Handing the book back to Robin, he continued,

“This might explain why Roy Phipps was jumpy about his daughter talking to Oonagh Kennedy. He didn’t want her telling his teenage daughter her mother might’ve aborted her sibling.”

“I thought of that, too,” said Robin. “It’d be an awful thing to hear. Especially when she’s lived most of her life wondering whether her mother ran out on her.”

“We should try and get hold of a copy of Whatever Happened to Margot Bamborough?” said Strike. “There might still be copies in existence if they got as far as printing them. He could’ve given some away. Review copies and the like.”

“I’m already on it,” said Robin. “I’ve emailed a few different second-hand book places.”

This wasn’t the first time she had found herself doing something for the agency that made her feel grubby.

“Carl Oakden was only fourteen when Margot disappeared,” she continued. “Writing a book about her, milking the connection, claiming Margot and his mother were close friends—”

“Yeah, he sounds a common-or-garden shit,” Strike agreed. “When did he leave his address in Walthamstow?”

“Five years ago.”

“Had a look on social media?”

“Yes. Can’t find him.”

Strike’s mobile vibrated in his pocket. Robin thought she saw a flicker of panic in his face as he fumbled to find it, and knew that he was thinking of Joan.

“Everything all right?” she asked, watching his expression darken as he looked down at his mobile screen.

Strike had just seen:

Bruv, can we please talk this over face to face? The launch and the new album are a big deal for Dad. All we’re asking—

“Yeah, fine,” he said, stuffing the phone back in his pocket, the rest of the message unread. “So, you wanted to go to—?”

For a moment, he couldn’t remember the unlikely place Robin had told him she wanted to visit, and which was the reason they were currently sitting in this particular café.

“The National Portrait Gallery,” she said. “Three of Postcard’s postcards were bought in their gift shop.”

“Three of—sorry, what?”

He was distracted by what he’d just read. He’d been quite clear with his half-brother that he had no wish either to attend the party celebrating his father’s new album, or to feature in the photograph with his half-siblings which was to be their congratulatory gift to him.

“Postcard’s postcards—the person who’s persecuting our weatherman,” she reminded him, before mumbling, “it doesn’t matter, it was just an idea I had.”

“Which was?”

“Well, the last-but-one picture Postcard sent was of a portrait they said ‘always reminded’ them of our weatherman. So I thought… maybe they see that painting a lot. Maybe they work at the gallery. Maybe they secretly want him to know that, to come looking for them?”

Even as she said it, she thought the theory sounded far-fetched, but the truth was that they had absolutely no leads on Postcard. He or she had failed to turn up at the weatherman’s house since they’d been watching it. Three postcards bought in a single place might mean something, or perhaps nothing at all. What else did they have?

Strike grunted. Unsure whether this indicated a lack of enthusiasm for her theory about Postcard, Robin returned her copy of The Demon of Paradise Park to her handbag and said,

“Heading for the office after this?”

“Yeah. I told Barclay I’ll take over watching Twinkletoes at two.” Strike yawned. “Might try and get a couple of hours’ kip first.”

He pushed himself into a standing position.

“I’ll call you and let you know how I get on with Gregory Talbot. And thanks for holding the fort while I was away. Really appreciate it.”

“No problem,” said Robin.

Strike hoisted his kit bag onto his shoulder and limped out of the café. With a slight feeling of anti-climax, Robin watched him pause outside the window to light a cigarette, then walk out of sight. Checking her watch, Robin saw that there was still an hour and a half before the National Portrait Gallery opened.

There were doubtless more pleasurable ways of whiling away that time than in wondering whether the text that Strike had just received had come from Charlotte Campbell, but that was the distraction that occurred to Robin, and it occupied her for a surprising proportion of the time she had left to kill.

17

But thou… whom frowning froward fate

Hath made sad witnesse of thy fathers fall…

Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene

Jonny Rokeby, who’d been almost entirely absent from his eldest son’s life, had nevertheless been a constant, intangible presence, especially during Strike’s childhood. Parents’ friends had owned his father’s albums, had Rokeby’s poster on their bedroom walls as teenagers and regaled Strike with their fond memories of Deadbeats’ concerts. A mother at the school gate had once begged the seven-year-old Strike to take a letter from her to his father. His mother had burned it later, at the squat where they were then staying.

Until he joined the army, where, by his choice, nobody knew either his father’s name or his profession, Strike regularly found himself contemplated like a specimen in a jar, bothered by questions that under normal conditions would be considered personal and intrusive, and dealing with unspoken assumptions that had their roots in envy and spite.

Rokeby had demanded Leda take a paternity test before he’d accept that Strike was his son. When the test came back positive, a financial settlement had been reached which ought to have ensured that his young son would never again have to sleep on a dirty mattress in a room shared with near-strangers. However, a combination of his mother’s profligacy and her regular disputes with Rokeby’s representatives had merely ensured that Strike’s life became a series of confusing bouts of affluence that usually ended in abrupt descents back into chaos and squalor. Leda was prone to giving her children wildly extravagant treats, which they enjoyed while wearing too-small shoes, and to taking off on trips to the Continent or to America to see her favorite bands in concert, leaving her children with Ted and Joan while she rode around in chauffeured cars and stayed in the best hotels.

He could still remember lying in the spare room in Cornwall, Lucy asleep in the twin bed beside him, listening to his mother and Joan arguing downstairs, because the children had arrived back at their aunt and uncle’s in the middle of winter, without coats. Strike had twice been enrolled in private schools, but Leda had both times pulled him out again before he’d completed more than a couple of terms, because she’d decided that her son was being taught the wrong values. Every month, Rokeby’s money melted away on handouts to friends and boyfriends, and in reckless ventures—Strike remembered a jewelry business, an arts magazine and a vegetarian restaurant, all of which failed, not to mention the commune in Norfolk that had been the worst experience of his young life.

Finally, Rokeby’s lawyers (to whom the rock star had delegated all matters concerning the well-being of his son) tied up the paternity payments in such a way that Leda could no longer fritter the money away. The only difference this made to the teenage Strike’s day-to-day life had been that the treats had stopped, because Leda wasn’t prepared to have her spending scrutinized in the manner demanded by the new arrangement. From that point onwards, the paternity payments had sat accumulating quietly in an account, and the family had survived on the smaller financial contributions made by Lucy’s father.