Chapter Text
“And you're sure you'll be all right getting back to the hotel after?”
“Robin, at the grand old age of sixty-seven, I have managed to get myself home a fair few times.”
Robin glanced sideways; there was a playful glint in the eyes behind the spectacles.
“I know you have, Dad,” she said, checking her mirror and pulling into the right-hand lane. “I just w-”
“Well, stop worrying. I said I'd do it and I'll do it.”
Robin slowed down for an amber traffic light, her fondness for her father not quite diminishing the gnawing anxiety she'd felt since, a few weeks prior, Strike had told her of his intention to take two weeks’ leave. Tonight was to be his last night working; he was undercover at the awards ceremony of a major veterinary conference, after which he'd be catching the sleeper to Cornwall. With no relatives left to house him, he'd booked into a hotel right on the coast, expressing a desire to think about what he wanted.
Robin watched the snowflakes gently peppering the windscreen, asking herself yet again why this had caused her such disquiet. It was true that this was the longest period Strike had ever taken off in one go, but she knew that didn't fully explain it. The look of grim resolve on his face and the tone of finality in his voice had worried her, too; but if she were being honest with herself, it wasn't that, either.
They'd had a row, a month or two ago. Strike had been pushing, pushing for an answer she wasn't ready to give - didn't he know that her life was wall to wall with demands on her? Didn't he know that it was simply unreasonable to expect her to make up her mind so quickly?
But - she sighed, wiping away a tiny tear - she had made up her mind. And she knew, deep down, that she was being unfair.
And now she'd been hit with a sudden deadline; during the row, Strike had repeated his conviction that he'd leave the agency before she did, and now this thinking about what he wanted… She had to catch him before he left. She had to.
“So, you're sure this is going to work, are you?”
“No,” replied Robin mildly. “I'm hoping we'll get lucky though. There'll be stands in the foyer, so hopefully you'll recognise something - a company, or a project - that you can get talking about. You need to be deep in conversation when they make the call to dinner.”
“I know, and then I make my move. Hey, I broke into Glastonbury once, you know.”
“You didn't!”
“I absolutely did,” laughed Michael. “It's quite exciting, isn't it, going undercover?”
“Well, you're not actually -”
“Hush, let an old man have his fun.”
Robin grinned, indicating to turn left and wondering what Strike would think of this mad idea.
“This isn't going to embarrass you, is it? Professionally?”
Michael shrugged. “Doesn't matter. I'm mostly retired. And anyway, being a crazy old sheep man just solidifies my public persona.”
Robin laughed, loving her father, and suddenly desperate to see Strike.
The irony of her racing to catch him in time was not lost on her; she well remembered him bursting into the church at her wedding, knocking over the flowers and drawing every eye. Together with her running out of her first dance to hug him, they'd both created the most scandalous wedding to have ever graced tiny Masham, whose inhabitants still gossiped about it years later.
What if she'd run away with him then? Would she have saved herself a lot of heartache?
She needed to see him, to hug him; she hadn't figured anything else out yet, but the only thing she could think of was the feel of his arms holding her, her body against his; if she could have that again, just one more time, she was sure everything would finally be clear.
Michael's voice jolted her out of her reverie, and she felt guilty for daydreaming next to her father, as if he could see the mental image that the hug had turned into.
“So, are we doing the rom com thing? Chasing after him and making a grand speech in front of everyone?”
“No, that's not why we're doing this,” said Robin. “I just - I want to speak to him.”
“Ah. And you don't want to phone him?”
Robin glanced sideways. The warm glint was still there, but she could see the concern in her father's eyes.
“Well no, I don't. But regardless, his phone is off. By the time he switches it back on again he'll be on the sleeper and it'll be -”
“Too late. Ah,” said Michael again.
There was a few seconds’ pause, in which Robin could almost feel the weight of all the questions Michael wasn't asking. She liked his restraint.
“Dad, I know you're worried about me, but I'm okay. And I appreciate you doing this even though you don't like him.”
“I don't dislike him.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. And I can see why you like him.”
Robin took a deep breath.
“Actually, I think I love him.”
“I know, pet,” said Michael resignedly, and Robin gave a breathy laugh. “I suppose it's a good thing he loves you too, eh?”
“Er, yes, I suppose so.”
*
On arrival at ExCeL, as per the plan, Michael Ellacott nodded discreetly at his daughter and entered first. After a few minutes lingering outside the half-pyramid that formed the entrance, Robin thought it safe to enter, chatting quietly into her mobile, reading the floor plan and hoping no one would notice her. The two pieces of paper that were crucial to the rest of her plan were inside a canvas tote, tucked safely inside a copy of Sheep Management.
As predicted, the foyer was filled with stands and stalls promoting various veterinary practices, research, and pioneering treatments. Robin soon spotted her father, chatting away and pointing animatedly at a complicated-looking diagram of a medication attaching itself to a cell. She grinned; Michael had agreed to this madcap plan rather quickly, and he now seemed to be quite enjoying himself. Robin checked her watch; they should surely be processing arrivals for dinner any minute.
Sure enough, evening guests began to arrive through the revolving doors and queued to collect their passes. Two members of event staff checked names against a clipboard and provided each guest with a paper pass and a lanyard, and Robin watched surreptitiously as each guest inserted their pass into a small plastic card holder attached to the end of the lanyard as they walked away. Robin checked the time again, hoping her father had remembered the plan. He was under strict instructions to dawdle; he must be one of the last to request a pass. Listening hard, she heard her father say, “no, no, we have plenty of time,” and rather thought she might recommend him to Strike as an occasional contractor.
Robin whiled away the time with anxious rumination on what would happen if she failed to catch Strike in time; she didn’t want to think about it, but she couldn't help her pulsing fear. She knew that once he'd made a decision, wild horses wouldn't sway him from it; the thing she dreaded most was that the quiet days by the steely Cornish sea would persuade him that he was finished with Robin Ellacott.
Finally, her father's voice said, “oh, yes, we'd better go,” and Robin stole another glance at the group around him. The foyer had all but emptied, and the two event staff moved away from the table with the lanyards and towards the stragglers, presumably to encourage them along. Robin turned, making her move - but then she stopped dead: the doorman was walking towards the unmanned table. She hadn't noticed him amid the throng of people queuing to get in.
Shit.
Panicking slightly, Robin thought it better if she moved anyway. She walked slowly towards the lifts, keeping an eye on her father. She could see him frowning, explaining who he was; he took a business card from his wallet, showing the indifferent staff. She could hear the odd phrase drifting across the echoey hall: “must have lost,” “definitely confirmed,” “my last book…”
“Come on, Dad,” muttered Robin. “Go for it.”
As if on cue, Michael Ellacott raised a pointed finger and barked, “now listen here, son,” which elicited a round of recriminations, both from the event staff and the new friends he'd made chatting about animal medicine. The raised voices finally caught the attention of the doorman, who marched over, asking, “is everything okay over here?”
Robin moved. It took five long strides to reach the table; no more than a second to grab a lanyard and turn towards the toilets. Mere seconds later she was safely inside the ladies’, sitting on a closed toilet lid while she extracted the two pieces of paper from the magazine with shaking fingers.
The first was a simple sign: a sheet of A4 paper featuring the words “out of order” and the ExCeL London logo, which she'd screenshotted online. The resolution was low, but that didn't matter. She came out of the cubicle just long enough to tape the sign to the door with a small plastic tape dispenser, and then returned, locking the door, pulling her feet up and hoping nobody bothered to check or clean these toilets anytime soon.
She inserted the second, much smaller, piece of paper into the plastic card holder on her stolen lanyard. She knew that this one wouldn't stand up to scrutiny: the branding only vaguely resembled the actual passes, as she'd had to rely on previous years’ designs, and the name on the pass definitely wouldn't be on anyone's list. She was hoping that the branded lanyard and a confident demeanour would see her through.
She waited in silence, trying to ignore her anxiety, both for the foyer to empty completely and the formal part of the evening to be over. She'd brought snacks and a novel, so she killed time reading about a slapdash police detective and eating cereal bars and fruit. Finally, after a couple of hours, she crept out of the cubicle and opened the door out into the foyer: it was deserted. With a small buzz she recognised as the same one she felt when she made a breakthrough in a case, Robin fixed the lanyard around her neck, exited the bathroom, and strode briskly up the stairs to level three.
Remembering that confidence was everything, she took barely a second to breathe before pulling open the double doors to the grand ballroom, where, thankfully, desserts had been served and guests were already up and mingling. She felt the buzz again as she walked into the room: somewhere in here, she knew, was the man she loved.