Chapter Text
‘date [deyt}, n. A social appointment or engagement arranged beforehand with another person, especially when a romantic relationship exists or may develop.’
His mobile rang as he smoked in the doorway of Denmark Street. He and Robin had walked to Green Park Station together after The Ritz and had parted ways with a brief hug, an affirmation of their plans for the following evening and a mutual sense of contentment. He was, if he was honest, basking in the slightly smug satisfaction of a job well done, of effort rewarded and of reparations for his behaviour over the course of the last year having been well and truly made.
Fishing his phone out of his pocket, he was surprised- though not unhappy- to see that it was his partner calling.
“Everything all right?”
“Yeah, I had a thought, and I wanted to run it by you.”
He could hear a faint clicking from her end as the uncharacteristically high heels she’d worn that evening struck the pavement. What, he wondered, had been so important that she hadn’t waited to get home before calling him? Or, indeed, to see him in the office the following day?
“Fire away.”
“It’s just…something occurred to me on the train when I was juggling my handbag, and the Liberty bag and my Oyster card and well…”.
“Spit it out.”
“Okay, fine. Don’t laugh, and don’t sack me, but…did we just accidentally go on a date?”
The drag he had pulled from his cigarette caught in his throat and he coughed. As he sucked in cool October evening air, attempting to soothe his burning throat and marshal his suddenly kaleidoscopic thoughts, Robin was continuing in his ear. She sounded so matter of fact; as if she was doing nothing more than asking if Barclay’s expenses had been paid.
“I mean, I’ve been on exactly one date in my entire life, and that was when I was seventeen, so I’m prepared to be wrong here but Strike…the smart clothes, the presents, the bloody Ritz?”
Put like that.
“I suppose it’s all in the interpretation, isn’t it?” he said cautiously.
“Well, let’s interpret it as not a date.”
Was that disappointment he could feel, settling heavily in his own stomach? How could he be disappointed about the clarification of something that he hadn’t even considered a possibility seventy-eight seconds ago?
“I wouldn’t have told you all my worst gymkhana stories if I’d thought it was a date”, Robin laughed.
And for any number of reasons; from the pleasant residual champagne buzz still fizzing through his veins, to Russian literature, to the memory of whisky and confidences shared in low tones in a quiet, darkening room and about a hundred other smaller, quieter reasons that had been stacking up inexorably for much longer than the last twelve months, he nudged the conversation a little further along the slightly dangerous road she had set it out on.
“Oh yeah? There are other stories, are there?”
“A few that don’t all end up with me flat on my arse in the mud.”
He chuckled. He’d enjoyed the gymkhana stories. He’d enjoyed the crystal-clear picture she’d painted of a gung-ho pre-teen Robin, driving a recalcitrant pony over jumps it had no interest in clearing. He had liked recognising something of the adult Robin in those stories. It turned out that she had always been determined to the point of bloody-mindedness. He had pocketed that information as a child would an interesting pebble, to bring out and examine in the privacy of his own company.
There was a brief moment of quiet, punctuated by the rhythmic tapping of stilettos and the far-off wail of a siren. He could have bid her goodnight, but he liked her presence on the other end of line and was loathe to end the unexpected coda to their evening. Eventually, with the cautious and deliberately casual air of someone expecting a sharp rebuke, she spoke.
“So, what would you normally do for a date? Because I’m struggling to see how you top tonight on a regular basis without putting the business in serious financial jeopardy.”
“Oi! In case it slipped your notice, I’ve not exactly been throwing myself out there of late. Been quite busy. Had some stuff on.”
“Well, what would you have done before the year from Hell then?”
“Oh Christ, I dunno Robin. Nothin’ special.”
She giggled, and his stomach clenched. Robin laughed a lot. She chuckled, she beamed, she smirked from time to time, but she wasn’t particularly given to giggling- it was one of the more inconsequential things he liked about her. He liked even more the fact that he could cause it.
“All those very beautiful, very successful women, hang about for ‘nothin’ special’, do they?”
“Well, I’m a sparkling conversationalist.”
He sensed the heavenward rolling of her eyes.
“You know, Vanessa’s pretty insistent that I have to start dating at some point; there’s only so long I can hold her off. So, as my best mate, you have a responsibility to prepare me for the London dating scene, which I imagine is pretty different to the Masham scene circa two thousand and one.”
“Fuck that makes me feel old”, he grumbled.
He chose to studiously ignore the two simultaneous and powerful urges caused by her comment. One, the almost reflexive instinct to calculate what he had been doing in two thousand and one whilst Robin had been in her final year of school and embarking on a relationship with the man who would eventually shag someone else in their marital bed, would only serve to depress him. The other, calling Vanessa Ekwensie and asking in no uncertain terms that she keep her nose out of Robin’s love-life, would lead to difficult questions and- quite probably- the demise of a mutually beneficial relationship with one of their best Met connections.
“So come on then. What would you do?”
“Depends on the time of day, doesn’t it?” he mused, lighting another cigarette and wondering if the champagne consumed earlier had gone more to her head than she had let on when they had said their goodnights. “Usually a drink though. If we get on all right then dinner. If we haven’t bored each other senseless by the end of dinner then maybe another drink.”
“But, that's just what we do with Barclay every week. God, you really must be a sparkling conversationalist”, she said drily, and his barked laugh echoed off the walls of the buildings around him.
“Says the woman who hasn’t been on a date since mad cow disease.”
The peal of laughter from her end of the line made him feel as if he was hovering some six inches above the ground.
“Bit rich coming from the bloke who exclusively dates mad cows. Apart from Lorelai. Lorelai was just far too good….”.
“Robin?” he interrupted her dry teasing, coming to a sudden, reckless, decision.
Fuck it. Fuck it all. Fuck caution and solitude. Fuck being unencumbered. Fuck arm’s length. Fuck accidental kisses in hospital car parks. Especially fuck hugs on stairs in wedding dresses. Fuck the Travelodge in Barrow. Fuck sea-borne bacteria. Fuck Skegness. Fuck Ilsa; with her enthusiasm, and Charlotte; with her preternatural insight. Fuck Polworth and Shanker and Lucy and every other person that had ever implied that there was something of the inevitable about him and Robin, thereby contributing to the construction of a barrier between them that they had never needed any help with anyway.
He was seized by a sudden vision; Robin, meeting someone new. A quiet, good-looking and slightly serious forensic IT specialist, maybe. Vanessa would know him through the Met. He would more than understand her ambition; he would embrace it. He would actively encourage her talent, her drive; happy to be the man behind the great woman. Everyone would like him, even Strike. It would be impossible not to like him, because he would look at Robin like she was the North star and talk about her as if she was something Holy. He would understand her, appreciate her, love her as she deserved to be loved.
And Strike would know, when she finally agreed to marry (or maybe she wouldn’t; maybe they would agree to not be married for the rest of their lives) that his obstinacy and trepidation had cost him the chance at maybe, someday.
“Yes?”
“D’you wanna go on a date with me?”
The faint clicking of her heels ceased. He pictured her coming to a halt in the middle of the footpath; a frown on her face, her hand automatically jumping up to toy with the pendant she had been wearing. The moment stretched to breaking point, and just as he was about to commence a retreat, to tell her never mind stupid idea dunno what I was thinking too much champagne, her voice came down the line, tinny and deliberately level.
“An actual date?”
“That’s what I said.”
“How would we know it was a date? You’ve set a pretty high bar this evening. And we've established that your idea of a date sounds a lot like a regular Friday night, minus Sam.”
“Well, for starters, I actually asked the question, rather than leaving it open to interpretation”.
Her footsteps resumed; more briskly than before and borne, he knew, from the same nervous energy that was causing him to reach once again for the cigarettes in his jacket pocket.
“And I might hold your hand a bit. If that was okay with you.”
A beat and then, oh-so-carefully…
“I think it might be.”
There wasn’t a trace of amusement in her voice now.
“I’d probably kiss you good-night too.”
He heard, or thought he heard, a tiny catch in her breath as he threw the last scraps of caution to the wind.
“They do seem like pretty good clues”, she said after another quiet beat. She spoke slowly, as if weighing the pros and cons of every syllable.
“Have you considered a career in detection?”
It was a familiar, age-worn joke; one designed to break the spell of tension.
“I hear the hours are terrible.”
He grinned up at sky.
“So, what do you say, Ellacott? Wanna go on a date with me? A real one?”
“Yeah”, she replied. “Okay then”. He could hear the smile in her voice, knew her cheeks would have gone slightly pink. “When?”
“Well, since we’re both still dressed for it, how about now?”