“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 demeanor 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—”