Grant raised his left hand and brushed something invisible from his nose.
‘Yeah?’ he said.
‘When exactly was that?’ asked Strike.
‘Er – last year,’ said Grant.
‘Can you remember exactly when?’
‘Must’ve been… June-ish?’
‘She had your mobile number?’
Another slight pause followed.
‘Yeah,’ said Grant.
‘And when was the last time you’d spoken, before that call?’
‘How’s this relevant to Anomie?’
‘Oh, it’s very relevant,’ Strike assured him.
‘We – hadn’t been in contact for a while before that,’ said Grant.
‘Would the previous occasion have been when she was homeless and asked you for help?’
Grant’s underbite became more pronounced. Before he could attempt a response, both his little daughters came out of the house with the hyper-alert self-consciousness of children curious about strangers, each carrying a plastic pony and rider.
‘Daddy,’ said the larger of the two, approaching the table, ‘look what Gan-Gan gave us.’
She placed the pony and rider on the table. Her younger sister was peering sideways at Strike’s pinned-up trouser leg.
‘Lovely,’ said Grant. ‘You run along back inside now. Daddy’s busy.’
The older of the two girls now sidled closer to Grant, stood on tiptoes and whispered loudly in his ear,
‘What happened to that man’s leg?’
‘The car I was in drove over a bomb, when I was a soldier,’ Strike told the girl, more to get rid of her than to spare Grant the embarrassment of having to answer.
‘Oh,’ she said.
Her younger sister now moved in closer, and the two of them stared owlishly at Strike.
‘Run along inside,’ repeated Grant. ‘Go on.’
The girls retreated, whispering to each other.
‘Sorry about that,’ said Grant stiffly, taking another sip of wine.
‘No problem,’ said Strike. ‘Next question: I wondered whether you’d had any more of those phone calls, telling you to exhume your niece?’
‘No,’ said Grant. ‘Just the two I told you about.’
Strike now took out his notebook for the first time and turned to the notes of his previous interview with Ledwell.
‘You only took the second call, is that right? Heather took the first.’
‘Yeah,’ said Grant. ‘I take it Anomie was calling us?’
‘No, it wasn’t Anomie,’ said Strike. ‘The caller said, “Dig up Edie and look at the letter”, correct?’
‘Yeah,’ said Grant. He now looked definitely uncomfortable.
‘But they didn’t specify which letter should be looked at?’
‘No,’ said Grant.
‘Because there are two letters in the coffin, right? One from Ormond, one from Blay?’
‘Right,’ said Grant, now shading his eyes from the sinking sun. ‘Excuse me, I might get some sunglasses. It’s bright out here.’
He got up and disappeared into the house.
‘He’s scared,’ murmured Robin.
‘So he bloody well should be. Phone call from Edie, my arse. I think we might need to do a bit of good cop, bad cop here.’
‘How bad d’you want me to be?’ said Robin.
‘Ha ha,’ said Strike, as footsteps behind them indicated the return of Grant Ledwell, now wearing a pair of Ray-Ban aviators.
‘Sorry about that,’ he said, retaking his seat and immediately drinking more wine.
‘No problem,’ said Strike. ‘So: returning to the letters in the coffin. There were two, right? We’re agreed on that?’
‘Cormoran,’ murmured Robin, before Grant could answer.
‘What?’ said Strike, apparently irritated.
‘I think,’ said Robin, with an apologetic smile at Ledwell, ‘we should maybe remember that this is Grant’s niece we’re talking about.’
‘Thank you,’ said Grant, rather more loudly than necessary. ‘Thank you very much, er—’
But he’d obviously forgotten Robin’s name.
‘OK,’ said Strike, and in a marginally less aggressive voice he said, ‘Two letters, yeah?’
‘Yes,’ said Grant.
‘Because when we met at The Gun,’ said Strike, ‘you talked about a letter, rather than two. “The undertaker knew, because I asked him to put it in there.” I didn’t think much about it at the time. I assumed you were talking about a letter you’d personally handed over, and that maybe Ormond took his own to the undertaker’s. Is that how it happened?’
Grant’s face had become expressionless, and Robin was certain he was reminding himself that Ormond was at liberty and able to expose him if he lied.
‘No,’ said Grant, ‘they both – I had both letters. I was dealing with the undertaker.’
‘So why did you tell me you asked the undertaker to put “it” in the coffin?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ lied Grant, adding, ‘Or if I did, I misspoke.’
‘So you handed over two letters to the undertaker, and if the police go and interview him he’ll tell them he put two letters in there, correct?’
‘Why the hell would the police want to talk to the undertaker?’ asked Grant.
For the second time that evening, Strike had made a man sweat: Grant’s forehead was glistening in the ruddy sunlight.
‘Because this is a fucking murder case,’ said Strike, raising his voice, ‘and anyone telling lies about Edie’s body, or their relationship with her when she was alive—’
‘Cormoran!’ said Robin. ‘You’re making it sound as if – sorry,’ she said to Grant again. ‘This has been an ugly case. I know it’s been really tough on you too.’
‘Yes, it’s been bloody tough,’ said Grant forcefully.
He drank more wine, and when he’d set down the glass looked at Strike and said,
‘I don’t see what difference it makes, how many letters went in the coffin.’
‘You’re admitting only one went in there, then, are you?’
‘No,’ said Grant, ‘I’m asking how this is relevant.’
‘Let’s go back to that phone call you told me about. The one where Edie magically had your mobile number and wanted your advice, when you hadn’t seen her since bunging her a few hundred quid and chucking her back out on the street.’
‘Now wait a bloody—’
‘Cormoran, that’s not fair,’ said Robin heatedly.
‘It’s an accurate—’
‘You don’t know, and nor do I, what went on in this family,’ said Robin.
‘I know that bloody phone call never happened. Anyway, it’s checkable, now the police have recovered Edie’s phone.’
Strike deduced from Grant’s frozen expression that he hadn’t been aware of this.
‘It’s not a crime to feel regret that you didn’t have more contact with a family member you’ve lost,’ said Robin. ‘I understand why someone might’ve said there was a phone call when there wasn’t. We’ve all done it. It’s human nature.’
‘Your partner seems to understand people a damn sight better than you do,’ Grant shot across the table at Strike.
‘So there wasn’t a phone call?’ said Strike. ‘Is that what you’re telling us?’
The buttons of Grant’s white shirt were straining across his belly as he breathed in and out.
‘No,’ he said at last, ‘there wasn’t. It’s like your partner said. I felt – I didn’t feel good about not keeping in touch with her.’
‘But that non-existent phone call was supposedly the reason you thought Blay wanted Edie ousted from The Ink Black Heart.’
‘He did want her gone,’ growled Ledwell, then instantly looked as though he regretted it.