Page 124 of Troubled Blood

She was still in Tesco, now buying a packet of nuts and raisins, chewing gum and some shampoo for herself while, two tills away, the object of her surveillance bought baby powder, baby food and dummies along with a range of groceries.

“Hi,” Robin said into her mobile, turning to look out of the shopfront window while the blonde walked past her.

“Hi,” said Strike. “That was Gregory Talbot.”

“What did he—? Oh yes,” said Robin with sudden interest, turning to follow the blonde out of the store, “what was on that can of film? I never asked. Did you get the projector working?”

“I did,” said Strike. “I’ll tell you about the film when I see you. Listen, there’s something else I wanted to say. Leave Mucky Ricci to me, all right? I’ve got Shanker putting out a few feelers. I don’t want you looking for him, or making inquiries.”

“Couldn’t I—?”

“Did you not hear me?”

“All right, calm down!” said Robin, surprised. “Surely Ricci must be ninety-odd by—?”

“He’s got sons,” said Strike. “Sons Shanker’s scared of.”

“Oh,” said Robin, who fully appreciated the implication.

“Exactly. So we’re agreed?”

“We are,” Robin assured him.

After Strike had hung up, Robin followed Elinor back out into the rain, and back to her terraced house. When the front door had closed again, Robin got back into her Land Rover and ate her packet of dried fruit and nuts, watching the front door.

It had occurred to her in Tesco that Elinor might be a childminder, given the nature of her purchases, but as the afternoon shaded into evening, no parents came to drop off their charges, and no baby’s wail was heard on the silent street.

33

For he the tyrant, which her hath in ward

By strong enchauntments and blacke Magicke leare,

Hath in a dungeon deepe her close embard…

There he tormenteth her most terribly,

And day and night afflicts with mortall paine…

Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene

Now that the blonde in Stoke Newington had also become a person of interest, the Shifty case became a two-to-three-person job. The agency was watching Elinor Dean’s house in addition to tracking the movements of Shifty’s Boss and Shifty himself, who continued to go about his business, enjoying the fat salary to which nobody felt he was entitled, but remaining tight-lipped about the hold he had over his boss. Meanwhile, Two-Times was continuing to pay for surveillance on his girlfriend more, it seemed, out of desperation than hope, and Postcard had gone suspiciously quiet. Their only suspect, the owlish guide at the National Portrait Gallery, had vanished from her place of work.

“I hope to God it’s flu, and she hasn’t killed herself,” Robin said to Barclay on Friday afternoon, when their paths crossed at the office. Strike was still stuck in Cornwall and she’d just seen the Twinkletoes client out of the office. He’d paid his sizable final bill grudgingly, having found out only that the West End dancer with whom his feckless daughter was besotted was a clean-living, monogamous and apparently heterosexual young man.

Barclay, who was submitting his week’s receipts to Pat before heading out to take over surveillance of Shifty overnight, looked surprised.

“The fuck would she’ve killed herself?”

“I don’t know,” said Robin. “That last message she wrote sounded a bit panicky. Maybe she thought I’d come to confront her, holding the postcards she’d sent.”

“You need tae get some sleep,” Barclay advised her.

Robin moved toward the kettle.

“No fer me,” Barclay told her, “I’ve gottae take over from Andy in thirty. We’re back in Pimlico, watchin’ Two-Times’ bird never cop off wi’ any fucker.”

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