Page 107 of Troubled Blood

It had been a fortnight since Charlotte had last texted him, almost as though she’d telepathically heard his resolution to contact her husband if her messages became any more self-destructive.

It would be so easy to answer; so easy to tell her he was alone, ill, unsupported. He thought of the naked photo she’d sent on his birthday, which he’d forced himself to delete. But he’d come such a long way, to a place of lonely security against emotional storms. However much he’d loved her, however much she could still disturb his serenity with a few typed words, he forced himself, standing beside his small Formica table, to recall the only occasion on which he’d taken her back to St. Mawes for Christmas. He remembered the row heard all through the tiny house, remembered her storming out past the family assembled around the turkey, remembered Ted and Joan’s faces, because they’d so looked forward to the visit, having not seen Strike for over a year, because he was at that time stationed in Germany with the Special Investigation Branch of the Royal Military Police.

He set his mobile to mute. Self-respect and self-discipline had always been his bulwarks against lethargy and misery. What was Christmas Day, after all? If you disregarded the fact that other people were enjoying feasts and fun, merely a winter’s day like any other. If he was currently bodily weak, why shouldn’t he use his mental faculties, at least, to continue work on the Bamborough case?

Thus reasoning, Strike made himself a fresh cup of strong tea, added a very small amount of milk, opened his laptop and, pausing regularly for coughing fits, re-read the document he’d been working on before he’d fallen ill: a summary of the contents of Bill Talbot’s symbol-laden, leather-bound notebook, which Strike had now spent three weeks deciphering. His intention was to send the document to Robin for her thoughts.

Talbot’s Occult Notes

1. Overview

2. Symbol key

3. Possible leads

4. Probably irrelevant

5. Action points

Overview

Talbot’s breakdown manifested itself in a belief that he could solve the Bamborough case by occult means. In addition to astrology, he consulted Aleister Crowley’s Thoth tarot, which has an astrological dimension. He immersed himself in several occult writers, including Crowley, Éliphas Lévi and astrologer Evangeline Adams, and attempted magic rituals.

Talbot was a regular churchgoer before his mental health broke down. While ill, he thought he was hunting a literal embodiment of evil/the devil. Aleister Crowley, who seems to have influenced Talbot more than anyone else, called himself “Baphomet” and also connected Baphomet both with the devil and the sign of Capricorn. This is probably where Talbot got the idea that Margot’s killer was a Capricorn.

Most of what’s in the notebook is worthless, but I think Talbot left three

Strike now deleted the number “three” and substituted “four.” As ever, when immersed in work, he felt a craving for a cigarette. As though in rebellion against the very idea, his lungs immediately treated him to a violent fit of coughing that necessitated the grabbing of kitchen roll to catch what they were trying to expel. Suitably chastened and shivering slightly, Strike drew his dressing gown more tightly around him, took a sip of tea he couldn’t taste and continued to work.

Most of what’s in the notebook is worthless, but I think Talbot left four possibly genuine leads out of the official police record, only recording them in “the true book,” ie, his leather notebook.

Symbol key

There are no names in the notebook, only zodiacal signs. I’m not listing unidentified eye witnesses—we’ve got no chance of tracing them on their star signs and nothing else—but by cross-referencing corroborative details, these are my best guesses at the identity of people Talbot thought were important to the investigation.

Strike now deleted the last paragraph and substituted a name and a new note.

* I suggest an identity for Scorpio below, but could be someone we haven’t yet heard of.

** No idea what either of these symbols mean. Can’t find them on any astrological website. Talbot seems to have invented them. If he’d stuck to birth signs, Irene would have been one of the Geminis and Roy would have been Capricorn. Talbot writes that Phipps “can’t be true Capricorn” (because he’s resourceful, sensitive, musical) then comes up with this new symbol for him, on the advice of Schmidt.

Schmidt

The name “Schmidt” is all over the notebook. “Schmidt corrects to (different star sign),” “Schmidt changes everything,” “Schmidt disagrees.” Schmidt mostly wants to change people’s star signs, which you’d think would be one certainty, given that birth dates don’t change. I’ve checked with Gregory Talbot, and he can’t remember his father ever knowing anyone of the name. My best guess is that Schmidt might have been a figment of Talbot’s increasingly psychotic imagination. Perhaps he couldn’t help noticing people weren’t matching the star signs’ supposed qualities and Schmidt was his rational side trying to reassert itself.

Possible leads

Joseph Brenner

In spite of Talbot’s early determination to clear Brenner of suspicion on the basis of his star sign (Libra is “the most trustworthy of the signs” according to Evangeline Adams), he later records in the notebook that an unidentified patient of the practice told Talbot that he/she saw Joseph Brenner inside a block of flats on Skinner Street on the evening Margot disappeared. This directly contradicts Brenner’s own story (he went straight home), his sister’s corroboration of that story, and possibly the story of the dog-walking neighbor who claims to have seen Brenner through the window at home at 11 in the evening. No time is given for Brenner’s alleged sighting in Michael Cliffe House, which was a 3-minute drive from the St. John’s practice and consequently far nearer Margot’s route than Brenner’s own house, which was a 20-minute drive away. None of this is in the police notes and it doesn’t seem to have been followed up.

Death of Scorpio

Talbot seems to suggest that somebody died, and that Margot may have found the death suspicious. Scorpio’s death is connected to Pisces (Douthwaite) and Cancer (Janice), which makes the most likely candidate for Scorpio Joanna Hammond, the married woman Douthwaite had an affair with, who allegedly committed suicide.

The Hammond/Douthwaite/Janice explanation fits reasonably well: Margot could have voiced suspicions about Hammond’s death to Douthwaite the last time she saw him, which gives us the reason he stormed out of her surgery. And as a friend/neighbor of Douthwaite’s, Janice might have had her own suspicions about him.

The problem with this theory is that I’ve looked up Joanna Hammond’s birth certificate online and she was born under Sagittarius. Either she isn’t the dead person in question, or Talbot mistook her date of birth.

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