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Now, as Strike watched the newlyweds turn on the dance floor, Robin in her long white dress, with a circlet of roses in her hair, Matthew in his dark suit, his face close to his bride’s cheek, Strike was forced to recognise how long, and how deeply, he had hoped that Robin would not marry. He had wanted her free, free to be what they had been together. Free, so that if circumstances changed . . . so the possibility was there . . . free, so that one day, they might find out what else they could be to each other.
For one moment of madness, Strike yearned to say, ‘Come with me’, but there are words that can never be unsaid or forgotten, and those, he knew, were some of them.
She watched him go, wiping the hot tears frantically from her face. If he had said ‘come with me’, she knew she would have gone:
Such is the universal desire for fame that those who achieve it accidentally or unwillingly will wait in vain for pity.
Strike reflected, not for the first time, that Robin was the only woman he had ever met who had shown no interest in improving him. He knew that he could have changed his mind now and ordered five bacon rolls, and she would simply have grinned and handed them over. This thought made him feel particularly affectionate towards her as she joined him at the table in her muddy jeans.
As Robin turned away from the window she caught a whiff of a strong, heady scent that gave her an unaccountable feeling of tension until she spotted the vase of stargazer lilies standing on a table behind a sofa.
‘See that foal?’ said Torquil, staring critically at the picture. ‘You know what it looks like? Lethal white syndrome. Heard of it?’ he asked his wife and sister-in-law. ‘You’ll know all about that, Kinvara,’ he said, clearly under the impression that he was graciously offering a way back into polite conversation. ‘Pure white foal, seems healthy when it’s born, but defective bowel. Can’t pass faeces. M’father bred horses,’ he explained to Strike. ‘They can’t survive, lethal whites. The tragedy is that they’re born alive, so the mare feeds them, gets attached and then—’
‘There’s an old saying,’ said Robin, trying to steer around the worst of the potholes, ‘“the horse is your mirror”. People say dogs resemble their owners, but I think it’s truer of horses.’
‘I’m fine,’ he said, angry with himself, examining the palm that was now full of thorns and starting to pull them out with his teeth. He heard a loud snap of wood behind him and turned to see Robin holding out a fallen branch, which she had broken to make a rough walking stick. ‘Use this.’ ‘I don’t—’ he began, but catching sight of her stern expression, he gave in. ‘Thanks.’
By Lorelei’s analysis, Cormoran Strike was a fundamentally damaged and dysfunctional creature standing in the way of his own happiness. He caused pain to others due to the essential dishonesty of his emotional dealings. Never having experienced a healthy relationship, he ran from it when it was given to him. He took those who cared about him for granted and would probably only realise this when he hit rock bottom, alone, unloved and tortured by regrets.
‘You can bloody hate someone and still wish they gave a shit about you and hate yourself for wishing it.’
‘What theory?’ said Robin sharply, and Strike noted that even halfway down the bottle of champagne, with her marriage in splinters and a box room in Kilburn to look forward to, Robin’s interest in the case remained as acute as ever. ‘Remember when I told you I thought there was something big, something fundamental, behind the Chiswell business? Something we hadn’t spotted yet?’ ‘Yes,’ said Robin, ‘you said it kept “almost showing itself”.’ ‘Well remembered.
