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So here stood Cormoran Strike, slimmer, fitter, clearer of lung, alone in his attic, poking broccoli angrily with a wooden spoon, thinking about not thinking about Robin Ellacott.
I love how clear the image of him angrily poking broccoli is, it's such a nice little touch
‘The only problem is clothes,’ said Robin. ‘I don’t look like I’ve got loads of money, clothes-wise.’ ‘You always look great,’ said Strike. ‘Thank you,’ said Robin, flushing slightly,
‘No problem,’ said Robin, slightly taken aback. ‘That’d be great, if Prudence won’t mind lending stuff to a total stranger.’ ‘You’re not a total stranger, I’ve told her all about you,’ said Strike.
Robin spent the six-minute walk from the Golden Lion to Green Park station doing the thing she’d resolutely schooled herself over the past eight months not to do: thinking about Cormoran Strike in any context other than work and friendship.
The long-delayed realisation that she was in love with her work partner had burst in upon Robin Ellacott the previous year upon finding out that he was having an affair he’d carefully concealed from her.
Since then, she’d done her utmost to keep an inner door firmly closed on whatever she might feel for Strike, hoping love would wither and die for lack of attention. In practice, this meant turning her thoughts firmly away from him when alone, and refusing, ever, to make comparisons between him and Murphy,
When, in spite of her best efforts, certain unwelcome memories intruded – the way Strike had hugged her on her wedding day, or the dangerous, drunken moment outside the Ritz bar on her thirtieth birthday, when he’d moved to kiss her – she reminded herself that her detective partner was a man perfectly happy with a single life punctuated by affairs with (usually gorgeous) women.
Must have been one hell of a hug, neither of them can stop thinking about it, years later!
Strike probably felt safe to say things like ‘you always look great’ and ‘I’ve told my sister all about you’ because she was now in a steady relationship with another man. As she descended into the station, she told herself firmly that Strike was her best friend, nothing more, and forced her thoughts back onto the job in Bexleyheath.
Denial
‘It isn’t,’ said Prudence, now smiling again. ‘I’ve been dying to meet you, given that you’re clearly the most important person in Corm’s life.’ The words gave Robin a sensation like an electric shock in the pit of her stomach. ‘He’s – he’s really important to me, too.’
Validation for Robin, although she'll still convince herself his feelings for her are platonic
‘I think so,’ said Strike, shifting closer to her on the sofa, so their thighs were almost touching.
As both leaned in to look closer, Strike’s hair brushed Robin’s and she felt another small electric shock in the pit of her stomach.
I love the little electric shocks, great way to describe their attraction
Alone of the women jostling in his thoughts, Robin brought feelings of warmth, though they were tinged with a bitterness no less easier to bear because it was self-directed. He should have spoken up, should have forced a conversation about their respective feelings before Ryan Murphy swooped in and carried off the prize Strike had complacently thought was his for the taking.
I really dislike how Strike thinks of Robin as a prize, like something he had earned or deserved. I know he's better than that and does appreciate Robin as a full person but I still don't like this description
Slightly despising himself, Strike hung on: he really wanted Ryan Murphy to arrive and find Robin on the phone to him.
Petty, but understandable. We've all been there.
Ilsa groaned. ‘But why her, if he wants a displacement fuck?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Robin, completely honestly, and then, dropping her voice, she asked, ‘and what d’you mean, a “displacement fuck”?’ ‘Oh, please,’ said Ilsa irritably. ‘You know perfectly well what—shit, that’s my QC,
Denial, again. I'm with Ilsa.
In the inner office, Robin was laughing at something else Ryan had said. The man simply couldn’t be that fucking funny.
Hahaha. Love this. And no, to be honest, he sounds pretty boring.
As it was Robin’s determined habit these days not to think about her partner in any terms other than those of friendship and work, she chose to believe the mingled feelings of annoyance and hurt now possessing her were caused by Strike’s irritability and the near slamming of the office door, while she’d been talking to Ryan.
Denial
Talking to Robin, even on work matters, tended to lift his mood, but that option wasn’t open to him and might not be possible for weeks.
Sweet, poor Strike.
He told himself this was because it was easier to work at the PC than at his laptop, but was dimly aware of a desire to sit at the partners’ desk, where he and Robin often faced each other.
Again, poor lonely Strike (although it is partly his fault because he shuts down instead of communicating!)
Once again, the fact that she was unavailable, and likely to be so for the foreseeable future, made him realise just how much the sound of her voice generally raised his spirits. He was ever more conscious of how much he, the most self-sufficient of men, had come to rely on the fact that she was always there, and always on his side.
Turning on the pencil torch, she saw the pen, paper and a note in Strike’s familiar handwriting, and her heart leapt as though she’d seen him in person.
Look after yourself. Any time you want to come out, say the word. We’ll batter down the door if necessary. Sx
Robin wasn’t sure why the note had made her cry, but a tear now dropped down onto the paper. The connection with her outside life had affected her like medicine, fortifying her, and the offer to batter down the door and the single kiss beside Strike’s initial felt like a hug.
If the receipt of Robin’s letter from Chapman Farm didn’t have quite the same effect on Strike as his had on her, the absence of a note for Ryan Murphy cheered him enormously,
So petty again, but I quite enjoy him being petty
‘Incidentally, if Ryan Murphy calls, tell him there’s no note for him from Robin this week.’ Something in Pat’s sharp glance made Strike say, ‘There wasn’t one in the rock.’ ‘All right, I’m not accusing you of burning it,’ snapped Pat, turning back to her typing.
Yet she was scared. She doubted she’d ever be able to communicate to Strike – her touchstone, the person who was keeping her sane – just how intimidating the atmosphere was at Chapman Farm, how frightening it was to know you were surrounded by willing accomplices, or how unnerved she now felt at the prospect of the Retreat Rooms.
True love, rooted in trust and friendship
Says she’s not coming out until she’s got something on the church. You know Robin.’ Though not as well as I do.
‘If I know Robin,’ which I do, bloody well, ‘she won’t just be sitting around for something to happen.’
I’m so tired… you wouldn’t believe how tired I am… I just want to leave… Robin was addressing her detective partner inside her head while forking manure out of the Shire horses’ stable.
I checked the rock last night and I’m still in the vicinity. Strike says if there’s nothing by midnight tomorrow he’s driving up and he’ll come in the front on Sunday.
Strike’s primary emotion on receiving Robin’s most recent dispatch from Chapman Farm was relief that the twenty-four-hour delay hadn’t been due to injury or illness,
She’d correctly intuited that he must be in love with his business partner, and this certainty was driving her to new heights of vindictiveness.
Ilsa, Charlotte and Prudence can all see it
The fact that Robin was momentarily so close, but unreachable, did nothing whatsoever to improve his spirits, and he drove away from Chapman Farm with his mood even lower than it had been
Robin, he remembered, had been wearing a blue shirt. They’d drunk Rioja and laughed together, and waiting upstairs had been those two bedrooms, side by side on the top floor. Everything, he thought, had been propitious: wine, sea view, both of them single, nobody else around to interrupt, and what had he done? Nothing.
His one, admittedly aborted, drunken move to kiss Robin, outside the Ritz Hotel on her thirtieth, had been met with such a look of horror that it remained branded on his memory.
Oh Strike, if you'd only allowed Robin to talk to you about it instead of pushing her 10 miles away!
And now, to his anger, he felt tears coming. I want a good person for a change, Charlotte. I’m sick of filth and mess and scenes. I want something different. Would Robin kill herself over you? Of course she wouldn’t. She’s got more bloody sense.
I know I said I didn't like how he felt like Robin was a prize he deserved, but I do agree with this. He deserves to have a healthy relationship built on trust and respect, not the absolute disaster that was his relationship with Charlotte
Learning that her partner passed within a mile of Chapman Farm on his way to the coast made Robin feel even lonelier.
Had Strike known what had happened to his detective partner over the previous twenty-four hours, he’d have been driving full speed towards Norfolk.
Privately, he was thinking that if he could manage the trip in a day, he’d have an excuse to go over to Robin’s that evening for a full debrief, a very cheering thought, given that he knew Murphy was still in Spain.
Robin stood up and had taken a couple of steps towards the door when something strange happened. She suddenly knew – didn’t guess, or hope, but knew – that Strike had just arrived beside the blind spot at the perimeter fence. The conviction was so strong that it stopped her in her tracks.
I don't know how I feel about this. I'm going to put it down as Robin just being desperate to escape and having absolute conviction and trust that Strike would do what he promised and come for her if she was in trouble.
And in the BMW, Strike saw her coming. Throwing aside the night vision goggles and picking up the foot-long wire cutters, he left the car at a run. He’d got through three strands of barbed wire when Robin screamed, ‘They’re coming, they’re coming, help me—’ He reached over the wall and dragged her with him; her tracksuit bottoms tore on the remaining wire, but she was out onto the road.
but Strike was inside the car; he slammed his foot on the accelerator, and in an exhilarating burst of speed they were driving away, Strike having found a glorious release for his days of anxiety, Robin shaking and sobbing in relief.
Strike was beside her, large and solid and real, and only now did it occur to her what would have become of her had he not been there, in spite of her absolute certainty that he was waiting.
As Strike turned off the engine, Robin undid her seat belt, half rose from her seat, threw her arms around him, buried her face in his shoulder and burst into tears. ‘Thank you.’ ‘’S all right,’ said Strike, putting his arms around her and speaking into her hair. ‘My job, innit… you’re out,’ he added quietly, ‘you’re OK now…’
Both were in very inconvenient positions in which to hug, especially as Strike still had his seat belt on, but neither let go for several long minutes. Strike gently rubbed Robin’s back, and she held him in a tight grip, occasionally apologising while his shirt collar grew wet. Instead of recoiling when he pressed his lips to the top of her head, she tightened her hold on him.
They walked together across the lawn towards the low guest house, one of three in a row, Strike’s arm around Robin’s shoulders.
She turned to look at her partner as he closed the door. ‘Strike,’ she said, with a shaky laugh, ‘you’re so thin.’
I seem to be missing some of this because him saying 'I'm fucking thin?' is so satisfying for reasons I can't articulate
Strike sat down next to her on the bed and put his arm around her again. ‘Sorry,’ she said, sobbing as she leaned into him, ‘I’m really sorry—’
The sound of the shower now running in the bathroom gave rise to thoughts he knew he oughtn’t to be thinking.
nobody could accuse him of sitting in a chair, listening to the shower
