Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike #3)(23)

“Robin postponed her wedding, didn’t she? Have they set a new—?”

“Yep,” said Strike. “Second of July. She’s taking a long weekend to go back to Yorkshire and—do whatever you do for weddings. Coming back on Tuesday.”

He had been Matthew’s unlikely ally in insisting that Robin take Friday and Monday off, relieved to think that she would be two hundred and fifty miles away in her family home. She had been deeply disappointed that she would not be able to come along to the Old Blue Last in Shoreditch and meet Wardle, but Strike thought he had detected a faint trace of relief at the idea of a break.

Ilsa looked slightly aggrieved at the news that Robin still intended to marry someone other than Strike, but before she could say anything else Strike’s mobile buzzed in his pocket. It was Graham Hardacre, his old SIB colleague.

“Sorry,” he told Nick and Ilsa, setting down his plate of curry and standing up, “got to take this, important—Hardy!”

“Can you talk, Oggy?” asked Hardacre, as Strike headed back to the front door.

“I can now,” said Strike, reaching the end of the short garden path in three strides and stepping out into the dark street to walk and smoke. “What’ve you got for me?”

“To be honest,” said Hardacre, who sounded stressed, “it’d be a big help if you came up here and had a look, mate. I’ve got a Warrant Officer who’s a real pain in the arse. We didn’t get off on the right foot. If I start sending stuff out of here and she gets wind of it—”

“And if I come up?”

“Make it early in the morning and I could leave stuff open on the computer. Carelessly, y’know?”

Hardacre had previously shared information with Strike that, strictly speaking, he ought not to have done. He had only just moved to 35 Section: Strike was not surprised that he did not want to jeopardize his position.

The detective crossed the road, sat down on the low garden wall of the house opposite, lit a cigarette and asked: “Would it be worth coming up to Scotland for?”

“Depends what you want.”

“Old addresses—family connections—medical and psychiatric records couldn’t hurt. Brockbank was invalided out, what was it, 2003?”

“That’s right,” said Hardacre.

A noise behind Strike made him stand and turn: the owner of the wall on which he had been sitting was emptying rubbish into his dustbin. He was a small man of around sixty, and by the light of the streetlamp Strike saw his annoyed expression elide into a propitiatory smile as he took in Strike’s height and breadth. The detective strolled away, past semidetached houses whose leafy trees and hedges were rippling in the spring breeze. There would be bunting, soon, to celebrate the union of yet another couple. Robin’s wedding day would follow not long after.

“You won’t have much on Laing, I s’pose,” Strike said, his voice faintly interrogative. The Scot’s army career had been shorter than Brockbank’s.

“No—but Christ, he sounds a piece of work,” said Hardacre.

“Where’d he go after the Glasshouse?”

The Glasshouse was the military jail in Colchester, where all convicted military personnel were transferred before being placed in a civilian prison.

“HMP Elmley. We’ve got nothing on him after that; you’d need the probation service.”

“Yeah,” said Strike, exhaling smoke at the starry sky. He and Hardacre both knew that as he was no longer any kind of policeman, he had no more right than any other member of the public to access the probation service’s records. “Whereabouts in Scotland did he come from, Hardy?”

“Melrose. He put down his mother as next of kin when he joined up—I’ve looked him up.”

“Melrose,” repeated Strike thoughtfully.

He considered his two remaining clients: the moneyed idiot who got his kicks trying to prove he was a cuckold and the wealthy wife and mother who was paying Strike to gather evidence of the way her estranged husband was stalking their sons. The father was in Chicago and Platinum’s movements could surely go uncharted for twenty-four hours.

There remained, of course, the possibility that none of the men he suspected had anything to do with the leg, that everything was in his mind.

A harvest of limbs…

“How far from Edinburgh is Melrose?”

“’Bout an hour, hour and a half’s drive.”

Strike ground out his cigarette in the gutter.

“Hardy, I could come up Sunday night on the sleeper, nip into the office early, then drive down to Melrose, see whether Laing’s gone back to his family, or if they know where he is.”

“Nice one. I’ll pick you up at the station if you let me know when you’re getting in, Oggy. In fact,” Hardacre was gearing himself up for an act of generosity, “if it’s only a day trip you’re after, I’ll lend you my car.”

Strike did not immediately return to his curious friends and his cold curry. Smoking another cigarette, he strolled around the quiet street, thinking. Then he remembered that he was supposed to be attending a concert at the Southbank Centre with Elin on Sunday evening. She was keen to foster an interest in classical music that he had never pretended was more than lukewarm. He checked his watch. It was too late to ring and cancel now; he would need to remember to do so next day.