Strike doubted that MI5 would order an operative to grab Robin round the back of the neck and force a rubber gorilla on her in an attempt to make the agency back off the silver vault investigation, but the question of who was behind the assault was making Strike wonder exactly which of the hornets’ nests the agency seemed, unwittingly, to have kicked was responsible.
He is also disturbed to know that it was apparently a comment on Culpepper's article about his womanizing that outed Robin as Witness G in the Gorilla Mask rapist case. Little does he know that his problems with Culpepper articles are just beginning.
Robin and Strike have a catch-up meeting scheduled for December 22nd, the day Robin is supposed to leave for Masham with RFM. Talk about your day going downhill fast. Strike wakes up and, worried about the house-hunting and the possibility of RFM proposing, decides he isn't going to wait for a potential case-related road trip and is going to "declare himself" before she leaves. I think this is an example of the right idea for the wrong reason:
If Strike declared himself today, before Robin travelled north to Masham, she’d have time and space to think about what she really wanted.
Strike has obviously no idea about how crowded the Ellacott house is once all the kids come home with their partners and families, plus RFM will be there. "Time" and "space" aren't exactly the first two words that come to mind.
He got to his feet, feeling as though his heart was attempting to knock its way through his ribs, grabbed his keys and left the flat, slamming the door behind him.
Where is he going? Downstairs, to his office, to call and threaten Culpepper. Why is he going there? I have no idea--- it makes absolutely no sense. He has his cell, and the computer if he needed to look up a number. He presumably wants privacy, so he goes into the inner office. But he had more privacy in the flat and there was no good reason for him to rush downstairs, to make the call.
Of course, he needs to be there so Pat can overhear him and alert Robin and so Robin can rush in to stop him without barging into his private home. Fortunately, she's already on the way, as we see in Chapter 32.
Robin had seen the online article about Strike just before boarding the Tube that morning, and consequently spent most of her journey to Denmark Street staring fixedly at the passenger opposite’s feet and thinking about what she’d just read, instead of the discovery she’d made the previous evening and which she’d been looking forward to sharing with Strike.
Here we see Robin, who just a few days had been so confident that Strike would never sleep with a client, now contemplating the possibility that he could have done something far worse. Is the trauma of her encounter in Harrod's enough to trigger this level of mistrust, particularly as she thinks about the Gorilla Man's partner who stood by her man and gave him alibis? It was also a little strange to hear her say that “Back in 2013 she and Strike had been by no means as close as they were now." Sure, they've grown closer over the years, but the breakdown on the verge happened in summer 2012--- that was when they started becoming close. Robin moved in with Nick and Ilsa for several weeks, and they socialized regularly, until the outings started to seem too much like double-dates. By May 2014 they are "best friends." This was the period where they were growing closer.
Robin's sensibility is exactly what is needed, of course, as is her suggestion that Strike call Fergus Robertson. But she should have known the name Nina Lascelles; Strike mentioned her as the person who got him a copy of Bombyx Mori back in the Silkworm, and she was on the list of suspects, as one of the people who had early access to the manuscript.
The conversation with Robertson brings some comfort; his "amused" response seems to lower the tension a bit. I really liked the way Glenister voiced him on the audiobook. But I have to wonder if Strike was entirely truthful:
“I’ve never hired any woman – emphasis on 'any' – sex worker or otherwise, to entrap or lure an investigative target or witness.”
Didn't he hire Alyssa Vincent to pose as his temp and lure Donald Laing to a club? I suppose he was just trying to get Laing out of his apartment, not actually entice him into criminal activity. But there is also this:
“Right," said Robertson. ‘"This all seems to have got very personal, very fast."
"There’s a reason for that," said Strike, "and I might be prepared to give you some pointers on where to dig, as long as you can guarantee I’m going to be accurately quoted…”
This sounds like he plans to tip Robertson off to the fact that the Cricketer Mr. A's ex is having an affair with Culpepper's wife Lady Violet. Doesn't this violate the client confidentiality that he promised Mr. A? Whatever happened to his statement to Izzy Chiswell back in Lethal White?
"I'm discreet," said Strike. "In the past couple of years, I've been told the secrets of a hundred families, and not shared one of them."
Robin was in the bathroom on the landing. She’d retreated there because she didn’t want to answer Pat’s questions and now, for the second time in three weeks, she was sitting on a toilet with her head in her hands, infuriated and enraged by Cormoran Strike.
Who'd have thought she'd have so much in common with Moaning Myrtle?
Like millions of women before her, Robin would rather have thought the man of whom she was so fond was better than this.
You and me both, Robin. You and me both.
Robin is, of course, stunned to find Pat on the phone with Jonny Rokeby when she returns to the office. . I thought it was cool that Rokeby wanted to speak to her if Strike was not available (or willing!). It shows Robin is becoming more well-known herself. It is also interesting that Rokeby is 100% confident Strike is not guilty of the sexual offenses described in the article; Robin cannot say that.
Robin tells Pat to take a message and send it to her, not Strike. Strike emerges from the office and tries to move on from the topic of the Culpepper article by asking Robin to come into the partner's office for their official case catch-up meeting. But first, he assures her he has done as she asked.
“Robertson’s going to write it up, with a complete denial from me," said Strike, who was breathing as though he’d just done what he really wanted to do, which was to beat Culpepper into a purée. "Says he’ll put in a bit of 'the Cormoran Strike I know”' mention the UHC, the Shacklewell Ripper, public service, grateful clients…”
Given that a right-wing political figure is one of the chief critics, I'm surprised the mention of solving the Jasper Chiswell didn't make the list.
Strike reports what he learned from Larry McGee's daughter. There was nothing suspicious about his death, unless you've read Troubled Blood. McGee died of a "myocardial infarcation" aka, a heart attack. Which is exactly what Janice Beattie's common-law husband's --- whose name was also Larry--- death was attributed to when she poisoned him. Unfortunately, with McGee cremated and his family not caring enough about him to pick up the ashes, there is no real way or motivation to investigate this incredibly convenient death further.
Strike and Robin swap information on Jim Todd and Albie Simpson-White, with each thinking their interviewees are worth putting under surveillance, but the agency currently lacks the manpower. Strike shows Robin the footage of Wright writing with his right hand. (Wow, three homophones in one phrase!) Then, before Robin can share her really big news, they are interrupted by KFC, who gives us yet more reasons to hate her.
- She's wearing another tight and revealing dress, supposedly to meet her sister for lunch. Yeah, right.
- Again, she reports exclusively to Strike, as if Robin was not present.
- She thanks Strike for her gift token, even though it was Robin who orchestrated the staff gifts.
At least, she's done some decent work and has some information about the getaway car and Plug's mysterious animal being moved. She kindly fetches Strike a coffee, then goes out to the main office to wait for Strike and Robin to finish up. As Robin surmises, she's not going to waste the dress.
Robin finally gets a chance to share her big news: it's possible the "Asian" woman seen removing items from Wright's apartment was actually a Spanish university student, who was then raped, murdered and dumped only 24 hours after Wright was killed. This is the second missing/murdered young woman that Robin has linked to this case. She genuinely deserves credit for figuring out the sex trafficking aspect.
Finally, she has also located Ian Griffith's address and wants to talk to him as well as Dilys. Strike is starting to make plans for their Scotland-Ironbridge roadtrip when Robin interrupts with the news abotu Rokeby's offer of legal help. Strike manages to keep it together--- but just barely.
Robin gives Strike her Christmas-gift-in-a-card, then Strike dashes up to his flat to get hers, which he presents in front of Pat and Kim. Then, Pat gets her second call from an A-list celebrity that morning: this time from Sacha Legard. Strike takes the call in his office (no doubt to Kim's disappointment) and through strategic silences, gets the actor to agree to a meeting the next day.
“Come to the National Theatre at three. It’s our last night of—"
"Fine, I’ll see you then," said Strike, and he achieved some small sublimation of his continuing urge to punch someone by hanging up before Sacha Legard could tell him which undoubtedly well-reviewed play he was currently starring in.
Chapter 34 takes us back to the rest of Robin's day on Dec. 22nd:
Robin’s trip to the GP was difficult in ways she hadn’t anticipated.
It’ll be fine, she told herself, listening to Murphy’s slow breathing. It’s only four days.
Strike considered self-pity an unjustifiable waste of time, yet the dejection gripping him the following morning refused to lift.
It occurred to him now, as he sat staring at the builders’ warehouse, that Robin, who seemed so much less complicated than his dead ex-fiancée, was far more of a mystery to him than Charlotte had ever been. He didn’t know what Robin was thinking and feeling, and falling in love with her, which had happened entirely against his will, didn’t resemble an infection, but the recognition of a deficiency he’d never known he had, but which had become gradually and painfully symptomatic. And now – every thought led back there, no matter how seemingly unrelated – she was in Masham with Murphy, and he was alone and miserable, and he had nobody to blame but himself.
 |
| I think Strike is right on this. |
Strike had few strong opinions on architecture, but he’d always considered the brutalist building that housed the National Theatre, which resembled a cross between a multi-storey car park and a power station, one of London’s worst eyesores.
Best I can tell, the play, Death is No Punishment, that Sacha is starring in is an invention of Galbraith's, though the protagonist, Walter Loebner, is real and apparently authored an essay with that title, Der Tod ist keine Strafe after surviving World War II. The actual play that was running in London's National Theatre in December 2016 was LOVE, by Alexander Zeldin. In the past, such as when Robin and RFM went to see The Father in TRG, Galbraith has used actual shows that were on at the time.
There is also a discrepancy in Sacha's age, as the text states he is ten years older than Rupert and ten years younger than Strike. Given that Rupert is 26 and Strike 42, both cannot be correct.
The most interesting bit of information that Strike gets from Sacha is the fact that Rupert gate-crashed Sacha's birthday party, had a confrontation with Vile-lentine Longcaster and said something to Cosima that reduced her to tears. This was another check in the incest suspicion column. He also learns the stolen nef belonged to the Legard family and there's a nice bit of foreshadowing for his later discovery.
He didn’t for a second believe Rupert had stolen the nef on Sacha’s orders, so that it might henceforth grace the sideboard in Heberley House, but he enjoyed hinting that Sacha, so eel-like in his ability to wriggle free of responsibility and culpability, might yet be drawn into the story of the stolen nef and the drug dealer, by police or press.
Not quite as good as Samhain Athorn kicking the ottoman where Margot Bamborough's body is, but still good.
This interview wound up feeling like a cross between Tony Landry's in CC, where Strike was doing his best to get under the guy's skin, and Jonathan Wace's in TRG, where he was doing his best to intimidate.
“I’ve been hired to do a job," said Strike. "If it so happens that I have to testify in court that you’re a self-centred cunt who isn’t arsed when his desperate relatives go missing, trust me, I’ll be owning the fucking stage myself. Have a nice Christmas.”
One more section in The Hallmarked Man Advent Adventure, and we'll see how a miserable holiday for both our heroes turns into one of the most beautiful moments of the book.
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