Travelling with Strike and Robin
Strike swore under his breath. He had indeed forgotten about the bank holiday. On the plus side, he was now free to return to the office, catch up with some paperwork, then head out to Catford Broadway…
Career of Evil, Robert Galbraith
The August Bank Holiday is upon us in Britain, and many people are taking advantage of the extra day off work for a trip to the coast, the countryside, or to visit family and friends. As a result, half the nation seems to be on trains, planes or in their cars.
Robin Ellacott and Cormoran Strike often spend their Bank Holidays working, but their investigations also involve trips around the UK, so we’re taking a look at the trains, planes and cars which feature in their latest investigation, into the unidentified body discovered in the London silver vault (The Hallmarked Man).
…at a quarter past five in the morning, the ‘Night Riviera’ sleeper train pulled into Paddington station. Strike, who’d slept poorly, had spent long stretches of the night watching the ghostly grey blur of the so-called English Riviera slide past his compartment window.
Troubled Blood, Robert Galbraith
There are only two overnight train services operating in the UK. After visiting his aunt and uncle in Cornwall during the investigation into missing doctor, Margot Bamborough (Troubled Blood), Strike takes one of them, the ‘Night Riviera’ service, back to London and arrives in time for breakfast with Robin near the National Portrait Gallery.
Family business, and the end of an era takes him to Cornwall again just before the beginning of the investigation into the mutilated man in the vault of Ramsay Silver (The Hallmarked Man). After ten draining days clearing out his uncle Ted’s house in St Mawes, Strike takes the sleeper train back to London again. This time though he doesn’t get to meet Robin. Instead, he receives a message from her boyfriend Ryan to says she’s ill, which means he must drive to Kent alone to visit their new potential client, Decima Mullins. The journey, the bad weather in Kent, and Robin’s absence mean he’s in a foul mood by the time he arrives.
The sleeper compartments were booked. The hotel, with its lake views, was waiting.
The Hallmarked Man, Robert Galbraith
Later in the same investigation, Strike takes the second sleeper train which runs a regular service in the UK. He decides to link together two interviews with people who might help him and Robin identify the mutilated body discovered in the vault of Ramsay Silver, a body which Decima is sure is that of her boyfriend Rupert Fleetwood. To that end, Strike books a trip on the Caledonian Sleeper, aiming to take it overnight from London to Glasgow, then hire a car for the journey to Crieff where the wife of a missing ex-paratrooper has agreed to speak to him. Hoping for a relaxed evening with Robin away from ‘Ryan fucking Murphy’, he also books a hotel in the Lake District where he and Robin can spend the night before heading to Ironbridge the next day for another interview. Not long before the planned trip though, Robin discovers Strike has been keeping secrets from her – secrets which threaten their business. In her frustration and distress, Robin decides she will meet him in Ironbridge.
Ever since limping off the train at Glasgow Central at six that morning, the end of his stump sweaty and sore because he’d fallen asleep fully clothed with his prosthesis still on, Strike had felt atrocious.
The Hallmarked Man, Robert Galbraith
Strike then boards the Caledonian Sleeper with only a bottle of whisky for company and two pints of Doom Bar inside him. He’s in no mood to enjoy the trip – self-disgust and a bleak fatalism have him in their grip. His cabin feels small and overheated and he’s disturbed by the loud bantering (or arguing) from the cabin next door, so rather than stay in the rattling sardine can, he heads off to the cramped bar compartment. It’s a stroke of luck. In the bar he meets journalist Fergus Robertson, and over a whiskey Robertson shares an interesting story about Lord Oliver Branfoot. Branfoot, one of those public figures who manages to penetrate the mass mind like a noxious, invisible gas, has been providing negative quotes about Strike to the press.
In spite of the tip, Strike staggers off the train at Glasgow with his mood as sour as ever. It’s not improved by a fall during his dog-walking interview with Jade Semple either. The following day in Ironbridge he and Robin meet, but though the interview with the grandmother of another missing man is vital, the visit to the pretty market town ends with the partners fighting, and Robin storming off without even waiting for her nachos.
‘Want to come to Sark with me?’…
The Hallmarked Man, Robert Galbraith
Robin imagined getting on a plane and flying to Sark. Perspective, light, the sea…
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘OK.’
Strike does get to spend an evening with Robin as the investigation into the body unfolds, but this time the trip doesn’t involve a train. To reach the tiny channel island of Sark, where another possible candidate for the unidentified man in the vault has deep ties, Robin and Strike have to take a plane to Guernsey, then a ferry. Robin is glad to get a chance to leave London, where the threats of the man in gorilla mask are putting her on edge, and her boyfriend, Ryan, is pressuring her about the future. She arrives at Gatwick at six o’clock in the morning in a state of relative cheerfulness and excitement. Strike, exhausted from a late stint of surveillance, manages to sleep through this journey.
Over dinner at the Airbnb on the island, Robin confesses to Strike some of the personal strain she’s been under since the illness which meant she missed the first meeting with Decima. Strike was hoping this evening might be his chance to confess his feelings for Robin, but realises that if he does, he might transform himself from friend and confidant into another source of pain and confusion. He knows staying quiet is the right and decent thing to do, though he finds little comfort in that thought. When Robin clutches his arm as their plane is buffeted by strong wings on their return to Gatwick, it is a bitter-sweet moment for Strike.
The ancient Land Rover had developed a mysterious rattle in the past few days, which Robin hadn’t yet managed to trace to its source.
The Hallmarked Man, Robert Galbraith
Mostly, when Strike and Robin leave London they travel by car, and it’s Robin who drives. Strike can manage a car himself, though his prosthetic means he needs an automatic, and his bulk means he’s not happy in a small vehicle. He’s very uncomfortable in the Mini he borrows from his old colleague Graham Hardacre while up in Edinburgh tracking down leads on a serial killer (Career of Evil). Hardacre admits he’d forgotten Strike was such a big bastard.
When Robin’s reactions save them from a nasty crash during the Owen Quine case (The Silkworm), she mentions she’s taken some advanced driving courses. Strike has already noted she can drive, admiring her deft handling of the hired Toyota Land Cruiser, and though since the explosion which cost him his leg, he hates being driven by anyone who isn’t a professional, he is quickly comfortable with her at the wheel. By the time Strike and Robin visit Barrow-in-Furness in search of ex-Desert Rat Noel Brockbank (Career of Evil), Robin is driving her old family Land Rover which becomes important to them both. It’s shabby and scuffed with a pungent fug of Wellington boot and Labrador, and immediately makes Strike ask if Robin ever had a pony, as it’s the kind of car you’d take to a gymkhana. The car becomes a mobile office for them. Strike asks if Matthew, Robin’s fiancé at the time, likes the car and Robin admits he wants an A3 Cabriolet. The rattling of the Land Rover covers Strike’s muttered response: ‘Course he does. Wanker.’
The ancient Land Rover outlasts Matthew. It carries them to the seaside town of Skegness during their investigation into the disappearance of Margot Bamborough (Troubled Blood). Even though it’s not a Bank Holiday, Robin and Strike get to enjoy the bracing air and fish and chips as Robin recalls childhood holidays, complete with donkey rides, at the resort. Robin also uses the Land Rover to move into her new flat during the hunt for online troll Anomie (The Ink Black Heart), and to travel the country looking for information about the victims of the Universal Humanitarian Church (The Running Grave).
But, sadly the Land Rover is on its last legs and, when Decima Mullins hires them, and as they unravel the dark mysteries around Ramsay Silver, it fails its MOT. Strike shows he’s going to miss it almost as much as Robin will when he includes on her Christmas charm bracelet a tiny silver replica, and insists the agency buy a Defender 90 as a replacement.
The Land Rover is less than a month old before it gets blood on the seats. Strike gets bitten by an attack dog and only escapes with the aid of Robin’s home-made pepper spray – a weapon which, Strike tells her as he calms his eyes with milk on a garage forecourt, the UN should know about.
We might have a couple of Bank Holidays to go before we know where their investigations, and the new Land Rover will take them next. In the meantime, and particularly if you are travelling with anyone like Strike, go safely and remember to pack snacks.
