Page 181 of Troubled Blood

“Oh,” said Robin.

There was a pause. Max smiled.

“People usually say, ‘Shit, what went wrong?’ But you never probe, do you? I’ve noticed that. You don’t ask a lot of questions.”

“Well, I have to do a lot of that at work,” said Robin.

But that wasn’t why she hadn’t asked Max about his finances, and it wasn’t why she didn’t ask now what had gone wrong with his body or his treatment, either. Robin had too many things in her own past that she didn’t want endlessly probed to want to cause other people discomfort.

“I was having palpitations seven years ago,” Max said, examining the label on his beer. “Arrhythmia. I got referred to a heart specialist and he operated: opened me up and ablated my sinus node. You probably don’t know what that is,” he said, glancing up at Robin, and she shook her head. “I didn’t either, until they ballsed mine up. Basically, they knackered my heart’s ability to beat for itself. I ended up having to be fitted with a pacemaker.”

“Oh no,” said Robin, a bit of beef suspended in mid-air on her fork.

“And the best bit was,” said Max, “none of it was necessary. There wasn’t anything wrong with my sinus node in the first place. Turned out I hadn’t been suffering from atrial tachycardia at all. It was stage fright.”

“I—Max, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t good,” said Max, taking a sip of his beer. “Two unnecessary open-heart surgeries, endless complications. I lost jobs, I was unemployed for four years and I’m still on anti-depressants. Matthew said I had to pursue a claim against the doctors. I probably wouldn’t have done, if he hadn’t nagged me. Lawyers’ fees. Ton of stress. But I won in the end, got a big payout, and he persuaded me to sink it all into a decent property. He’s a barrister, he earns great money. Anyway, we bought this place.”

Max pushed his thick blond hair out of his face and glanced down at Wolfgang, who’d trotted to the table to savor the smell of casse­role once more.

“A week after we moved in, he sat me down and told me he was leaving. The ink was barely dry on the mortgage. He said he’d struggled against it, because he felt a loyalty to me, because of what I’d been through, but he couldn’t fight his feelings any longer. He told me,” said Max, with a hollow smile, “he’d realized pity wasn’t love. He wanted me to keep the flat, didn’t want me to buy him out—as if I could have done—so he signed over his half. That was to make him feel less guilty, obviously. And off he went with Tiago. He’s Brazilian, the new guy. Owns a restaurant.”

“That,” said Robin quietly, “sounds like hell.”

“Yeah, it was… I really need to stop looking at their bloody Instagram accounts.” Max heaved a deep sigh and absentmindedly rubbed the shirt over the scars on his chest. “Obviously I thought of just selling up, but we barely lived here together, so it’s not as though it’s got a ton of memories. I didn’t have the energy to go through more house-hunting and moving, so here I’ve stayed, struggling to make the mortgage every month.”

Robin thought she knew why Max was telling her all this, and her hunch was confirmed when he looked directly at her and said,

“Anyway, I just wanted to say, I’m sorry about what happened to you. I had no idea. Ilsa only told me you were held at gunpoint—”

“Oh, I didn’t get raped then,” said Robin, and to Max’s evident surprise, she started to laugh. Doubtless it was her tiredness, but it was a relief to find dark comedy in this litany of terrible things humans did to each other, though none of it was really funny at all: his mutilated heart, the gorilla mask in her nightmares. “No, the rape happened ten years ago. That’s why I dropped out of university.”

“Shit,” said Max.

“Yeah,” said Robin, and echoing Max, she said, “it wasn’t good.”

“So when did the knife thing happen?” asked Max, eyes on Robin’s forearm, and she laughed again. Really, what else was there to do?

“That was a couple of years ago.”

“Working for Strike?”

“Yes,” said Robin, and she stopped laughing now. “Listen, about last night—”

“I enjoyed last night,” said Max.

“You can’t be serious,” said Robin.

“I’m completely serious. It was really useful for building my character. He’s got some proper big man, take-no-bullshit energy about him, hasn’t he?”

“You mean he acts like a dick?”

Max laughed and shrugged.

“Is he very different sober?”

“Yes,” said Robin, “well—I don’t know. Less of a dick.” And before Max could ask anything else about her partner, she said quickly, “He’s right about your cooking, anyway. That was fantastic. Thanks so much, I really needed that.”

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