Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike #3)(117)
Strike concluded that the one thing he could profitably do in the short term was tell Wardle what had happened and give him the registration number of the van. He did this in the hope that the police would think it worth their while to check for drugs and any other incriminating evidence within the vehicle or, even better, inside that flat over the chippy.
Wardle listened to Strike’s insistence that he had smelled crack fumes without any form of enthusiasm. Strike was forced to admit, when their call had concluded, that if he were in Wardle’s position he would not have considered his own evidence grounds for a search warrant. The policeman clearly thought that Strike had it in for his ex-stepfather, and no amount of pointing out the Blue ?yster Cult connection between himself and Whittaker seemed likely to change Wardle’s mind.
When Robin phoned that night with her usual progress report, Strike found relief and solace in telling her what had happened. Although she had news of her own, she was instantly distracted by the announcement that he had come face to face with Whittaker, and listened to the whole story in eager silence.
“Well, I’m glad you hit him,” she said when Strike had finished castigating himself for allowing the altercation to happen.
“You are?” said Strike, taken aback.
“Of course I am. He was strangling the girl!”
The moment the words left Robin’s mouth she wished she had not said them. She did not want to give Strike any further reason for remembering the thing that she wished she had never told him.
“As knights errant go, I was on the crap side. She fell over with him and cracked her head on the pavement. What I don’t get,” he added, after a short pause for reflection, “is her. That was her chance. She could’ve left: I’d’ve got her to a refuge, I’d’ve seen her right. Why the f*ck did she go back to him? Why do women do that?”
In the fractional hesitation before Robin replied, Strike realized that a certain personal interpretation could be put on these words.
“I suppose,” began Robin, and simultaneously Strike said, “I didn’t mean—”
Both stopped.
“Sorry, go on,” said Strike.
“I was only going to say that abused people cling to their abusers, don’t they? They’ve been brainwashed to believe there’s no alternative.”
I was the bloody alternative, standing there, right in front of her!
“Any sign of Laing today?” Strike asked.
“No,” said Robin. “You know, I really don’t think he’s there.”
“I still think it’s worth—”
“Look, I know who’s in every flat except for one of them,” said Robin. “People go in and out of all the others. The last one’s either unoccupied, or someone’s lying in there dead, because the door never opens. I haven’t even seen carers or nurses visit.”
“We’ll give it another week,” said Strike. “It’s the only lead we’ve got for Laing. Listen,” he added irritably, as she tried to protest, “I’ll be in the same position, staking out that strip club.”
“Except we know that Brockbank’s there,” said Robin sharply.
“I’ll believe it when I see him,” retorted Strike.
They said good-bye a few minutes later in poorly concealed mutual dissatisfaction.
All investigations had their slumps and droughts, when information and inspiration ran dry, but Strike was finding it difficult to take a philosophical view. Thanks to the unknown sender of the leg, there was no longer any money coming in to the business. His last paying client, Mad Dad’s wife, no longer needed him. In the hope of persuading a judge that the restraining order was not required, Mad Dad was actually complying with it.
The agency could not survive much longer if the twin stenches of failure and perversity continued to emanate from his office. As Strike had foreseen, his name was now multiplying across the internet in connection with the killing and dismemberment of Kelsey Platt, and the gory details were not only obliterating all mention of his previous successes, they were also eclipsing the simple advertisement of his detective services. Nobody wanted to hire a man so notorious; nobody liked the idea of a detective so intimately connected with unsolved murder.
It was therefore in a mood of determination and slight desperation that Strike set out for the strip club where he hoped to find Noel Brockbank. It turned out to be another converted old pub, which lay on a side street off Commercial Road in Shoreditch. The brick fa?ade was crumbling in parts; its windows had been blacked out and crude white silhouettes of naked women painted upon them. The original name (“The Saracen”) was still picked out in wide golden letters across the peeling black paint over the double doors.
The area had a large proportion of Muslim residents. Strike passed them in their hijabs and taqiyahs, browsing the many cheap clothes shops, all bearing names like International Fashion and Made in Milan and displaying sad mannequins in synthetic wigs wearing nylon and polyester. Commercial Road was crammed with Bangladeshi banks, tatty estate agents, English schools and ramshackle grocers that sold past-its-prime fruit behind grimy windows, but it had no benches to sit on, not even a low, cold wall. Even though he frequently changed his vantage point, Strike’s knee soon began to complain about long stretches spent standing, waiting for nothing, because Brockbank was nowhere to be seen.