The Hallmarked Man Real-Time Re-read, Chapter 69: The road back begins.

The good news is , we hit the low point at the end of Part Five, so things will only go up from here. Although, that is not inherently obvious from the opening lines of Chapter 69. 

So that was that, thought Robin: Strike had lied to her face. He who berated her for not immediately informing him of a minor incident (for the purposes of her present resentment, it suited Robin to minimise the impact on her of the gorilla-faced, dagger-waving stalker) was deliberately concealing a further risk to the agency of scandal and press intrusion (and it suited her to attribute all her rage and hurt to this, rather than investigate the weight in the pit of her stomach, which grew heavier every time she thought of Strike as a father).

Fortunately, we get to start with an always-welcome joint operation of Robin and the always-fun Sam Barclay, as they go to check out the home of Fyola Fay (aka Fiona Freeman; see here for an explanation of her name), with the Tartan Twelve-Inch hoping to do a better job of making sure her boyfriend doesn't interrupt than Shanker did in CoE.  We also learn that she has made a batch of homemade pepper spray* for self-defense. 

The first step back to a relationship with Strike is when Robin learns he was covering for Barclay the previous Saturday, not with Bijou (although, Sam also makes an error in relaying this fact, saying it happened a "coupla weeks ago" when it was a mere five days). She decides that error was insignificant. 

She looked back at Fiona Freeman’s front door, thinking of that night, and her conviction that Strike had been with Bijou Watkins, either for a clandestine hook-up, or to sort out the mess of Bijou’s baby’s paternity. So he hadn’t been with Bijou, after all. But did that change anything? Strike was still hiding the truth from her, wasn’t he? Still failing to admit that another explosion of sordid press might be about to jeopardise the agency?

Robin initially doesn't have much luck with Fiona, who refuses to talk until a combination of Robin's bluff claim that Fiona was caught on camera leaving the cipher note, and fear that her neighbors will notice her very persistent visitor prompts Fiona to let Robin in for a chat. Robin learns that Dangerous Dick is Danny de Lion, gets more of the story of "the rich man" from whom Danny attempted t skim money and who supposedly ordered the hit. Most importantly, she learns of Danny's involvement in the illicit secret filming of sex acts. 

I was happy to see a bit of our familiar Robin back, as she recognizes the potentially abusive situation Fiona is in, and urges her to leave her boyfriend. This is a repeat of the concern she has shown for other exploited women, from Stephanie to Zoe Haigh to Emily Pirbright.  From the glimpse we see of Fiona's life, the echoes of irony present in all of her name meanings and the chain tattoo she has shackling her ankle, we see another depiction of the realities of sex work for women, very consistent with the picture presented in Troubled Blood. While Fiona is not receptive to Robin's advice, neither does she flip her off at chapter's end, in contrast to her initial response, so we can at least leave hoping Robin has planted a seed. 

Fiona was watching her from the front window; Robin expected her to raise her middle finger again, but the girl’s expression was simply blank.

I'll be back on Tuesday with the next installment. 

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*Obviously, people's options may be limited if they live in an area where commercial spray is not available, but, in general, homemade pepper spray is not recommended, both because of its unreliability, its difficulty in aiming with a non-aerosol spray bottle, and the tendency to decay in potency.