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‘You’re going to leave her out of it,’ said Strike, holding the papers firmly in a fist that was nearly twice the size of Culpepper’s ‘Right? This is still a fucking massive story without her’
After a rimace, Culpepper caved in
‘Yeah, all right Give me them’
The journalist shoved the stateulped his tea, and his lorious prospect of dis the reputation of a British peer
‘Lord Parker of Pennywell,’ he said happily under his breath, ‘you are well and truly screwed, mate’
‘I take it your proprietor’ll get this?’ Strike asked, as the bill landed between them
‘Yeah, yeah…’
Culpepper threw a ten-pound note down onto the table and the two arette as soon as the door had swung closed behind them
‘How did you get her to talk?’ Culpepper asked as they set off together through the cold, past thethe market
‘I listened,’ said Strike
Culpepper shot hilance
‘All the other private dicks I use spend their ties’
‘Illegal,’ said Strike, blowing s darkness
‘So how—?’
‘You protect your sources and I’ll protect mine’
They walked fifty yards in silence, Strike’s limp more marked with every step
‘This is going to be leefully ‘That hypocritical old shit’s been bleating on about corporate greed and he’s had twenty mill’ stashed in the Cayman Islands…’
‘Glad to give satisfaction,’ said Strike ‘I’ll email you my invoice’
Culpepper threw him another sideways look
‘See Tom Jones’s son in the paper last week?’ he asked
‘Tom Jones?’
‘Welsh singer,’ said Culpepper
‘Oh, him,’ said Strike, without enthusiasm ‘I knew a Tom Jones in the army’
‘Did you see the story?’
‘No’
‘Nice long interview he gave He says he’s never otto be’
‘You haven’t seen my invoice yet,’ said Strike
‘Just saying One nice little interview and you could take a few nights off fro secretaries’
‘You’re going to have to stop suggesting this,’ said Strike, ‘or I’ for you, Culpepper’
‘Course,’ said Culpepper, ‘I could run the story anyway Rock star’s estranged son is a war hero, never knew his father, working as a private—’
‘Instructing people to hack phones is illegal as well, I’ve heard’
At the top of Long Lane they slowed and turned to face each other Culpepper’s laugh was uneasy
‘I’ll wait for your invoice, then’
‘Suits me’
They set off in different directions, Strike heading towards the Tube station
‘Strike!’ Culpepper’s voice echoed through the darkness behind him ‘Did you fuck her?’
‘Looking forward to reading it, Culpepper,’ Strike shouted wearily, without turning his head
He limped into the shadowy entrance of the station and was lost to Culpepper’s sight
2
How long ht? for I cannot stay,
Nor will not stay! I have business
Francis Beauer,
The Little French Lawyer
The Tube was filling up already Monday-ned Strike found a seat opposite a puffy-eyed young blonde whose head kept sinking sideways into sleep Again and again she jerked herself back upright, scanning the blurred signs of the stations frantically in case she had missed her stop
The train rattled and clattered, speeding Strike back towards the re two and a half rooms under a poorly insulated roof that he called home In the depths of his tiredness, surrounded by these blank, sheep-like visages, he found hiht all of the Every birth was, viewed properly,blindly through the darkness, the odds against a person beco How ht-headed with tiredness And how many, like him, were accidents?
There had been a little girl in his primary school class who had a port-wine stain across her face and Strike had always felt a secret kinship with her, because both of the indelibly different with them sinc
e birth, so that was not their fault They couldn’t see it, but everybody else could, and had the badit The occasional fascination of total strangers, which at five years old he had thought had so to do with his own uniqueness, he eventually realised was because they saw hiote, the incidental evidence of a celebrity’s unfaithful fuical father twice It had taken a DNA test to make Jonny Rokeby accept paternity
Do distillation of the prurience and presumptions that Strike met on the very rare occasions these days that anybody connected the surly-looking ex-soldier with the ageing rock star Their thoughts leapt at once to trust funds and handsoes, to aat thehours he worked, they asked themselves: whatpenury to wheedle more money out of Rokeby? What had he done with the millions his mother had surely squeezed out of her rich paramour?