Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike #3)(166)

“I forgot to ditch someone.”

Shanker began to laugh. Strike smiled ruefully, which was painful. His whole face ached.

“Are we tryina stop this wedding, Bunsen?”

“’Course not,” said Strike, pulling out another cigarette. “I was invited. I’m a friend. A guest.”

“You sacked ’er,” said Shanker. “Which ain’t a mark of friendship where I come from.”

Strike refrained from pointing out that Shanker knew hardly anyone who had ever had a job.

“She’s like your mum,” said Shanker, after a long silence.

“Who is?”

“Your Robin. Kind. Wanted to save that kid.”

Strike found it difficult to defend a refusal to save a child to a man who had been rescued, bleeding, from the gutter at the age of sixteen.

“Well, I’m going to try and get her back, aren’t I? But the next time she calls you—if she calls you—”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll tell ya, Bunsen.”

The wing mirror showed Strike a face that might have belonged to the victim of a car crash. His nose was enormous and purple and his left ear looked black. By daylight he saw that his hasty attempt to shave using his left hand had not been entirely successful. As he imagined himself sliding into the back of the church he realized how conspicuous he was going to be, what a scene it would make if Robin decided she did not want him there. He didn’t want to spoil her day. At the first request to leave, he vowed inwardly, he would do so.

“BUNSEN!” shouted Shanker excitedly, making Strike jump. Shanker turned up the radio.

“… arrest has been made in the case of the Shacklewell Ripper. After a thorough search of a flat in Wollaston Close, London, police have charged thirty-four-year-old Donald Laing with the murders of Kelsey Platt, Heather Smart, Martina Rossi and Sadie Roach, the attempted murder of Lila Monkton and a serious assault on a sixth, unnamed woman…”

“They didn’t mention you!” said Shanker when the report ended. He sounded disappointed.

“They wouldn’t,” said Strike, fighting an uncharacteristic nervousness. He had just seen the first sign to Masham. “But they will. Good thing too: I need the publicity if I’m gonna get my business back off the ground.”

He automatically checked his wrist, forgetting that there was no watch there, and instead consulted the dashboard clock.

“Put your foot down, Shanker. We’re going to miss the start as it is.”

Strike became increasingly anxious as they approached their destination. The service had been scheduled to start twenty minutes before they finally tore up the hill to Masham, Strike checking his phone for the location of the church.

“It’s over there,” he said, pointing frantically to the opposite side of the broadest market square he had ever seen, which was packed with people at food stalls. As Shanker drove none too slowly around the periphery of the market several bystanders scowled and one man in a flat cloth cap shook his fist at the scarred man driving so dangerously in the sedate heart of Masham.

“Park here, anywhere here!” said Strike, spotting two dark blue Bentleys adorned with white ribbons parked at the far end of the square, the chauffeurs talking with their hats off in the sunshine. They looked around as Shanker braked. Strike threw off his seatbelt; he could see the church spire over the treetops now. He felt almost sick, due, no doubt, to the forty cigarettes he must have smoked overnight, the lack of sleep and Shanker’s driving.

Strike had hurried several steps away from the car before dashing back to his friend.

“Wait for me. I might not be staying.”

He hurried away again past the staring chauffeurs, nervously straightened his tie, then remembered the state of his face and suit and wondered why he bothered.

Through the gates and into the deserted churchyard Strike limped. The impressive church reminded him of St. Dionysius in Market Harborough, back when he and Robin had been friends. The hush over the sleepy, sunlit graveyard felt ominous. He passed a strange, almost pagan-looking column covered in carvings to his right as he approached the heavy oak doors.

Grasping the handle with his left hand he paused for a second.

“Fuck it,” he breathed to himself, and opened it as quietly as he could.

The smell of roses met him: white roses of Yorkshire blooming in tall stands and hanging in bunches at the ends of the packed queues. A thicket of brightly colored hats stretched away towards the altar. Hardly anybody looked around at Strike as he shuffled inside, although those that did stared. He edged along the rear wall, staring at the far end of the aisle.

Robin was wearing a coronet of white roses in her long, wavy hair. He could not see her face. She was not wearing her cast. Even at this distance, he could see the long, purple scar running down the back of her forearm.

“Do you,” came a ringing voice from an unseen vicar, “Robin Venetia Ellacott, take this man, Matthew John Cunliffe, to be your lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward—”

Exhausted, tense, his gaze fixed on Robin, Strike had not realized how near he was to the flower arrangement that stood on a fine, tulip-like bronze stand.

“—for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death—”

“Oh shit,” said Strike.