The Ink Black Heart, Chapters 79-85: Unexpected Echos to Career of Evil.

Ring structure predicts connections between The Ink Black Heart and The Silkworm, and there are certainly many. (See here,  here and here.)  But, during this mid-section of the book, lots of connections to Career of Evil start popping up, as well, enough that I once wondered if this book wasn't originally intended as #5 in the series. (see here, here, and here for more of my now-discarded 5-6 flip idea). The getaway at the Marine Hotel is Strike and Robin's first overnight away together since the  Travelodge of Barrow-in-Furness in Career of Evil, and is one of the more feel-good segments of the series, for everything except Strike's leg. Some highlights:

• Robin swapping keys with Strike so he can have the ocean view room.* 
• Strike dumping Madeline. 
• Robin's double-take and glance at the prosthesis as Strike tells her his leg "keeps moving of its own bloody accord."
• Robin having what must be the most productive three hours of her detective career, making the Fiendy = Penny Peacock = @rachledbadly = Rachel Ledwell connection and setting the groundwork to meet with Rachel in person through a new @stopanomie Twitter account. 
• What sounds like delicious food and Rioja wine in the hotel restaurant.
• The dining room also includes the "corrugated white coral" decor, the sun-bleached element I predicted would occur as the "dry albedo" element to the "wet nigredo" that was Troubled Blood.
• In the Book 7 midst of her misery at Chapman Farm, Robin would recall visiting seaside towns with Strike, "especially the dinner in Whitstable: the white coral on the mantlepieces set against the slate-coloured walls, and the sight of Strike laughing opposite her, framed against a window through which she watched the sea turning indigo in the fading light."

Robin's connecting to Rachel tops off the best link to CoE in the book: both CoE and IBH feature a really obnoxious character who uses a wheelchair despite being able to walk. Both characters run an website/support board for people who share their condition, in which they spend a lot of time complaining about lack of understanding and compassion by the medical community, who often suggest psychogenic causes for the condition. Robin persuades a frightened young user of the site to meet with her for an in-person interview that was crucial to solving the case. 

The Marine Hotel dinner is, in many ways, a do-over of the Ritz. As there, there are mixed signals, but ones that have a happy resolution. During dinner, Robin is preoccupied with her iPad, and Strike, still in the aftershocks of the Madeline break-up, faces a nightmarish possibility: Robin with someone else. 

 As Robin began to type very fast, Strike wondered what on earth she was up to. Her silence suggested something private, and he suddenly remembered that call to the office from Hugh Jacks that had been put through to his phone the night he'd had dinner with Grant Ledwell.... When the two fresh glasses of wine arrived, he drank while covertly watching Robin, trying to decide whether she looked more like a woman arranging another holiday with her boyfriend, or breaking up with him....

"Strike," said Robin, looking up with an expression of excitement that made him fear the worst: possibly a proposal of marriage made by text. "Could we go to Leeds tomorrow?"

What I love about this is this scene it is a double echo. It recalls Robin's speculation in Chapter 76, when she imagined Strike faking snores in order to secretly text Madeline under the sofa-bed covers. But, it more directly recalls a scene from Career of Evil:

"No," said Strike, still grinning. "I just wanted to show you something." He ferreted in his backpack and pulled out a glossy property brochure.

"Elin's," he said. "She went to see it yesterday. She's thinking of buying a flat there."

All desire to laugh fled. How exactly did Strike think that  it would cheer Robin up to know that his girlfriend was thinking of buying a ludicrously expensive flat? Or was he about to announce (Robin's fragile mod began to collapse in on itself) that he and Elin were moving in together? 

Of course, Strike is excited about Elin's brochure because it has allowed him to identify the area where Donald Laing is thought to be living, just as Robin is excited to have secured the interview with Rachel Ledwell. Both partners have now had an occasion when they completely misread the other's enthusiasm, mistaking the elation over a major case development for a leap forward in a romantic relationship.

Just as the book opened with:

Of all the couples sitting in the Rivoli Bar at the Ritz that Thursday evening, the pair that was having the most conspicuously good time was not, in fact, a couple.

this chapter ends with:

The rest of the dinner passed pleasantly, with inconsequential talk, jokes and laughter that might have seemed extraordinary to their fellow diners, had they known how recently Strike and Robin had been sent a bomb. 

All they need is a silver-haired man gawking at them and a few squirts of Narcisco. 

Rather than a missed kiss, we get the biggest missed opportunity since Barclay switched on those pesky lights in the Denmark Street office.

As he'd asked about Hugh Jacks, [Robin] briefly considered asking him how things were going with Madeline, but she decided against posing a question that might ruin her current good mood. 

Can you imagine what would have happened to her mood if Strike had told her, "Oh, we just split up."?  I have a feeling there would have been a kiss-- no miss-- at the close of dinner and only one of those third floor hotel rooms would have gotten used that night.  But it's not meant to be....  yet.... 

Re-readers absolutely need this feel-good chapter, because the next moderators' chat is between Morehouse and Paperwhite, and ends with that ominous "someone's at my door" and the page of empty >'s that signal Vikas's murder. Our heroes are blissfully ignorant of this tragedy as they head to Leeds the next day to interview Rachel. 

Robin, of course, is at her compassionate best in this interview, pulling off the kind of feat Strike could never manage (or would even try) with a 16-year-old girl. Our heart really breaks for Rachel as she grieves for her lost friendship with Vikas, and it hurts all the more on re-read, since we know she is heading for even more anguish with the news of his death. But Robin gets the crucial name that she needs. 

Before they make the grisly discovery, we have a few light moments on the trip to Cambridge, with Robin finally learning how Strike learned Latin, and Strike's amusing review of Kosh lines. Listening to the audiobook is highly recommended here!  And, there is the important call from Midge** telling them that she has secured the incriminating footage of Jago Ross abusing his daughters and their ponies. There some humorous elements to the storytelling ("Unless you took the kids out with a sniper rifle, I can't afford to sack you") but also an undertone of deadly seriousness. Robin's "Medusa stare" shows us she still does not fully trust Strike not to sacrifice the girls' safety for his hold over Jago Ross, something that doubtlessly also links back to Career of Evil, Robin's determination to prioritize stopping the child abuse above all else and the fact that Strike did sack her for that. We know he regretted that decision and they hugged and made up at her wedding, but did they ever truly discuss the incident and come to an understanding, as they did for Mucky Ricci? I suspect not, and those chickens are coming home to roost during much of the Ross investigation. Strike could have calmed her nerves by simply saying, "We can take the tape to the first wife and try to convince her to file for full custody," and it is a little hard to understand why he does not do this. 

We get a good view of "Strike the cop" in the Stephen Hawking building, seeing him take charge of an emergency scene, and we are back to the 2-4-6 connections, as our heroes find their third male body brutally murdered and left in situ in a secondary home (Quine in Talgarth Road, Chiswell in Ebury Street, now Vikas in Cambridge).  Their discovery is followed by unpleasant interviews by the police. It is little wonder Robin is ready to go back to London, even if she can't return to her flat.

 Coming up next: the final break with Charlotte, and the final scene with Madeline,

*My goal if I ever make it to this hotel is to see these top-floor rooms, because it's not clear how, with rooms that have  doors "side by side" one room has a ocean view and one does not, nor how Robin discerns this from the hallway. 

** I have a funny feeling "Debate someone on whether it was a mistake to give Midge's big moment to Robin in the TV adaptation" is going to become one of the "true markers of a Strike fan." 

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