

  “I should never ’ave told her,” he said. “That’s what you do when you’re drunk and you’re in love, or whatever the fuck we were. Then I ’ad it playing on my mind for years that she was gonna…”

  The sentence ended in silence.

  “Did she mention it, when you met again?” asked Robin, feeling her way, pretending she knew more than she did.

  “She asked after my poor mother,” said Satchwell. “I fort at the time, are you ’aving a go? But I don’t think she was. Maybe she’d learned better, being a doctor, maybe she’d changed her views. She’ll have seen people like Blanche. A life not worth living.

  “Anyway,” he said, leaning forwards slightly, “I still think it was a dream. All right? I was six years old. I dreamed it. And even if it wasn’t a dream, they’re both dead and gone now and nobody can say no different. My old mum died in ’89. You can’t get ’er for anything now, poor cow. Single mother, trying to cope with us all on ’er own. It’s merciful,” said Satchwell, “putting someone out of their misery. A mercy.”

  He got up, drained beneath his tan, his face sagging, turned and walked away, but at the moment he was about to disappear he suddenly turned and tottered back to her, his jaw working.

  “I think,” he said, with as much malevolence as he could muster, “you’re a nasty little bitch.”

  He left for good this time.

  Robin’s heart rate was barely raised. Her dominant emotion was elation. Pushing her unappetizing ramekins aside, she pulled the little metal bucket he’d left behind toward her, and finished the artist’s chips.

  48

  Sir Artegall, long hauing since,

  Taken in hand th’exploit…

  To him assynd, her high beheast to doo,

  To the sea shore he gan his way apply…

  Edmund Spenser

  The Faerie Queene

  Joan’s funeral service finished with the hymn most beloved of sailors, “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.” While the congregation sang the familiar words, Ted, Strike, Dave Polworth and three of Ted’s comrades in the lifeboat service shouldered the coffin back down the aisle of the simple cream-walled church, with its wooden beams and its stained-glass windows depicting purple-robed St. Maudez, for whom both village and church were named. Flanked by an island tower and a seal on a rock, the saint watched the coffin-bearers pass out of the church.

  O Savior, whose almighty word

  The winds and waves submissive heard,

  Who walked upon the foaming deep,

  And calm amidst the rage did sleep…

  Polworth, by far the shortest of the six men, walked directly behind Strike, doing his best to bear a fair share of the load.

  The mourners, many of whom had had to stand at the back of the packed church, or else listen as best they could from outside, formed a respectful circle around the hearse outside as the shining oak box was loaded onto it. Barely a murmur was heard as the rear doors slammed shut on Joan’s earthly remains. As the straight-backed undertaker in his thick black overcoat climbed back into the driver’s seat, Strike put an arm around Ted’s shoulders. Together, they watched the hearse drive out of sight. Strike could feel Ted trembling.

  “Look at all these flowers, Ted,” said Lucy, whose eyes were swollen shut, and the three of them turned back to the church to examine the dense bank of sprays, wreaths and bunches that created a jubilant blaze against the exterior wall of the tiny church.

  “Beautiful lilies, Ted, look… from Marion and Gary, all the way from Canada…”

  The congregation was still spilling out of the church to join those outside. All kept a distance from the family while they moved crabwise along the wall of the church. Joan would surely have delighted in the mass of floral tributes and Strike drew unexpected consolation from messages that Lucy was reading aloud to Ted, whose eyes, like hers, were puffy and red.

  “Ian and Judy,” she told her uncle. “Terry and Olive…”

  “Loads, aren’t there?” said Ted, marveling.

  The now-whispering, milling crowd of mourners were doubtless wondering whether it would be heartless
to set out immediately for the Ship and Castle, where the wake was to be held, Strike thought. He couldn’t blame them; he too was craving a pint and perhaps a chaser too.

  “‘With deepest sympathy, from Robin, Sam, Andy, Saul and Pat,’” Lucy read aloud. She turned to look at Strike, smiling. “How lovely. Did you tell Robin pink roses were Joan’s favorite?”

  “Don’t think so,” said Strike, who hadn’t known himself.

  The fact that his agency was represented here among the tributes to Joan meant a great deal to him. Unlike Lucy, he’d be traveling back to London alone, by train. Even though he’d been craving solitude for the past ten days, the prospect of his silent attic room was cheerless, after these long days of dread and loss. The roses, which were for Joan, were also for him: they said, you won’t be alone, you have something you’ve built, and all right, it might not be a family, but there are still people who care about you waiting in London. Strike told himself “people,” because there were five names on the card, but he turned away thinking only of Robin.

  Lucy drove Ted and Strike to the Ship and Castle in Ted’s car, leaving Greg to follow with the boys. None of them talked in the car; a kind of emotional exhaustion had set in.

  Joan had known what she was doing, Strike thought, as he watched the familiar streets slide past. He was grateful they weren’t following to the crematorium, that they would reclaim the body in a form that could be clutched to the chest and borne on a boat, in the quiet of a sunny afternoon to come, just the family, to say their last, private farewell.

  The Ship and Castle’s dining-room windows looked out over St. Mawes Bay, which was overcast but tranquil. Strike bought Ted and himself pints, saw his uncle safely into a chair among a knot of solicitous friends, returned to the bar for a double Famous Grouse, which he downed in one, then carried his pint to the window.

  The sea was Quaker gray, sparkling occasionally where the silvered fringes of the clouds caught it. Viewed from the hotel window, St. Mawes was a study in mouse and slate, but the little rowing boats perched on the mudflats below provided welcome dabs of cheer­ful color.

  “Y’all right, Diddy?”

  He turned: Ilsa was with Polworth, and she reached up and hugged Strike. All three of them had been at St. Mawes Primary School together. In those days, as Strike remembered it, Ilsa hadn’t liked Polworth much. He’d always been unpopular with female classmates. Over Dave’s shoulder, Strike could see Polworth’s wife, Penny, chatting with a group of female friends.

  “Nick really wanted to be here, Corm, but he had to work,” said Ilsa.

  “Of course,” said Strike. “It was really good of you to come, Ilsa.”

  “I loved Joan,” she said simply. “Mum and Dad are going to have Ted over on Friday night. Dad’s taking him for a round of golf on Tuesday.”

  The Polworths’ two daughters, who weren’t renowned for their good behavior, were playing tag among the mourners. The smaller of the two—Strike could never remember which was Roz and which Mel—dashed around them and clung, momentarily, to the back of Strike’s legs, as though he were a piece of furniture, looking out at her sister, before sprinting off again, giggling.

  “And we’re having Ted over Saturday,” said Polworth, as though nothing had happened. Neither Polworth ever corrected their children unless they were directly inconveniencing their parents. “So don’t worry, Diddy, we’ll make sure the old fella’s all right.”

  “Cheers, mate,” said Strike, with difficulty. He hadn’t cried in church, hadn’t cried all these last horrible days, because there’d been so much to organize, and he found relief in activity. However, the kindness shown by his old friends was seeping through his defenses: he wanted to express his gratitude properly, because Polworth hadn’t yet permitted him to say all he wanted about the way he’d enabled Strike and Lucy to reach the dying Joan. Before Strike could make a start, however, Penny Polworth joined their group, followed by two women Strike didn’t recognize, but who were both beaming at him.

  “Hi, Corm,” said Penny, who was dark-eyed and blunt-nosed, and who’d worn her hair pulled back into a practical ponytail since she was five. “Abigail and Lindy really want to meet you.”

  “Hello,” said Strike, unsmiling. He held out his hand and shook both of theirs, sure that they were about to talk about his detective triumphs and already annoyed. Today, of all days, he wanted to be nothing but Joan’s nephew. He assumed that Abigail was Lindy’s daughter, because if you removed the younger woman’s carefully penciled, geometrically precise eyebrows and fake tan, they had the same round, flat faces.

  “She was ever so proud of you,” said Lindy.

  “We follow everything about you in the papers,” said plump Abigail, who seemed to be on the verge of giggling.

  “What are you working on now? I don’t suppose you can say, can you?” said Lindy, devouring him with her eyes.

  “D’you ever get involved with the royals, at all?” asked Abigail.

  Fuck’s sake.

  “No,” said Strike. “Excuse me, need a smoke.”

  He knew he’d offended them, but didn’t care, though he could imagine Joan’s disapproval as he walked away from the group by the window. What would it have hurt him, she’d have said, to entertain her friends by talking about his job? Joan had liked to show him off, the nephew who was the closest thing she’d ever have to a son, and it suddenly came back to him, after these long days of guilt, why he’d avoided coming back to the little town for so long: because he’d found himself slowly stifling under the weight of teacups and doilies and carefully curated conversations, and Joan’s suffocating pride, and the neighbors’ curiosity, and the sidelong glances at his false leg when nobody thought he could see them looking.

  As he stumped down the hall, he pulled out his mobile and pressed Robin’s number without conscious thought.

  “Hi,” she said, sounding mildly surprised to hear from him.

  “Hi,” said Strike, pausing on the doorstep of the hotel to pull a cigarette out of the packet with his teeth. He crossed the road and lit it, looking out over the mudflats at the sea. “Just wanted to check in, and to thank you.”

  “What for?”

  “The flowers from the agency. They meant a lot to the family.”

  “Oh,” said Robin, “I’m glad… How was the funeral?”

  “It was, you know… a funeral,” said Strike, watching a seagull bobbing on the tranquil sea. “Anything new your end?”

  “Well, yes, actually,” said Robin, after a fractional hesitation, “but now’s probably not the moment. I’ll tell you when you’re—”

  “Now’s a great moment,” said Strike, who was yearning for normality, for something to think about that wasn’t connected to Joan, or loss, or St. Mawes.

  So Robin related the story of her interview with Paul Satchwell, and Strike listened in silence.

  “… and then he called me a nasty little bitch,” Robin concluded, “and left.”

  “Christ almighty,” said Strike, genuinely amazed, not only that Robin had managed to draw so much information from Satchwell, but at what she’d found out.

  “I’ve just been sitting here looking up records on my phone—I’m back in the Land Rover, going to head home in a bit. Blanche Doris Satchwell, died 1945, aged ten. She’s buried in a cemetery outside Leamington Spa. Satchwell called it a mercy killing. Well,” Robin corrected herself, “he called it a dream, which was his way of telling Margot, while retaining some plausible deniability, wasn’t it? It’s a traumatic memory to carry around with you from age six, though, isn’t it?”

  “Certainly is,” said Strike, “and it gives him a motive of sorts, if he thought Margot might tell the authorities…”

  “Exactly. And what d’you think about the Janice bit? Why didn’t she tell us she knew Satchwell?”

  “Very good question,” said Strike. “Go over it again, what he said about Janice?”

  “When I told him Janice was the one who said Margot was sp
otted in Leamington Spa, he said she was a shit-stirrer and that she was trying to implicate him somehow in Margot’s disappearance.”

  “Very interesting indeed,” said Strike, frowning at the bobbing seagull, which was staring at the horizon with concentrated intent, its cruel, hooked beak pointing toward the horizon. “And what was that thing about Roy?”

  “He said somebody had told him Roy was a ‘mummy’s boy’ who ‘had a stick up his arse,’” said Robin. “But he wouldn’t tell me who’d said it.”

  “Doesn’t sound much like Janice, but you never know,” said Strike. “Well, you’ve done bloody well, Robin.”

  “Thanks.”

  “We’ll have a proper catch-up on Bamborough when I get back,” said Strike. “Well, we’ll need a catch-up on everything.”

  “Great. I hope the rest of your stay’s OK,” said Robin, with that note of finality that indicated the call was about to end. Strike wanted to keep her on the line, but she evidently thought she oughtn’t monopolize his time in his last afternoon with the grieving family, and he could think of no pretext to keep her talking. They bade each other goodbye, and Strike returned his mobile to his pocket.

  “Here you go, Diddy.”

  Polworth had emerged from the hotel carrying a couple of fresh pints. Strike accepted his with thanks, and both turned to face the bay as they drank.

  “You back up to London tomorrow, are you?” said Polworth.

  “Yeah,” said Strike. “But not for long. Joan wanted us to take her ashes out on Ted’s boat and scatter them at sea.”

  “Nice idea,” said Polworth.

  “Listen, mate—thanks for everything.”

  “Shut up,” said Polworth. “You’d do it for me.”

  “You’re right,” said Strike. “I would.”

  “Easy to say, you cunt,” said Polworth, without skipping a beat, “seeing as my mum’s dead and I don’t know where the fuck my dad is.”

  Strike laughed.

  “Well, I’m a private detective. Want me to find him for you?”

  “Fuck, no,” said Polworth. “Good riddance.”