Work Text:
Deep in his reverie, pondering Bristow’s upcoming bollocking by his uncle, Strike didn’t notice the horn of the oncoming car. Even though he definitely could hear it!
In a more realistic book, he may even have been slightly deaf from the explosion or all the gunshots in Her Majesty of England’s neocolonial army.
Not that this is of course, a reason he would have been run over. Deaf people don’t actually get run over by cars at a rate higher than hearing people. Nevertheless, it was notable that the author hadn’t noticed deaf people exist.
At any rate, Cormoran was so wrapped up in trying to understand how the police (who were always perfect) could have missed a black woman’s murder and attributed it to suicide (because she was crazy so didn’t that just make sense?) that he simply didn’t-
Crunch!
“Oh no,” Robin wailed, her ineffectual fiancée (who was a man) petting her still-sore right tit in condolence. “But I was enjoying being a detective! Unlike the other girls! Women don’t do anything that means anything in their little secretary jobs! I wanted to be important! Like a man!”
Alas, Strike was indeed dead. And that’s why you should look both ways before crossing the street, and also just assume the police are incompetent (and racist) in the first place.