In Bad Faith by LindMea

Monday morning saw Robin manoeuvring carefully through the ever-present construction on Tottenham Court Road in high spirits. In the final days of her honeymoon, she and Matthew had managed to get along and even have fun together; and since she had managed to avoid him finding out about the phone call she had made to Strike, they hadn’t argued at all upon their arrival home. It wasn’t as if she was lying about it, she reflected. Neglecting to share small, unimportant details was just one of those little smoothing-overs that kept a marriage functioning. Even the overcast, drizzly weather that had greeted her upon her exit of their flat couldn’t dampen her mood. In fact – she winced as her loose skirt happened to brush against the nasty sunburn on her thighs – she welcomed the gloomy English weather. She had had more than her fill of sunbathing.

As she walked up the clanging metal steps to the office, she paused in surprise as she saw Strike’s massive form moving through the frosted glass of the door. It was unusual for him to be in the office before she was even when she was running late; today she was early.

After a brief hesitation, Robin swung open the door. Strike looked up at her from where he was in the middle of making tea; for a moment, a strange awkwardness hung in the air between them.

“Morning,” Strike said, and handed her a mug of tea.

 “Morning. Thanks.” Robing felt less strange with something to hold in her hands. She shrugged her bag off her shoulder and stuffed it under her desk as she sat down. Instead of disappearing into the inner office, Strike dropped down onto the couch, wincing as the leather squeaked underneath him. There was a sheaf of neatly stapled paper set squarely in the middle of her desk.

“What’s this?” she asked, picking it up.

“An new employment contract,” Strike said. Robin shot him a look of surprise and then started to flip through the pages, brow furrowed.

He continued, “You’re officially a Junior Partner now. For a year while we finish your training, then you become a full partner in the business. Also, a raise.”

Robin felt a flush of pleasure at these words. It sounded so official, so important. She pressed her lips together to stop herself from smiling, to look professional and serious.

“Can we afford this much?” she said, looking up from her scan of the contract.

Strike was touched by her concerned expression, by the way she put the welfare of the business above her own comfort; he knew that she had to budget very carefully because of the small amount he paid her, and had therefore given her the largest possible raise he could afford.

“We’re back to a wait list,” he reassured her. “They’ve been knocking down the door since the news about Laing’s arrest.”

Strike, in desperate financial straits and furious at the police, had finally agreed to give Culpepper a paid exclusive, contingent on Strike’s identity as the source remaining secret. He still felt a slight twinge at the betrayal of his usual rule of strict discretion, but reminded himself that he was no longer bound by the rules of the SIB. Frankly, he felt that Carver’s incompetence had earned the man a measure of public humiliation. Culpepper’s piece, published the day after Robin left for her honeymoon, had resulted in a tsunami of irritating media attention but, more importantly, a flood of potential clients.

Robin was still reading the contract, her mug of tea forgotten.

“You can take that home to show Matthew before you sign it, if you want,” said Strike. Though he would not admit it aloud, one of his motivations in putting together a proper contract had been to make it harder for Matthew to pressure Robin to leave; making her status in the business official would, he felt, add a greater sense of permanence to their partnership.

“No need,” Robin said. She had already signed the bottom of the final page and was tucking the contract into her bag. She silently delighted in the thought of showing it to Matthew when she got home; it would, hopefully, silence his constant criticism of her small wage and Strike’s supposed disregard for her abilities.

“Also,” Strike said, as he heaved himself off the couch and crossed the small office, “there’s this.” He gestured curtly at the door to the inner office. Confused, Robin swiveled around in her chair and got up to see what he was pointing at. The bubble of pride that she had been nursing since seeing the words ‘full partner’ written down in black and white swelled; beside the inner office door had been fastened two brass nameplates. The first said ‘C.B. Strike’. Beneath it, engraved in solid black letters on the second plate, was ‘R. Ellacott’.

“We’ll have to share the office,” Strike said, as Robin reached out to trace her name. “But it’s not like we’re both here very often, we’ll make it work. And in a few month’s we’ll be able to hire a receptionist, at least for part-time, but until then we can still use the desk out here when we have to.”

Robin cleared her throat. “Yes, that will work,” she said, trying not to show just how much his offer of an equal share of the inner office meant to her.

“I thought you might want to use your maiden name at work,” Strike said. In fact, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to order ‘R. Cunliffe’ as the inscription. “Makes it harder for the nutters to track you down.”

Robin rolled her eyes at Strike’s use of the unflattering term, but couldn’t help agreeing with his reasoning.

Strike had been rummaging in the filing cabinet; he extracted two files and passed them to Robin.

“You’ll be the primary on these,” he said. “The first one is going to be here at ten, so we have some time to brush up your interviewing techniques.”

Robin squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. The awkwardness she had felt upon entering the office was gone, replaced with a mixture of quiet pride, gratitude to Strike, and an overwhelming determination to prove that he had not made a mistake in asking her to come back.

It was half twelve before they stopped for lunch. The door shut behind Robin as she stepped out to the shop to get sandwiches, and Strike leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. It had been a good morning; Robin had been her usual empathetic self,  handling her client – a middle-aged schoolteacher terrified that her partner was cheating – with a gentleness that Strike himself had never seemed to be capable of.

Strike hoped that he had been successful in convincing Robin that he meant what he said on the phone a week ago; that she was his partner, that he would not sideline her again. He certainly intended to keep that promise. Unless another homicidal lunatic gets her in his sights, he thought. But they could have that argument when it came up. Until then, he was determined to demonstrate how much he valued her work, and their partnership. He owed her that.

The door to the office opened, and he looked up, expecting to see Robin. Instead, a young black woman edged into the office. She was pretty, with large brown eyes and a mass of hair that was twisted into large braids and gathered into a bun on top of her head. Her scuffed sneakers, low slung jeans and battered messenger bag screamed ‘student’.

“Is this the private detective’s office?” she asked, but before Strike could answer, he heard Robin’s steps on the stair behind the girl, and her red-gold head rose into view.

“Cormoran, they were out of the ham, so I-“ Robin stopped short as she registered the presence of a third person in the office.

“Yes, this is the detective’s office,” Strike said, addressing the young woman. “I’m Cormoran Strike, and this is my partner, Robin.”

“Hi,” said Robin, holding out her hand. The girl released her tight grip on her bag’s strap to shake it.

“Hi,” she murmured. “My name’s Natalie.”

“What can we do for you, Natalie?” Strike said.

“I need help.  I – I think my dad might be in trouble. I need you to find him.”

He frowned. “Have you gone to the police? They would be better equipped to –“

“No. I can’t. He’s a policeman. I’m not supposed to be in contact with him while…” Natalie paused, clearly having some internal struggle, before she continued, “he was undercover and he’s in trouble. I know he is. I can’t go to the police.”

“I’m sorry,” Strike began, “but I don’t think we can-“

“Can you give us a moment, Natalie?” Robin grabbed Strike’s arm and towed him into the inner office, shut the door and folded her arms tightly across her chest.

“You’re not actually going to refuse to help her, are you?”

Strike spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Robin, my name is poison with the police right now. We wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near this guy. Plus, cops take care of their own. If he is actually in trouble, the Met will do more to protect him than we ever could.”

Robin snorted in disbelief. Since her only experience with the Metropolitan Police was seeing them proven wrong by Strike no less than three times, she did not hold a high opinion of their abilities.

 “There are actually some competent cops out there, you know,” Strike said, amused.

Robin ignored this. “Cormoran, she needs help. She’s clearly scared,” she said, but Strike was now shaking his head angrily.

“We can’t just take on clients because we feel sorry for them!”

“Bloody hypocrite!” she gasped. “You take people on because you feel sorry for them all the time!”

Strike scoffed, but couldn’t actually formulate a response for this accusation. It was, annoyingly, pretty accurate.

“We can at least try,” Robin pleaded. “If we find him and there’s nothing wrong then we’ve brought his daughter some peace of mind, and if we can’t find him then we’ll at least know we did the best we could.”

 “Fine,” Strike sighed. “But this isn’t pro-bono, she’ll have to pay like everyone else.”

Ignoring his scowl, Robin flashed him a triumphant smile and opened the door.

“We’ll be happy to help you, Natalie. Come in and tell us what’s happened.”

Strike retreated to safety behind the desk, trying not to look as though he had just lost an argument. Robin ushered their newest client into one of the chairs facing the desk, and sat herself in the other. Natalie perched on the edge of her chair, her posture tense. Robin was right about one thing, Strike mused. The girl looked terrified.

Keeping his tone brisk – he wasn’t going to start taking on clients who couldn’t pay, not when his finances had so recently hit rock bottom – Strike said, “First, let me tell you about our fee structure-“

“I can pay.” Natalie interrupted him, meeting his gaze for the first time. “When mum – when my mother died, my dad put the insurance money into a trust for me. I can afford whatever your fee is.”

“All right,” said Strike, now feeling a slight twinge of guilt. “Start at the beginning.”

Natalie Wilson, it transpired, was indeed a student in the nursing programme at King’s College London. Her father, Peter, was a Sergeant in the Organised and Economic Crime unit of the Met. He had gone undercover twice before for long periods of time; this was his third undercover assignment, and he had been gone for six weeks.

“He wasn’t supposed to contact me at all, you understand,” Natalie said, twisting her hands in her lap. “But it’s been just him and me since Mom died, and he… bent the rules a little.”

Leaning forward, she placed what Strike recognized as a cheap burner phone on the desk.

“He bought me on of these before he left each time. He called me once a week, every week, just to make sure that I was ok. But he’s missed his last two calls. He would never miss calling; something is wrong. I can feel it.” Tears had started to spill down Natalie’s cheeks;  she swiped them away angrily with the heel of her palm.

Strike exchanged a worried glance with Robin. The sudden silence from a father who had previously been determined to maintain contact with his child, going so far as to break policy to do so, was concerning.

“We’ll need a picture of your Dad,” Strike said. Natalie rummaged in her bad and produced a photograph; she had clearly come prepared. Robin took the photo from Natalie and examined it. Peter had the same clear brown eyes as his daughter, but his were set under thick, furrowed brows. A large scar ran down one cheek and over his square jaw; his nose had clearly been broken at least once.

“Did he say anything odd to you, the last time you spoke? Anything that hinted that something might be wrong?” Strike asked. Natalie shook her head.

“No, nothing. Just that he would call me in a week. I told him about my course, he said – he said that he was proud of me.” Eyes still bright with tears, Natalie looked pleadingly between Strike and Robin. “I just want to find out if he’s ok, or if – if something’s happened to him.  I just need you to show me that he’s all right.”

With this, Natalie got to her feet. “I’ve got to go,” she said, slinging her bag back over her shoulder.

“It might take a while to track him down,” Strike said, not wanting to raise her hopes too high. “The Met doesn’t exactly broadcast the details of its undercover operations to the general public.”

“That’s fine; just call me when you have something.” She pulled a notebook from her bag and scribbled something in it, then ripped out the page to give to Strike. “Here’s my number, and my email address.”

With a nod and a small, fragile smile to Robin, Natalie left.  Strike waited until the outer door had shut before he spoke.

“It’s not going to be easy to find this guy. And it’s probably not going to be good news when we do.”

“Well,” Robin shrugged, “let’s start with eating those sandwiches, then we’ll get to work.”

< Chapter 1

 

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