“Crazy, though, isn’t it? I see Margot at the window, and then, years later—”

“Amazing,” said Robin. “Well, thanks very much for your time, Amanda, this has been really… er…”

It took Robin another couple of minutes, and much more insincere gratitude, to get Amanda off the line.

“What d’you think?” Robin asked Strike, when at last she’d succeeded in getting rid of Amanda.

He pointed a finger at the sky.

“What?” said Robin, looking up into the blue haze.

“If you look carefully,” said Strike, “you might just see an asteroid passing through the house of bollocks.”

50

Aye me (said she) where am I, or with whom?

Emong the liuing, or emong the dead?

Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene

Agency work unconnected with the Bamborough case consumed Strike for the next few days. His first attempt to surprise Nurse Janice Beattie at home was fruitless. He left Nightingale Grove, a nondescript street that lay hard against the Southeastern railway line, without receiving any answer to his knock.

His second attempt, on the following Wednesday, was made on a breezy afternoon that kept threatening showers. Strike approached Janice’s house from Hither Green station, along a pavement bordered to the right with railings and hedge, separating the road from the rail tracks. He was thinking about Robin as he trudged along, smoking, because she’d just turned down the opportunity of joining him to interview Janice, saying that there was “something else” she needed to do, but not specifying what that something was. Strike thought he’d detected a trace of caginess, almost amounting to defensiveness, in Robin’s response to the suggestion of a joint interview, where usually there’d have been only disappointment.

Since she’d left Matthew, Strike had become used to more ease and openness between him and Robin, so this refusal, coupled with her tone and lack of an explanation, made him curious. While there were naturally matters he might not have expected her to tell him about—trips to the gynecologist sprang to mind—he would have expected her to say “I’ve got a doctor’s appointment,” at least.

The sky darkened as Strike approached Janice’s house, which was considerably smaller than Irene Hickson’s. It stood in a terrace. Net curtains hung at all the windows, and the front door was dark red. Strike didn’t immediately register the fact that a light was shining from behind the net curtains at the sitting-room window until he was halfway across the road. When he realized that his quarry must be in, however, he successfully pushed all thoughts about his business partner out of his mind, crossed the road at a quicker pace and knocked firmly on the front door. As he stood waiting, he heard the muffled sounds of a TV on high volume through the glass of the downstairs window. He was just considering knocking again, in case Janice hadn’t heard the first time, when the door opened.

In contrast to the last time they’d met, the nurse, who was wearing steel-rimmed spectacles, looked shocked and none too pleased to see Strike. From behind her, two female American voices rang out from the out-of-sight TV: “So you love the bling?” “I love the bling!”

“Er—’ave I missed a message, or—?”

“Sorry for the lack of warning,” said Strike insincerely, “but as I was in the area, I wondered whether you could give me a couple of minutes?”

Janice glanced back over her shoulder. A camp male voice was now saying, “The dress that Kelly is in love with is a one-of-a-kind runway sample…”

Clearly disgruntled, Janice turned back to Strike.

“Well… all right,” she said, “but the place is in a mess—and can you please wipe your feet properly, because the last bloke who turned up ’ere unannounced brought dog shit in wiv ’im. You can close the door be’ind you.”

Strike stepped over the threshold, while Janice strode out of sight into the sitting room. Strike expected her to turn off the TV but she didn’t. While Strike wiped his feet on the coconut mat inside the door, a male voice said: “This one-of-a-kind runway gown might be impossible to find, so Randy’s on the search…” After hesitating for a moment on the doormat, Strike decided that Janice expected him to follow her, and entered the small sitting room.

Having spent a significant part of his youth in squats with his mother, Strike had a very different idea of “mess” to Janice’s. Although cluttered, with something on almost every surface, the only signs of actual disorder in the room were a copy of the Daily Mirror lying in one armchair, some crumpled packaging lying beside an open packet of dates on the low coffee table and a hairdryer, which was lying incongruously on the floor beside the sofa, and which Janice was currently unplugging.

“… Antonella’s pulling the closest gown to Kelly’s pick, a blinged-out $15,000 dress…”

“The mirror down ’ere’s better for drying my ’air,” Janice explained, straightening up, pink in the face, hairdryer in her hand and looking slightly cross, as though Strike was forcing her to justify herself. “I would’ve appreciated some warning, you know,” she added, looking as stern as such a naturally smiley-looking woman could. “You’ve caught me on the ’op.”

Strike was unexpectedly and poignantly reminded of Joan, who’d always been flustered if guests dropped in while the Hoover or the ironing board were still out.

“Sorry. As I say, I happened to be in the area…”

“Even as Kelly steps into dress number one, she still can’t get her dream dress off her mind,” said the narrator loudly, and both Strike and Janice glanced toward the TV, where a young woman was wriggling into a clinging, semi-transparent white dress covered in silver rhinestones.

“Say Yes to the Dress,” said Janice, who was wearing the same navy jumper and slacks as the last time Strike had seen her. “My guilty pleasure… D’you want a cup of tea?”

“Only if it’s no trouble,” said Strike.

“Well, it’s always some trouble, innit?” Janice said, with her first glimmer of a smile. “But I was going to make myself some at the first advert break, so you might as well ’ave some.”

“In that case, thanks very much,” said Strike.

“If I don’t find this dress,” said the camp male wedding consultant on-screen, rifling urgently through racks of white dresses, his eyebrows so sharply plucked they looked drawn on, “it’s not gonna be—”

The screen went blank. Janice had turned it off with her remote control.

“Wanna date?” she asked Strike, holding out the box.

“No thanks,” said Strike.

“Got boxes of ’em in Dubai,” she said. “I was gonna give ’em as presents, but I just can’t stop eating ’em. ’Ave a seat. I won’t be two ticks.”

Strike thought he caught another downward glance toward his lower legs as she marched out of the room, hairdryer in one hand, dates in the other, leaving Strike to take an armchair, which creaked beneath his weight.

Strike found the small sitting room oppressive. Predominantly red, the carpet was decorated in a scarlet, swirling pattern, on top of which lay a cheap crimson Turkish rug. Dried flower pictures hung on the red walls, between old photographs, some black and white, and the colored ones faded, displayed in wooden frames. A china cabinet was full of cheap spun-glass ornaments. The largest, a Cinderella carriage pulled by six glass horses, stood in pride of place on the mantelpiece over the electric fire. Evidently, beneath Janice’s no-nonsense clothing, there beat a romantic heart.