Page 295 of Troubled Blood

They turned the corner to find themselves facing what Strike mentally categorized as “acres of tat.” As far as the eye could see were racks of merchandise laid out on the pavement: beach balls, keyrings, cheap jewelry, sunglasses, buckets of candyfloss, fudge and plush toys.

“Look at that,” said Robin suddenly, pointing to her right. A bright yellow sign read: Your Life Within Your Hands. On the dark glass of the door below was written: Palm Reader. Clairvoyant, along with a circular chart, all twelve signs of the zodiac represented by the glyphs around a central sun.

“What?” said Strike.

“Well, you’ve had your chart done. Maybe I’d like mine.”

“Fuck’s sake,” muttered Strike, and they walked on, Robin smiling to herself.

She waited outside, examining postcards, while Strike entered the newsagent’s to buy cigarettes.

Waiting to be served, Strike was seized by a sudden, quixotic impulse (stimulated no doubt by the gaudy color all around him, by the sunshine and sticks of rock, the rattle and clang of amusement arcades and a stomach full of some of the best fish and chips he’d ever eaten) to buy Robin a toy donkey. He came to his senses almost before the idea had formed: what was he, a kid on a daytime date with his first girlfriend? Emerging again into the sunlight as he left the shop, he noted that he couldn’t have bought a donkey if he’d wanted to. There wasn’t a single one in sight: the bins full of plushes held only unicorns.

“Back to the car, then?” said Robin.

“Yeah,” said Strike, ripping the cellophane off his cigarettes, but then he said, “we’ll go down to the sea before we head off, shall we?”

“OK,” said Robin, surprised. “Er—why?”

“Just fancy it. It’s wrong, being by the sea without actually laying eyes on it.”

“Is this a Cornish thing?” asked Robin, as they headed back to Grand Parade.

“Maybe,” said Strike, lighting the cigarette between his teeth. He took a drag on his cigarette, exhaled then sang,

And when we come to London Wall,

A pleasant sight to view,

Come forth! come forth! ye cowards all:

Here’s men as good as you.

“‘The Song of the Western Men?’”

“That’s the one.”

“Why d’you think they feel the need to tell Londoners they’re just as good? Isn’t that a given?”

“Just London, isn’t it?” said Strike, as they crossed the road. “Pisses everyone off.”

“I love London.”

“Me too. But I can see why it pisses everyone off.”

They passed a fountain with a statue in the middle of the Jolly Fisherman, that rotund, bearded sailor skipping along in high wind, who’d been used on posters advertising Skegness for nearly a century, and progressed across a smooth paved area toward the beach.

At last they saw what Strike had felt the need to see: a wide expanse of flat ocean, the color of chalcedony, beneath a periwinkle sky. Far out at sea, spoiling the horizon, were an army of tall white wind turbines, and while Strike personally enjoyed the chill breeze coming off the wide ocean, he understood at last why Robin had brought a scarf.

Strike smoked in silence, the cool wind making no difference whatsoever to his curly hair. He was thinking about Joan. It hadn’t occurred to him until this moment that her plan for her final resting place had given them a grave to visit any time they were at the British coast. Cornish-born, Cornish-bred, Joan had known that this need to reconnect with the sea lived in all of them. Now, every time they made their way to the coast they paid her tribute, along with the obeisance due to the waves.

“They were Joan’s favorites, pink roses,” he said, after a while. “What you sent, to the funeral.”

“Oh, really?” said Robin. “I… well, I had a kind of picture in my head of Joan, from things you’d told me, and… pink roses seemed to suit her.”

“If the agency ever fails,” said Strike, as they both turned away from the sea, “you could come back to Skegness and set yourself up as a clairvoyant.”

“Bit niche,” said Robin, as they walked back toward the car park. “Guessing dead people’s favorite flowers.”

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