Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike #3)(136)

“All three killings covered, eh?” said Strike. “That’s neat. Do Death Cult agree he was with them?”

“They were pretty vague about it, to be honest,” said Wardle. “The lead singer’s got a hearing aid. I don’t know whether he caught everything I asked him. Don’t worry, I’ve got guys checking all their witness statements,” he added in the face of Strike’s frown. “We’ll find out whether he was really there or not.”

Wardle yawned and stretched.

“I’ve got to get back to the office,” he said. “This could be an all-nighter. We’ve got a load of information coming in now the papers are on to it.”

Strike was extremely hungry now, but the pub was noisy and he felt he would rather eat somewhere he could think. He and Wardle headed up the road together, both lighting fresh cigarettes as they walked.

“The psychologist raised something,” said Wardle as the curtain of darkness unrolled across the sky above them. “If we’re right, and we’re dealing with a serial killer, he’s usually an opportunist. He’s got a bloody good m.o.—he must be a planner to a degree, or he couldn’t have got away with it so often—but there was a change in the pattern with Kelsey. He knew exactly where she was staying. The letters and the fact that he knew there wouldn’t be anyone there: it was totally premeditated.

“Trouble is, we’ve had a bloody good look, but we can’t find any evidence that any of your guys have ever been in proximity with her. We virtually took her laptop apart, and there was nothing there. The only people she ever talked to about her leg were those oddballs Jason and Tempest. She had hardly any friends, and the ones she did have were all girls. There was nothing suspicious on her phone. As far as we know, none of your guys has ever lived or worked in Finchley or Shepherd’s Bush, let alone gone anywhere near her school or college. They’ve got no known connection with any of her associates. How the hell could any of them get close enough to manipulate her without her family noticing?”

“We know she was duplicitous,” said Strike. “Don’t forget the pretend boyfriend who turned out to be pretty real when he picked her up from Café Rouge.”

“Yeah,” sighed Wardle. “We’ve still got no leads on that bloody bike. We’ve put out a description in the press, but nothing.

“How’s your partner?” he added, pausing outside the glass doors of his place of work, but apparently determined to smoke the cigarette down to the last millimeter. “Not too shaken up?”

“She’s fine,” said Strike. “She’s back in Yorkshire for a wedding dress fitting. I made her take the time off: she’s been working through the weekend a lot lately.”

Robin had left without complaint. What was there to stay for, with the press staking out Denmark Street, one lousy paying job and the police now covering Brockbank, Laing and Whittaker more efficiently than the agency ever could?

“Good luck,” said Strike as he and Wardle parted. The policeman raised a hand in acknowledgment and farewell, and disappeared into the large building behind the slowly revolving prism glittering with the words New Scotland Yard.

Strike strolled back towards the Tube, craving a kebab and inwardly deliberating the problem that Wardle had just put to him. How could any of his suspects have got close enough to Kelsey Platt to know her movements or gain her trust?

He thought about Laing, living alone in his grim Wollaston Close flat, claiming his disability benefit, overweight and infirm, looking far older than his real age of thirty-four. He had been a funny man, once. Did he still have it in him to charm a young girl to the point that she would have ridden on motorbikes with him or taken him trustingly to a flat in Shepherd’s Bush, about which her family knew nothing?

What about Whittaker, stinking of crack, with his blackened teeth and his thinning, matted hair? True, Whittaker had once had mesmeric charm, and emaciated, drug-addicted Stephanie seemed to find him appealing, but Kelsey’s only known passion had been for a clean-cut blond boy just a few years older than herself.

Then there was Brockbank. To Strike, the massive, swarthy ex-flanker was downright repulsive, as unlike pretty Niall as it was possible to be. Brockbank had been living and working miles from Kelsey’s home and work, and while both had attended churches, their places of worship were on opposite banks of the Thames. The police would surely have unearthed any contact between the two congregations by now.

Did the absence of any known connection between Kelsey and Strike’s three suspects rule each of them out as the killer? While logic seemed to urge the answer yes, something stubborn inside Strike continued to whisper no.





50



I’m out of my place, I’m out of my mind…

Blue ?yster Cult, “Celestial the Queen”



Robin’s trip home was tinged throughout with the strangest sense of unreality. She felt out of step with everybody, even her mother, who was preoccupied with the wedding arrangements and, while sympathetic to Robin’s constant checking of her phone for any development on the Shacklewell Ripper, a little harassed.

Back in the familiar kitchen where Rowntree snoozed at her feet, the seating plan for the reception spread out on the scrubbed wooden table between them, Robin began to appreciate how fully she had abnegated responsibility for her wedding. Linda was constantly firing questions at her about favors, speeches, the bridesmaids’ shoes, her headdress, when it would be convenient to speak to the vicar, where she and Matt wanted the presents sent, whether Matthew’s Auntie Sue ought to be on the top table or not. Robin had imagined that being at home would be restful. Instead she was required to deal, on the one hand, with a tidal wave of trivial queries from her mother; on the other, a series of questions from her brother Martin, who pored over accounts of the discovery of Heather Smart’s body until Robin lost her temper with what she saw as his ghoulishness, whereupon an overwrought Linda banned all mention of the killer from their house.