Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike #3)(87)

When he returned, Wardle was showing Robin printed screenshots of the Facebook pages of two people.

She examined each of them carefully, then passed them on to Strike. One was a thick-set young woman with a round, pale face, bobbed black hair and glasses. The other was a light-haired man in his twenties with lopsided eyes.

“She blogs about being ‘transabled,’ whatever the f*ck that is, and he’s all over message boards asking for help in hacking bits off himself. Both of them have got serious issues, if you ask me. Recognize either of them?”

Strike shook his head, as did Robin. Wardle sighed and took the pictures back.

“Long shot.”

“What about other men she’s been knocking around with? Any boys or lecturers at college?” asked Strike, thinking of the questions that had occurred to him on Saturday.

“Well, the sister says Kelsey claimed to have a mysterious boyfriend they were never allowed to meet. Hazel doesn’t believe he existed. We’ve spoken to a couple of Kelsey’s college friends and none of them ever saw a boyfriend, but we’re following it up.

“Speaking of Hazel,” Wardle went on, picking up his coffee and drinking some before continuing, “I’ve said I’ll pass on a message. She’d like to meet you.”

“Me?” said Strike, surprised. “Why?”

“I dunno,” said Wardle. “I think she wants to justify herself to everyone. She’s in a real state.”

“Justify herself?”

“She’s guilt-ridden because she treated the leg thing as weird and attention-seeking, and feels that’s why Kelsey went looking for someone else to help her with it.”

“She understands I never wrote back? That I never had actual contact with her?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve explained that to her. She still wants to talk to you. I dunno,” said Wardle slightly impatiently, “you got sent her sister’s leg—you know what people are like when they’re in shock. Plus, it’s you, isn’t it?” said Wardle, with a faint edge in his voice. “She probably thinks the Boy Wonder will solve it while the police are blundering.”

Robin and Strike avoided looking at each other and Wardle added grudgingly:

“We could’ve handled Hazel better. Our guys interrogated her partner a bit more aggressively than she liked. It put her on the defensive. She might like the idea of having you on the books: the detective who’s already saved one poor innocent from the nick.”

Strike decided to ignore the defensive undertone.

“Obviously, we had to question the bloke who was living with her,” Wardle added for Robin’s benefit. “That’s routine.”

“Yes,” said Robin. “Of course.”

“No other men in her life, except the sister’s partner and this alleged boyfriend?” asked Strike.

“She was seeing a male counselor, a skinny black guy in his fifties who was visiting family in Bristol on the weekend she died, and there’s a church youth group leader called Darrell,” said Wardle, “fat guy in dungarees. He cried his eyes out all through the interview. He was present and correct at the church on the Sunday; nothing checkable otherwise, but I can’t see him wielding a cleaver. That’s everyone we know about. Her course is nearly all girls.”

“No boys in the church youth group?”

“They’re nearly all girls as well. Oldest boy’s fourteen.”

“How would the police feel about me seeing Hazel?” Strike asked.

“We can’t stop you,” Wardle said, shrugging. “I’m for it, on the understanding that you’ll pass on anything useful, but I doubt there’s anything else there. We’ve interviewed everyone, we’ve been through Kelsey’s room, we’ve got her laptop and personally I’d bet none of the people we’ve talked to knew anything. They all thought she was off on a college placement.”

After thanks for the coffee and a particularly warm smile for Robin, which was barely returned, Wardle left.

“Not a word about Brockbank, Laing or Whittaker,” Strike grumbled as Wardle’s clanging footsteps faded from earshot. “And you never told me you’d been ferreting around on the net,” he added to Robin.

“I had no proof she was the girl who’d written the letter,” said Robin, “but I did think Kelsey might have gone online looking for help.”

Strike heaved himself to his feet, took her mug from her desk and was heading for the door when Robin said indignantly:

“Aren’t you interested in what I was going to tell you?”

He turned, surprised.

“That wasn’t it?”

“No!”

“Well?”

“I think I’ve found Donald Laing.”

Strike said nothing at all, but stood looking blank, a mug in each hand.

“You’ve—what? How?”

Robin turned on her computer, beckoned Strike over and began typing. He moved around to look over her shoulder.

“First,” she said, “I had to find out how to spell psoriatic arthritis. Then… look at this.”

She had brought up a JustGiving charity page. A man glared out of the small picture at the top.

“Bloody hell, that’s him!” said Strike, so loudly that Robin jumped. He set the mugs down and dragged his chair around the desk to look at the monitor. In doing so, he knocked over Robin’s roses.