Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike #3)(158)

“Could you not sing that?” said Robin suddenly, unable to bear it any longer.

“Sorry,” he said, startled. “It seemed appropriate.”

“Maybe it’s got happy memories for you,” said Robin, turning to look out of the window, “but it hasn’t for me.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Matthew look at her, then turn back to the road. After another mile or so she wished she had not said anything.

“That doesn’t mean you can’t sing something else.”

“That’s all right,” he said.

The temperature had fallen slightly by the time they reached Donington Park Services, where they stopped for a coffee. Robin left her jacket hanging over the back of her chair when she went to the bathroom. Alone, Matthew stretched, his T-shirt riding up out of his jeans to reveal a few inches of flat stomach and drawing the attention of the girl serving behind the Costa Coffee bar. Feeling good about himself and life, Matthew grinned and winked at her. She turned red, giggled and turned to her smirking fellow barista, who had seen.

The phone in Robin’s jacket rang. Assuming that it was Linda trying to find out how close they were to home, Matthew reached lazily across—conscious of the girls’ eyes upon him—and tugged the phone out of Robin’s pocket.

It was Strike.

Matthew looked at the vibrating device as though he had inadvertently picked up a tarantula. The phone continued to ring and vibrate in his hand. He looked around: Robin was nowhere to be seen. He answered the call, then immediately cut it. Now Corm Missed Call was written across the screen.

The big ugly bastard wanted Robin back, Matthew was sure of it. Strike had had five long days to realize he’d never get anyone better. Maybe he’d started interviewing people for the position and nobody had come close, or maybe all of them had laughed in his face at the pitiful salary he was offering.

The phone rang again: Strike was calling back, trying to make sure that the hanging up had been deliberate rather than accidental. Matthew looked at the mobile, paralyzed with indecision. He dared not answer on Robin’s behalf or tell Strike to f*ck off. He knew Strike: he’d keep calling back until he spoke to Robin.

The call went to voicemail. Now Matthew realized that a recorded apology was the worst thing that could happen: Robin could listen to it again and again and finally be worn down and softened by it…

He looked up: Robin was returning from the Ladies. With her phone in his hand he stood up and pretended to be talking into it.

“It’s Dad,” he lied to Robin, placing a hand over the mouthpiece and praying that Strike would not call back again while he was standing in front of her. “Mine’s out of battery… listen, what’s your passcode? I need to look something up for the honeymoon flights—it’s to tell Dad—”

She gave it to him.

“Give me a sec, I don’t want you to hear anything about the honeymoon,” he said and walked away from her, torn between guilt and pride in his own quick thinking.

Once safe inside the men’s bathroom, he opened up her phone. Getting rid of any record of Strike’s calls meant deleting her entire call history—this he did. Then he called voicemail, listened to Strike’s recorded message and deleted that too. Finally, he went into the settings on Robin’s phone and blocked Strike.

Breathing deeply he turned to his handsome reflection in the mirror. Strike had said on the voicemail message that if he did not hear back from her he would not call again. The wedding was in forty-eight hours’ time, and the anxious, defiant Matthew was counting on Strike keeping his word.





58


Deadline


He was pumped up, on edge, pretty sure he had just done something stupid. As the Tube train rattled south, his knuckles whitened because he was clutching the hanging strap so tightly. Behind his shades, his puffy, reddened eyes squinted at the station signs.

It’s shrill voice still seemed to be piercing his eardrum.

“I don’t believe you. Where’s the money, then, if you’ve got night work? No—I want to talk to you—no—you’re not going out again—”

He had hit her. He shouldn’t have done it, he knew that: the vision of her appalled face was taunting him now, her eyes wide with shock, her hand clamped over the cheek where his fingermarks were turning red against the white.

It was her own f*cking fault. He hadn’t been able to stop himself, not after the last couple of weeks, during which It had become more and more strident. After he’d come home with his eyes full of red ink he’d pretended to have had an allergic reaction, but there’d been no sympathy from the cold bitch. All It had done was carp about where he’d been and—for the first time—ask where the money was that he claimed to be earning. There hadn’t been much time for theft with the boys lately, not with all his time devoted to hunting.

She’d brought home a newspaper with a news story in it about the fact that the Shacklewell Ripper might now have red ink stains around his eyes. He had burned the paper in the garden, but he couldn’t stop her reading the story elsewhere. The day before yesterday, he thought he’d surprised It watching him with an odd expression on her face. It wasn’t stupid, not really; was It starting to wonder? This anxiety was the last thing he needed when his attempt on The Secretary had left him almost humiliated.