Page 153 of Troubled Blood

“Excuse me?” said Strike.

“For Douthwaite? Because he went to Bognor Regis, didn’t he? To a holiday camp?”

“Clacton-on-Sea,” said Strike. “Unless he went to Bognor Regis as well?”

“As well as what?”

Jesus fucking Christ.

“What makes you think Douthwaite was ever in Bognor Regis?” Strike asked, slowly and clearly, rubbing his forehead.

“I thought—wasn’t he there, at some point?”

“Not as far as I’m aware, but we know he worked in Clacton-on-Sea in the mid-eighties.”

“Oh, it must’ve been that—yes, someone must’ve told me that, they’re all—old-fashioned seaside —you know.”

Strike seemed to remember he’d asked both Irene and Janice whether they had any idea where Douthwaite had gone after he left Clerkenwell, and that both had said they didn’t know.

“How did you know he went to work in Clacton-on-Sea?” he asked.

“Jan told me,” said Irene, after a tiny pause. “Yes, Jan would’ve told me. She was his neighbor, you know, she was the one who knew him. Yes, I think she tried to find out where he’d gone after he left Percival Road, because she was worried about him.”

“But this was eleven years later,” said Strike.

“What was?”

“He didn’t go to Clacton-on-Sea until eleven years after he left Percival Road,” said Strike. “When I asked you both if you knew where he’d gone—”

“Well, you meant now, didn’t you?” said Irene, “where he is now? I’ve no idea. Have you looked into that Leamington Spa business, by the way?” Then she laughed, and said, “All these seaside places! No, wait—it isn’t seaside, is it, not Leamington Spa? But you know what I mean —water—I do love water, it’s—Greenwich, Eddie knew I’d love this house when he spotted it for sale —was there anything in that Leamington Spa thing, or was Jan making it up?”

“Mrs. Beattie wasn’t making it up,” said Strike. “Mr. Ramage definitely saw a missing—”

“Oh, I didn’t mean Jan would make it up, no, I don’t mean that,” said Irene, instantly contradicting herself. “I just mean, you know, odd place for Margot to turn up, Leamington—have you found any connection,” she asked airily, “or—?”

“Not yet,” said Strike. “You haven’t remembered anything about Margot and Leamington Spa, have you?”

“Me? Goodness, no, how should I know why she’d go there?”

“Well, sometimes people do remember things after we’ve talked to—”

“Have you spoken to Jan since?”

“No,” said Strike. “D’you know when she’s back from Dubai?”

“No,” said Irene. “All right for some, isn’t it? I wouldn’t mind some sunshine, the winter we’re—but it’s wasted on Jan, she doesn’t sunbathe, and I wouldn’t fancy the flight all that way in Economy, which is how she has to—I wonder how she’s getting on, six weeks with her daughter-in-law! Doesn’t matter how well you get on, that’s a long—”

“Well, I’d better let you get on, Mrs. Hickson.”

“Oh, all right,” she said. “Yes, well. Best of luck with everything.”

“Thank you,” he said, and hung up.

The rain pattered on the window. With a sigh, Strike retired to the café bathroom for a long overdue pee.

He was just paying his bill when he spotted the man in the Sonic the Hedgehog sweatshirt walking past the window, now on the same side of the street as the café. He was heading back the way he’d come, two bulging bags of Tesco shopping hanging from his hands, moving with that same odd, rocking, side-to-side gait, his soaking hair flat to his skull, his mouth slightly open. Strike’s eyes followed him as he passed, watching the rain drip off the bottom of his shopping bags and from the lobes of his particularly large ears.

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