Page 141 of Troubled Blood

“How d’you do?” Roy said stiffly, shaking her hand, too. His was hot and dry.

“Shall I make coffee?” said Cynthia, in a half-whisper.

“Yes—no, why not,” said Roy, his ill-temper clearly jockeying with the nervousness that seemed to increase while Strike stood, large and unmoving, watching him. “Sit, sit,” he said, pointing Strike to a sofa, at right angles to another.

Cynthia hurried out of the room to make coffee, and Strike and Robin sat where they’d been instructed.

“Going to help Cyn,” muttered Anna and she hurried out of the room, and Kim, after a moment’s hesitation, followed her, leaving Strike and Robin alone with Roy. The doctor settled himself into a high-backed velvet armchair and glared around him. He didn’t look well. The flush of temper receded, leaving him looking wan. His socks had bunched up around his skinny ankles.

There ensued one of the most uncomfortable silences Robin had ever endured. Mainly to avoid looking at Roy, she allowed her eyes to roam around the large room, which was as old fashioned as the hall. A grand piano stood in the corner. More large windows looked out onto an enormous garden, where a long rectangular fish pond lay just beyond a paved area, at the far end of which lay a covered, temple-like stone structure where people could either sit and watch the koi carp, now barely visible beneath the rain-flecked surface of the water, or look out over the sweeping lawn, with its mature trees and well-tended flower-beds.

An abundance of leather-bound books and bronzes of antique subjects filled bookcases and cabinets. A tambour frame stood between the sofas, on which a very beautiful piece of embroidery was being worked in silks. The design was Japanese influenced, of two koi swimming in opposite directions. Robin was debating whether to pass polite comment on it, and to ask whether Cynthia was responsible, when Strike spoke.

“Who was the classicist?”

“What?” said Roy. “Oh. My father.”

His crazy-looking eyes roamed over the various small bronzes and marbles dotted around the room. “Took a first in Classics at Cambridge.”

“Ah,” said Strike, and the glacial silence resumed.

A squall of wind threw more rain at the window. Robin was relieved to hear the tinkling of teaspoons and the footsteps of the three returning women.

Cynthia, who re-entered the room first, set a tea tray down on the antique table standing between the sofas. It rocked a little with the weight. Anna added a large cake on a stand.

Anna and Kim sat down side by side on the free sofa, and when Cynthia had drawn up spindly side tables to hold everyone’s tea, and cut slices of cake for those who wanted some, she sat herself down beside her stepdaughter-in-law, looking scared.

“Well,” said Roy at last, addressing Strike. “I’d be interested to hear what you think your chances are of finding out what the Metropolitan Police has been unable to discover in four decades.”

Robin was sure Roy had been planning this aggressive opening during the long and painful silence.

“Fairly small,” said Strike matter-of-factly, once he’d swallowed a large piece of the cake Cynthia had given him, “though we’ve got a new alleged sighting of your first wife I wanted to discuss with you.”

Roy looked taken aback.

“Alleged sighting,” Strike emphasized, setting down his plate and reaching inside his jacket for his notebook. “But obviously… Excellent cake, Mrs. Phipps,” he told Cynthia.

“Oh, thank you,” she said in a small voice. “Coffee and walnut was Anna’s favorite when she was little—wasn’t it, love?” she said, but Anna’s only response was a tense smile.

“We heard about it from one of your wife’s ex-colleagues, Janice Beattie.”

Roy shook his head and shrugged impatiently, to convey non-recognition of the names.

“She was the practice nurse at the St. John’s surgery,” said Strike.

“Oh,” said Roy. “Yes. I think she came here once, for a barbecue. She seemed quite a decent woman… Disaster, that afternoon. Bloody disaster. Those children were atrocious—d’you remember?” he shot at Cynthia.

“Yes,” said Cynthia quickly, “no, there was one boy who was really—”

“Spiked the punch,” barked Roy. “Vodka. Someone was sick.”

“Gloria,” said Cynthia.

“I don’t remember all their names,” said Roy, with an impatient wave of the hand. “Sick all over the downstairs bathroom. Disgusting.”

“This boy would’ve been Carl Oakden?” asked Strike.

“That’s him,” said Roy. “We found the vodka bottle empty, later, hidden in a shed. He’d sneaked into the house and taken it out of the drinks cabinet.”

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