Chapter 33
This is the first time we see an epigraph from Blue Oyster Cult’s smash hit that made us love the cowbell “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” The quote brings to mind many images and cliches, after all, when one door closes another window opens. Maybe the winds of change are blowing. Either way, Robin is apologetic, having just missed an opportunity with Mad Dad to listen to Brockbank creepily call her a little girl. It is interesting that Robin notes that Strike came to work with a backpack, humming as he entered, and she assumes that he has returned after a night with Elin. At least this time she didn’t debate calling the cops to report him missing as she did when he spent the night with Ciara Porter. There then proceeds to be an argument where the concept of males vs females perceptions in life clearly get in the way of their ability to fully communicate. Robin is angry that Zahara is in danger because Robin knows it in a way Strike can not. Strike, ever the gentleman, gives her a moment and some toilet roll before happily telling her about a breakthrough in the case, which leads her to blushing at her thoughts of Strike in a committed relationship. Any further discussion is interrupted by Shanker who unwittingly gets Strike to be a bit clearer in pointing out that they now have the locations of all three suspects. In a clever bit of writing Jo turns our attention to Robin and everything becomes drastically slowed down and, I don’t know about you but I started to feel a bit fuzzy. Robin sees a card addressed to her with something attached and she knows instantly that this is not going to be pleasant. While Jack Vettriano creates beautiful paintings, this particular work printed on a card becomes haunted not only by Kelsey’s severed toe but the words “She’s as beautiful as a foot”(273). The chapter ends with Strike sending Robin and Shanker out to a cash point and his telling Shanker to walk her right back to the office. I can’t help but laugh at Shanker’s macabre need to look. That said, does anyone else desperately want the pages where Shanker gives Robin his phone number? What did he say was the reasoning? Was it in case she needed help? Maybe to let him know if Strike needed help in a brotherly kind of way? These are the questions that keep me up at night.
Chapter 34
Directly following the toe’s arrival, Strike spends the night in his flat with his aching stump, thinking over the events of the day. He thinks of the walk to the tube and of insisting that Robin text him when she gets home. Then he focuses on the card. He reads the tone of the message, “She’s as beautiful as a foot” as a wink from our killer. But when the title of the painting “In Thoughts of You.” is added to the message, it multiplies to Strikes anxiety. Strike seems to think that the killer knows he is attracted to Robin, even if he won’t admit it to himself.
(You know it’s a good book when you are writing a blog and typing “secretary” is painful because well, come on now, she is clearly a partner, but I digress.) Wardle calls with the, I guess, “good” news that it is Kelsey’s toe from her other leg, adding that gallows humor we have come to expect. This time, however, Strike can’t joke back. His concern for Robin makes his natural defense mechanism unappealing. The next morning Strike heads to Hazel’s house on foot as money is once again tight. The walk reminds him again of the challenges he faced in his childhood. He arrives at the door of Kelsey’s sister only to see a red mass behind the door. It is Hazel’s boyfriend Ray and (Spoilers) a blink and you miss it clue. “A large red mass bloomed behind the glass and the door opened onto the hall, which was mostly concealed by a burly, barefoot man in a scarlet toweling robe. He was bald but his bushy gray beard, coupled with the scarlet robe, would have suggested Santa had he looked jolly”(277). It is our first look at Ray. Funny, Janice had a red living room and had Cinderella’s carriage on display. Another instance of a killer surrounded by red and a bit of a fairy tale allusion… like the fairy tale they tell the world of being kind helpers. I know when Running Grave comes out I will be looking for red everywhere.
Also interesting to note are Ray’s swollen eyes. We read, from his point of view, the purchasing of Vicks Vapor Rub. Can Vicks really make your eyes swell that badly? I for one hope Jo looked it up rather than act that part out.
Hazel says goodbye to a visiting neighbor and Jo gives us another neon sign that makes the Vegas Strip look like a flickering bulb in an empty warehouse. “Strike, who had heard the testimony of Brittany Brockbank and Rhona Laing and many others like them, knew that most women’s rapists and killers were not strangers in masks who reached out of the dark space under the stairs. They were the father, the husband, the mother’s or the sister’s boyfriend…”(281). She even ended the thought with sister’s boyfriend. Oh Jo, you brilliant creature you, came right out and told us who the killer was and masked it with Strike thinking about Robin’s attack, even if he doesn’t name her. It is at this point that I must say on each re-read I feel so stupid to have missed this the first time. What follows is an interview with diplomacy and a chance for Hazel to vent her confusion and a bit more misdirection with the fact that Kelsey knew someone with a motorbike. Blended in seamlessly is Hazel showing the photo that proved Ray’s innocence and Donald’s downfall; Ritchie, motorcycle owner, and Ray sitting next to sea holly. Strike asks to use the bathroom and notes the citation above the cistern for Ray’s heroic deeds. Pardon the pun and the language but what a shitty thing to do, steal a man’s citation and then let it hang over a toilet. Who does that? Apparently, a serial killer. The chapter ends with Strike making a few observations about the medical needs of the people in the house before finding a coat ticket and a blister pack of pills.
Chapter 35 Dominance and Submission
An interesting title starts this chapter, a question of dominance and submission. It starts with the killer thinking about how terrible it is that he was forced to submit to living with three women over the course of his life. This leads to him imagining in great detail killing “It” (Hazel). He can’t handle the pressure of being charming to Hazel, so he leaves early hoping to follow “The Secretary” only to quickly identify the cop who was staking out the offices. Not that that mattered, after all, he stood next to Strike, and Strike didn’t recognize him. He looks for Robin at all the places she had been following Platinum, but to no avail. He worried that she had resigned from her job after being so frightened of his “gift.” If only Robin knew this, maybe she would have stayed… nah not our Robin, nothing would keep her from her dream of detective work. He returned home unable to stalk Robin and desperate to kill again. For someone who claims to dominate life with his omnipotence he sure is submitting to the world around him.
In the creepiest of moments, he wakes early and heads to Robin’s house, only to dare to lean up against Landy?!? I get he is a serial killer and all but come on the Land Rover is a sacred item in our fandom so he should keep his ugly, yella, no good, filthy hands off of our Landy!!!The chapter ends with him disgusted at Robin spending time with her mother and he “Fucking hated this feeling that his omnipotence was slipping away” (292). After sitting in the mind of a killer we should all take a moment and chuckle at the fact that Matthew’s nickname from him is Pretty Boy.
Chapter 36
Strike wakes from his slumber and we are told that Robin was right. Strike did in fact have to choose between his two remaining clients. His first active thought of the day is wondering how the talk of the royal wedding may be affecting Robin. A little later it is mentioned how “The memory of her white face had haunted him all week” (294). Even still the thing he looks forward to is her return to the office later that day. He thinks of all the things he wants to update her on and how he “Missed her presence in the office” (295). Strike was able to have a bit of success on the Whittaker front, he saw Stephanie and was able to at least admit he was not as detached as he thought when it comes to his mother’s ex. His thoughts of the lack of success with Laing is interrupted by a heartbroken (?) Two Times who announces his girlfriend has broken up with him. Strike is saved by the bell or rather the phone. An exhausted Strike informs his client that he has to take this call. This leads to Wardle informing us that the killer isn’t Digger but they are looking into Devotee. It is very shortly after this that Robin appears.
“Robin looked taller to Strike than the Robin he kept in his memory: taller, better looking and more embarrassed” (299). Poor exhausted Strike gets to meet his future mother-in-law, I mean, Linda in this exhausted state. Robin takes comfort in the fact that if her mother is trying to detect any feelings between the two at least Strike looks like death warmed over. Of course, this seems to have not stopped Linda as she tells Robin “I like him, and I have to say, he might not be pretty, but he’s got something about him.” Robin then, like Hamlet’s mother said of the woman from “The Mousetrap”, protests too much with the line “Sara Shadlock feels the same way” (300). Robin works herself up into a right state by not taking Strike’s temper and comments as the concern he genuinely feels but as an attack on her ability to do the job. This sends Robin into a tailspin of thoughts and images of Strike downgrading her feelings and spreading her private business around to Elin in a manner similar to Matthews. Linda, of course, sees all and with five minutes left to her visit gives Robin money and a bit of an ultimatum. Use the money for wedding shoes or a new single life. It seems though that Linda thinks Robin is still in love with Matthew after all she has told no one else about the break up. All this talk about feelings by people other than Robin leads her to decide on following her own lead without telling Strike.
Chapter 37
The next day, Robin decides to watch the wedding while working from home with Matthew. She notes that Matthew isn’t even trying to engage with her. But honestly with all the other stuff going on, who would want to call the time of death on a relationship only to have to start a single life with a serial killer after you? So instead of breaking it off, she goes to every brothel website and dark corner of the web in search of Brockbank. She only looks up occasionally, spotting a glimpse of the Princes and the moment of Kate Middleton getting into the car and notes she had her own long sleeves removed from her wedding gown when they changed dates. She receives a text from someone, though we aren’t told whom, and informs them that she is who she says she is, going so far as to send them a picture to confirm her identity. I can only imagine how Strike would feel about that. The picture startles Matthew in such a way that Robin becomes aware of his crying. The wedding makes her remember her own engagement at the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus. (Although thanks to our own detectives in the group we now know it is not Eros but Anteros). Matthew points out that the royal couple split up and asks her if it is really over between him and Robin. Instead of answering him Robin takes a small jaunt down memory lane that interestingly enough, ends with an incomplete thought of Strike and Elin… (Cue the song I won’t say I’m in Love) before accepting the tragic looking Matthew and calling his name.
Chapter 38
The killer is back and this time he has taken his anger out, slightly, on “It”, to get out of his house. He is even more desperate to kill because his girlfriend dared to hint at the possibility of commitment with him in light of the royal wedding. He is forced to go out and find some random girl to kill which leads him to think of his real target: Robin and just how important she is to him after all he has spent more time tracking her than any other victim. Which leads me to think when did he actually start tracking her? It would have had to have been before the start of the novel, right? Like maybe when the news came out about her involvement with Liz Tassel? But times have changed and it just isn’t so easy being a serial killer with whores plying their trade online instead of street corners. It must be his lucky night though because before long he finds someone who was left behind without her previous two companions. He doesn’t say much to her and ironically saves her from being flattened by an oncoming white van (why does this feel like foreshadowing the van in Troubled Blood?). Somehow, through drink, drugs, and the use of a dominant tone, he forces her down an alleyway and stabs her three times before his luck runs out and she screams. Despite this, he continues attacking her. She gets out a second scream and he removes two fingers from her, what he assumes to be, dying body before people arrive on the scene. Hasn’t he seen any movie ever? If you aren’t going to double tap you have to stay to ensure they are dead. He is able to get away through sneaking in a bit of running and well, luck again, because somehow, he finds his way onto a bus and no one notices the blood he wiped off his hands onto his jacket. I have to assume it is because it is late and dark. That said, I will be looking much closer at any companions on bus rides in the near future.
Chapter 39
This chapter starts with Elin telling Strike that us Americans finally killed Bin Laden and Strike being so tired that he almost fell asleep during sex the night before. But hey, at least he finished the job. Go Strike?!? The man is known for having women love him and love being with him. Then Jo gifts us with this little gem, that he almost fell asleep on her. Of course, then she breaks my heart by informing us that Elin drove Strike to the tube that morning. I say we start a petition that only Robin is allowed to drive Strike anywhere. Elin then tells him she is ready to stop hiding the fact that they are dating and Strike tells a white lie to get out of it. After all, “In thirty-seven years, Strike had avoided the status of ‘Mummy’s Boyfriend’”(318). And yet three years later he can’t make that same claim. Is it because Elin had a daughter and Madeline a son?
At the office, he walks up the stairs wondering why he never asked the landlord to fix the elevator only to see someone is already there. This is not the happy reunion we would like though. Strike is upset that Robin is there, after all, there is a serial killer after her, and then there is the ring glittering, back on her finger. Robin thinks she feels defensive, which is interesting, and Strike responds as only Strike can, stoically asking if it is back on and then getting down to the business at hand: that there is no business.
But Robin has come prepared, shockingly with Matthews help and with a dose of pure Robin telling him outright he looks like shit before pointing out that there are other ways for her to do investigative work. I have to wonder though if he would have reacted differently to her joining the police if she hadn’t started it out with “I’d do better to take Wardle up on-(321) Strike doesn’t even let her finish the statement before he is demanding what Wardle offered. Anyway that seems to do the trick because after one last plea he agrees to let her come back to work. He thinks for a minute she is going to hug him, but she doesn’t, and he wonders if the ring being back has de-sexed him. Robin tells him of her new lead and the way she is using Strike to get Jason to talk. Strike, like every grumpy trope there is, drinks the tea she made and offers next to nothing except acne medication (more on that later) and a coat ticket.
Chapter 40
The last chapter of this section of the read-along, is the chapter that makes me swoon. I can not do it the service it deserves because it is three pages of Strike basically saying, “How do I love Robin? Let me count the ways that I don’t love Robin because what are you talking about Love? No, I don't love her… That's crazy talk”.
The chapter starts with an epigraph from the song “Searching for Celine”. While the epigraph itself seems an odd choice, when looking at the lyrics to the entire song it becomes clear. This is exactly where Strikes’ head is at. He is lying to himself, he is lying to her, he is avoiding loving her, because if he admits how he feels, it will kill him. He wouldn’t be able to be the grumpy single ex-boxer from the army. Instead, he would be happy, satisfied, content, and man what a thrill that would be from the peripatetic, unsatisfying first 37 years. He starts by stating the facts of the prosecution, if you will. She is a decade younger, she was his secretary yadda, yadda, yadda. But “somehow she persuaded him to let her stay” (328). Oh Strike, come on big guy, it’s ok. We all know that when she was about to leave, you felt that same longing from when you were a little boy and you wanted to keep that small garden snake. We know you felt that way before she did any persuading, you softie you. He continues to admit that everyone likes Robin. That the pronoun He is in italics when speaking of his like is saying all kinds of things with tone and mood and I am here for it! He continues to think about how she helped heal him from the wounds Charlotte had inflicted and thought about how they knew things about each other that few others did like the would be baby and the rape. Then he continues on, because, man, walking with his arm around her waist felt so good, and Matthew definitely would not have liked that at all. Strike finally admits that she is a very sexy girl! Yet he says that she has the opposite effect of Charlotte: she gets men to talk while Charlotte makes them dumb struck. As good as it is to hear him think she is very sexy, I have to say my favorite line in this chapter is simply this: “Yet he liked her face” (329). It reminds me of My Fair Lady and Rex Harrison singing, “I’ve grown accustomed to her face”. Which, like poor Professor Higgins, leads him to think how she is the sort for marriage and then he, just like the professor, gets angry about how different they are. After all she had a bloody pony!
But then again, she would have been destined to be SIB and she did all these amazing and wonderful detective things and she would have been a member of the police force if not for the rape.
Then he starts thinking about how terrible Matthew is as a partner for her (Enter Rex singing: "Marry MATTHEW." What an infantile idea. What a heartless, wicked, brainless thing to do. But she'll regret it, she'll regret it. It's doomed before they even take the vow”)and how she possibly could not have felt what he felt in Barrow. But then yet again like Henry Higgins he makes the “logical” conclusion. He just needs to stay with Elin for now. After all, once you break up, it's only a matter of time before you break up again. So to end this rollercoaster of a chapter and tie it with a My Fair Lady bow… Poor Detective Strike! Until next time friends! Thanks for reading.
Chapter 33
This is the first time we see an epigraph from “Don’t Fear the Reaper” which I would argue is the one song by Blue Oyster Cult that everyone knows. The quote brings to mind many images and cliches after all when one door closes a window opens or maybe it is the winds of change that are blowing. Either way Robin is apologetic having just missed an opportunity with Mad Dad in order to listen to Brockbank really creepily call her a little girl. It is interesting to note that Robin makes note of the fact that Strike came to work with a backpack humming and she contemplates that he has returned after a night with Elin. At least this time she didn’t debate calling the cops to report him missing as she did when he spent the night with Ciara Porter. There proceeds to be an argument where the concept of males vs females perceptions in life clearly get in the way of their ability to fully communicate. Robin is angry that Zahara is in danger because Robin knows it in a way Strike can not. Strike, ever the gentleman, gives her a moment and some toilet roll before happily telling her about a break through in the case which leads her to blush at her thoughts of Strike in a committed relationship. Any further talk is interrupted by Shanker who unwittingly gets Strike to be a bit clearer in pointing out that they now have the locations of all three suspects. It is as Strike wraps up talking with Shanker that Jack Vettriano paintings will never be the same. Robin opens a card addressed to her with Kelsey’s severed toe attached to it. The chapter ends with Strike sending Robin and Shanker out to cash point and his telling Shanker to walk her right back to the office. I can’t help but laugh at Shanker’s macabre need to look. That said, does anyone else desperately want the pages where Shanker gives Robin his phone number? What did he say was the reasoning? Was it in case she needed help? To let him know if Strike needed help in a brotherly kind of way? These are the questions that still keep me up at night.
Chapter 34
Directly following the toe’s arrival Strike spends the night in his flat with his aching stump thinking over the events of the day. He thinks of the walk to the tube and insisting that she text him when she gets home. Then he focuses on the card. He reads the tone of the message, “She’s as beautiful as a foot” as a wink from our killer and that even the title of the painting “In Thoughts of You” seem to point to the killer also being aware of Robin’s beauty and possibly even Strike’s potential feelings about his secretary. (You know it is a good book when you are writing a blog and typing secretary is painful because well come on now she is clearly a partner, that you have a great book in your hands but I digress.) Wardle calls with the, I guess good, news that it is Kelsey’s toe from her other leg and adds that gallows humor we have come to expect. This time, however, Strike can’t joke back. His concern for Robin makes his natural defense mechanism unappealing. As, Strike takes the tube and wanders the streets considering the difficulties of his childhood, he again thinks how walking is the logical choice as money is again tight. He arrives at the door of Kelsey’s sister only to see a red mass behind the door. It is Hazel’s boyfriend Ray and (Spoilers) a moment upon rereading the book of how did I miss this? After all Ray is wearing a red robe…but with a bit of miss direction… would have looked like Santa had he been jolly. Funny, Janice had a red living room and had Cinderella’s carriage on display. Another instance of a killer surrounded by red and a bit of a fairy tale… like the fairy tale they tell the world of being kind helpers… I know when Running Grave comes out I will be looking for red everywhere. Also interesting to note is Ray’s swollen eyes. We read from his point of view the purchasing of Vicks Vapor Rub. Can vicks really make your eyes swell that badly? I for one hope Jo looked it up rather than act that part out. Hazel finally says goodbye to her neighbor and Jo gives us another neon sign that makes the Vegas Strip look like a billboard for a politician. “Strike, who had heard the testimony of Brittany Brockbank and Rhona Laing and many others like them, knew that most women’s rapists and killers were not strangers in masks who reached out of the dark space under the stairs. They were the father, the husband, the mother’s or the sister’s boyfriend…”(281). She even ended the thought with sister’s boyfriend. Oh Jo you brilliant creature you came right out and told us who the killer was and masked it with Strike thinking about Robin’s attack even if he doesn’t name her. It is at this point that I must say on each re-read I feel so stupid to have missed this the first time. What follows is an interview with diplomacy and a chance for Hazel to vent her confusion and a bit more misdirection with the fact that Kelsey knew someone with a motorbike. Blended in seamlessly is Hazel showing the photo that proved Ray’s innocence and Donald’s downfall. Ritchie, motorcycle owner, and Ray sitting next to sea holly. Strike asks to use the bathroom and notes the citation above the cistern for Ray’s heroic deeds. Pardon the pun and the language but what a shitty thing to do, steal a man’s citation and then let it hang over a toilet. Who does that? Apparently a serial killer. The chapter ends with Strike making a few observations about the medical needs of the people in the house before finding a coat ticket and a blister pack of pills.
Chapter 35 Dominance and Submission
An interesting title starts this chapter, a question of dominance and submission. It starts with the killer thinking about how terrible it is that he was forced to submit to living with three women over the course of his life. This leads to him imagining in great detail killing It (Hazel). He can’t handle the pressure of being charming to Hazel so he leaves early hoping to follow “The Secretary” only to quickly identify the cop who was staking out the offices. Not that that mattered, after all he stood next to Strike and Strike didn’t recognize him. He looks for Robin at all the places she had been following Platinum to no avail. He worried that she had resigned from her job after being so frightened of his “gift”. If only Robin knew this, maybe she would have stayed… nah not our Robin nothing would keep her from her dream of detection work. He returned home unable to stalk Robin and desperate to kill again. In the creepiest of moments he wakes early and heads to Robin’s house only to dare to lean up against Landy. The chapter ends with him disgusted at Robin spending time with her mother and, “Fucking hated this feeling that his omnipotence was slipping away” (292). After sitting in the mind of a killer we should all take a moment and chuckle at the fact that Matthew’s nickname from him is Pretty Boy.
Chapter 36
Strike wakes from his slumber and we are told that Robin was right. Strike did in fact have to choose between his two remaining clients. His first active thought of the day is wondering how the talk of the royal wedding may be affecting Robin. As he begins his work day, “The memory of her white face had haunted him all week” (294). Even still the thing he looks forward to is her return to the office later that day. He thinks of all the things he wants to update her on and how he “Missed her presence in the office” (295). Strike was able to have a bit of success on the Whittaker front, he saw Stephanie and was able to at least admit he was not as detached as he thought. His thoughts of the lack of success with Laing is interrupted by a heartbroken (?) Two Times who announces his girlfriend has broken up with him. An exhausted Strike informs his client that he has to take this call. This leads to Wardle informing us that the killer isn’t Digger but they are looking into Devotee. It is very shortly after this that Robin appears.
“Robin looked taller to Strike than the Robin he kept in his memory: taller, better looking and more embarrassed” (299). Poor exhausted Strike gets to meet the mother-in-law, I mean, Linda in this exhausted state. Robin takes comfort in the fact that if her mother is trying to detect any feelings between the two at least Strike looks like death warmed over. Of course, this seems to have not stopped Linda as she tells Robin “I like him, and I have to say, he might not be pretty, but he’s got something about him.” Robin then, like the Queen from Hamlet’s Mousetrap, protests too much with the line “Sara Shadlock feels the same way” (300). But then again Robin does not take Strike’s temper and comments as the concern he genuinely feels but as an attack on her ability to do the job. This sends Robin into a tailspin of thoughts and images of Strike downgrading her feelings and spreading her private business around to Elin in a manner similar to Matthews. Linda, of course, sees all and with five minutes left to her visit gives Robin money and a bit of an ultimatum. Use the money for wedding shoes or a new single life. It seems though that Linda thinks Robin is still in love with Matthew after all she has told no one else about the break up. Robin then speaks up against an unkempt man who offers comfort and decides she is going to follow her own lead without telling Strike.
Chapter 37
The next day Robin decides to watch the wedding while working from home with Matthew. She notes that Matthew isn’t even trying to engage with her and honestly with all the other stuff going on who would want to call the time of death on a relationship only to have to start a single life with a serial killer after you. So instead of breaking it off she goes to every brothel website and dark corner of the web in search of Brockbank. She only looks up occasionally, spotting a glimpse of the Princes and the moment of Kate Middleton getting into the car. Robin notes she had her own long sleeves removed from her wedding gown when they changed dates. She receives a text from a person that we are not sure of and informs them that she is who she says she is. Going so far as to send them a picture to confirm her identity. I can only imagine how Strike would feel about that. The taking of the picture startles Matthew in such a way that Robin becomes aware of his crying. The wedding makes her remember her own engagement at the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus. (Although thanks to our own detectives in the group we now know it is not Eros but Anteros). Matthew points out that the royal couple split up and asks her if it is really over. Robin takes a small jaunt down memory lane that interestingly enough ends with an incomplete thought of Strike and Elin… (Cue the song I won’t say I’m in Love) before accepting the tragic looking Matthew and calling his name.
Chapter 38
The killer is back and this time he has taken his anger out, slightly, on It in order to get out of his house. He is even more desperate to kill because his girlfriend dared to hint at the possibility of commitment with him in light of the royal wedding. The Secretary reached her importance by just what she can do for him. He thinks about how he has never tracked a woman for so long. Which leads me to think when did he actually start tracking her? It would have had to have been before the start of the novel. Right? As he walks the streets looking for someone to kill he thinks of how times have changed and how hard it is to find a whore to kill. It must be his lucky night though because before long he finds one who is left without her previous two companions. He doesn’t say much to her and ironically saves her from being flattened by an oncoming white van (why does this feel like foreshadowing the van in Troubled Blood?). Somehow, through drink or drugs and the use of a dominant tone he is able to get her down an alleyway where he stabs her three times before his luck runs out and she is able to scream. He keeps attacking her though before she is able to get out a second scream and with that he removes two fingers before people arrive on the scene. He is able to get away through sneaking a bit of running and well luck again because somehow he finds his way onto a bus and no one notices the blood he wiped off his hands onto his jacket. I have to assume it is because it is late and dark, that said I may be looking much closer at any companions on bus rides in the near future.
Chapter 39
This chapter starts with Elin telling Strike that us Americans finally killed Bin Laden. And Strike being so tired that he almost fell asleep during sex the night before but hey at least he finished the job. Go Strike?!? The man is known for having women love him and love being with him and then Jo gifts us with this little jem, that he almost fell asleep on her. Of course then she breaks my heart by informing us that Elin drove Strike to the tube that morning. I say we start a petition that only Robin is allowed to drive Strike anywhere. Elin then tells him she is ready to stop hiding the fact that they are dating and Strike tells a white lie to get out of it. After all, “In thirty-seven years, Strike had avoided the status of ‘Mummy’s Boyfriend’”(318). And yet three years later he can’t make that same claim. Is it because Elin had a daughter and Madeline a son? He walks up the stairs wondering why he never asked the landlord to fix the elevator only to see someone is in the office. This is not the happy reunion we would like though. Strike is upset that Robin is there, after all there is a serial killer after her, and then there is the ring glittering, back on her finger. Robin thinks she feels defensive, which is interesting, and Strike responds as only Strike can, stoically asking if it is back on and then getting down to the business at hand: that there is no business. But Robin has come prepared, shockingly with Matthews help and with a dose of pure Robin telling him outright he looks like shit. I have to wonder though if he would have reacted differently to her joining the police if she hadn’t started it out with “I’d do better to take Wardle up on-(321) Strike doesn’t even let her finish the statement before he is demanding what Wardle offered. Anyway that seems to be the trick because after one last plea he agrees to let her come back to work. He thinks for a minute she is going to hug him but she doesn’t and he wonders if the ring being back has de-sexed him. Robin tells him of her new lead and the way she is using Strike to get Jason to talk. Strike like every grumpy trope there is drinks the tea she made and offers next to nothing except acne medication (more on that later) and a coat ticket.
Chapter 40
The last chapter of this section of the read-along and the chapter that makes me swoon. I can not do it the service it deserves because it is three pages of Strike basically saying, “How do I love Robin? Let me count the ways that I don’t love Robin because what are you talking about Love? No, I don't love her… That's crazy talk”. The chapter starts with an Epigraph from the song Searching for Celine. While the epigraph itself seems an odd choice when looking at the lyrics to the entire song it becomes apparent that this is exactly where Strikes’ head is at. He is lying to himself, he is lying to her, he is avoiding loving her because if he admits how he feels it would kill him. He wouldn’t be able to be the grumpy single ex-boxer from the army and instead would be happy, satisfied, content, and man what a thrill that would be from the peripatetic, unsatisfying first 37 years. He starts by stating the facts of the prosecution if you will. She is a decade younger, she was his secretary yadda, yadda, yadda. But “somehow she persuaded him to let her stay” (328). Oh Strike, come on big guy, it’s ok. We all know that when she was about to leave you were felt with that same longing from when you were a little boy and you wanted to keep that small garden snake. We know you felt that way before she did any persuading you softie you. He continues to admit that everyone likes Robin. That italics is saying all kinds of things with tone and mood and I am here for it! He continues to think about how she helped heal him from the wounds Charlotte had inflicted and thought about how they knew things about each other that few others did the would be baby and the rape. Then he continues on because the man walking with his arm around her waist felt so good, and yea Matthew definitely would not have liked that at all. Strike finally admits that she is a very sexy girl! Yet he says that she has the opposite effect of Charlotte: she gets men to talk while Charlotte makes them dumb struck. As good as it is to hear him think she is very sexy, I have to say my favorite line in this chapter is simply this “Yet he liked her face” (329). It reminds me of Rex Harrison singing, “I’ve grown accustomed to her face”. Which, like poor Professor Higgins, leads him to think how she is the sort for marriage and then he, just like the professor, gets angry about how different they are. After all she had a bloody pony! But then again she would have been destined to be SIB and she did all these amazing and wonderful detective things and she would have been a member of the police force if not for the rape. Then he starts thinking about how terrible Matthew is as a partner for her and how she possibly could not have felt what he felt in Barrow. But then yet again like Henry Higgins he makes the “logical” conclusion. He just needs to stay with Elin for now after all. Once you break up, it's only a matter of time before you break up again. So to end this roller coaster of a chapter and tie it with a My Fair Lady bow… Poor Detective Strike! Until next time friends! Thanks for reading.
