Page 139 of Troubled Blood

Robin could hear Roy talking angrily from where she sat. Cynthia looked suddenly alarmed. She tried to get up, but stepped on the hem of her dress and tripped forwards. Trying to disentangle herself, she said,

“No, I’m—oh, she hasn’t. Oh, God—Roy, I didn’t want to tell you because—no—yes, I’m still with them!”

Finally managing to free herself from both dress and table, Cynthia staggered away and out of the room. The headdress she’d been wearing slid limply off her seat. Robin stooped to pick it up, put it back on the seat of Cynthia’s chair and looked up to see Strike watching her.

“What?” asked Robin.

He was about to answer when Cynthia reappeared. She looked stricken.

“Roy knows—Anna’s told him. He wants you to come back to Broom House.”

36

He oft finds med’cine who his grief imparts;

But double griefs afflict concealing hearts,

As raging flames who striveth to suppress.

Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene

Cynthia hurried away to change out of her Anne Boleyn costume and reappeared ten minutes later in a pair of poorly fitting jeans, a gray sweater and trainers. She appeared extremely anxious as they walked together back through the palace, setting a fast pace that Strike found challenging on cobblestones still slippery with the rain which had temporarily ceased, but the heavy gray clouds, gilt-edged though they were, promised an imminent return. Glancing upward as they passed back through the gatehouse of the inner court, Robin’s eye was caught by the gleaming gold accents on the astronomical clock, and noticed that the sun was in Margot’s sign of Aquarius.

“I’ll see you there,” said Cynthia breathlessly, as they approached the car park, and without waiting for an answer she half-ran toward a blue Mazda3 in the distance.

“This is going to be interesting,” said Robin.

“Certainly is,” said Strike.

“Grab the map,” said Robin, once both were back in the car. The old Land Rover didn’t have a functioning radio, let alone satnav. “You’ll have to navigate.”

“What d’you think of her?” asked Strike, while he looked up Church Road in Ham.

“She seems all right.”

Robin became aware that Strike was looking at her, as he had in the café, a slightly quizzical expression on his face.

“What?” she said again.

“I had the impression you weren’t keen.”

“No,” said Robin, with a trace of defensiveness, “she’s fine.”

She reversed out of the parking space, remembering Cynthia’s snorting laughter and her habit of jumbling affirmatives and negatives together.

“Well—”

“Thought so,” said Strike, smugly.

“Given what might’ve happened to Margot, I wouldn’t have kicked off the conversation with cheery decapitation jokes.”

“She’s lived with it for forty years,” said Strike. “People who live with something that massive stop being able to see it. It’s the backdrop of their lives. It’s only glaringly obvious to everyone else.”

It started to rain again as they left the car park: a fine veil laying itself swiftly over the windscreen.

“OK, I’m prejudiced,” Robin admitted, switching on the wipers. “Feeling a bit sensitive about second wives right now.”

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