Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike #3)(26)

Wardle, still deep in the second letter, let out a snort of mingled amusement and disgust.

“Fucking hell, have you read this?”

“No,” said Strike.

More young people were squeezing into the bar. He and Wardle were not the only people in their midthirties, but they were definitely at the older end of the spectrum. He watched a pretty, pale young woman made up like a forties starlet, with narrow black eyebrows, crimson lipstick and powder-blue hair pinned into victory rolls, look around for her date. “Robin reads the nutter letters and gives me a précis if she thinks I need one.”

“‘I want to massage your stump,’” read Wardle aloud. “‘I want you to use me as a living crutch. I want—’ Holy shit. That’s not even physically—”

He flipped over the letter.

“‘RL.’ Can you read that address?”

“No,” said Strike, squinting at it. The handwriting was dense and extremely difficult to read. The only legible word in the cramped address, on a first read, was “Walthamstow.”

“What happened to ‘I’ll be by the bar,’ Eric?”

The young woman with the pale blue hair and crimson lips had appeared at the table beside them, holding a drink. She wore a leather jacket over what looked like a forties summer dress.

“Sorry, babes, talking shop,” said Wardle, unperturbed. “April, Cormoran Strike. My wife,” he added.

“Hi,” said Strike, extending a large hand. He would never have guessed Wardle’s wife looked like this. For reasons he was too tired to analyze, it made him like Wardle better.

“Oh, it’s you!” said April, beaming at Strike while Wardle slid the photocopied letters off the table, folded and pocketed them. “Cormoran Strike! I’ve heard loads about you. Are you staying for the band?”

“I doubt it,” said Strike, though not unpleasantly. She was very pretty.

April seemed reluctant to let him go. They had friends joining them, she told him, and sure enough, within a few minutes of her arrival another six people turned up. There were two unattached women in the group. Strike allowed himself to be talked into moving upstairs with them, where there was a small stage and an already packed room. In response to his questions, April revealed that she was a stylist who had been working on a magazine shoot that very day, and—she said it casually—a part-time burlesque dancer.

“Burlesque?” repeated Strike at the top of his voice, as microphone feedback again screeched through the upper room, to shouts and groans of protest from the assembled drinkers. Isn’t that arty stripping? he wondered, as April shared the information that her friend Coco—a girl with tomato-red hair who smiled at him and wiggled her fingers—was a burlesque dancer too.

They seemed a friendly group and none of the men were treating him with that tiresome chippiness that Matthew exhibited every time he came within Strike’s orbit. He had not watched any live music in a long time. Petite Coco had already expressed a desire to be lifted up so she could see…

However, when the Islington Boys’ Club took to the stage Strike found himself forcibly transported back to times and people he strove not to think about. Stale sweat in the air, the familiar sound of guitars being tweaked and tuned, the humming of the open mic: he could have borne them all, had the lead singer’s posture and his lithe androgyny not recalled Whittaker.

Four bars in and Strike knew he was leaving. There was nothing wrong with their brand of guitar-heavy indie rock: they played well and, in spite of his unfortunate resemblance to Whittaker, the lead singer had a decent voice. However, Strike had been in this environment too often and unable to leave: tonight, he was free to seek peace and clean air, and he intended to exercise that prerogative.

With a shouted farewell to Wardle and a wave and a smile to April, who winked and waved back, he left, large enough to carve an easy path through people already sweaty and breathless. He gained the door as the Islington Boys’ Club finished their first song. The applause overhead sounded like muffled hail on a tin roof. A minute later, he was striding away, with relief, into the swishing sound of traffic.





13



In the presence of another world.

Blue ?yster Cult, “In the Presence of Another World”



On Saturday morning, Robin and her mother took the ancient family Land Rover from their small hometown of Masham to the dressmaker’s in Harrogate where Robin’s wedding dress was being altered. The design had been modified because it had initially been made for a wedding in January and was now to be worn in July.

“You’ve lost more weight,” said the elderly dressmaker, sticking pins down the back of the bodice. “You don’t want to go any thinner. This dress was meant for a bit of curve.”

Robin had chosen the fabric and design of the dress over a year ago, loosely based on an Elie Saab model that her parents, who would also be forking out for half of her elder brother Stephen’s wedding in six months’ time, could never have afforded. Even this cut-price version would have been impossible on the salary Strike paid Robin.

The lighting in the changing room was flattering, yet Robin’s reflection in the gilt-framed mirror looked too pale, her eyes heavy and tired. She was not sure that altering the dress to make it strapless had been successful. Part of what she had liked about the design in the first place had been the long sleeves. Perhaps, she thought, she was simply jaded from having lived with the idea of the dress for so long.