The Running Grave (Cormoran Strike, #7)

by Robert Galbraith

had forced Strike to admit that the attraction he’d felt towards Robin from the moment she’d first taken off her coat in his office had slowly mutated against his will into something else, something he’d finally been forced to name.

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.

spoke to the little gal’s aunt in the bathroom,’

As Strike hesitated, a youth on a skateboard cuffed him in passing, making Strike yearn to slap the inconsiderate little fucker into the gutter.

‘I want to trace the call Reaney got, before he overdosed. D’you know any bent screws up in Bedford?’ ‘There’s always bent screws, Bunsen,’ said Shanker, cynical as ever. ‘Five hundred for you and five hundred for them, if they can give me any solid information about that call,’ said Strike recklessly, ‘particularly the number it was made from.’

Time would tell whether he’d just done something foolish or not, but Cormoran Strike had at last decided to practise what he’d preached to Charlotte, all those years ago. Happiness is a choice that requires an effort at times, and it was well past time for him to make the effort.