p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"Recently Strike had become aware of the similarities of each failed relationship, and also for the first time fully acknowledged that his attachment to another woman made it unkind to carry on with the pretense that he could have any sort of normal relationship with anyone else. His latest brush with death followed by Robin being swept off into a brief affair with Ryan Murphy had been the final straw for him. He felt that he could no longer afford to stand by and watch another man attempt to put a ring on her finger without at least trying to do it himself. It was also a mark of her inexorable power over him that the idea of a marriage to her gave him a thrilling swoop in his gut. /span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"He had proposed once before- but regretted it soon after. At that time it seemed that the gesture of proposal was more important than the resultant marriage to a woman who never ceased to make him miserable in some fashion. Robin Ellacot was an anomaly in that the idea of sharing Sunday dinners, joint holiday plans and a quiet bedtime routine with her was equal parts novel and intoxicating. It was a completely new experience for him to fantasize about the most mundane aspects of a settled relationship. /span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"With these budding realizations in the front of his mind, Strike made the determined decision to try to forward the relationship in any way he could. He was surprised and amused to find himself in Yorkshire this Christmas. Robin's half-hearted invitation seemed like a sign after his new resolutions. Soon after he had shocked her with his acceptance of the second-hand invitation, he had begun worrying that Robin had not actually wanted him to come. She seemed embarrassed when they talked about plans and on the day before they were to depart for Masham she seemed unsettled. He had not intended to make his appearance a horrifying spectacle for her in front of her family and friends, but when he was alone with his thoughts he worried that she might now be thinking of it in those terms. The last thing he wanted was to put yet another barrier between them. /span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"They had arrived the day before Christmas eve, Robin's mother meeting them at the station in the late afternoon giving Robin air kisses and a long warm hug. Linda had even shown a glimmer of her truly good nature by giving Strike a brief perfunctory hug before leading them to the parking lot- chatting animatedly about her new grandchildren on the way. The entire party was behaving as though it were perfectly reasonable that Robin's boss was cramming his luggage and long legs into the back of the small family SUV. It was only when they had arrived at the modest family home and settled into a family dinner of roast lamb and boiled root vegetables that things got slightly out of hand. Without much preamble Martin said through a mouthful of his supper, /span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;""So is this supposed to mean that you're together now?"/span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"His mother had slapped him on the back of the head while Robin coughed on a mouthful of carrot. /span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;""Martin, /spanspan style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"I /spanspan style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"invited him because Robin said his family were all out of town for christmas" Said Linda waspishly, "he was going to be alone." /span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;""Yeah, and also so she wouldn't text him all weekend," snickered Martin, "At least if he's here we might actually see her."/span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"Strike took a drink to avoid revealing his smile. He couldn't help but feel selfishly gratified by Martin's rudeness. He himself had been accused of spending more time on his phone than with his family over the holidays in recent years. Strike had always claimed that he needed to 'work' while all the while denying that he was only doing so because he would have preferred to be with Robin. He loved the job, but until he'd met Robin, he'd always taken holidays off./span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"The rest of the evening was very cozy. Strike was uncharacteristically charmed by their exceedingly normal family. Strike relaxed into a conversation about the military budget with Robin's father and brothers that carried him to bedtime. More than once during the evening he noticed Robin watching him with an unreadable expression, her brow creased thoughtfully. Robin tried to offer him his bed, knowing how much he hated sleeping on couches but he shut her down by throwing his bag next to the sofa in the tiny parlor room off the hall. It was a room that was truly too small for anything but the couch that entirely filled one wall of the room. The room was decorated with a single small painting of sheeping grazing on a hillside and featured an old cast iron radiator under the curtained window. Strike's favorite feature of this room was the tiny door that provided him the opportunity to sleep in his boxers. He was grateful to be able to forgo the pair of pajamas with the tied up leg that he had brought with for politeness. The couch was not comfortable- being both too soft and yet full of hard bits that dug into his hip and spine. No complaint would ever cross his lips about this however, he was too grateful for the privacy and the proximity to the bathroom which was an easy 2 hops across the hall./span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"Robin spent the following day in a wool jumper helping her mother wrap gifts and bake treats for the following morning. Strike made pleasant conversation with her family while ironically watching Christmas bakeoff with her brothers. It was a pleasant day, and Robin's mother noted that not once did either Strike or Robin talk about work, or try to sneak off with a laptop. Her suspicion was further increased by this detail, but she said nothing about it. Later that evening after bickering with her brothers she asked strike if he wanted to come with her to her local for a drink. /span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;""Yeah, alright." He grunted, "I was beginning to worry that the people of yorkshire didn't drink on the holidays." /span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;""Wouldn't that be a tragedy," said Robin rolling her eyes and grabbing her coat./span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"He had proposed once before- but regretted it soon after. At that time it seemed that the gesture of proposal was more important than the resultant marriage to a woman who never ceased to make him miserable in some fashion. Robin Ellacot was an anomaly in that the idea of sharing Sunday dinners, joint holiday plans and a quiet bedtime routine with her was equal parts novel and intoxicating. It was a completely new experience for him to fantasize about the most mundane aspects of a settled relationship. /span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"With these budding realizations in the front of his mind, Strike made the determined decision to try to forward the relationship in any way he could. He was surprised and amused to find himself in Yorkshire this Christmas. Robin's half-hearted invitation seemed like a sign after his new resolutions. Soon after he had shocked her with his acceptance of the second-hand invitation, he had begun worrying that Robin had not actually wanted him to come. She seemed embarrassed when they talked about plans and on the day before they were to depart for Masham she seemed unsettled. He had not intended to make his appearance a horrifying spectacle for her in front of her family and friends, but when he was alone with his thoughts he worried that she might now be thinking of it in those terms. The last thing he wanted was to put yet another barrier between them. /span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"They had arrived the day before Christmas eve, Robin's mother meeting them at the station in the late afternoon giving Robin air kisses and a long warm hug. Linda had even shown a glimmer of her truly good nature by giving Strike a brief perfunctory hug before leading them to the parking lot- chatting animatedly about her new grandchildren on the way. The entire party was behaving as though it were perfectly reasonable that Robin's boss was cramming his luggage and long legs into the back of the small family SUV. It was only when they had arrived at the modest family home and settled into a family dinner of roast lamb and boiled root vegetables that things got slightly out of hand. Without much preamble Martin said through a mouthful of his supper, /span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;""So is this supposed to mean that you're together now?"/span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"His mother had slapped him on the back of the head while Robin coughed on a mouthful of carrot. /span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;""Martin, /spanspan style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"I /spanspan style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"invited him because Robin said his family were all out of town for christmas" Said Linda waspishly, "he was going to be alone." /span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;""Yeah, and also so she wouldn't text him all weekend," snickered Martin, "At least if he's here we might actually see her."/span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"Strike took a drink to avoid revealing his smile. He couldn't help but feel selfishly gratified by Martin's rudeness. He himself had been accused of spending more time on his phone than with his family over the holidays in recent years. Strike had always claimed that he needed to 'work' while all the while denying that he was only doing so because he would have preferred to be with Robin. He loved the job, but until he'd met Robin, he'd always taken holidays off./span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"The rest of the evening was very cozy. Strike was uncharacteristically charmed by their exceedingly normal family. Strike relaxed into a conversation about the military budget with Robin's father and brothers that carried him to bedtime. More than once during the evening he noticed Robin watching him with an unreadable expression, her brow creased thoughtfully. Robin tried to offer him his bed, knowing how much he hated sleeping on couches but he shut her down by throwing his bag next to the sofa in the tiny parlor room off the hall. It was a room that was truly too small for anything but the couch that entirely filled one wall of the room. The room was decorated with a single small painting of sheeping grazing on a hillside and featured an old cast iron radiator under the curtained window. Strike's favorite feature of this room was the tiny door that provided him the opportunity to sleep in his boxers. He was grateful to be able to forgo the pair of pajamas with the tied up leg that he had brought with for politeness. The couch was not comfortable- being both too soft and yet full of hard bits that dug into his hip and spine. No complaint would ever cross his lips about this however, he was too grateful for the privacy and the proximity to the bathroom which was an easy 2 hops across the hall./span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"Robin spent the following day in a wool jumper helping her mother wrap gifts and bake treats for the following morning. Strike made pleasant conversation with her family while ironically watching Christmas bakeoff with her brothers. It was a pleasant day, and Robin's mother noted that not once did either Strike or Robin talk about work, or try to sneak off with a laptop. Her suspicion was further increased by this detail, but she said nothing about it. Later that evening after bickering with her brothers she asked strike if he wanted to come with her to her local for a drink. /span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;""Yeah, alright." He grunted, "I was beginning to worry that the people of yorkshire didn't drink on the holidays." /span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;""Wouldn't that be a tragedy," said Robin rolling her eyes and grabbing her coat./span/p