Career of Evil

“Well, OK, that’s good to hear,” said Tempest with some complacency, “because we do want to help, obviously. I mean, I said to Jason, if this man’s preying on the BIID community, which is possible — I mean, bloody hell, it’s our duty to help. It wouldn’t surprise me, either, the abuse we get on the website, the hatred. It’s unbelievable. I mean, obviously it stems from ignorance, but we get abuse from people you’d expect to be on our side, who know exactly what it’s like to be discriminated against.”

Drinks arrived. To Strike’s horror, the Eastern European waiter upended his bottle of Spitfire beer into a glass containing ice.

“Hey!” said Strike sharply.

“The beer isn’t cold,” said the waiter, surprised by what he clearly felt was Strike’s overreaction.

“For fuck’s sake,” muttered Strike, fishing the ice out of his glass. It was bad enough that he was facing a hefty lunch bill, without ice in his beer. The waiter gave Tempest her second glass of wine with a slightly huffy air. Robin seized her chance:

“Jason, when you first made contact with Kelsey—”

But Tempest set down her glass and drowned Robin out.

“Yeah, I checked all my records, and Kelsey first visited the site back in December. Yeah, I told the police that, I let them see everything. She asked about you,” Tempest told Strike in a tone that suggested he ought to be flattered to have secured a mention on her website, “and then she got talking to Jason and they exchanged email addresses, and from then on they were in direct contact, weren’t you, Jason?”

“Yeah,” he said weakly.

“Then she suggested meeting up and Jason got in touch with me — didn’t you, Jason? — and basically he thought he’d feel more comfortable if I came along, because after all, it’s the internet, isn’t it? You never know. She could’ve been anyone. She could’ve been a man.”

“What made you want to meet Kel—?” Robin began to ask Jason, but again, Tempest talked over her.

“They were both interested in you, obviously,” said Tempest to Strike. “Kelsey got Jason interested, didn’t she, Jason? She knew all about you,” said Tempest, smiling slyly as though they shared disreputable secrets.

“So what did Kelsey tell you about me, Jason?” Strike asked the boy.

Jason turned scarlet at being addressed by Strike and Robin wondered suddenly whether he could be gay. From her extensive perusal of the message boards she had detected an erotic undertone to some, though not all, of the posters’ fantasies, <<Δēvōŧėė>> being the most blatant of them.

“She said,” mumbled Jason, “her brother knew you. That he’d worked with you.”

“Really?” said Strike. “Are you sure she said her brother?”

“Yeah.”

“Because she didn’t have one. Only a sister.”

Jason’s lopsided eyes traveled nervously over the objects on the table before returning to Strike.

“I’m pretty sure she said brother.”

“Worked with me in the army, did he?”

“No, not in the army, I don’t think. Later.”

She lied all the time... If it was Tuesday she’d say it was Wednesday.

“Now, I thought she said her boyfriend told her,” said Tempest. “She told us she had a boyfriend called Neil, Jason — remember?”

“Niall,” mumbled Jason.

“Oh, was it? All right, Niall. He picked her up after we had coffee, remember?”

“Hang on,” said Strike, raising a hand, and Tempest paused obediently. “You saw Niall?”

“Yes,” said Tempest. “He picked her up. On his motorbike.”

There was a brief silence.

“A man on a motorbike picked her up from — where did you meet her?” asked Strike, his calm tone belying his suddenly pounding pulse.

“Café Rouge on Tottenham Court Road,” said Tempest.

“That’s not far from our office,” said Robin.

Jason turned an even darker red.

“Oh, Kelsey and Jason knew that, ha ha! You were hoping to see Cormoran pop in, weren’t you, Jason? Ha ha ha,” laughed Tempest merrily as the waiter returned with her starter.

“A man on a motorbike picked her up, Jason?”

Tempest’s mouth was full and, at last, Jason was able to speak.

“Yeah,” he said with a furtive look at Strike. “He was waiting for her along the road.”

“Could you see what he looked like?” asked Strike, correctly anticipating the answer.

“No, he was sort of — sort of tucked around the corner.”

“He kept his helmet on,” said Tempest, washing down a mouthful with wine, the quicker to rejoin the conversation.

“What color was the motorbike, can you remember?” Strike asked.

Tempest rather thought it had been black and Jason was sure it had been red, but they agreed that it had been parked far too far away to recognize the make.

“Can you remember anything else Kelsey said about her boyfriend?” asked Robin.

Both shook their heads.

Their main courses arrived midway through a lengthy explanation by Tempest of the advocacy and support services offered by the website she had developed. Only with her mouth full of chips did Jason finally find the courage to address Strike directly.

“Is it true?” he said suddenly. His face again grew bright red as he said it.