Page 205 of Troubled Blood

“Terrible, isn’t it,” said Robin, as she and Strike walked back out of the black street door onto the cool of Denmark Street, where sunlight still hadn’t penetrated, “this missing plane?”

Eleven days previously, Malaysia Airlines flight 370 had taken off from Kuala Lumpur and disappeared without trace. More than two hundred people were missing. Competing theories about what had happened to the plane had dominated the news for the last week: hijack, crew sabotage and mechanical failure among them. Robin had been reading about it on the way into work. All those relatives, waiting for news. It must, surely, come soon? An aircraft holding nearly two hundred and fifty people wasn’t as easily lost as a single woman, melting away into the Clerkenwell rain.

“Nightmare for the families,” agreed Strike, as they headed out into the sun on Charing Cross Road. He paused, looking up and down the road. “I don’t want to go to Starbucks.”

So they walked to Bar Italia in Frith Street, which lay opposite Ronnie Scott’s jazz club, five minutes from the office. The small metal tables and chairs outside on the pavement were all unoccupied. In spite of its sunny promise, the March morning air still carried a chill. Every high stool at the counter inside the café bore a customer gulping down coffee before starting their working day, while reading news off their phones or else examining the shelves of produce reflected in the mirror that faced them.

“You going to be warm enough if we sit out here?” asked Strike doubtfully, looking from Robin’s dress to the counter inside. She was starting to really wish she’d worn her jeans.

“I’ll be fine,” said Robin. “And I only want a cappuccino, I already ate.”

While Strike was buying food and drink, Robin sat down on the cold metal chair, drew her jacket more tightly around her and opened her bag, with the intention of taking out Talbot’s leather notebook, but after a moment’s hesitation, she changed her mind and left it where it was. She didn’t want Strike to think that she’d been concentrating on Talbot’s astrological musings over the last few days, even though she had, in fact, spent many hours poring over the book.

“Cappuccino,” said Strike, returning to her and setting the coffee in front of her. He’d bought himself a double espresso and a mozzarella and salami roll. Sitting down next to her, he said,

“How come mediation was canceled?”

Pleased he’d remembered, Robin said:

“Matthew claims something urgent came up.”

“Believe him?”

“No. I think it’s more mind games. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but at least it would’ve been over. So,” she said, not wanting to talk about Matthew, “have you got anything new on Bamborough?”

“Not much,” said Strike, who’d been working flat out on other cases since his return from Cornwall. “We’ve got forensics back on that blood smear I found in the book in the Athorns’ flat.”

“And?”

“Type O positive.”

“And did you call Roy to find out…”

“Yeah. Margot was A positive.”

“Oh,” said Robin.

“My hopes weren’t high,” said Strike, with a shrug. “It looked like a smear from a paper cut, if anything.

“I’ve found Mucky Ricci, though. He’s in a private nursing home called St. Peter’s, in Islington. I had to do a fair bit of impersonation on the phone to get confirmation.”

“Great. D’you want me to—?”

“No. I told you, Shanker issued stern warnings about upsetting the old bastard, in case his sons got wind of it.”

“And you feel, of the two of us, I’m the one who upsets people, do you?”

Strike smirked slightly while chewing his roll.

“There’s no point rattling Luca Ricci’s cage unless we have to. Shanker told me Mucky was gaga, which I hoped meant he was a bit less sharp than he used to be. Might even have worked in our favor. Unfortunately, from what I managed to wheedle out of the nurse, he doesn’t talk any more.”

“Not at all?”

“Apparently not. She mentioned it in passing. I tried to find out whether that’s because he’s depressed, or had a stroke, or whether he’s demented, in which case questioning him is obviously pointless, but she didn’t say.

“I went to check out the home. I was hoping for some big institu­tional place where you might slip in and out unnoticed, but it’s more like a B&B. They’ve only got eighteen residents. I’d say the chances of getting in there undetected or passing yourself off as a distant cousin are close to zero.”

Irrationally, now that Ricci seemed unreachable, Robin, who hadn’t been more interested in him than in any of the other suspects, immediately felt as though something crucial to the investigation had been lost.

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