Page 256 of Troubled Blood

“In what way?”

“Told my old woman in front of me she wasn’t hitting me enough,” said Oakden. “She bloody listened, too. Tried to lay about me with a slipper a couple of days later, silly cow. She learned not to do that again.”

“Yeah? Hit her back, did you?”

Oakden’s too-close-together eyes raked Strike, as though trying to ascertain whether he was worth educating.

“If my father had lived, he’d’ve had the right to punish me, but her trying to humiliate me because Brenner told her to? I wasn’t taking that.”

“Exactly how close were your mother and Brenner?”

Oakden’s thin brows contracted.

“Doctor and secretary, that’s all. There wasn’t anything else between them, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“They didn’t have a little lie down after lunch, then?” said Strike. “She didn’t come over sleepy, after Brenner had come over?”

“You don’t want to judge everyone’s mother by yours,” said Oakden.

Strike acknowledged the jibe with a dark smile and said,

“Did your mother ask Brenner to sign the death certificate for your grandmother?”

“The hell’s that got to do with anything?”

“Did she?”

“I dunno,” said Oakden, his eyes darting once again toward the bar’s entrance. “Where did you get that idea? What’re you even asking that for?”

“Your grandmother’s doctor was Margot Bamborough, right?”

“I dunno,” said Oakden.

“You can remember every word your mother told you about Steve Douthwaite, right down to him flirting with receptionists and looking tearful the last time he left the surgery, but you can’t remember details of your own grandmother falling downstairs and killing herself?”

“I wasn’t there,” said Oakden. “I was out at a mate’s house when it happened. Come home and seen the ambulance.”

“Just your mother at home, then?”

“The hell’s this relevant to—”

“What’s the name of the mate whose house you were at?” asked Strike, for the first time taking out his notebook.

“What’re you doing?” said Oakden, with an attempt at a laugh, dropping the last portion of his sandwich on his plate. “What are you fucking implying?”

“You don’t want to give us his name?”

“Why the fuck should—he was a schoolmate—”

“Convenient for you and your mother, old Maud falling downstairs,” said Strike. “My information is she shouldn’t have been trying to navigate stairs alone, in her condition. Inherited the house, didn’t you?”

Oakden began to shake his head very slowly, as though marveling at the unexpected stupidity of Cormoran Strike.

“Seriously? You’re trying to… wow. Wow.”

“Not going to tell me the name of your schoolfriend, then?”

“Wow,” said Oakden, attempting a laugh. “You think you can—”

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