Chapter Twenty-eight

Robin has bid farewell to her newest friends, and stretches the aches from her abused muscles, accusing, "I thought you said they'd go easy."

Stevie laughs and says, "Yeah, sorry about that; Vonne doesn't do easy. She didn't really hurt you though?"

"No, I could tell she was holding back, which makes me feel sorry for anyone who resists arrest on her watch." Holding out her hand, she says, "Thanks again. I'm sure that I'll wake up hating you, but I already feel better knowing that I'm being proactive about my safety."

Stevie shakes her hand, saying, "Yeah, it's always a struggle when you get back into it." They silently pick up their things and head for the exit together, as she asks, "No news, on your case?"

"Nothing yet. Strike...uh, my boyfriend, wasn't too keen on me moving back to my place, but he was glad to hear about this class."

"He's Cormoran Strike, right?"

Glancing at her for a clue why she's asking, Robin says only, "Yeah."

Stevie smiles, and says, "Nothing sketchy. I've just heard of him, is all. And you, of course. You're famous at the Met. Just how many times have you both been injured on the job?"

Famous? Since when? "Enough that I'd have to think about it before answering." They're outside the building now, and Robin asks, "Need a lift? I've got my car. Another reason for taking this class is that I'm not doing much walking while I've got a stalker."

"No, that's fine, thanks. My boyfriend will be here any minute. When he's free, we go for a light supper after class. Hang around if you'd like to meet him. Oh, and you're welcome to join us?"

"No, thank you. I promised Strike we'd catch up before our shift. I can wait a few minutes though. Is your boyfriend a cop too?"

Stevie smiles and says, "Paramedic. He's actually..." And then she stares into the night, saying, "He's the first guy I've been with in a couple of years." With a glance around them, she reveals a scar on her scalp that had been concealed by her curly hair, and then continues, "I was ambitious, working my way up the ladder, but I got careless...arrogant and reckless, really. Basically broke all the rules. And I ended up separated from my partner; never a good idea." Robin knows to wait, and soon hears, "I came to as our target was raping me, so he didn't get much satisfaction."

"You fought him off."

Stevie finally looks at Robin, with steely eyes, and says, "Yeah. He tried to claim I used excessive force, but that didn't wash with anyone, even though my partner had to haul me off him. I'm still not sure that I would have stopped if he hadn't."

Fuck. Robin swallows her distress, and says, "I thought maybe...I guessed something like that, and assumed it's why you became a cop."

"No, but it did set my career back for a while. I had to get my head right before they'd let me return to active duty, and I get why, even though it pissed me off at the time. Anyway, it's how I knew this class would do you good, when you mentioned that you were thinking of doing a refresher course. And why I couldn't be with anyone for a while. But, Steve, he's wonderful; patient, gentle and understanding. We've only been together a few weeks, but it sort of feels like a lifetime too, you know?"

Thinking of Strike, Robin smiles and confirms, "Yeah, I know." And then she laughs, and asks, "Wait, you're both 'Stevie'?"

Stevie laughs and says, "Well, he doesn't answer to that, except to use it as his pickup line." In a comical imitation of a baritone, she quotes, "Hi, Stevie, I'm Stevie." Robin is already laughing when she adds, "Lame, right? God love him."

They're both lost to laughter when a man says, "Worked though, didn't it?"

As always, unable to remain calm when surprised, especially by an unfamiliar man, Robin's heartrate is immediately out of control. The stranger is tall, perhaps even taller than Strike, boyishly—no, girlishly—good-looking, with a heart-shaped face and the prettiest eyelashes she's ever seen on a man. And yet he somehow exudes maleness, like an aura of masculinity that clings to every move he makes, and Robin is unfathomably reminded of Shanker. For the two men look nothing alike. He seems to have eyes only for his girlfriend, greeting her with a warm embrace and a tender kiss, fortunately giving Robin time to settle down, and then he keeps an arm around Stevie as he extends a hand, saying, "Steve Whitehall. You're Robin?"

Robin shakes his hand—noting with gratitude that his grip is firm but not crushing—and stammers, "Yeah, uh, nice to meet you."

He nods towards the nearby curry house, asking, "You joining us?"

"Oh, no, thank you. Another time, maybe." Looking to a smiling Stevie, clearly very much in love, she says, "Thanks again. If I've recovered by the next class, I'll be back."

Stevie's smile widens, and she says, "Wonderful. See you then." She releases her boyfriend long enough to kiss Robin's cheek in farewell. For his part, Steve offers only a smile and a wave, and the couple head off together, arms around each other and chatting.

Wondering if she'll ever be free of her past, Robin walks to her car while dialling Strike, and he greets her, "How'd it go?"

"Brutal, but I'm glad I went. Oh, I met Stevie's boyfriend, who looks about seventeen, but must be older, because he's a paramedic. He seems nice, but he scared the shit out of me."

She recognises the sound of an office chair protesting when Strike presumably leans forward to ask, "Oh?"

"Relax, he didn't do anything wrong, just startled me, which is hardly his fault. And why are you in the office?"

He hesitates long enough to make her wonder if he'll tell her, and then he reveals, "I've got into the habit of checking the daily footage from that camera outside the door. If anyone else tries to break in, they'll do a recce first, and I don't want to be surprised again."

Relieved it's something she can live with, Robin asks, "Were you deliberately concealing that from me?"

"Until you asked, I wouldn't have thought so. But I think maybe I was, sorry."

"It's all right, Strike. This isn't like concealing the mask from me. But you could have told me. The fact that I'm still walking after that class is proof positive that I'm not fragile."

He chuckles and says, "Sounds rough. How about a massage?"

Robin grins and says, "Hell, Strike, if I'd known massages were part of the services on offer, I'd have proposed to you."

A couple of days later, Strike eagerly answers the call from Ryan Murphy—not an eventuality that he'd ever foreseen—asking, "Anything?"

"Something. Rob with you?"

"No, she moved back to her place. But I'm seeing her later tonight." Strike isn't one for praying, but he does so now, in the hopes that Murphy won't hang up and leave in the dark.

"Yeah, okay. I'll copy her in after this. Confidentially, Clive Littlejohn and Farah Navabi have been taken into custody. We believe they've been working together, that he was the man Rob saw wearing the mask, and that Navabi gave him your location in Cornwall."

"That fucker; I should have kicked his teeth in when I fired him. You've got proof?"

"We have a hair, same length and colour as Littlejohn, but doesn't match your mate who retrieved the mask. DNA will take a day or two yet. And we've got their phone records, where they use a fairly transparent code to plan the whole thing, which was pointless anyway, because they didn't otherwise bother to cover their arses. They'll be interrogated separately, and we'll see what else we can get out of them."

"Any link to the guy who bugged Rob's flat?"

"Not at this stage. Obviously, that's one of the things we hope will come out of interrogation. I'm not on it personally, but Neil Jameson—I think you met him—is an old hand at sweating secrets out of people. And the fact that the mask could be construed as a threat to Rob's safety means they're conceivably looking at prison time, so we have leverage."

Fucking-A. "Hard to feel sorry for the fuckers, given what they put Rob through."

"Exactly. And I'd better call her."

"Right. Thanks, Murph. Oh, and tell your mate that, if he's interviewing Littlejohn, he'd better have a box of tissues handy. There's still a water mark on my carpet from the first time I confronted that sneaky little fucker."

Murphy laughs, and says, "I'll tell him; he'll probably use it. Seeya."

And then Strike remembers, "Fuck. Murph, you still there?"

"Yeah?"

"Rob's started these self-defence classes. She won't have her phone on."

"Okay. Well, you fill her in, and tell her to call me if she's got any questions."

"Will do." Things between them are so much better than Strike expected, so he dares to ask, "How's the international case going?" Murphy just chuckles and hangs up. And Strike informs no one, "Fair enough. I wouldn't tell me either."

The next day Robin and Strike are at his place when they receive more good news. Murphy informs them by speakerphone that Littlejohn has confessed to being the man behind the mask, and to Navabi's part in their mini terror campaign. Robin listens in silence to everything, and then says, "I thought they were angry with Cormoran. Why target me?"

Strike gently asks, "How would you feel if someone was terrorising me?"

He sees her understand, and she blushes, saying, "Oh, right."

Ryan saves her from further embarrassment by saying, "Well, if you have any questions, ask someone else. I'm due some leave, so I'm off to see my sister. And you might want to catch the news tonight."

Her eyes alight with excitement, Robin says, "You did it? You got the heren...the case we gave you?"

Laughter evident in his tone, Murphy says, "Now, Ms. Ellacott, you should know that I can't comment on an outstanding case."

She laughs, saying, "Okay, you got me. Well, enjoy San Sebastián. Thanks so much for keeping tabs on this for us."

"Welcome, but try and stay out of trouble, okay?"

"I don't look for it."

"I'm not so sure. Bye."

When he's gone, Strike pockets his phone, and they sit in silence for a while. And then he says, "I'm sorry."

"What? Why?"

He shrugs, saying, "It's my fault they went after you."

Robin rolls her eyes, and says, "You know it's not. They chose to break the law."

"But they might not have done it if I weren't such an arrogant prick."

"You're not...well, you're not a prick."

He chuckles, and says, "Kind of proving my point here, if even you've noticed."

"I don't love you blindly. And it's still not your fault."

"Agree to disagree then. If I hadn't made is so manifestly obvious that I despised them, they might not have felt the need for revenge."

Robin smiles and says, "I love you, Oxford, and the fact that you cannot hide your dislike for people is one of the reasons, a big one."

That familiar sweet ache in his chest, Strike asks, "How do you that? How do you so effortlessly humble me and make me feel all-powerful at the same time?"

His dining table is small enough that she's easily able to kiss him without leaving her chair, and then she leans on his shoulder, saying, "I guess that's the love thing."

Strike puts an arm around her, and they sit in silence for a while, before he says, "I am working on the arrogance thing."

"Okay, but I didn't ask you to."

She sounds tired, and he asks, "You okay?"

After a moment, she asks, "How did Littlejohn know about the mask Sarah sent me? As far as we know, he doesn't have contacts in the Met, nor does Navabi. Even if they did, or tried bribing someone, no one with sense would have anything to do with them because of their link to Patterson."

"You're worried that someone else is behind this? Maybe Tom?"

"I don't know. But some days it seems like we really are fighting a multi-headed creature, and every time we chop off a head, another one pops up."

Unsure how to comfort her, because he's had the same thought, Strike is reminded, "Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats." At her querying look, he reveals, "Victor Hugo."

She offers a weak smile, and says, "Impressive, but hardly comforting, Strike."

He breathes a laugh, and attempts, "Well, Murph promised us a peek at the final report, so we might know more in a few days. In the meantime, want to try for a nap? With or without me is fine. I can go downstairs."

He's heartened when she doesn't hesitate to say, "With."

They move to the bedroom and wordlessly get undressed down to t-shirt and underwear before slipping under the covers and into each other's arms. With Robin's current air of melancholy lending her already wan beauty an almost ethereal charm, Strike is perhaps predictably half aroused by the time their bodies meld together, and he apologises, "Just ignore it."

It seems like Robin has complied, but only seconds later she says, "Stay out of my vagina, and mind the string, but otherwise, okay."

She wants sex? Shuffling until he can see her face, Strike asks, "You're sure?"

Smiling at his excited surprise, Robin confirms, "Sure. I'm less ashamed of my body now that I'm with you, so maybe one day, but not today."

"No, I mean, are you sure about_"

She silences him with a hand on the front of his boxers, where he immediately rises to the occasion, and then she says, "I know."