Page 190 of Troubled Blood

And then an odd idea came to Robin: the notion of a fourteen-sign zodiac was clearly ludicrous (but why was it more ludicrous than a twelve-sign zodiac? asked a voice in her head, which sounded remarkably like Strike’s), but certainly if you were going to squeeze in an extra two signs, dates would have to shift, wouldn’t they?

She picked up her mobile and Googled “fourteen-sign zodiac Schmidt.”

“Oh my God,” said Robin aloud, into her still hotel room.

Before she could fully process what she’d read, the mobile in her hand rang. It was Strike.

“Hi,” said Robin, hastily turning him to speakerphone so she could continue reading what she’d just found. “How are you?”

“Knackered,” said Strike, who sounded it. “What’s happened?”

“What d’you mean?” asked Robin, her eyes rapidly scanning lines of text.

“You sound like you do when you’ve found something out.”

Robin laughed.

“OK, you won’t believe this, but I’ve just found Schmidt.”

“You’ve what?”

“Schmidt, first name, Steven. He’s a real person! He wrote a book in 1970 called Astrology 14, proposing the inclusion of two extra signs in the zodiac, Ophiuchus the Serpent-Bearer, and Cetus the Whale!”

There was a brief silence, then Strike muttered,

“How the hell did I miss that?”

“Remember that statue of the man holding the serpent, at Margot’s old house?” said Robin, falling back on her pillows among the scattered tarot cards.

“Asclepius,” said Strike. “Ophiuchus was the Roman form. God of healing.”

“Well, this explains all the changing dates, doesn’t it?” said Robin, “and why poor Talbot got so confused! He was trying to put everyone into Schmidt’s adjusted dates, but they didn’t seem to fit. And all the other astrologers he was consulting were still using the twelve-sign system, so—”

“Yeah,” said Strike, talking over her, “that’d make a crazy man crazier, all right.”

His tone said, “This is interesting, but not important.” Robin removed the Three of Disks from beneath her and examined it absentmindedly. Robin was now so well-versed in astrological symbols that she didn’t need to look up the glyphs to know that it also represented Mars in Capricorn.

“How are things with you?” she asked.

“Well, the church isn’t going to hold everyone who’s coming tomorrow, which Joan would’ve been thrilled about. I just wanted to let you know I’ll be heading back up the road again on Tuesday.”

“Are you sure you don’t need to stay longer?”

“The neighbors are all promising they’re going to look after Ted. Lucy’s trying to get him to come up to London for a bit afterward. Any other news your end?”

“Er… let’s see… I wrapped up Postcard,” said Robin. “I think our weatherman was quite disappointed when he saw who his stalker was. His wife cheered up no end, though.”

Strike gave a grunt of laughter.

“So, we’ve taken on the commodities broker,” Robin continued. “We haven’t got pictures of anything incriminating between the husband and nanny yet, but I don’t think it’s going to be long.”

“You’re owed a long stretch off for all this, Robin,” said Strike gruffly. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said.

They hung up shortly afterward.

Robin’s room seemed to have become suddenly much darker. The sun had gone down; in silhouette, the town hall resembled a monstrous Gothic palace. She turned on her bedside lamp and looked around at the bed strewn with astrological notes and tarot cards. Seen in the light of Strike’s lack of enthusiasm, Talbot’s doodles looked like the determinedly weird drawings in the back of a teenager’s jotter, leading nowhere, done purely for the love of strangeness.

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