Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike #3)(53)

“But you didn’t write back!”

“Wardle knows they’re fake. Apparently they’ve spelled my name wrong—Cameron—but he’s still got to get me in.”

“What do the letters say?”

“He wouldn’t tell me over the phone. He’s being pretty decent,” said Strike. “Not being a dick about it.”

Buckingham Palace rose up ahead of them. The gigantic marble statue of Queen Victoria frowned down on Robin’s confusion and her hangover, then slid out of view.

“They’re probably going to ask us to look at pictures of the body to see whether we can ID her.”

“OK,” said Robin, more stoutly than she felt.

“How are you?” Strike asked.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Don’t worry about me.”

“I was going to call Wardle this morning anyway.”

“Why?”

“Last night, walking away from Hazlitt’s, I saw a big guy in a black beanie hat lurking down a side street. There was something about his body language I didn’t like. I called out to him—I was going to ask him for a light—and he scarpered. Don’t,” said Strike, though Robin had not made a sound, “tell me I’m jumpy or imagining things. I think he followed us, and I’ll tell you something else—I think he was in the pub when I arrived. I didn’t see his face, just the back of his head as he left.”

To his surprise, Robin did not dismiss him. Instead she frowned in concentration, trying to recall a vague impression.

“You know… I saw a big bloke in a beanie hat somewhere yesterday, too… yeah, he was in a doorway on Tottenham Court Road. His face was in shadow, though.”

Strike muttered another oath under his breath.

“Please don’t tell me to stop working,” said Robin in a more high-pitched voice than usual. “Please. I love this job.”

“And if the f*cker’s stalking you?”

She could not repress a frisson of fear, but determination overrode it. To help catch this animal, whoever he was, would be worth almost anything…

“I’ll be vigilant. I’ve got two rape alarms.”

Strike did not look reassured.

They disembarked at New Scotland Yard and were shown upstairs at once, into an open-plan office where Wardle stood in his shirtsleeves, talking to a group of subordinates. When he saw Strike and Robin he left his colleagues at once and led the detective and his partner into a small meeting room.

“Vanessa!” he called through the door as Strike and Robin took seats at an oval table, “have you got the letters?”

Detective Sergeant Ekwensi appeared shortly afterwards with two typewritten sheets protected in plastic slips and a copy of what Strike recognized as one of the handwritten letters that he had given Wardle in the Old Blue Last. Detective Sergeant Ekwensi, who greeted Robin with a smile that the latter again found disproportionately reassuring, sat down beside Wardle with a notebook.

“You want coffee or anything?” Wardle asked. Strike and Robin shook their heads. Wardle slid the letters across the table to Strike. He read both before pushing them sideways to Robin.

“I didn’t write either of them,” Strike told Wardle.

“I didn’t think so,” said Wardle. “You didn’t answer on Strike’s behalf, Miss Ellacott?”

Robin shook her head.

The first letter admitted that Strike had indeed arranged the removal of his own leg because he wished to be rid of it, confessing that the story of an Afghan IED was an elaborate cover-up, and that he did not know how Kelsey had found this out, but implored her not to tell anybody else. The fake Strike then agreed to help her with her own “encumbrance” and asked where and when they could meet face to face.

The second letter was brief, confirming that Strike would come and visit her on the third of April at 7 p.m.

Both of the letters were signed Cameron Strike in thick black ink.

“That,” said Strike, who had pulled the second letter back towards him after Robin had finished reading it, “reads as though she wrote back to me suggesting a time and place.”

“That was going to be my next question,” said Wardle. “Did you get a second letter?”

Strike looked towards Robin, who shook her head.

“OK,” said Wardle, “for the record: when did the original letter from—” He checked the photocopy. “Kelsey, she’s signed herself—come in?”

Robin answered.

“I’ve got the envelope back in the nut—” The ghost of a smile passed over Strike’s face. “—in the drawer where we keep unsolicited letters. We can check the postcode, but as far as I can remember it was early this year. Maybe February.”

“OK, excellent,” said Wardle, “we’ll be sending someone over to retrieve that envelope.” He smiled at Robin, who was looking anxious. “Calm down: I believe you. Some total nutter’s trying to frame Strike. None of it hangs together. Why would he stab a woman, dismember her and then mail her leg to his own office? Why would he leave letters from himself in the flat?”

Robin tried to smile back.

“She was stabbed?” interposed Strike.

“They’re working on what actually killed her,” said Wardle, “but there are two deep wounds to the torso they’re pretty sure would have done it before he started cutting her up.”