How Are You Doing?

by Michelle

Note: This story is set within the novel‘Troubled Blood’. 

The dialogue in the first part of the story and the chronology of events were taken from its TV adaptation by Tom Edge.

※※※※※

"In the face of pain, there are no heroes."
- George Orwell: 1984

“That’s great news about Creed,” Strike praised his partner, her voice being like a drug he desperately needed, especially after the last few days.
”Creed’ll only talk to you,” replied Robin on the other end of the line, slightly less enthusiastic. “I know that’s not something you agreed to…”
”I’ll do it. Of course, I’ll do it.” He didn’t even blink. 

A sudden heavy silence filled the distance between them. It was Robin who found her words first.
”When is the funeral?”
“Not ‘till after Christmas,” her partner answered and changed the topic. “So we are seeing Anna tomorrow.”
”Oh, I… I can’t make the meeting.” his partner countered, her voice making it clear that she was not happy about the fact. “I’m sorry. I tried to move this other thing…”
“Robin…”
”…and I can’t…”
”Robin,” he interrupted her gently. A small smile settled on his sad face. “You’ve done more than enough. It’s fine.”

Suddenly, he desperately wished to see her face and not only hear her voice on the phone, while sitting on the train taking him back to London. However, that voice had been his lifeline in the past few months every time he had to go to Cornwall, to spend whatever remaining time he could with his aunt Joan.  He kept re-reading the texts and listening to the voice messages Robin sent him several times a day. The truth suddenly punched him in the stomach - the next time he’d be travelling to Cornwall would be for Joan’s funeral…

The line was quiet for a moment again; then, Robin asked the inevitable question.
”How are you doing?”

Strike knew it would break him. He heard the care in her voice and didn’t want to lie to her, but at the same time, his pain was too raw to speak about it yet.  Also, he had always kept all his pains and sorrows locked deep inside, hardly sharing them with anyone. He wasn’t sure whether it was his soldier’s attitude or fear of exposing himself too much. Strike had always been a private man, long before he started his investigative agency.

Until Joan’s passing, he hadn’t cried since his mother left him and later died. There were many times when he was desperate, beaten, sad and broken, but not once did he shed a tear, not out of pride, but because his emotional core felt hollow, totally depleted and unable to display grief in its most natural way. When his aunt died, though, the sudden realisation of how important she had been in his life crushed him. Only then, the tears would come, without asking for permission, on a secluded place among the rocks of St Mawes beach.

Holding his phone at his ear, Strike scrunched his face, grief overwhelming him once more, and he covered his eyes with the free hand. At last, he regained some composure before answering Robin’s question with a shaky voice.
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Strike ended the call, knowing she would understand; her compassion and empathy had been his safe harbour for years. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, focusing on calming down. Once he succeeded, his eyes wandered out of the train window into the darkness, and in his mind’s eye, he brought up the image of the only thing that always brought him consolation - the face of the woman he had just hung up on.

※※※※※

 

Robin was walking to the tube on her way to Denmark Street, having yet again failed to secure a successful ending to her messy divorce with Matthew. The man seemed eager to do everything to make her feel miserable.

She was glad the meeting was short that morning, for regardless of how eager she was to draw a line after her unsuccessful marriage, her mind kept wandering off constantly. After their conversation the night before, Robin couldn’t keep Strike out of her thoughts. Not that she could any other time, but remembering his broken voice on the phone caused her pain as if it was she who had just lost a loved one. She wished he would have talked to her more, but she would never push him and decided to give him time.

After opening the agency door, she greeted Pat, who was feverishly typing the new surveillance rota into her computer. Seeing Robin enter, she lifted her head immediately.
”Morning,” she answered to the younger woman’s greeting and added, “How is he?”

Robin’s smile faded, and after she hung her coat on the rack, she turned to Pat, seeing the worried look on her face. She knew exactly which he was being referred to and couldn’t help but smile. The relationship between Strike and his secretary has changed dramatically since Pat started working in the office; Pat had developed an almost motherly affection for her boss, though she was still maintaining her cool attitude, just as Strike had kept his comments about her to himself. But the moments when Robin caught his small smile whenever Pat quipped something amusing told her that the ice was definitely broken between them. The detective learned to appreciate not only her efficiency and inventiveness but also her humour and genuine care for team members of the agency.

“He’s… as good as it gets,” Robin replied and flashed a smile. “He’ll be here in the afternoon.”
”Hmm,” the secretary replied. “And you?” she added, referring to Robin’s divorce meeting.
”Same old; he won’t budge an inch,” the latter answered bitterly.
“Nothing like hurt pride of a loser who doesn’t deserve you,” Pat replied, and after a brief pause and a pull from her e-cigarette, she adjusted her glasses and dived back into sorting out the surveillance rota on her computer screen.

Robin smiled and walked into the inner office. She glanced at her partner’s empty chair, remembering it had been almost a week since she had seen him last. The simple truth was that she was missing him. In the past few months, he had been away a lot, his frequent visits to Cornwall to see his aunt taking him away from his work - and from her. And no matter how much she focused on her daily tasks and running their agency, she missed Strike’s constant and steady presence.

Taking a deep breath, she stopped brooding, sat down at her side of the desk and opened the file on Dennis Creed. The Bamborough case still needed cracking.

※※※

 

It was after 6 p.m. when Pat called her “Night,” when leaving the office, escorted down by Sam Barclay.

After Strike came to the office in the early afternoon, everyone was going on about their business as usual, though fully aware of his personal loss and saying the obligatory sentence expressing their sympathy. Pat came twice to the inner office, bringing him and Robin tea without any of them asking for it, and Barclay offered to take over the surveillance from his boss, who was on the rota for the next day and fully intended to continue working as planned. Morris was out on surveillance, but neither Strike nor Robin were unhappy about it.

Robin didn’t comment on anything personal, which Strike visibly appreciated, though after updating him on every case they’d been dealing with and discussing his meeting with Anna Phipps, she remained in the office with him for the rest of the day. As luck would have it, she had no surveillance duty that day.

“Fancy a takeaway?” Robin asked when they finally remained alone in the office that evening. Her smile warmed Strike somewhere deep inside, touching his troubled heart more than ever.
He sighed and leaned back in his chair, still watching her. “Not really hungry… “ He noticed how her face fell. “But yeah… go for it,” he said eventually with a tired smile.

Robin was relieved. Maybe he’ll open up; maybe he’ll talk...
With a smile, she grabbed her phone and walked away to put the kettle on in the small kitchenette in the outer office and place the food order.
When she returned to the inner office, Strike was standing at the window, looking out into the still-busy street below. 

”I’ve ordered Chinese; it won’t be long,” she said, walking back to their shared desk.
Her partner didn’t react, though, standing still, his mind somewhere else.
”Cormoran?” Robin said softly. She observed him all afternoon, knowing that despite focusing on work, he wore an invisible mask, intentionally hiding his pain from the outside world. She knew it because she’d been there before,

“How’s life, Robin? Things are all right with you?”
“Everything’s fine...”

When Strike asked her those questions well over a year ago, it was evening as well, and they were sitting in the convenient semi-darkness, each with a glass of whisky. Back then, despite seeing his genuine interest, Robin didn’t tell him about just having found out that Matthew had been cheating on her again. She desperately wanted to share everything with him, but the unspoken rule they had about not discussing their private lives stood mercilessly between them like a thick wall of ice. It took them a few more months for it to begin melting, and they started opening up a bit more to each other, as friends do.

“I never knew… “ Strike suddenly spoke into the silence, absently watching the lights out on the street. His voice was breaking. “I never understood… All my life, I was chasing a ghost of a mother, while all that time, she was by my side…”
Robin carefully approached him, gently touching his arm to make him look at her.
”Cormoran…” she whispered.
When he slowly turned so she could see his face, her heart was breaking - his pale face was wet with tears. He shook his head, feeling utterly helpless and defeated by the sorrow that hit him with full force again.

“I sat with her that morning when she died,” Strike continued quietly. “She woke up one last time and… I told her that I loved her… But I didn’t tell her…” He almost choked, unable to finish his thought. “She said what I thought all my life; she said I chose Leda and that it was all right… “
He swallowed more tears, trying to regain composure but knew it was impossible. The wall protecting his emotions from the outside world was crumbling down with alarming speed.
“I never told her that… in her own, selfless, caring, protective and kind way… she was my mother….”

Strike covered his face with his arm, unable to control the grief anymore. Robin immediately pulled him into her arms, caressing his back with soothing strokes of her hand, gently, as she would a child.
”Joan knew it,” she said quietly, her mouth close to his ear. “She knew you loved her, she could feel it.”
Robin paused, holding him tight. “When you love someone… they can feel it.”

Strike’s quiet sobs slowly subsided, and his breathing allowed him to recover. He pulled back a bit to see Robin’s face, the face he missed terribly every time they parted their ways.
”They feel it…” she whispered again, and her glistening eyes projected so much at that moment, that he almost lost his balance.

Suddenly, they were both very aware of the proximity of their bodies. What began as an act of consolation turned into something much more intimate.

Robin couldn’t ignore the intoxicating mix of lavender, Benson & Hedges and the distinctive, musky scent of her partner. Seeing his darkened eyes, which only a moment ago were full of tears, burn into hers, and feeling his strong arms tight around her, she felt the heat rising around them. Her hands stopped stroking his shoulders, but remained in their position, unwilling to break the physical contact.
He’s hurting; you mustn’t take advantage now... He might regret it later...

Her inner voice was whispering its urgent plea and once again, Robin was reminded of how much more difficult it was becoming to control her feelings in his presence. Her eyes couldn’t help it and glanced for a moment at his lips, barely inches away from hers.

Strike felt his throat constrict; the force of the unspoken words he wanted to tell the woman in his arms for so long was mercilessly testing his resilience.
You mustn’t... You’d screw things up, you know it!
The little voice in his head reminded him stubbornly why he had continued keeping his feelings for his partner at bay.
Christ, I can’t... Not when she’s looking at me like that...

He was on the verge of surrendering when Robin decided for him, pulling suddenly away and releasing him from her hold. The coldness he felt returned immediately, hitting him like a hammer.

They were observing each other in all-telling silence for a while when the buzzing sound of the bell at the main entrance door made Robin jerk.
“That’s the delivery,” she said with a weak voice and a small smile and turned on her heel to run downstairs.
Strike’s voice suddenly stopped her in her tracks.
“Robin…” She turned to him again, unsure what to expect. “Thank you,” he said quietly, and for the first time that day, he smiled. It was one of those genuinely heartfelt, gentle smiles that she was so fond of.
“No problem,” she replied, in better control of her voice, smiling as well, and left the inner office.

Strike’s smile slowly faded as he let out a heavy sigh. He ran his hands over his face, shaking off the fragile state he was in a few moments ago. Deciding not to dwell on his thoughts on his loss or his partner, he slumped into his chair and opened the file with the Bamborough case on his side of the double desk. There was work to be done.