Billy Bragg’s version of the “Internationale” rang out. As Flick reached into her bag, Robin realized that this was Flick’s ringtone. Reading the caller’s name, Flick became tense.

“You be all right on your own for a bit?”

“Course,” said Robin.

Flick slid into the back room. As the door swung shut Robin heard her say:

“What’s going on? Have you seen him?”

As soon as the door was securely shut, Robin hurried to where Flick had been standing, crouched down and slid her hand under the leather flap of the messenger bag. The interior resembled the depths of a bin. Her fingers groped through sundry bits of crumpled paper, sweet wrappers, a sticky lump of something Robin thought might be chewed gum, various lid-less pens and tubes of makeup, a tin with a picture of Che Guevara on it, a pack of rolling tobacco that had leaked over the rest of the contents, some Rizlas, some spare tampons and a small, twisted ball of fabric that Robin was afraid might be a pair of worn pants. Trying to flatten out, read and then re-crumple each piece of paper was time-consuming. Most seemed to be abandoned drafts of articles. Then, through the door behind her, she heard Flick say loudly:

“Strike? What the hell…”

Robin froze, listening.

“… paranoid… it alone now… tell them he’s…”

“Excuse me,” said a woman peering over the counter. Robin jumped up. The portly, gray-haired customer in a tie-dyed T-shirt pointed up at the shelf on the wall, “could I see that rather special athame?”

“Which?” asked Robin, confused.

“The athame. The ceremonial dagger,” said the elderly woman, pointing.

Flick’s voice rose and fell in the room behind Robin.

“… it, didn’t you?… member you… pay me back… Chiswell’s money…”

“Mmm,” said the customer, weighing the knife carefully in her hand, “have you anything larger?”

“You had it, not me!” said Flick loudly, from behind the door.

“Um,” said Robin, squinting up at the shelf, “I think this is all we’ve got. That one might be a bit bigger…”

She stood on tiptoe to reach the longer knife, as Flick said:

“Fuck off, Jimmy!”

“There you are,” said Robin, handing over the seven-inch dagger.

With a clatter of falling necklaces, the door behind Robin flew open, hitting her in the back.

“Sorry,” said Flick, seizing her bag and shoving the phone back inside it, breathing hard, her eyes bright.

“Yes, you see, I like the triple moon marking on the smaller one,” said the elderly witch, pointing at the decoration on the hilt of the first dagger, unfazed by Flick’s dramatic reappearance, “but I prefer the longer blade.”

Flick was in that febrile state between fury and tears that Robin knew was one of the most amenable to indiscretion and confession. Desperate to get rid of her tiresome customer, she said bluntly in Bobbi’s thick Yorkshire:

“Well, that’s all we’ve got.”

The customer chuntered a little more, weighing the two knives in her hands, and at last took herself off without buying either.

“Y’all right?” Robin asked Flick at once.

“No,” said Flick. “I need a smoke.”

She checked her watch.

“Tell her I’m taking lunch if she comes back, all right?”

Damn, thought Robin, as Flick disappeared, taking her bag and her promising mood with her.

For over an hour, Robin minded the shop alone, becoming increasingly hungry. Once or twice, Eddie at the record stall peered vaguely into the shop at Robin, but showed no other interest in her activities. In a brief lull between more customers, Robin nipped into the back room to make sure that there wasn’t any food there that she had overlooked. There wasn’t.

At ten to one, Flick strolled back into the shop with a dark, thuggishly handsome man in a tight blue T-shirt. He subjected Robin to the hard, arrogant stare of a certain brand of womanizer, melding appreciation and disdain to signal that she might be good-looking, but she would have to try a little harder than that to arouse his interest. It was a strategy that Robin had seen work on other young women in offices. It had never worked on her.

“Sorry I was so long,” Flick told Robin. Her bad mood did not seem entirely dissipated. “Ran into Jimmy. Jimmy, this is Bobbi.”

“All right?” said Jimmy, holding out a hand.

Robin shook it.

“You go,” said Flick to Robin. “Go and get something to eat.”

“Oh, right,” said Robin. “Thanks.”

Jimmy and Flick waited while, under cover of checking her bag for money, Robin crouched down and, hidden by the counter, set her mobile to record before placing it carefully at the back of the dark shelf.

“See tha in a bit, then,” she said brightly, and strolled away into the market.

48

But what do you say to it all, Rebecca?

Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

A whining wasp zigzagged from inner to outer rooms of Strike’s office, passing between the two windows that were flung open to admit the fume-laden evening air. Barclay waved the insect away with the takeaway menu that had just arrived with a large delivery of Chinese food. Robin peeled lids off the cartons and laid them out on her desk. Over by the kettle, Strike was trying to find a third fork.

Matthew had been surprisingly accommodating when Robin had called him from Charing Cross Road three-quarters of an hour previously, to say that she needed to meet Strike and Barclay, and was likely to be back late.

“Fine,” he had said, “Tom wants to go for a curry, anyway. I’ll see you at home.”

“How was today?” Robin asked, before he could hang up. “The office out in…”

Her mind went blank.

“Barnet,” he said. “Games developer. Yeah, it was all right. How was yours?”

“Not bad,” said Robin.

Matthew was so determinedly uninterested in the details of the Chiswell job after their many arguments about it that there seemed no point in telling him where she had been, who she was impersonating, or what had happened that day. After they had said goodbye, Robin walked on through meandering tourists and Friday night drinkers, knowing that a casual listener would have taken the conversation to be that of two people connected merely by proximity or circumstance, with no particular liking for each other.

“Want a beer?” Strike asked her, holding up a four pack of Tennent’s.

“Yes, please,” said Robin.

She was still wearing her short black dress and lace-up boots, but had tied back her chalked hair, cleaned her face of its thick makeup and removed her dark lenses. Seeing Strike’s face in a patch of evening sunlight, she thought he looked unwell. There were deeper lines than usual around his mouth and across his forehead, lines etched there, she suspected, by grinding, daily pain. He was also moving awkwardly, using his upper body to turn and trying to disguise his limp as he returned to her desk with the beer.

“What’ve you been up to today?” she asked Strike, as Barclay heaped his plate with food.

“Following Geraint Winn. He’s holed up in a miserable B&B five minutes away from the marital home. He led me all the way into central London and back to Bermondsey again.”