"Arrogant, bit of a prick," Strike concluded as he held the heavy wood door of the pub open for Robin, "but not stupid."

Robin glanced back at Strike as he followed her into the pub, letting the door bang shut behind him. "And he didn't seem worried? When you asked him about Wilson?"

"No. Annoyed, maybe."

She hummed in acknowledgement, glancing around the cozy pub with its red walls and dark wood wainscoting. It was busy for a weekday afternoon, and she had to raise her voice a little to be heard over the buzz of conversation. "If you want to grab a table, I'll go to the bar."

Strike managed to secure a table tucked in the corner of the room with a view of the door and sank into one of the battered wooden chairs. His hand went almost automatically to his right knee, still stiff and sore from yesterday's long hours of tailing Two-Times's newest flame across what had seemed like half of London. He was still massaging his knee when Robin appeared at his side; he dropped his hand hastily as she placed a pint of London Pride in front of him and sat down in the chair opposite. She had gotten a pint for herself as well, rather than her usual tomato juice, he noticed.

"What?" she said, seeing his raised eyebrows.

"Nothing." He watched as Robin took a healthy gulp of her beer. "You did well back there. Quick thinking, with the tears and everything."

"Thanks," she said, and flashed him a quick smile that didn't reach her eyes. "I hope this woman actually has something useful to say."

Strike shrugged and leaned over to the table beside them to grab a menu. "We'll see. You hungry?"

Their food orders placed, the pair lapsed into silence. Strike watched Robin, brows furrowed, as she stared moodily into her pint.

The silence stretched on until Strike, a bit reluctantly, asked, "You alright?"

"I'm fine," she said, not looking up.

Robin was, in fact, struggling with feelings she would have found very difficult to express. Working with Strike again over the past week had mostly been good, soothing, a return to routine after the fear and pain of the past few months. But in her anger and frustration with Matthew, Strike's efforts to return to normalcy began to seem irritating rather than comforting. Since the day she had phoned him from her honeymoon, neither had referred to the night that he had fired her, or to Brockbank, or even to her wedding, which he'd crashed so dramatically. It was as though he wanted to pretend that none of it had ever happened, Robin thought angrily—as though everything that needed to be discussed had been, as though there was nothing more to do but to move on, leave the past in the past.

Robin felt like screaming. Why did men always act like talking about their feelings was like being tortured with thumbscrews? She already spent her evenings pretending to have forgiven and forgotten in order to keep the peace with Matthew, shutting up and soldiering on; work was supposed to be her refuge, her freedom. "Matthew deleted the message you left," she said, abruptly. "When – before the wedding."

"Ah," Strike said, not quite sure how he was meant to respond; but his face must have expressed more than he'd intended it to, because Robin sighed, her mouth twisting in annoyance.

"But you'd figured that out," she said bitterly. "Of course you did."

Strike shrugged awkwardly. He felt it was safer not to comment. After all, what could he say? Yes, I had deduced what had happened, almost instantly, because your new husband is incredibly transparent and a world-class prick? He took a drink.

In the silence between them, the laughter of the next table over seemed jarring, excessive. Robin appeared to be having some sort of inner struggle, her eyes downcast, her fingers absently toying with the cutlery laid out before her. Strike resisted a sudden, insane urge to cover her hand with his own.

"What did it say?" she asked finally, her blue eyes—mascara still slightly smeared from her earlier performance—rising to meet his, a strange vulnerability flickering over her face. "Matthew wouldn't tell me. He said he didn't listen, just deleted it."

Strike paused, considering his words carefully. He had left that voicemail in desperation, fearing that he would never see her again, conscious that if something went wrong in his plan to confront Laing, he might never get the chance to. But they were partners again now, running the business together. More than that, though, she was now married. She had chosen to marry Matthew.

"That I was sorry," he said with a shrug. "That I'd fucked up. That I wanted you to come back. Same things I said when I saw you," he added.

"Oh." Robin felt her face fall, a flash of disappointment as her stomach sank. Why was she disappointed? It was good, surely, that she hadn't missed hearing – what? What had she been hoping to hear?

"Was that all?" she said, her eyes roaming over his craggy features.

"Yeah," he lied, gaze steady. "That was all."

Before Robin could interrogate him further, a harried waiter arrived at their table to drop their meals in front of them. Strike was glad to turn his attention to his steak and mushroom pie, which was as delicious as he'd hoped it would be.

Robin, however, seemed reluctant to let the subject drop. "Why didn't you call sooner?"

Strike swallowed his mouthful of chips. "I was angry," he said, honestly. "And then…" he trailed off, unable to put into words the emotions that had warred within him during that long week trapped in the office between chatty Alyssa and his own writhing guilt.

Robin was pushing her salad around on her plate instead of eating it. "You were right to be angry," she said, her voice tight. "If it had turned out to be Brockbank, and he'd killed someone else because I tipped him off..."

Strike sighed inwardly. He had hoped that this wouldn't come up, but he had also promised himself that he would do better, that he would treat Robin properly as his partner, not his subordinate – which meant a certain amount of uncomfortable honesty.

"I knew it wasn't Brockbank," he forced out. "When – that night. I already knew that it was Laing."

She stared at him, incredulous. "Then why did you tell me that they'd found a connection?"

Strike said nothing. Robin could feel her fury mounting at his clenched jaw, his stubborn silence. The argument with Matthew was forgotten, overwritten by this fresh betrayal.

"I spent a week thinking I'd helped the killer escape," she hissed, conscious of the fact that they were hemmed in on all sides by chattering pub-goers. "Every time I checked the news I was afraid there would be another girl murdered, and it would have been my fault!"

Strike winced. "I'm sorry."

Robin scoffed. "You're–" she cut herself off, staring at him, noting the way he avoided her gaze. "When did you know?" she asked, her voice quiet.

"What?"

"When did you realize that it was Laing," she said, flatly. She watched Strike fidget– drumming his fingers on the table, tipping his empty pint glass as though hoping it would magically fill itself – and waited.

"The night he attacked you," he muttered finally.

Robin, staggered, could only stare at him, mouth open. She felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her. He had left her in that hospital, walked away knowing the identity of the man who had attacked her. "Why–"

"There she is," Strike interrupted, looking over Robin's shoulder towards the door of the pub. She twisted around; Mullins was indeed standing near the bar, her gaze roaming the busy dining room, clearly looking for them. Strike stood, his height catching the woman's eye almost immediately. Robin saw her raise a hand in greeting and begin to maneuver her way towards them.

Strike's eyes flickered down to meet Robin's. "Can we deal with this later?"

Robin nodded, lips a thin line, fresh annoyance that he thought she would continue arguing with him in front of a witness mingling with the fury already boiling under her skin. With a great effort, she yanked her mind back to the case as the female detective reached them.

Strike introduced himself, reaching out a large, hairy hand, which the detective shook. "My partner, Robin Ellacott," he added. Robin stood to greet the woman, a corner of her mind still gripping tightly to her anger, refusing to be mollified by Strike calling her his partner.

"Patricia Mullins," the officer said, pulling out the third chair and refusing Strike's offer of a drink.

She spoke before either Robin or Strike could. "Was it Natalie who hired you to look for him?" she asked, crisp and businesslike.

"You know Peter's daughter?" Robin's voice betrayed no hint that she had, a moment previously, been in the middle of a heated argument.

Mullins shook her head, her fingers drumming restlessly on the table before she seemed to catch herself, folding her hands together in her lap. "I haven't met her yet."

"Why did you want to speak with us?" Strike asked.

Mullins' mouth twisted a little; she was clearly considering her words carefully. "I overheard a conversation between Peter's handler and Ross," she said slowly. "Peter had missed a scheduled check-in, and Ross said that it was under control, but…"

Robin frowned at this. Strike, however, said, "That's normal though, isn't it? It can be unpredictable, undercover work."

"Usually, yes, but Peter was supposed to – he'd said that–" Patricia hesitated, bringing a hand up to rub nervously at her lips. She was hiding something, Robin was certain. As she studied the woman's face, noticing the fine laugh lines that radiated from the corners of her eyes, the dark circles that suggested recent sleepless nights, she thought that she knew what it might be.

"How long have you and Peter been together?" she asked gently.

Strike shot Robin a startled glance, but her eyes were trained on Mullins, who smiled ruefully, her veneer of professional severity slipping a little.

"Almost a year," she admitted, a soft smile lingering at the corners of her lips.

"A year?" Strike said, surprised. "And you hadn't met his daughter?" He caught Robin's frown out of the corner of his eye; the smile dropped from Mullins' face.

"We were keeping it quiet, with work and everything. He hasn't dated very much since his wife passed, and he can be a bit protective of Natalie, you know? He said, after this assignment, that we could…" but whatever it was that Peter had said, she did not seem to want to share it.

"And he told you he would communicate with you?" Robin prompted.

Mullins pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing. "Yes. It's against the rules, but…" she shrugged. "It happens sometimes, you know?"

Strike nodded, but thought to himself that if a subordinate of his in the SIB had broken regulations and put an operation in jeopardy just to keep in touch with a girlfriend, he would have made his displeasure known. Loudly.

"He kept in contact at first," Mullins continued, "but then – nothing. I haven't heard from him in two weeks. It's not like him," she said firmly, looking at Robin, who nodded in understanding.

"Do you have any details of who he was investigating? Where he was located?" Strike asked, flipping open his notebook.

"You have to understand, if it comes out that I talked to you, that I shared sensitive information…" Mullins hesitated, her lips pressed tightly together. "I could lose my job. I could be prosecuted," she finished flatly.

Strike remained silent, resisting the urge to shoot a warning glance at Robin, which was hardly needed. She, too, had sensed that it was best not to press the officer, and didn't say a word, taking a sip of her pint instead. After a moment, Mullins sighed and leaned forwards.

"Peter was assigned to a drugs operation," she said, voice low. "He was investigating Tottenham Mandem."

Strike frowned. "The street gang?"

Mullins nodded. "There's been an uptick in overdoses in the area. We confiscated a shipment of heroin that had been laced with fentanyl – it's another opioid, very potent, very dangerous," she explained to Robin and Strike, who nodded.

"So," she continued, "Peter was supposed to investigate their supply chains, find out where the drugs were coming from, who was moving them."

"Do you know any details that could help us find him? His alias, where he was staying?"

"I know the name he was using – Adrian Miller, he'd used it before. But other than that," Mullins had leaned back in her chair and was shaking her head. "No. Nothing."

For several minutes more they quizzed Mullins, but the detective seemed to have no further insights to offer, or perhaps she was already regretting sharing as much as she had. As she got up to leave, she paused, glancing between Strike and Robin.

"I would appreciate it if this meeting could stay between us." She gave one firm nod, and then without waiting for an answer, turned on her heel and left, her brisk strides carrying her quickly out of the pub.

The lunch rush seemed to have finished during the interview with Mullins; the noisy table beside them had vacated, leaving behind them the detritus of crumpled napkins, dirty mugs, an empty silence. Strike kept his eyes on his nearly finished lunch.

"You'd heard of this gang before?" Robin asked quietly, looking not at Strike but out of the window beside them.

"Yeah," he replied as he sopped up the gravy from his pie with his last handful of chips "It was in the news a few years back, they kidnapped and tortured a couple of men."

"Tortured?"

"With hammers and hot irons, if I'm remembering right."

"Jesus," Robin muttered, dropping her gaze to her half-finished salad, her stomach lurching sickeningly.

"Yeah. We'll have to tread carefully on this one," Strike said thickly, swallowing his mouthful of chips. He had taken his mobile out and was tapping it thoughtfully against his palm. "Shanker might be our best bet, I think he knows some people in the area. I'll give him a call, get him to ask around."

Robin nodded but said nothing.

Strike heaved himself up off his chair, mobile in hand, then paused, looking at Robin who was determinedly avoiding his gaze, her mouth set in a tight line.

"I didn't tell you about Laing because–" He hesitated. Robin raised her eyebrows at him, and his next words came out almost against his will. "I knew that you would want to be in at the end, to help catch him. And you'd have had every right to be."

This admission startled Robin, who had opened her mouth to protest angrily, and she sat back, blue-grey eyes wide.

He sighed heavily into the silence and added in a quiet voice, "I couldn't – I wanted to keep you safe."

She could feel tears pricking at her eyes again, and blinked them away furiously. "You should have told me," she said, hating the traitorous tremor in her voice.

"I know," he said softly. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

Robin pressed her lips together; she didn't think she could trust herself to speak without her voice betraying her emotions. She waited until Strike had moved away, then drained the rest of her pint. Why did she always have to be the one to swallow her anger, to accept men's apologies, to absolve them of their wrongdoing?

He's trying, though, she told herself, and it was true. The contract, the office, the cases that he had assigned her, the way that they'd worked together today. He had promised her that she would be his partner, and he was treating her as such, clearly making an effort to earn her absolution. He had told her the truth about his realization that Laing was the killer, too, when he didn't have to. She remembered Matthew's face as he denied listening to the voicemail, remembered seeing the lie written plainly across it, and sighed tiredly. She watched Strike through the pub's window, studied his bulk as he paced back and forth on the sidewalk, limping a little, his mobile pressed to his ear and a lit cigarette held tightly in his fingers. She looked down at the empty glass in front of her, and thought that perhaps she would fetch herself a well-deserved refill.


Notes

Thank you once more to bethanyactually, who is an amazing beta reader! Thank you as well to everyone who reads and comments, I love you all!