Chapter Text
Stephen 17.12.17 11:03
Are you coming up for Christmas?
Stephen 17.12.17 11:04
Mum's been asking
Stephen 17.12.17 11:04
Said you haven't told her whether or not (edited)
Robin 17.12.17 11:10
🙄 Told her last week that I can't come up.
Robin 17.12.17 11:10
I have to work, unfortunately.
Stephen 17.12.17 11:11
Work or "work"?
Robin 17.12.17 11:12
Actual work, Button.
Robin 17.12.17 11:13
Have to go, give Annabel and Jenny hugs and kisses, yes?
Stephen 17.12.17 11:11
Sure thing, will do
📞 (1) Missed Call Martin
Martin 19.12.17 16:01
headsup, murphy called, prep for imcoming interrogation
Martin 19.12.17 16:01
*incomming
Martin 19.12.17 16:01
*incoming, ffs
Martin 19.12.17 16:01
means dont answer bc mums got questions
📞 (1) Missed Call Mum
Martin 19.12.17 16:06
[IMG_2254.jpg]
carmen got him antlers 👀 🧬
Martin 19.12.17 16:06
ffs, i meant 😄
Martin 19.12.17 16:06
why tf is there a dna emoji????
Martin 19.12.17 16:07
wwu need that?
Martin 19.12.17 16:07
"congrats u have a kid ✨🧬👼" or what lol
Martin 19.12.17 16:07
i mean who would
📞 (2) Missed Calls Mum
Martin 19.12.17 16:07
u @ work?
📞 (3) Missed Calls Mum
📞 (1) Missed Call Ilsa
Robin 19.12.17 21:11
Reply to Martin 23.12.17 16:06 [IMG_2254.jpg]
Ohhh, that's so cute!
(Martin 👍 your message)
Robin 21.12.17 21:11
Sorry, I was out on surveillance and missed your call 😞
Ilsa Herbert 21.12.17 21:11
Don't worry, I just wanted to hear how you're doing 😊 And wanted to ask one last time (I promise!) whether you want to come with us?
Robin 21.12.17 21:11
❤️
Robin 21.12.17 21:12
And crash your family Christmas? 😉
Ilsa Herbert 21.12.17 21:12
You are not crashing it if you're invited!
Robin 21.12.17 21:12
You just need a convenient and cheap babysitter, admit it.
Ilsa 21.12.17 21:12
No!
Ilsa Herbert 21.12.17 21:12
That's what I got my mum for 😄
Robin 21.12.17 21:13
😄
Robin 21.12.17 21:13
Thanks for asking (again), but I'll be fine. Might go to Masham after all, if the case wraps up tonight or early tomorrow 😊
Ilsa Herbert 21.12.17 21:13
Alright. But let me know if you need anything?
Robin 21.12.17 21:14
And you'll do what? Beam yourself across the country to London?
Ilsa Herbert 21.12.17 21:14
Careful, I just might! 😘
Robin 21.12.17 21:14
Enjoy Cornwall 😘
Nick Herbert 21.12.17 09:20
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPXgCGaqr/recipe-high-protein-pasta
(Robin 🤌 the message)
Nick Herbert 23.12.17 09:15
[P1020408.jpg]
Nick Herbert 23.12.17 09:15
[P1020409.jpg]
Nick Herbert 23.12.17 09:15
[P1020410.jpg]
Nick Herbert 23.12.17 09:17
[voice note 0:51]
Robin 23.12.17 10:18
[voice note 0:32]
Nick Herbert 23.12.17 10:26
[voice note 03:01]
Robin 23.12.17 10:33
[voice note 2:41]
Nick Herbert 23.12.17 21:03 in "Four 4 Curry 🥘"
[P1020419.jpg]
Nick Herbert 23.12.17 21:03 in "Four 4 Curry 🥘"
Merry Christmas from the three of us x
(Ilsa ❤️ the message)
(Robin ❤️ the message)
Seen by everyone
Robin 21.12.17 21:37
Hey mum, work's been tough the last few days and I'm pretty sure it won't wrap up until after Christmas. Our contractors have Christmas off, so I'll need to work. Tried to free up a few days but it's just not possible this year, I'm sorry 😕 And with the weather forecast as is, I think it's best if I stay put ... I might come up after New Year, for a weekend? Have a merry Christmas and give my love to dad ❤️
Mum 22.12.17 10:45
Dear Robin,
don't worry, we understand. Maybe we can have a chat on the 25th? Martin said we could do a video call, so you can see everyone. Jon will also be there, he's coming up tomorrow and will stay until New Year. I hope you're taking regular breaks and don't work too hard. Take care and stay safe. We love you. x
Robin 22.12.17 21:46
Sounds like a full house! I'll ring you on the 25th x
Mum 22.12.17 21:48
Wonderful x
📞 (1) Missed Call Ryan Murphy
📞 (2) Missed Calls Ryan Murphy
📞 (3) Missed Calls Ryan Murphy
📞 (4) Missed Calls Ryan Murphy
☎️ Call Ryan Murphy rejected
Robin 23.12.17 23:03
I'm at work. Please stop calling.
☎️ Call Ryan Murphy rejected
☎️ Call Ryan Murphy rejected
☎️ Call Ryan Murphy rejected
There are few actions more revealing of a person’s state of mind than the unnecessary, almost punitive pressing of a button designed for a very simple, innocent action.
Had any impartial observer been present – and there was not, quite fortunately – such a figure might have noted that Robin Ellacott struck the accusingly gleaming red end call button on her screen with far more force than the situation strictly required. Nor was this an isolated incident: she had performed the same small act of violence repeatedly over the past day, as though her own persistence might make the callers finally relent and give up attempting to reach her.
Having done so once again, she sank further into the cushion she had unceremoniously shoved behind her back. It was squashed and considerably less inviting looking than when she had first taken up residence on the sofa earlier this morning. But the impression was misleading, because time and habit had moulded it into something approaching an ergonomic shape that Robin languished against. She shifted with care, conscious of the laptop precariously wedged between her stomach and her thigh, adjusting herself by fractions so as not to send it sliding to the floor.
Should have blocked him, she thought uncharitably. When I had the chance.
But then he’d just show up again, she added at once, the thought arriving fully formed and unwelcome. Her mind leapt – inevitably – back a few weeks, to a night that had seen her curled into the farthest corner of her flat, barely breathing, waiting, praying, hoping.
Ryan Murphy had spent the better part of an hour pounding on her door, his voice swinging wildly between apologies and recriminations, until at last – finally, finally – he had left.
Instead of the final implosion she had half expected – their faults laid bare, a final, clean separation akin to a surgical cut made by practised hands –, ending things with Ryan had been anything but easy, or brief, or indeed final.
Splitting from Matt had been difficult but also oddly straightforward in its own way – she had walked out, camped on Vanessa’s sofa, and patiently untangled the tiny, stubborn threads of their shared life, while Matt had been only too content to play house with his mistress. Breaking up with Ryan had been something else entirely: a complicated, drawn-out business that went on for too long and tended to be allergic to closure.
They had barely managed a fifth of the time she had spent with her ex-husband, and not even that much in terms of affection, but the end had been twice as difficult and twice as painful.
Robin – after an initial wash of relief, tempered by a dose of well-earned grief and stirred through with a heaping spoonful of guilt – had simply, finally moved on. In the quiet moments that had stretched before her, she had come to realise that Ryan had been far less integral to her life than she had persuaded herself he was.
Ryan, by contrast, quite blatantly had not moved on; had not been able to, had not wanted to. He had not cut his losses and freed himself to pursue the future he had, with increasing insistence and diminishing consideration, been pushing towards.
In retrospect, not ditching Ryan the first time she had felt like she had to hide some part, minor and not so minor, from him in oder to placate him; the first time she had lied by omission in order to prevent an argument; the first time she'd swallowed a retort and let it fester; the first time she had seen similar cracks in this relationship as in her last and had begun to plaster over them, willfully blind to what she was doing; that hadn't been her wisest decision.
Shaking herself out of anxiety-inducing thoughts before they could induce what they so reliably promised, she reached out with the arm that was not uncomfortably stuck between the back of the sofa and her side and fumbled for her cup of tea.
It had gone disappointingly lukewarm, as tea so often did when left unattended and entirely to its own devices.
Her flat was, mercifully, quiet; a quiet broken only by the steady ticking of the kitchen clock, marking the merciless passage of time as the day inched ever closer to its end.
A few weeks ago, Christmas at home – her own home –, had sounded distinctly appealing.
After the stress and the excitement – if that was the right word – of the last year, and the heartache it had delivered in its wake, the prospect of returning to her parents' home had lost much, if not all of its charm. The thought of facing not only her brothers, their spouses and children, sitting through her mother’s quietly disapproving looks and disappointed little huffs, going to the pub and facing what could only be judgmental looks – and of doing so without the comfortable buffer of a partner at her side – had, for the first time, filled her with something approaching insurmountable dread.
Though her therapist had pointed out – quite correctly – that she owed no one a justification to sit out Christmas, Robin had nonetheless delighted in the surge of work that arrived before Christmas, as it had provided a perfect, conveniently respectable, possibly even gift-wrapped excuse to miss the growing number of calls that popped up on her screen as Christmas drew closer, slowly multiplying with the same stubborn enthusiasm as the tacky decorations that appeared all over the city the instant she looked elsewhere.
She had all but thrown herself into her surveillance shifts; so many of them that days, and then weeks, had begun to blur together into a steady cycle of sleep and work and rinse and repeat.
The routine had allowed her to delay the inevitable – speaking to her mother, or, God forbid, actually booking a train – until it was too late to secure anything affordable in advance. She delayed confirming her plans further, and then further still, and then even further still; had dodged – better and more successful, in fact, than Matt could have ever dreamt of doing on the rugby pitch.
After weeks of gruelling work, Robin had finally come to a decision: she would not celebrate Christmas – at least not as she had done nearly all her life.
She would not go to Masham.
Rather, she would celebrate in London. She would do exactly what she wanted, when she wanted; she would lounge in a blissfully quiet flat; she would go for a walk; and she would eat a meal which, though not as expertly prepared as her mum’s, would still be good.
She had placated her parents and sidestepped Ilsa’s pointed questions about her Christmas plans, admitting – truthfully – that she wanted a quiet Christmas, and feeling both elated and faintly guilty as she received, and declined, Ilsa’s invitation to join them in St Mawes.
(Something ugly and excitable had churned and squirmed in her stomach at the image of it: walking along the pier, the cold, brine-filled air nipping at her cheeks, the wind buffeting her, stealing her breath. She had dreamt of looking out over the bay she had known only from photographs; of watching the small ferry cheerfully shuttling passengers between Falmouth and St Mawes; of listening to seagulls wheel overhead, screeching their song of hunger and joy. Of doing all of that – of being there, at last, in a place she had, for years, not been invited to, not been wanted in, deliberately kept at a distance. Of being there, and being there without –
– without. Without the man who belonged to this small place; whose very being had been entwined with the village, and who had been so thoroughly and forcefully displaced from it that he was now, suddenly, as much an outsider as she would be.
Some part of her had longed to go; had wanted to experience it for herself, to prove that she had a right to visit his corner of the country.
Another and much louder part, a part she had slowly invited and allowed to take up space in her head, had wanted and had imagined him there beside her when she finally did.
Robin had, over the years, played out countless versions of her first visit to St Mawes: Picking him up from his aunt and uncle’s and meeting his family; being invited along as a friend, a girlfriend, just a lover, a partner; dashing across the country to be there when his aunt had died; doing the same when he had rushed down to spend the last, precious hours with his uncle. She had seen it all: herself in a cosy jumper – sometimes hers, sometimes his – sitting at a worn kitchen table, her fingers wrapped around a chipped mug; holding his hand, to lend him all the strength she could; him beside her on a low bench in the pub he had painted so vividly with words for years; his aunt, or uncle, or sister milling about, moving in and out of the background; the two of them an island in the middle of it all. Hand in hand, side by side, distant, just friends, barely speaking, not yet lovers, partners in all senses of the word – she had imagined every version, in great and not so great detail.
But what united all those fantasies was this: he had been with her, there. And going alone had felt wrong.)
All of it had led to this: Robin, her toes curling in fuzzy socks, clad in soft tracksuit bottoms and wrapped in the thickest jumper she had been able to unearth from the depths of her wardrobe; a cup of lukewarm tea resting on the low table at her elbow; and her laptop providing both a welcome distraction and a conveniently portable source of heat.
With all her manoeuvring, she had achieved precisely what she had set out to do: three days containing nothing at all but her own thoughts and plans; three days lived entirely on her own time, without having to make room for a boyfriend, her family, or her friends; three days that were meant to stretch like molasses – dreamlike and slightly unreal, bathed in soft, forgiving light, as if lifted straight from a Hallmark film. Three days of rest, of solitude, of her, and her, and her.
And so, naturally, Robin had become antsy and bored before the first day was even halfway over.
After a lazy morning, she had done her shopping, then moved on to cleaning and tidying the flat in a manner that suggested she was preparing for a horde of guests – specifically the sort of guests who would take an unhealthy interest in, and feel compelled to comment upon, the small dust bunnies lurking behind her bookshelf. She had prepared a light lunch, fully intending to spend the rest of the afternoon with a good book, and had then sat down only to find herself struggling with the two and a half days stretching out ahead of her, and the sheer, well-meaning nothingness they promised.
It had been too long with nothing on the agenda; too long without an appointment, an evening out with friends, a few calls to return, a last-minute shift, another item quietly colonising her never-ending to-do list.
Even last year, there had been the trip to her parents: a few days lived on Masham-time, which had run counter to the way she usually moved through her days – a trip down to the pub, a few visits by her parents acquaintances, a few calls here and there, conversations picked up and put down – and, always, ever overly present Ryan Murphy weaving through it all.
The only moment that had been hers alone had been another one altogether, and a terribly beautiful one at that. The memory was hazy: cold tiles beneath her, hard ceramic pressed against her back, silver charms and a chain slipping and sliding through her fingers, just like everything else had run through her grasping fingers back then. In her drunken stupor, those small, meaningful charms had been her lifeline.
She had loved it; had felt loved in that very moment, in ways familiar and entirely unfamiliar to her; had realised it dimly, even then, and had proceeded to shove those emotions as far into the deepest, darkest recesses of her mind as she could.
But at least in that moment, she had been honest with herself.
Robin shifted, as though the small physical adjustment might coax her mind away from places she had no desire to visit right now.
The fact that she was, in truth, not-quite-so-delightfully bored struck her as a curious kind of irony. For someone who had longed so keenly for a break – and who had worked damn hard to carve out a handful of days away from everything and everyone – having nothing at all to do proved far more daunting when encountered head-on than it ever had while being fervently wished for and anticipated.
And so Robin had turned towards the one thing most likely to keep her mind from straying into the horror vacui that lurked just out of sight, and had begun – like an addict provided with their personal vice – to tidy up work notes. From there, she had moved on to re-reading open case files, adding her comments to those of their contractors and filing her own notes. With every passing hour, her anxiety loosened and smoothed out; with every word typed, with every email sent, Robin settled.
The sharp, rattling vibration of her phone cut through the faint music drifting in from elsewhere in the building, and the steady, reassuring sound of her own typing.
At least it's not a call, this time, she thought with an annoyed huff.
Despite the annoyance, Robin, with carefully measured calm, reached for her phone, pretending that she wasn't looking forward to a message. No one was watching, of course, but lunging for it – seeking distraction from what amounted to nothing more than an overly quiet evening – smacked of desperation, even unobserved in her own living room.
It’s probably your fitness app again, telling you to get a move on, a cheerfully unhelpful voice supplied, and Robin, as she had on several occasions over the past few months, briefly considered deleting the app altogether, if only to rid herself of its condescending notifications.
(1) New Message Cormoran
Robin's heart, upon realising whose name she was staring at, did something rather curious: It appeared to stop altogether, before resuming at roughly half its usual speed – and twice the usual force. It felt, she thought dimly, like a cannon shot: a breathless moment of nothing, followed by a resounding boom that echoed in the ears and dulled every other sensation.
Her palms were not sweaty, and her body had most certainly not gone rigid the moment she swiped up to unlock her phone.
Absolutely not.
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:11
Stop working, Ellacott. You’re making everyone else look bad.
A high – and utterly mortifying – laugh escaped her, punching straight through her admittedly weakened defences at his words.
For a brief moment, she considered not replying. As had become their modus operandi over the past weeks and months, in a concerted effort to establish and maintain a comfortable distance between them; to keep them as far away from the events in April as humanly possible. To ignore the message – again – much as she had done before, favouring the cool professionalism of an email instead.
("You always take his calls, don’t you?" Ryan had snarled, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. "And his messages. You never let him sit there wondering."
He had advanced on her even as she had kept herself close to the door behind her, ready to spring into action.
"Sometimes I think that's the relationship you're actually in.")
Robin wanted to blame boredom, or the softening effects of Christmas, but the truth was much simpler: She missed him. And the distance she had so carefully put between them had done nothing but make that absence sharper – the experience of it painful in a hundred small, ignorable ways –, and she no longer quite knew how to bridge it, how to return to the warmth that had characterised their friendship or find a new sense of normal if they couldn't, how to speak to him in registers beyond work, which had – if she were honest – periodically suffered quietly under their newly imposed normal.
Robin 24.12.17 22:11
By everyone else you mean you?
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:11
Rude.
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:11
But yes.
Her fingers hovered over the tiny, white keyboard. That was an opening, wasn't it? An invitation to text back, to engage in conversation? Certainly not a full stop meant to end the exchange before it had properly begun?
Robin 24.12.17 22:12
Curious...
She tapped her thumb against the side of her phone, seized by a sudden urge to get up and pace, as though movement alone might bleed off some of the nervous energy coursing through her.
Please reply, she thought, go on.
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:13
What is?
Her thumbs flew.
Robin 24.12.17 22:13
You wouldn’t know I was working unless you were too.
A speech bubble appeared, three cheerful dots bouncing obligingly, then vanished – only to return again, merrily bouncing, moments later. Robin watched them blink in and out of existence, picturing the man on the other end gingerly tapping away, his face set in the concentrated scowl she knew so well.
For all that effort of typing, the reply was disappointingly brief.
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:14
Guilty as charged.
Her thumbs hovered once more, poised between a joking Gotcha! and a more earnest Why are you working tonight?, twitching to answer with a flirty – and admittedly and undeniably sleazy: Want me to stop by, so we can work together?
She groaned at that, her face heating as she sank back into the now distinctly uncomfortable sofa, her phone coming to rest against her chest.
Definitely not the last one, she thought with a grimace.
Robin 24.12.17 22:16
Thought you’d be at Lucy’s tonight.
The moment she sent it, she wanted to take it back. Technically, she didn’t know where Strike would be over Christmas – not because she hadn’t wanted to know, or wasn't interested in his whereabouts, but because they hadn’t spoken about anything even vaguely resembling their private lives since their explosive confrontation in April.
Ilsa, however, had shown no such restraint, and Nick even less so.
Where Ilsa had long been a source of all manner of information concerning Cormoran Strike – a veritable well, at times – Robin had, after careful consideration and several long, meandering conversations with her therapist, been forced to admit that she no longer quite trusted Ilsa’s authority on all matters Strike.
Not because Ilsa didn’t know him well enough – she did – or because she couldn’t offer insight into his inner workings – she could – but because Ilsa’s view, for all her affection, was not an impartial one.
She had known him longest, and had been one of his most steadfast champions for years – Team Cormoran all the way, as Nick had once put it, only half-joking. But Ilsa had also pegged him as someone in need of reformation – preferably in the form of Robin herself –, in need of protection from the wrong sort of women he had a habit of falling in with, and from all the adjacent dysfunction he had accumulated over the years. In doing so, she had never quite looked beyond the version of Cormoran she had always known: battered, bruised, unable to commit emotionally, and romantically tethered, in one way or another, to Charlotte.
Nick, as it turned out, was just as good a source of information, but altogether more measured – and far more careful. Whether because he and Robin were friends, but not close friends; because he was still, first and foremost, Strike’s friend; or because he possessed a knack for translating Strike-isms and dispensing advice Robin didn’t necessarily want but very much needed, without setting her teeth on edge, he had become her preferred confidant.
(Robin – whose professional life thrived on ill-got information, gossip, and the occasional well-placed eavesdrop on even the best of days – had come to appreciate Nick’s I don’t know, his That’s something he should be telling you, and his constant, gently insistent ask him, ask him, ask him if you want to know.)
Strike's reply arrived in the middle of her uneasy thoughts.
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:17
No, not this year.
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:17
Last year was awful enough to last me until next year, at least.
Holding her breath, Robin replied, acutely aware that the careful, months-long game of Jenga they had been playing could collapse entirely with her next move.
Robin 24.12.17 22:18
And here I thought you had a date at the party…
Marguerite.
And oh – had Robin not already suspected – known – how thoroughly she had been lying to herself about what she did, or did not, feel for Strike, Ilsa’s throwaway remark about Lucy attempting to set him up with a friend of hers would have confirmed that Robin was good at lying to herself – but not that good.
Lucy knew her brother, after all, and she knew his preference for tall, exceedingly beautiful women – so of course Marguerite would be just that. The thought had landed like water on hot oil: instantly sizzling violently and becoming dangerously close to setting the whole room – or, in this case, her – ablaze.
Molten anger – and yes, jealousy – had slid down her throat to settle in the pit of her stomach like a leaden weight as she imagined an unholy amalgamation of Bijou, Charlotte, and – somewhat inexplicably – Ciara Porter: haughty, cool, extravagant, assured. She pictured Marguerite sidling up to Strike, hooking her arm through his, pressing close and closer as they bent their heads together to whisper into each other's ear.
Sure, Strike had told her that Bijou had cured him of all casual flings, but if faced with someone like the woman Robin had conjured in her mind? She wanted to trust his words, but some habits, she found, died your regular Shakespearean death: drawn-out, far more dramatic than the situation warranted and going on far beyond the patience of the audience it kept holding hostage.
Robin had been grateful she'd been on speakerphone rather than sitting at the Herberts’ kitchen table; she doubted even her best acting would have concealed how distasteful, how hurtful, how genuinely terrifying the image had been to her.
She had, for a moment, been seized by the urge to march to Denmark Street, storm up the stairs, knock on his door, and tell him – plainly, unmistakably – that if he so much as contemplated another fling, they would be finished for good. That if he slept with another pretty woman, she would leave and not come back; that nothing between them until now would compare to the sheer betrayal she would feel if he moved on so soon, and so soon after his declaration; that she would be heartbroken; that she would never be able to look at him again, condemned forever to wondering whether she had missed her chance, whether they might have been something more, if only –
To tell him that she wanted him to be unencumbered and free to – what? – to give her time to come to terms with her own deep-seated trauma; free so that if circumstances changed, if – when – she felt better, that the possibility was there ... so that one day, they'd be able to explore what else they could be to each other.
She hadn’t done any of that, of course. Had instead recognised that issuing him with an ultimatum would rank among the worst ideas she had ever had – second only, perhaps, to her pro forma acceptance of Murphy’s proposal, after Strike issuing – throwing – his own proposal in her face, before breaking off said engagement with the former within a fortnight or, arguably, her marriage to Matt.
The jury was still out.
But if that exchange — both the one with Ilsa and the one she had conducted entirely in her own head — had done anything, it was to underline just how little she wanted Strike with anyone else. This was hardly a revelation, if she was honest. What was newly unavoidable was how much she wanted to pursue something with him that went beyond business or friendship; how much she, unrepentingly, wanted him, full stop; and how much she still needed to hear the words that had lodged themselves in her mind months ago and had carried her through some exceptionally dark days since then.
If only –
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:17
What?
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:18
A date? What date?
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:18
Do you mean Marguerite?
Robin imagined she could hear the indignation cresting and surging through those five words, arriving in great, heaving swells.
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:19
Fuck no. They say the third time’s a charm, but definitely not in this case.
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:19
Pretty sure she isn’t interested either.
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:20
That is to say: I’m not interested.
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:20
Not in a date, and definitely not in her.
Robin blinked, slightly stupefied, at the rapid-fire – such as it was, when Cormoran Strike was typing –succession of messages that appeared on her screen the moment the tell-tale dots vanished.
Perhaps not just indignant, she thought, re-reading them. There was a definite undercurrent of urgency threaded through the words; a strain of something close to desperation that she very much hoped stemmed from yet another attempt to make her understand that, as long as she had not responded to his declaration, he remained – scrupulously, stubbornly – free and uninterested in anyone else.
But what, exactly, was she supposed to say now?
Great. I was obsessing over it and thought I was losing a battle I didn’t even realise I was fighting.
Too desperate, and likely far too honest for this time of night.
Anyone else you’re interested in?
Juvenile – and faintly unfair, given what she thought she knew; what she thought to have been true, at least all those months ago.
Fancy a date with me, then?
Absolutely not, that was even worse – though absolutely true.
Robin 24.12.17 22:21
Sounds like a definite no, then.
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:21
It is.
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:21
Very definite.
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:22
Ilsa?
Robin didn’t need to ask him to explain his non-sequitur.
Robin 24.12.17 22:22
Who else
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:23
Of course.
She stared at the screen, suddenly unsure how to proceed further, and acutely aware that she wanted to keep the conversation alive.
No, not just that.
She wanted to call him, to hear his voice; to do what they had never quite allowed themselves to do and talk about nothing at all, about inconsequential things, about their, in his case, non-existent Christmas decorations, about their plans for the holidays, about whatever he was doing and what she had planned for herself.
Small, ordinary things.
She wanted many things, as it turned out.
She wanted to invite him over and recreate what she had briefly glimpsed during the Ledwell case: the two of them side by side in the kitchen; across from each other at her table; next to each other on the sofa – not talking, not solving a case or working, but simply being with each other.
And, because it would be late, eventually, she would offer to pull out the couch for him, and he'd agree, and she would go to sleep, only to lie awake, wondering whether she'd ever be brave enough to ask for more.
She wanted to invite herself over to Denmark Street, to work for a few hours in their shared office, which had seen precious little of the two of them together lately; then to wander the neighbourhood, find a cosy pub, and spend a few hours leaning – or perching – at the bar because neither of them had the wherewithal to book a table. Close enough to touch, close enough not to mind it.
And, because the Tube would be packed, it would make sense for her to stay at Denmark Street, and he would agree – too quickly, perhaps – and they would go to bed, not in separate, adjoining rooms, but in the same one, and maybe they would lie awake for a while, though not because of their separation but because there was nothing left to keep them apart.
But whatever she wanted, the conversation had stalled unexpectedly and abruptly, leaving her overactive mind emptied of anything that felt safe enough to send.
Her teeth worried at her lower lip as she scrambled for something – anything – that might open the door again.
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:31
How's Masham?
She startled as the screen lit up, the phone vibrating in her slack hand.
Robin 24.12.17 22:31
Probably utter mayhem. Everyone’s staying at my parents’.
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:32
You booked a B&B? To stay out of the chaos?
What?
Robin frowned – and then, of course. Back in early November, she had still been half-heartedly planning to go home for Christmas before her need for space had (re)asserted itself with a vengeance. She had told Pat to try to clear her schedule. She had told people she’d be going even after it had become clear she wouldn’t, simply to fend off last-minute calls and requests.
And so, naturally, half the world believed she was already there.
And, naturally, so did he.
Robin 24.12.17 22:33
No. Never went. Needed a bit of distance from everyone this year.
Again, as she pressed Send she wanted to recall the message immediately.
Distance.
The word that had become her unwanted and unexpected motto for 2017, after all.
Distance from her parents, eager to see her married; from her brothers, preoccupied with their own lives and children; from friends she hadn’t realised she was withdrawing from until it was nearly too late. Distance from a boyfriend who had wanted to be more, a husband, a rightful partner, and from a relationship that had failed before it had properly begun. Distance from a man she had been both fiercely angry at for dumping all kinds of emotional baggage at her door and leaving her to sort it all out alone.
Distance, finally, from herself: from the person she had been, and the person she had once hoped and wanted to become.
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:34
Understandable.
You don't even know, Robin thought, why I needed space. Because I never told you.
She had sent him one heartfelt message last Christmas, in a moment of reckless truth, and had proceeded to talk herself out of it; had continued to stuff everything that could have accompanied – should have accompanied – that message deep and far down until her own actions – their actions – had brought them near a breaking point.
A headache began to form behind her eyes.
Robin 24.12.17 22:35
Sorry, I’m actually a bit knackered and heading off to bed.
Coward.
Cormoran 24.12.17 22:36
Of course, sleep well.
Robin 24.12.17 22:36
Thanks :) You too, and stop working!
In her head, she added all the kisses she didn’t dare put into writing.
You coward, coward, coward.