“Because… for God’s sake, you can’t let your whole life be colored by the circumstances of your conception! If everyone who was conceived accidentally stopped having kids—”

“We’d all be better off, wouldn’t we?” said Strike robustly. “The world’s overpopulated as it is. Anyway, none of the kids I know make me particularly keen to have my own.”

“You like Jack.”

“I do, but that’s one kid out of God knows how many. Dave Polworth’s kids—you know who Polworth is?”

“Your best mate,” said Robin.

“He’s my oldest mate,” Strike corrected her. “My best mate…”

For a split-second he wondered whether he was going to say it, but the whisky had lifted the guard he usually kept upon himself: why not say it, why not let go?

“… is you.”

Robin was so amazed, she couldn’t speak. Never, in four years, had Strike come close to telling her what she was to him. Fondness had had to be deduced from offhand comments, small kindnesses, awkward silences or gestures forced from him under stress. She’d only once before felt as she did now, and the unexpected gift that had engendered the feeling had been a sapphire and diamond ring, which she’d left behind when she walked out on the man who’d given it to her.

She wanted to make some kind of return, but for a moment or two, her throat felt too constricted.

“I… well, the feeling’s mutual,” she said, trying not to sound too happy.

Over on the sofa, Strike dimly registered that somebody was on the metal staircase below their floor. Sometimes the graphic designer in the office beneath worked late. Mostly Strike was savoring the pleasure it had given him to hear Robin return his declaration of affection.

And now, full of whisky, he remembered holding her on the stairs at her wedding. This was the closest they’d come to that moment in nearly two years, and the air seemed thick with unspoken things, and again, he felt as though he stood on a small platform, ready to swing out into the unknown. Leave it there, said the surly self that coveted a solitary attic space, and freedom, and peace. Now, breathed the flickering demon the whisky had unleashed, and like Robin a few minutes previously, Strike was conscious that they were sitting mere feet from a double bed.

Footsteps reached the landing outside the glass outer door. Before either Strike or Robin could react, it had opened.

“Is the power oot?” said Barclay, and he flicked on the light. After a moment in which the three blinked at each other in surprise, Barclay said,

“You’re a friggin’ genius, R—the fuck happened tae yer face?”

59

The warlike Britonesse…

… with such vncouth welcome did receaue

Her fayned Paramour, her forced guest,

That being forst his saddle soone to leaue,

Him selfe he did of his new loue deceaue:

And made him selfe then ample of his follie.

Which done, she passed forth not taking leaue,

And left him now as sad, as whilome iollie,

Well warned to beware with whom he dar’d to dallie.

Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene

Blinking in the bright light, Robin reached again for the ice pack.

“Strike hit me. Accidentally.”

“Jesus,” said Barclay. “Wouldnae wanna see what he can do deliberately. How’d that happen?”

“My face got in the way of his elbow,” said Robin.

“Huh,” said Barclay, hungrily eyeing the almost empty curry cartons, “what wus that? Compensation?”

“Exactly,” said Robin.

“Tha’ why neither of yiz have been answerin’ yer phones fer the last three hours?”

“Shit, sorry, Sam,” said Robin, pulling out her mobile and looking at it. She’d had fifteen missed calls from Barclay since muting her mother in the American Bar. She was also pleased to see that she’d missed a couple of texts from Morris, one of which seemed to have a picture attached.

“Beyond the call of duty to come in person,” said the slightly drunk Strike. He wasn’t sure whether he was more glad or annoyed that Barclay had interrupted, but on balance, he thought annoyance was uppermost.

“The wife’s at her mother’s wi’ the bairn overnight,” said Barclay. “So I thought I’d come deliver the good news in person.”

He helped himself to a poppadum and sat down on the arm of the sofa at the other end to Strike.

“I’ve found oot what SB gets up tae in Stoke Newington. All down tae Robin. You ready for this?”

“What?” said Strike, looking between Barclay and Robin. “When—?”

“Earlier,” said Robin, “before I met you.”

“Rang the doorbell,” said Barclay, “said I’d bin recommended by SB, wondered whether she could help me oot. She didnae believe me. I had to get a foot in the door to stop her slammin’ it on me. Then she says SB told her a Scottish guy talked him doon off Tower Bridge the other day.

“So I decide it’s cut our losses time,” said Barclay. “I said, yeah, that wuz me. I’m a friend. We know what ye’re up to in here. You’re gonnae wanna talk to me, if ye care aboot your client.

“So she let me in.”

Barclay ate a bit of poppadum.

“Sorry, starvin’. Anyway, she takes me in the back room, and there it all is.”

“There what all is?”

“Giant playpen she’s knocked up, out o’ some foam an’ MDF,” said Barclay, grinning. “Big old changin’ mat. Stack of adult nappies. Johnson’s baby powder.”

Strike appeared to have been struck momentarily speechless. Robin began to laugh, but stopped quickly, because it made her face hurt.

“Poor old SB gets aff on bein’ a baby. She’s only got one other client, that guy at the gym. Doesnae need any more, because SB pays her so much. She dresses ’em up. Changes ’em. Powders their fucking arses—”

“You’re having a laugh,” said Strike. “This can’t be real.”

“It is real,” said Robin, with the ice pack pressed to her face. “It’s called… hang on…”

She brought up the list of paraphilias on her phone again.

“Autonepiophilia. ‘Being aroused by the thought of oneself as an infant.’”

“How the hell did you—?”

“I was watching the old people being wheeled out of the nursing home,” said Robin. “Morris said they were like kids, that some of them were probably wearing nappies and it just… clicked. I saw her buying a ton of baby powder and dummies in the supermarket, but we’ve never once seen a child go in or out of that house. Then there was that patting on the head business, like the men were little kids…”

Strike remembered following the gym manager home, the man’s hand over his lower face as he left Elinor Dean’s house, as though he’d had something protruding from his mouth that he wanted to conceal.

“… and big boxes being delivered, of something really light,” Robin was saying.

“That’ll be the adult nappies,” said Barclay. “Anyway… she’s no’ a bad woman. Made me a cup of tea. She kens aboot the blackmail, but here’s something interestin’: she and SB don’t think Shifty knows what’s really goin’ on inside that hoose.”