“And we went to the club night and there ’e was,” said Janice quietly. “Oh, ’e looked gorgeous. ‘Longfellow Serenade.’ All the girls went crazy for ’im when ’e finished singing. There’s Larry boozing… After Larry went to bed in the chalet I went back out again. Couldn’t find ’im.

“Took me free days to get a word wiv ’im. I said, ‘Steve, it’s me. Janice. Your neighbor. The nurse!’”

She turned slowly redder than she’d been all interview. Her eyes watered with the intensity of her blush.

“He goes ‘Oh yeah. All right, Janice?’ And ’e walks away. And I seen ’im,” said Janice, and her jaw quivered, “kiss that girl, that Julie, and look back at me, like ’e wanted me to see…

“And I fort, no. After all what I’ve done for you, Steve? No.

“I did it on the last night but one of our ’oliday. Larry snoring ’is ’ead off as usual. ’E never noticed I wasn’t in bed.

“They all used to go to Steve’s chalet after work, I found that out, following ’em. She come out on ’er own. Pissed. Two in the morning.

“It wasn’t ’ard. There wasn’t anyone round. They didn’t ’ave cameras around like they do nowadays. I pushed ’er, and I jumped in after ’er, and I ’eld ’er under. It was the surprise what killed ’er. She took in a load of water on the way down. That was the only one I ever did wivvout drugs, but I was angry, see…

“Got out, toweled meself off. Mopped up all the footprints, but it was a warm night, you couldn’t see nuffing by morning.

“Next day, I seen ’im. I says, ‘Terrible fing, that girl, Steve. You look awful. Wanna get a drink?’

’E went white as a sheet, but I fort, well, you used me, Steve, and then you left me high and dry, didn’t you?”

A police siren sounded somewhere in the distance, and Strike, glancing at his watch, thought it was likely to be heading here, for Nightingale Grove.

“You took my sympafy and my kindness and you let me cook for you,” said Janice, still addressing an imaginary Steve Douthwaite. “I was even ready to kill my kid for you! And then you go off messing around wiv ovver women? No. Actions ’ave consequences,” said Janice, her cheeks still burning. “Men need to learn that, and take some responsibility. Women ’ave to,” she said, as the police siren grew ever louder. “Well, I’ll see ’im again in court, won’t I? You know, I’m quite looking forward to it, now I’m finking about it,” said Janice. “It’s not fun, living ’ere all on me own. It’ll be funny seeing Irene’s face. I’ll be all over the papers, won’t I? And maybe some men will read about why I done it, and realize they want to be careful ’oo they lead on. Useful lesson for men everywhere, if you ask me. Actions,” repeated Janice Beattie, as the police car drew to a halt outside her front door, and she squared her shoulders, ready to accept her fate, “’ave consequences.”

PART SEVEN

Then came October full of merry glee…

Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene

72

… they for nought would from their worke refraine…

Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene

Success, as Cormoran Strike had long since learned, is a much more complex business than most people suppose.

It wasn’t the first time that the press had turned its sights upon the detective agency, and while the acclaim was undoubtedly flattering and a good advert for the business, it was, as ever, severely prejudicial to the partners’ ability to keep working. Robin, whose home address was swiftly discovered by the press, took refuge at the house of Vanessa Ekwensi, and with the aid of a number of wigs and some skillful makeup, managed to continue to cover a certain amount of work, so that Barclay and Hutchins didn’t have to do everything themselves. Strike, on the other hand, was forced back into Nick and Ilsa’s spare room, where he let his beard grow, and lay low, directing the agency’s subcontractors by phone. Pat Chauncey alone remained based at the office in Denmark Street, taking care of administrative matters, stolidly opening and closing up each morning and evening.

“I’ve got no comment. You’d all do better sodding off,” she croaked twice a day at the knot of journalists hanging around Denmark Street.

The eruption of publicity that followed the twin discoveries of a woman’s body encased in concrete in a quiet flat in Clerkenwell, and a teenager’s skeleton hidden beneath debris in the depths of an underground well in Islington, showed no sign of abating quickly. There were far too many exciting angles to this story: the separate excavations and positive identifications of the bones of Margot Bamborough and Louise Tucker, the comments from two bereaved families, who scarcely knew whether they felt more relief or grief, the profiles of two very different killers and, of course, the private detectives now widely acclaimed as the capital’s most talented.

Gratifying though this was, Strike took no satisfaction in the way the press hounded either Gregory Talbot (“What would you say to people who say your father had blood on his hands?”) or Dinesh Gupta (“Do you regret giving Janice Beattie that glowing reference, doctor?”) nor in seeing the Athorns led out of their flat by genuine social workers, frightened, displaced and uncomprehending. Carl Oakden made a brief appearance in the Daily Mail, trying to sell himself as an expert on both Strike and Margot Bamborough, but as the article began with the words “Convicted con man Carl Brice, son of the old practice secretary, Dorothy…” it was perhaps unsurprising that Oakden soon slunk back into the shadows. Strike’s father, on the other hand, was happy to continue associating his name with Strike’s, issuing a fulsome statement of pride in his eldest son through his publicist. Fuming quietly, Strike ignored all requests for comment.

Dennis Creed, who for so long had received top billing in any news story including him, was relegated almost to a footnote in this one. Janice Beattie had outdone him, not only in the number of her suspected victims, but in remaining undetected for decades longer. Photographs of her sitting room in Nightingale Grove were leaked to the press, who highlighted the framed pictures of the dead on the walls, the folder of obituaries kept in her china cabinet, and the syringe, the cellophane and the hairdryer that Strike had found behind the sofa. The store of drugs and poisons retrieved from her kitchen were carried out of her house by forensics experts, and the rosy-cheeked, silver-haired nurse dubbed “the Poisoner Granny” blinked impassively at news cameras as she was led into court and remanded in custody.

Meanwhile, Strike could barely open a newspaper or switch on the TV without seeing Brian Tucker, who was giving interviews to anybody who’d speak to him. In a cracked voice he wept, exulted, praised Strike and Robin, told the world they deserved knighthoods (“Or the other thing, what is it for women?” “Damehood,” murmured the sympathetic blonde presenter, who was holding the emotional Tucker’s hand), cried as he reminisced about his daughter, described the preparations for her funeral, criticized the police and informed the world that he’d suspected all along that Louise was hidden in the well. Strike, who was happy for the old man, nevertheless wished, both for his own sake and for Tucker’s, that he’d go and grieve quietly somewhere, rather than taking up space on an endless succession of daytime television sofas.