Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike #3)(84)

Dressed only in boxers, his hairy belly no smaller for the plentiful takeaways and chocolate bars that had filled it in the last fortnight, he munched his way through a packet of Rich Tea biscuits and skimmed several of the stories, but they told him nothing he did not already know, so he turned instead to the anticipatory comment about the next day’s Arsenal–Liverpool match.

His mobile rang while he was reading. He had not realized how tightly wound he was: he reacted so fast that Wardle was taken by surprise.

“Bloody hell, that was quick. What were you doing, sitting on it?”

“What’s going on?”

“We’ve been over to Kelsey’s sister’s place—name’s Hazel, she’s a nurse. We’re looking into all Kelsey’s day-to-day contacts, we’ve gone through her room and we’ve got her laptop. She’d been online, on some message board for people who want to hack bits off themselves, and she was asking about you.”

Strike scratched his dense, curly hair, staring at the ceiling, listening.

“We’ve got personal details for a couple of the people she was interacting with regularly on the boards. I should have pictures by Monday—where will you be?”

“Here, in the office.”

“Her sister’s boyfriend, the ex-fireman, says Kelsey kept asking him about people trapped in buildings and car accidents and all sorts. She really wanted to get rid of that leg.”

“Jesus,” muttered Strike.

After Wardle had hung up, Strike found himself unable to focus on the backroom reshuffles at the Emirates. After a few minutes he abandoned the pretense that he was absorbed in the fate of Arsène Wenger’s management team and resumed his staring at the cracks in the ceiling, absently turning his mobile over and over.

In the blinding relief that the leg had not been Brittany Brockbank’s, he had given less thought to the victim than he would ordinarily have done. Now, for the first time, he wondered about Kelsey and the letter that she had sent him, which he had not bothered to read.

The idea of anybody seeking amputation was repugnant to Strike. Round and round in his hand he turned his mobile, marshaling everything he knew about Kelsey, trying to build a mental picture out of a name and mingled feelings of pity and distaste. She had been sixteen; she had not got on with her sister; she had been studying childcare… Strike reached for his notebook and began to write: Boyfriend at college? Lecturer? She had gone online, asking about him. Why? Where had she got the idea that he, Strike, had amputated his own leg? Or had she evolved a fantasy out of newspaper reports about him?

Mental illness? Fantasist? he wrote.

Wardle was already looking into her online contacts. Strike paused in his writing, remembering the photograph of Kelsey’s head with its full cheeks in the freezer, staring out of its frosted eyes. Puppy fat. He had thought all along that she looked far too young for twenty-four. In truth, she had looked young for sixteen.

He let his pencil fall and continued to turn his mobile over and over in his left hand, thinking…

Was Brockbank a “true” pedophile, as a psychologist Strike had met in the context of another military rape case had put it? Was he a man who was only sexually attracted to children? Or was he a different kind of violent abuser, a man who targeted young girls merely because they were most readily available and easiest to cow into silence, but who had wider sexual tastes if an easy victim became available? In short, was a babyish-looking sixteen-year-old too old to appeal sexually to Brockbank, or would he rape any easily silenced female if he got the chance? Strike had once had to deal with a nineteen-year-old soldier who had attempted to rape a sixty-seven-year-old. Some men’s violent sexual nature required only opportunity.

Strike had not yet called the number that Ingrid had given him for Brockbank. His dark eyes drifted to the tiny window that showed a feebly sunlit sky. Perhaps he should have passed Brockbank’s number to Wardle. Perhaps he ought to call it now…

Yet even as Strike began to scroll down the list of contacts, he reconsidered. What had he achieved so far by confiding his suspicions to Wardle? Nothing. The policeman was busy in his operations room, doubtless sifting leads, busy with his own lines of inquiry and giving Strike’s—as far as the private detective could tell—only slightly more credence than he would have given anyone who had hunches but no proof. The fact that Wardle, with all his resources, had not yet located Brockbank, Laing or Whittaker, did not suggest that he was prioritizing the men.

No, if Strike wanted to find Brockbank he ought surely to maintain the cover that Robin had created: that of the lawyer looking to win the ex-major compensation. The traceable backstory they had created with his sister in Barrow might prove valuable. In fact, thought Strike, sitting up on the bed, it might be an idea to call Robin right now and give her Brockbank’s number. She was alone, he knew, in the Ealing flat, while Matthew was home in Masham. He could call and perhaps—

Oh no you don’t, you silly f*cker.

A vision of himself and Robin in the Tottenham had bloomed in his head, a vision of where a phone call might lead. They were both at a loose end. A drink to discuss the case…

On a Saturday night? Piss off.

Strike got up suddenly, as though the bed had become painful to lie on, dressed and headed out to the supermarket.

On his way back into Denmark Street carrying bulging plastic bags he thought he spotted Wardle’s plainclothes policeman, stationed in the area to keep an eye out for large men in beanie hats. The young man in a donkey jacket was hyperaware, his eyes lingering a tad too long on the detective as he walked past, his shopping swinging.