A sweaty, red-faced, balding man in his sixties was singing into a microphone. He wore a turquoise T-shirt stretched over a sizable belly. A chain still hung around his neck, but the only other resemblance to the picture of the spiky-haired, cheeky chap in his kipper tie were the eyes, which were as dark and bright as ever.

“It’s him,” Robin said.

“That picture came off the website of a pub in Skegness,” said Strike. “He’s still a karaoke king and he co-owns and runs a bed and breakfast up there, with his wife Donna. I wonder,” said Strike, “whether she realizes his name hasn’t always been Diamond?”

“This is amazing!” said Robin, so jubilant that she began to walk down the street again, purely to use the energy now surging through her. “You’re brilliant!”

“I know,” said Strike, with a trace of smugness. “So, we’re going to Skegness. Tomorrow.”

“I’m supposed to be—”

“I’ve changed the rota,” said Strike. “Can you pick me up early? Say, eight o’clock? I’ll come out to Earl’s Court.”

“Definitely,” said Robin.

“Then I’ll see you—”

“Wait,” said Robin.

“Oh, shit, yeah,” said Strike politely. “Should’ve asked. How’d it go with Gemma?”

“Great,” said Robin. “Shifty’s insider trading, but never mind that now.”

“He’s—?”

“Strike, I don’t want to upstage you or anything,” she said, failing to suppress the note of triumph in her voice, “because finding Douthwaite’s incredible, but I think you ought to know… you’re going to be allowed to interview Dennis Creed in Broadmoor, on September the nineteenth.”

64

… his hand did quake,

And tremble like a leafe of Aspin greene,

And troubled blood through his pale face was seene

To come, and goe with tidings from the heart,

As it a ronning messenger had beene.

Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene

“Well,” said Strike, getting into the Land Rover next morning.

They beamed at each other: for a moment, Robin thought she saw the idea of hugging her cross Strike’s mind, but instead he held out his hand, and shook hers.

“My Christ, you wait a year for a breakthrough…”

Robin laughed, put the Land Rover into gear and pulled out onto the road. The day was unusually hot: she was driving in sunglasses, yet Strike noted a scarf protruding from the bag behind her seat.

“Don’t think you’re going to need that. Proper summer weather,” he said, looking out at the clear sky.

“We’ll see,” said Robin skeptically. “We used to visit Skegness when we were kids. Mum’s sister used to live in Boston, up the road. There’s usually a bracing breeze off the North Sea.”

“So, I read the email,” said Strike, referring to the message Robin had forwarded him, which laid out both the terms and conditions of him interviewing Dennis Creed, and the reasoning which had led the authorities to permit Strike to do it.

“What did you think?” Robin asked.

“Other than being bloody astounded you pulled this off—”

“It took ages.”

“I’m not surprised. Other than that, I won’t lie… I’m feeling the pressure.”

“You mean, because of the Tuckers?”

“Yeah,” said Strike, opening the window so he could light a ciga­rette. “Anna doesn’t know I’m getting this shot, so she won’t get their hopes up, but that poor bastard Tucker…”

Absolute secrecy about the interview, including signing a non-disclosure agreement that guaranteed Strike would never talk to the press about it, had been the first precondition set by the authorities.

“He really wants it to be you,” said Robin. “Tucker. He says Creed’s got a big ego and he’ll want to meet you. And the psychiatrists must agree, mustn’t they, or they wouldn’t be allowing it? Brian Tucker says Creed always saw himself as high status, and deserving of associating with famous, successful people.”

“It isn’t a psychiatrist’s job to decide whether I’ll be able to get anything out of him,” said Strike. “I’d imagine all they’ll care about is whether I’m going to rile him up. You don’t get put in Broadmoor for being mildly eccentric.”

Strike was silent for a long time, looking out of the window, and Robin too remained quiet, not wanting to interrupt his train of thought. When at last Strike spoke again, he sounded matter of fact, and focused on the plan for Skegness.

“I looked up the B&B on TripAdvisor. It’s called the Allardice, which is his wife’s maiden name. We won’t walk in there cold, because if he isn’t there and the wife smells a rat, she can call him and warn him not to come back, so we’ll park, get ourselves into a position where we can see the building, and ring him. If he’s there, we walk straight in before he’s got a chance to run—or catch him as he leaves, as the case might be. And if he isn’t in, we wait.”

“For how long?” said Robin.

“I’d like to say ‘as long as it takes,’” said Strike, “but we’re not actually being paid for this, so I’ve got to be back in town on Monday.”

“I could stay behind,” suggested Robin.

“I don’t think so,” said Strike.

“Sorry,” said Robin, immediately regretting the suggestion, afraid that Strike might think she was simply after another weekend away in a hotel. “I know we’re short-staffed—”

“It isn’t that. You were the one who pointed out women have a habit of dying or disappearing around Steve Douthwaite. Could be a case of bad luck, but on the other hand… three different surnames is a lot for a man with nothing to hide. I’m taking the lead on this one.”

They arrived in the small seaside town at eleven, leaving the Land Rover in a car park beside Skegness Bowl, an enormous red-walled seafront bowling alley. Strike could smell and taste the sea as he got out of the car, and turned instinctively toward it, but the ocean was invisible from where he stood. Instead he found himself looking at a manmade waterway of a murky green, along which a laughing young woman and her boyfriend were pedaling a dinghy-sized boat. The driver’s door slammed and Strike turned to see Robin, still in sunglasses, wrapping the scarf around her neck.

“Told you,” she said to the mystified Strike, to whom the day felt unequivocally hot. Not for the first time wondering what it was about women and their bizarre ability to feel non-existent chills, Strike lit up, waited beside the Land Rover while Robin bought a parking permit, then walked with her up to Grand Parade, a wide street that ran along the seafront.

“‘The Savoy,’” said Strike, smirking as he read the names of the larger hotels, whose upper windows could surely see the distant sea. “‘The Quorn.’ ‘The Chatsworth.’”

“Don’t jeer,” said Robin. “I used to love coming to Skegness when I was a kid.”

“The Allardice should be up there,” Strike said, as they crossed the road, pointing up broad Scarbrough Avenue. “Yeah, that’s it, the one with the blue awning.”