The Ink Black Heart, Chapters 32-37: Freemasons, Flavia and the Christmas pudding onesie.

We start this section with Robin still royally ticked at her partner, both for not telling her about Madeline and for adding the Jago Ross case to their books. Strike is continuing his physical and emotional breakdown with his stump getting progressively worse and feeling overstretched with both social and work demands.

Despite her irritation, Robin provides a printout on the Brotherhood of Ultima Thule, and she and Strike speculate as to whether this group could be a front group for the Halvening.  This leads me to consider a possible link to The Hallmarked Man. The first twitter header clue to the book's contents that we were given was a shot of the Freemason building on Great Queen Street in London. While the Freemasons are doubtlessly a more reputable bunch than the BOUT boys, there are also some dark sides, including associations with police corruption in the UK, and with the Mafia in Italy. Thus, we could have a leapfrogging echo between books 6 and 8 of a fraternal organization with a connection to some sort of past or present criminal enterprise. 

In Chapter 33, the detectives head off to meet the charming Upcott family-- and yes, I am being sarcastic about everyone except Flavia, There's not much to say about how awful an excuse for a human Inigo is---  I agree with the Strike and Ellacott files podcasters who called him "worse than 10 Roy Phipps" and "the Umbridge to Gus's Voldemort." A clue of note upon re-reading is the mention of Gus's "girlfriend" Darcy. That name jumped out at me even on my first reading, as I had predicted, as part of my now-discarded 5-6 flip idea, that a woman's name meaning "dark" would feature in the book. One of the few I got right. 

Chapter 34 thankfully has us leave behind all the Upcotts except Flavia, who is heading off to her neighbor's to visit the puppies (and hopefully bring some much needed joy into her miserable existence) and gets to chat more with Robin and Strike on their way back to the Land Rover. While Flavia seems like a charming little girl on the first read (or, at least, as Strike says, "at the least f*cked-up end of the Upcott spectrum,") her scene takes on a bit more ominous tone upon re-reading.  She "seemed to teeter on the verge of saying something else, then changed her mind." Very sad to realize the child either knew or strongly suspected Gus was the killer, and was so used to being brow-beaten and dismissed by her parents that she couldn't speak up. 

Oh and for the benefit of us Yanks who are unfamiliar with Christmas pudding and consider onesies baby clothes, here's what Flavia's outfit looks like. 

Robin and Strike cover a lot of possibilities on the way to the Flask and dance around a lot of the truth, with Strike in particular not only suspecting Gus but guessing aspects that turned out to be spot on, including him bugging the upstairs of his family's home, faking practice through playing recorded music and being forced to divert off the Heath "for some reason." There is the amusing moment of Robin snapping at Strike for suggesting she "chat up" Ryan Murphy. Within a year, Strike will be the one getting snippy every time the topic of Robin and Ryan comes up. 

Midge proves her value by getting her ex's credentials for entering Drek's Game, which impresses Strike and diffuses a bit of Robin's irritation. Once Robin is situated in the historic pub and into the cartoon Highgate, one of the first appearances is one of the more important clues: the anemic vampire that Josh proposed for the movie but had never appeared in the cartoon, proving that the game creators had access to Josh's sketches. This encounter is followed almost immediately by simultaneous private chats with two different moderators, Worm28 and Vilepechora. Robin scrambles for information from Midge, and manages to successfully impersonate Buffypaws to the people used to chatting wit Beth. Worm starts providing useful information almost immediately, while Vile's homophobia is just the first of his many bigotries. He also is the first to tell her than Anomie killed Evie. This is also the point of where audiobook listeners learn that, despite his generally brilliant narration of this very long and complex series, Robert Glenister's Southern US accent leaves a lot to be desired. 

While Robin navigates the game, Strike interviews Philip Ormand, who manages to make himself both unlikeable and suspect. His atypical compassion for Yasmin is an early hint to their ongoing collaboration. No one really blames Strike for crushing his fingers during the farewell handshake. 

The first disguised "Dig up Edie" call comes in as Strike is debriefing Robin about the Ormand interview. Little Flavia apparently doesn't waste time. Neither does Anomie, who enters the game, basks in the adoration of his fans, and immediately quizzes "Buffypaws" to make sure she's who she claims to be. Fortunately, Midge let her know the original Buffy was a cat, and Robin is able to bluff her way through the sexual position question. Then, Anomie informs her, and the rest of his throng, that he killed Edie. 

Part 2 closes with one of the best lines in the book: 

We've got a confession. Now we've just got to find out who made it. 

On Saturday:  Robin's first foray into North Grove, and the return of Nutley!  

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