Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Strike and Ellicott Files,
an unofficial podcast dedicated to all things Strike and Robin
as written by Robert Galbraith, AKA the endlessly talented JK
Rowling. My name is Kenz.
I'm Lindsay. And I'm Pauls.
And today we'll be continuing our reread of The Hallmarked
Man, covering chapters 28 through 30, which takes us from
Strike's interview with Joan Todd through the 1st Gorilla
Related attack, guerrilla related attack, guerrilla
related. I did not realize that's what
she wrote. They're rogue, they're roaming
the streets, they're freaking out of it.
Hide your kids, hide your wife. Gorillas are coming.
Sorry that just hit me funny. Guerrilla related attack I
didn't expect. OK.
Oh dude, you wait until you get to like the end of the next set
of notes. I think that you will appreciate
my description of the next set because he notes that it
involves Strike doing some of that questionable research.
God. So what did you write?
Please be aware, as always, that our discussion of the Hallmark
Band will often reference the ending of this book as well as
the previous books in the series.
But before we get into that, we actually have some news in a
very small bit of Running Grave adaptation news, we have news
about who's going to be playing Amandeep Singh, and that is
going to be Mikhail Sen. He's in the cult, right?
Yeah, He's the one that went there to write about it and.
Then he's a cutie. I also saw that there was some
interview, some TV show that Tom was on.
Yeah, Tom Burke was on, and they asked him about strike and he
said that it's going to be in the run up towards Christmas,
which I think we knew. Yeah.
So it'll be like run up toward
Christmas with the running grave, and then on Christmas we
get Harry Potter. We will be.
It's a very rolling Christmas and also Joe will probably be
done with writing Book 9 by then.
Stop it. It's going to be such a good
child. Dropping more clues?
Oh, she's definitely going to be dropping more clues too.
A fan wrote to Joe on the 29th of March and asked her did Robin
and Strike finally kiss like a proper kiss and not a silly half
assed Peck. I just realized that that was
the day they first met. 29th March that she asked that
question and responded to it. Oh yeah, that's their
anniversary date. Is it significant she chose to
answer the question? Maybe, she decided.
She gets people to ask me every day.
We can be 100% certain that when they do actually kiss, that's
that's going to be full asked. No half asses around.
They haven't not waited this long with this much tension to
like. No, it's going to be a good one.
It's. Going to be powerful.
Joe responded. Did they not in the published
books to date? Will they?
I'm not ruling it out. She said.
I'm not ruling it out so many times.
We know she is such a torturing us.
Just give me it. I feel like that not in the
published books to date is doing a lot of heavy lifting, but I
think the obvious take away from this is that they're probably
going to kiss in the next book. Or at least that's what I'm
saying. Or the next one.
Oh wow, that's it. One of the next two.
It has to be one of the next two.
I'm taking the same thing. I'm taking the same thing away.
Sleep tight, Evangeline, and you can pry that out of my cold,
dead hands. I know I've said that for every
book so far. Everyone.
But this time. It's got to be true at some
point. We're running out of times that
we're going to say it. I feel like it should be this
time because if it's not in this book then we'll all know it'll
happen in the 10th book and it won't be AS.
Yeah, she's got to do. One more.
Surprise for the people who are like, oh, they'll hold out till
the very end. She's like ha ha sucker.
But do you know what I mean? It won't be a question anymore
if it's. Exactly.
You know what, that is a really good point that I hadn't heard
of before and I feel certain now, even more certain than I
did 5 seconds ago when I was 100% certain.
It's convinced me. I convinced.
Myself, I'm convinced. I'm so convinced.
Because honestly, is Chase laughing at us?
No, he's video gaming. OK, I thought I heard laughing.
I was like, this is serious business, Chase.
Very serious. But it is very serious, yeah.
Joe also let us know on the 17th of April that she is over
halfway done with the book. Means definitely Fall 2027.
Yeah, definitely. And then in Joe IP related news
not related to Strike, we did get a trailer for the Harry
Potter TV series and it looks so good.
I'm so excited. I had tears in my eyes.
I don't know if you guys were tearing up watching it.
It was really good. I already want to reach through
my screen and strangle the Dursley.
Cell, they're bad. You really get to see their
mistreatment. I'm excited we're getting to see
that abuse, which sounds horrible to say, but like I'm
excited we get to see more of Harry at the same time.
Like he's just a baby. Like you look at the little guy,
he's so tiny. So I'm ready to rage on
Christmas Day. Can't wait.
Should we say what we're planning to do?
Oh, maybe we should tease it like a certain Joe does.
I don't know if people care enough to tease it.
Some people. Rather than just say.
A couple of people will care that we're doing a little secret
something something. We are planning on doing bonus
episodes to talk about the Harry Potter series.
We're brainstorming an idea to call it.
I was like T stuff HP edition. Fun, but it's a bit boring.
Well, it tells you what it is it does right, what it says on the
10, so people know if they're not interested.
Yeah, the Potter file. That would be a whole other
podcast. We need it to be the title of
the episode. Yeah, So that it's like TSAF HP
edition One has to be something in the title.
Otherwise we'd have to get a whole other separate channel
going. Yeah, OK.
Makes sense? But yeah, we're gonna have Jack
and Iris join us. Everyone knows Jack and Iris
from Twitter. They're great and very fun to
talk to. It will be a good time.
I think probably less structured than we are, which anyone who
listened to those outtakes saying less structured, they're
like, Oh no, what? What's going to happen now?
Right? Like what kind of just
clusterfuck? Normally we are on better
behavior when other people are here though.
We are we are on really good professional behavior.
When we have guests, I bring up my professional pools mindset.
Right, the first one we got to talk about news, casting, drama,
the trailer, the trailer and the documentary that I still have
not watched, but I'm going to because we have to talk about
it. Did you watch it?
Ken's. I have not watched it yet.
We're slacking on that. Yeah.
I've got to watch the City Slickers movie 1st and then
yeah. Are we doing AQ and a question?
Yes, Yes, we are all right. The Q&A for this episode is can
you tell us about the location research you did for this novel?
I loved Iron Bridge Cree fight. I know.
Anyway, Sark was just a ton of fun.
It's unlike any place I've been before and I'm not sure there
are that many places like Sark in the in the world.
And I was being quite mean to strike because for an amputee,
Sark is not easy. It's really not easy.
You're walking over sort of earthen roads.
There are no vehicles, there are no taxis, there are no buses.
He's got to walk all over this island.
There's no choice. And there's a line in the book.
Robin becomes aware as they go to their B&B in the evening.
They have never been as alone together as they are on that
night. So obviously Sark is the is the
sight of something very, very important.
Strike here we are thinking that they're going to get a horse and
carriage and stuff. No, he just has to suffer and
walk all around. So she says that there's
something very, very important happens on Sark.
Is that in the room with here? With us in here?
Well, pasta. There was pasta, which is very
important. Pasta is very important.
That's. Even if it's not accurate to
what? A carbonara.
Yes, it was probably still delicious.
What do you mean not accurate to a carbonara?
She was cooking a sauce. It was bubbling.
You don't cook carbonara sauce. Yeah.
Did it say it was Carbonara? Yeah, she did OK.
Yeah, Robin did. So yeah, triggered a lot of
Italians, I think, who aren't Italian.
Yeah, OK. I did have an Italian aunt by
marriage, so. Can't you just like put the
sauce in and mix it and call that cooking?
Yeah, well. OK, it's just not a carbonara.
Why? Because the carbonara is a
specific thing, we can have the whole carbonara discussion.
Let's save it for the. I didn't know there was a
discussion. I really want to have that
discussion when we get to the carbonara.
No, but I'm saying I didn't know that this was a thing.
I had no idea, No. Angus hasn't complained about it
because I feel like she said she no.
She was offended. She was offended I.
Have not heard anything about. This carbonara is like you cook
the pancetta, you mix the egg yolks, so you don't cook, you
don't cook the sauce, but it's. Just.
It's just that Robin called it a carbonara.
No, I'm just saying, can't you say I'm cooking this?
It says in the chapter that the sauce is bubbling on the stove.
OK, that's And then she's like, oh shoot, my sauce is bubbling.
So like that's. OK, well maybe she made like a
cheesy a cheesy egg cheesy. Pasta.
Delicious. I mean, I would call it, it's
fine to call it a carbonara. I think I don't I can take the
heat. Have you seen the the video of
the old morning British talk show?
It's like the Italian chef is making something and then Oh
yes. It's.
Like it's kind of close to a British carbonara.
And then he freaks out. Yeah.
That's. It's hilarious every time it
comes up. Yeah, it.
Is really funny. I've seen that and he's.
Like if my grandmother was a bike, she'd have wheels.
It's so good, so funny. But that's that's what this
reminds me of. Like it's.
Exactly. Yeah, OK.
I'm not sure it's that big of a deal.
The pasta. Yeah, maybe I'm just hungry.
No, I'm just. Surprised it was such a thing
that I didn't know about but. So the pasta was not the
important thing in the chapter. Oh yeah.
That was we were talking about that, yeah.
So I think that I automatically want to equate a big event or
moment with something important. What happened was important.
So Robin told Murphy about the ectopic pregnancy, I think
because she had to, not because she wanted to.
Nothing in their relationship to me indicates that she wants to
confide in him. Yo.
The opposite and. Yeah, We see that with the
recent chapter with the, would you call it Ken's the guerrilla
attack, guerrilla related. Yeah.
Guerrilla related attack. She's not telling him so in SARC
she confides in strike she's vulnerable.
She opens up to him about something so personal and he
sets everything that he was planning aside to put her first.
It's kind of a self sacrifice to do what's best for Robin it.
Is which is so important but. I guess it's important, but it
didn't feel like a anything changed much.
But I'm wondering if Joe says that it's very, very important.
This moment is going to end up being important for Robin in
Evangeline. Maybe in another conversation or
arguments, Shrike is going to tell her that he was going to
try and tell her sooner because, you know, she's like, you've had
all this time. Maybe she'll think about how
sweet that is, that she's wrong, that he hadn't tried.
Maybe it is important in the way that I'm thinking for
progressing their relationship, but it just hasn't happened yet.
He does. Mention the Lake District and
Sark in that final argument. She could be like, what did you?
What the hell did he mean? Yeah, what?
Did he mean maybe? It could be the chance for
Strike to point out that she's sometimes the one who pulls away
by starting to talk about work. Yeah.
I don't think she did that on purpose there, but she did it on
purpose in other places. Remember that time whenever I
was trying to tell you that Charlotte, you know, said all
these things while she was sober and before?
Remember how you changed the subject?
Remember. And then?
You got mad at me and went and sat on the toilet.
They sat there angrily on the toilet.
Yeah, but yeah. Because I need Robin to realize
I need it, not I want it. I need her to realize that she's
the one who's pulling away. It drives me nuts, the whole you
don't try thing when girl, you know he does.
He. Does.
Yeah. God, I really can't wait for
them to argue. And the rest of that Linda
argument. I want them to be fighting, No?
Like I don't want the. Cold ignoring.
I want them to actively be fighting, like yelling at each
other for half the book before they kiss.
I'm fine with that. I would love that because at
least it means they're tall you ask for.
I know, but I like it when they fight.
I used to, not when. They not talk to each other.
I hate that in this. One, I like it when they.
Yell at each other. That's my favorite and can.
You imagine any arguments that Strike and Robin are going to
have now that his feelings are out in the open.
It's going. To be a whole new dimension
because he. Doesn't have to not say, right?
He can just say it I guess. We can revisit this arc chapter
when we get there. I can feel my heart beating
faster just thinking about Robin being confronted with all of the
times that he has tried to tell her that he loves her and that
she's pulled away and how that means it's actually real.
She's going to think this is actually real.
Not. Really related, but I wanted to
throw the sinks. I I had a thought on one of the
sleep tight Evangeline clues from the Twitter headers.
So it was specifically about the crocodile slash alligator charm
on the bracelet. OK.
Yeah, I was. Browsing it through houses on
right move looking for the house I'll buy once I win the lottery.
I saw this place called Crocodile House near Leeds in
Yorkshire and obviously I was curious about why I was called
that. I couldn't find a reason in
listing. It looked like a normal house.
There was no There were no crocodiles.
There were no. Crocodiles.
There were no Crocs. So I was wondering like, is
there some kind of crocodile thing going on in Yorkshire with
people in Yorkshire that I'm missing?
Like is there some? Is there a crocodile thing?
Is there like? A thing that they guys have, but
the actual point of the story is that I was messing around,
looking at distances between stuff and Google Maps with this
house and the Crocodile Rock to see if that was related.
I happen to see this place in Leeds called Tropical World.
It's like a huge collection of tropical plants and stuff, but
they've got actual crocodiles. Where did?
You say it was Leeds. Which is in Yorkshire, it's
quite close to York actually. So they.
Could actually see a real crocodile, so they.
Could act this could actually be a real crocodile if sleep tight
Evangeline has a case that's heavily based in Yorkshire.
I could totally see them having to go there to interview some
kind of witness who maybe works at this place.
Normally I would guess that someone chopped up a body and
fed the crocodiles to the crocodiles.
Great. But we've.
Done that already with the pigs we have.
Yeah. That was a weird sentence to
say. Yeah, it's.
Like a 46 minute drive from York.
Well. That's fun, but.
Anyway, so that's the thought I had about the crocodiles I like.
It, you know, crocodiles. I would love it.
The little zoo trip, anyway. I think that's it, I think.
That's it. I think we're ready to jump into
this chapter. Nice.
We're finally doing chapter 28. Finally.
It only took two months to get here.
So in this chapter, Strike interviews Jim Todd, the
epigraph I my taste of truth, likewise my touch of falsehood.
That's Mr. Sludge, the Medium by Robert Browning.
This one's pretty straightforward.
I feel like because Todd is not being entirely truthful.
I like the my taste of truth because it feels to me how
people nowadays say this is my truth, which means nothing about
actual truth. We know this.
My truth could just be whatever. It doesn't have to be true,
right? All right, so the beginning of
this chapter, Strike and Robin have a phone call.
And I just have to mention this because Strike is precious.
It says having a pretext to call Robin.
He did so because maximizing contact with her fell into the
categories of both playing to his strengths and not letting
Ryan Murphy change his game plan.
That's right. Strike.
Hell yeah. I love that he thinks maximizing
his contact with her is playing to strengths because it suggests
that he knows she enjoys him and their time together.
And he would be very correct. That is a strength I.
Do have one question though. When was the last time that
Strike had a pretext to call Robin and instead was like Nah,
I don't need to hear the sound of her voice, This could just be
an e-mail. Never.
Like. He has been calling her every
single time he can come up with any kind of plausible reason to
do so for years. Literally years, Yeah.
She's the one who will avoid calling him when she's mad at
him because hearing his voice is too hard for her.
Yeah, hearing her voice makes him feel better.
And for her, sometimes hearing his voice makes her feel worse.
Handle it. Yeah, because it's too.
Much. You know that's sweet.
So all I'm saying is that this is completely normal and
expected behavior from him. It's not shocking.
It's not a strategic game of it's what he'd have been doing
anyways and has been doing for a very long time.
He's got. To change it up he's.
Got to change it up, get creative, do something crazy
like. Now, I know this is going to
sound nuts, strike, but hear me out, OK?
All right. I'm ready for this you.
Could call her your best friend without a work pretext just to
chat. You'd be a legend.
Do it. Incredible.
I'm expecting it to happen because there is a lot of
explaining of why he's calling in this book to her out loud.
It's almost like he doesn't want her to think that he's calling
for no reason when he actually should let her know that he's
calling for no reason. So I think he's going to do that
in Evangeline where he lets her know he likes talking to her, he
likes hearing her voice, he just wasn't.
See how she is. Remind her that he loves her
smear. No big deal.
We've heard him say that he likes her voice too many times
for it to knock him up. What if he just said I like your
voice? It makes me feel better.
She would die. I would die.
We'd. All die your.
Voice makes everything slightly less shit so.
Romantic. It would be so good, you guys.
OK, but during this conversation is yet another time where one of
them has their finger in their ear because it's hard to hear
the other. It says Robin was also walking
somewhere with heavy traffic and he had his free forefinger in
his opposite ear so as to be able to hear her this.
Is a definite pattern it. Is Yeah.
I'm just sad that she didn't mention his thick fingers again.
She used to do that a lot, yeah. We used to ramp it up.
Can. We we can't.
Have everything? No.
We'll. Just take it as red that his
fingers need the description. Of his fingers I need the chest
hair I need the forearms, biceps.
I want to point out that Robin asks where Strike is and he
tells her he's nearly at Leather Lane.
So first I like that she's asking where he is.
Since our last conversation she asked if she gets to know where
he's at at all times, so she's making sure she knows I.
Love that she also tells him where she's going.
Harrods because that's a quality leather.
Lane should sound familiar to everybody because Robin
remembers that Mucky Ritchie lived on Leather Lane.
I think this is a It's another really fun way that JK Rowling
is bringing up an old character. I wonder if he's still alive.
Hope not. I can't help but picture him
like the bell guy on Breaking Bad.
Just. Ding Ding, I never watched
Breaking Bad anyone? Who does know Breaking Bad is
laughing because they know the Bell guy is an epic moment in
Breaking Bad? All right, we get our first
mention of Sapphire. This conversation about Sapphire
is 100% spot on. Robin solved this mystery with
her late night social media work at Murphy's, which means the
distance from Murphy literally helped her solve this case.
Literally. Not sleeping with Murphy helped
her the. Ways that man not being around
would benefit all of us, especially Robin.
But going. To Sapphire.
So Sapphire's last name is Neagle, which interested me
because I don't I think I've heard it before.
It sounds a bit like Beagle. It does.
Sound like Beagle or What's the Harry Potter that I'm thinking
of? Oh yeah.
Not the Neffler, the ones that. Find.
Oh that's what I'm thinking of. It literally just starts with an
N It has no sound connecting it whatsoever I think.
There is a creature in Harry Potter that sounds like a
Neagle. There's a nasal nasal anyway.
I looked up the name, apparently it's of Scottish or Irish
origin. Same.
Girl, me too. I'm like 30% Irish.
It did the whole test. It could mean son of a swarthy
leader or one who follows the path of a swarthy leader.
Swarthy not much in use anymore. Being someone dark so in
complexion maybe or sometimes in hair.
OK, dark hair like. Charlotte is called Dark, Yeah.
So since Sapphire followed Oz of the curly dark hair, she was
following the yellow. Brick Road, his path.
As like a replacement for his daughter?
Yeah, air quotes also. And you know, I know this is
nothing, but I still want to say, you know what Neagle
spells, if you scramble it up, a little Angel plus an E like E
Angel lean, you know, all you need is a vine, like a chain, a
crown, a vine. I'm putting all the pieces
together. Wow, Lord have.
Mercy. Yeah, it's silly nonsense, but.
OK, Young. Woman being kidnapped and
trapped in a basement to be abused, you know, and our
thoughts about possible plots. We sleep tight, Evangeline.
I kind of twisted my thoughts into like, oh, maybe this is an
Easter egg. But now that I'm saying it out
loud, I realize it's convoluted, torturous nonsense.
Well yeah, I feel like I should just make a tinfoil hat at some
point so I can have. It put on just like.
Do this. Oh my God, you made it and I
have shit. Oh my God, they've conspired
listeners. We did.
They've conspired to make little tinfoil hats and they look very
silly with them on. Just FYII curled.
The top of mine, very nice. It's so.
Ridiculous. That's very funny, however.
Good bit. Good visual bit for an audio
medium, you know, applause. You know, what's really funny
right now is that I forgot that this is where I was going to put
the hat on and just had it. Well, no, I knew that I was
going to do it. But then as you're saying this,
I was like, Dang, this would have been a good time to do
that. I thought it was coming later,
but it turns out it was the right time.
That's very funny. Yeah.
I feel like funny. Keep this.
Keep this around. Yes.
Hilarious. So funny.
Little. Shits.
Anyway, that was great. That was worth it.
It's a nice sort of subtle nod to Ink Black Heart that Strike
remembered that the Land Rover was getting its MOT when he
didn't remember that she was moving house in that previous
book. Oh.
Just like he helped her move house, he helps her get a new
Land Rover. I think Strike cares about the
Land Rover too. He's not a things person as
we've established. He gets it though.
I think he has a personal interest in Robin having a car
to drive him around. That makes it sound really
selfish. It's.
Not I mean they do need it for the business and right he wants.
Her to have a car. It's just nice seeing him making
the effort, you know, every little bit adds up.
Yeah. It says she had a sentimental
attachment to the old car she'd have found.
Hard to explain to anyone who didn't know how much she
associated it with her escape from her first husband, who
never liked it. Woohoo.
And with the career that meant so much to her.
And this just makes it even more sweet that Strike not only
included it on the charm bracelet, but then offered to
help her buy another one. Call me a broken record, but
he's great. I love him.
I do as well. But, yeah, I think that Strike
does. I have a connection with the
Land Rover to at least what it gave him.
I'm reminded of that line in Curve Evil where he wonders, and
I'm paraphrasing, you know, hadn't she tasted the freedom or
Right. Remember that?
And then he felt safety while being driven for the first time
in a long time. He felt friendship, love.
It's that shared vocation, you know.
Oh. Stop.
That's so. Sweet.
Yeah, I think the Land Rover special to both of them, Robin.
Thinks about two things. So the Land Rover means two
things for her, one, escaping from Matthew and two and two,
her career. It's interesting that she
doesn't think about her actual strongest association with the
car which is sitting in it with Strike.
It was literally her last thought as she drowned Robin.
You are thinking around the most significant reason why the Land
Rover is important to you and we all know it.
We can all see it. That's an interesting.
Point so she's it's avoiding thinking about the biggest thing
because, well, she's Robin can't dwell on that for too long or
her real feelings are going to come out.
It seems somehow to mark the end of an era.
And it occurred to him that his Christmas present to Robin might
need rethinking in light of the news of the car's demise.
That reminds me of how you've described the whole car
situation pools. You know that basically that was
their best friend Land Rover. This new one is their couple in
love, Land Rover. Exactly, her friendship is just
getting upgraded with heated seats and Bluetooth.
You know, but. Yeah, that one was her and
Matthew's kind of. Well, not really.
She escaped from Matthew, but Matthew has.
Unfortunately, been in it, Yeah, which?
Like you said, untainted by untainted.
It. Doesn't involve master.
'S tainted with his own blood. Oh my God.
You're going to. Strike is that you're going to.
Say something else. And I was like, please don't
finish that. Sentence means.
Strike blood on it that makes it his and Robbins so.
Strike definitely went back to get the Masonic Orb after
talking to Shanker, but what do you think that he was going to
get, you know, instead of the Land Rover?
Because I'm getting from that previous thing that I just read
that he might have gotten another thing, but what do you
think he would have gotten instead of the Land Rover?
Maybe he's just thinking, oh that will be a good addition or
something. Even if the Land Rover survived,
a Land Rover charm would have been great if.
He did change it up, decide to get the Land Rover, And did he
like replace one? Did he specifically want 7
charms? For the seven years, could you
imagine if we got more insight into like his decision making
process or any any of that? That'd be so cute and I love it.
One more note about the Land Rover.
I just love the way that Strike talks about getting a new one
like they're already a unit. You know, it's Robin's car.
She's the one who needs a new car, and he just comes out with
charge some of the new one against the business.
It's good for us to have a car that works well in the country.
So husband of them they're. So married.
I wish that Robin's ears were slightly more open and more
willing to hear the things that he's saying.
Everything that he says is about permanence, and I know that it's
business talk right now. I don't know many business
partners who are so casual about things like this.
Murphy might be squeezing her hand at the side of a toddler
room, but Strike is making practical plans for a future
that Robin actually wants. Oh my.
God, how have I just now realized the parallel between
Murphy's house hunting and strike buying the new Land
Rover? It seems so obvious that, like,
this was the battleground on which Strike and Murphy's war
played out in proxy on her home and then her driving around
home, the Landy. So Murphy uses noisy neighbors
as an excuse to tie Robin to him.
Like, he doesn't come out and say he's just like, oh, I can
use this to make buying a house together practical.
Yeah. Make us seem like we need it.
Whereas Strike is responding to an actual need, an actual real
need, and conveniently tying Robin to him at the same time.
Murphy is dragging a reluctant Robin through this process
without recognizing she doesn't want it.
Whereas Strike is offering a replacement for something Robin
really loves, understanding her, being considered about her
emotions. Robin goes along with Murphy on
the surface, but inside she's reluctant.
But with Strike, she's outwardly reluctant.
Being like, oh, I can't take that kind of money from you.
Thinking about what? Murphy would say, the argument
around buying it. But inside she really wants it.
She thinks with longing about that secondhand defender, 90,
she saw online. Yeah.
I love it. It's opposites.
Yeah, that's great. If that's not a reflection of
something much bigger than a car at a flat, I don't know what is.
They're. Symbols.
Yes, and she ends up with the new car.
She sure does. Doesn't end.
Up with a new flat? Yep.
I think we all know who's winning this war.
Be real. Who's already won it?
Yeah. I know the other.
Guy just hasn't been informed yet that he lost.
He he still thinks the battles raging and you know, he's
hobbling around on like one. What?
You're gonna say he's. I was gonna say his legs.
Have been cut off and I was like, wait, no, the other like
strikes actually. That was good.
That was a good one. Yeah, OK.
Next. We're getting to basically the
meat and the potatoes of this chapter, which is Strikes
interview with Jim Todd. The pub that Todd chose for
their interview is the Craft Beer Co in Clark and, well,
which is why Strike was on Leather Lane Mucky Ricci
territory, as Robin pointed out. That's a very neat connection to
troubled blood there. Yeah.
So I think that it might not be the pub itself giving us clues
for the interviewee this time, but the book can in itself.
So because we're in Clark and well near the place where Ricci
lives, lived hopefully, and we know he's responsible for these
horrible crimes against women, this is where we're meeting Jim
Todd. It puts us right back into that
mindset of Ricci. So I'm wondering if this is a
clue that he is also a bad man who is responsible for these
crimes against women. Yeah.
I think you're right about that. It's an explicit callback.
It's deliberate to make that connection.
It's a very. Cool connection you've made.
So outside the pub there's a 3D model of the Royal Standard
above the door. It says strike glam up at the
harp, the Lion Rampant and the Three Lions passant as he
entered the wooden floored space.
So if you're not super familiar with the UKI did look this up
because I wasn't totally sure. The Royal Standard is the
personal banner of the sovereign of the United Kingdom,
representing the monarch and the state.
The harp is for Ireland, The Lyant rampant is for Scotland,
the lion passant for England. Sorry, Wales, not in this.
It's crazy. That whales isn't included
because isn't the Walsh symbol a red dragon they have?
The best flag that's. The most badass animal to have
on a personal banner. I'm sorry.
Way cooler than the heart. Sorry, Ireland, It's a badass.
Flag. There was some explanation of
why when I looked all this up. It had something to do with the
timeline. I honestly didn't care enough to
understand because I read it. Understandable.
I read it with my eyes, but not with my brain.
So yeah. But I think the reason that this
is being pointed out to us is for the lions.
So we have this lion motif going on in the book with the name the
Hallmark Dangerous Dick de Lion. There's lots of lions, yeah.
Actually, I actually had some thoughts about Yellow lions
after reading Iris's blog on Alchemy, which is really good on
our website if you want to go read it.
And I have been working on my own theory about the structure
of the book in the Alchemy Well who?
Are we to fight? Indeed, who are we to fight the
alchemy I. Also had ideas about lions and I
was looking stuff up about them, symbolism and literature and
stuff and the history of lions and literature.
OK. I was.
Thinking that we could save this talk for when we run out of
Q&A's. Good idea and we.
Can kind of do stuff at the beginning of those second
episodes that. Makes sense.
We'll put a. Pin in it, but actually.
Put a pin in it. And I am, I'm still working on
this, looking that I'm working on, but I see this series as
it's a spiral staircase and there are landings where it
makes a turn. You know what?
This reminds me of, you know, that everybody sees the months
of the year differently. Yeah.
Like you see. It in your brain.
I don't. See stuff?
I mapped out the stair diagram on PowerPoint so I could
understand and I was moving around things but I don't see it
in my head. It dressing crazy.
Oh. Interesting.
So you're one of those? I am.
One of those a fantasics, hence. How do you see the months of the
year? I see it going clockwise.
It's January, February, like January starts at around like
the 12:00 position and then just kind of makes its way around
that way. So some people don't see it in a
clock. I think I visualized it that way
because in my first grade class that was how we looked at the
months of the year and I guess it just made a really strong
impression. Mine is actually
counterclockwise, but none of it makes sense.
The distance. In my head we get to October,
but counterclockwise about 10:00 if you're going backwards.
So it means all of most of the year is scrambled into one side,
and then it's just November. December is the whole other half
of the clock, which makes no sense, but that's how I see it.
I don't know why. Anyway, that was a random aside.
We get a description of Jim Todd.
Short and very rotund, Todd had small hands and feet, tiny blue
eyes, a wide thin lipped mouth, and patches of fluffy grayish
hair around his ears. Though he was otherwise bald, he
was wearing old trousers, A grubby looking jacket, and his
pinprick eyes were fixed on a young woman in a very short
skirt who is standing by the bar.
I am 100% picturing Tweedledee and or Tweedledum.
Also kind of a frog, but Tweedledee and Tweedledum look
like a frog with their long, wide mouth.
I think I'm going to have to adopt that as my head cannon for
what Todd looks like. Just a pervy Tweedledee.
It's like a real life Tweedledee or Tweedledum.
I prefer calling him Tweedledum. I think is is appropriate.
Yeah. Tweedle pedophile, Tweedo peed.
I. Him fighting a visceral urge to
reach the book and smack him to get his his creepy dirty eyes
off of that woman. What a clear way to signal to
the reader that this guy's a creep.
You can. See why Griff likes the guy?
Yeah, it is a good sign that Pamela was correct in her
observation. She said he's she thinks he's
clearly a creep or something. Or he's clearly AI.
Don't know what word she used. No, she does not like him.
So that does help kind of give her more credibility.
Yeah, Todd is really annoying during this interview, and the
grinning is very creepy. I wonder if he's doing it
because he thinks he's getting away with something.
I think he feels very important to know something that the
famous Corman strike doesn't know.
And he probably thinks that, yeah, that they're going to get
away with it. He's such a prick.
Take that guy. He's going to learn other.
Well, no, he's not going to learn otherwise because he's
going to be fucking dead. That.
Does kind of suck. Murdered pretty soon.
Yeah. It does suck he won't face
justice. Yeah.
Strike shows Todd pictures of three missing men.
So we got Niall Semple, Tyler Powell and Dick the Lion.
The only one that he doesn't have a reaction to and just
slightly shakes his head is Tyler.
So with Semple he says, oh I know that's the soldier with the
lion. He laughs, asks if he's a
stripper. He feels comfortable making
these comments about them because there's no connection to
him. I feel like I should have
realized that him saying nothing about Tyler was a sign that he
was afraid to say something that might show a connection or
knowledge of him. That makes sense.
Yeah. It's.
So easy to see in hindsight, but when you're reading, unless you
know he does know who the real right is and he's just trying to
throw a strike off the scent, you know, it could have been
that Tyler's photo didn't look like right.
So it's so hard to catch the first time around and so
incredibly obvious on the second.
Should I just read these books assuming everybody they talked
to is the murderer and then I won't miss stuff like this?
Probably this part was fun to read about Temple 17 because Joe
had given us that clue that this was the important temple.
I guess she can't really go into too much detail when she's
giving us clues. It wasn't really important to
the book as much as mentioned. It was the mentioned temple, but
we really lost our minds when we looked that one up and there was
a swan inside and we didn't even go there.
In the book, it was just to mention.
She's such a tease. The amount of maniacal cackling
coming from her office reading our guesses had to have been
really incredible to witness. I remember seeing that swan and
just losing my whole mind as I'm sure she anticipated she.
Knew she knew I. Don't see though, why Tyler was
interested in it, unless it has something to do with protecting
people, but I'm not sure how those temples work.
Or yeah, I don't know, I mean. The oldest lodges in London meet
there. Maybe he thought that they'd be
his best hope of protection. Maybe in his research into the
Masons he found some reason for trying to join those specific
lodges. But I haven't figured it out
yet, Tyler. Could have just been throwing
anything out there to make it seem credible.
There's a bit here where Strike asked Todd if William Wright
ever mentioned that someone might come looking for him.
Todd tells Strike the opposite was true, because there was a
large man hanging around that Todd had warned Wright about,
but Wright didn't seem to care, and so Todd assumed Air quotes.
This was his accomplice. Did we ever find out?
If he's just making all this up, I'm certain he.
Was. Yeah.
He's trying to make Strike believe the story that Wright
was a criminal. I bet Griffs has been in touch
with him and told him to come up with stuff to muddy the waters
and direct Strike somewhere else.
Yeah. And it makes sense he'd say
large man, too, because opposite of Griffs.
Yeah. For me, the clear indication
Todd's lying is because when Strike asks if he told the
police, he's like, yeah, I think I did.
Yeah. And then he took another gulp of
beer. Yes, yes.
So at the end of you, he's swigging his beer whenever he's
lying as a cover. Although near the end of it,
when he's lying about knowing McGee, he overcompensates and
then just stares directly at Strike the whole time.
So he's not good. I was.
Wondering if the beer was a tell, but then I was second
guessing myself. Yeah, same here.
That's a great catch. I bet Strike picked up on it
too. OK.
I need a refresher even though I've had millions of refreshers.
The man with the dark curly hair is Oz, which is Griffs or Wade
King well. Oz is griffs and he has a wig
that's dark curly hair. I think so.
When Strike asked Todd if this large man he claims he saw
outside the silver shop had dark curly hair, do you think that
shook him up a bit? Because his response is what?
No straight hair? Who's got dark curly hair?
It just, it comes off as defensive to me, no.
Yeah, I fully believe that you're right.
And it did throw him. Strike thinks that Todd was the
one who knew the most about Griffs, which is why he had to
die. So I think he did know about Oz.
He did know about the wig and the whole thing.
There's. A couple of other things towards
the end of the chapter when Strike mentions Oz by name,
where Todd also seems defensive to me.
Yeah, it definitely makes Todd put his back up.
Whenever Oz is mentioned more about the beer, Strike mentions
Larry McGee, the delivery driver.
It's obvious in hindsight, but when he says who and then he
grabs his beard, tied his face, there's the mention of was when
talking about McGee. Like the guy's a terrible liar.
He has. So many tells he must lose that
poker a lot I'm. Just so curious about how this
guy's weekend went because I just cannot relate to someone
who helped plan a murder then has to go in on Monday morning
and pretend it's all fine. I just can't get over it.
I. Think that people like Todd and
Griffs get a sense of power and a thrill from their crimes,
right? They don't feel anxiety or guilt
like your I would. It excites them to know that
they know there's corpse down there that's, you know, easy.
I could imagine this guy being eager for Monday morning because
he feels so powerful walking around knowing that Tyler's
body's in the vault and my anxiety could never.
I know that we should feel good about that, that we can't
understand this. It just blows my mind, Yeah,
that these people exist. OK, so maybe this is a little
bit of a silly question, but how do you manage to come down the
stairs to clean the bathroom and you don't smell a dead body?
But I guess it was inside the vault.
If the vault was really secure, it might have held this smell
really well. I'm going to go out on a limb
and guess that it probably wasn't very secure, but there
are, I guess, any number of excuses he could have given for
not having smelled it. The cleaning chemicals.
Maybe he thought, oh, there's a dead rat or something, or a
recent cold something. It would have been a good
question for Shrike to ask, though.
What a. Body smell that much after a
weekend. I'm assuming that since the
vaults in the basement it's quite chilly I.
Think so. There's probably a lot of
factors. Time to Google.
When do dead bodies start to smell?
Oh, no one in my life gets murdered anytime soon because
that's incriminating as hell. Chase is safe for another few
months. Oh.
No, I mean I think it's a perfectly normal thing to
Google, OK. The Internet says that usually
there's a noticeable odor from 24 to 72 hours after death, but
it can be longer if it's cold, so I'll go ahead and believe the
vault was just very chilly. This.
Discussion just reminds me of this field trip that I had to
take my senior year of high school for my AP biology class
because we saw somebody get a quadruple bypass surgery.
And the smell. I remember you.
Yeah. When they cracked open that
sucker's chest, the smell was really something else.
I don't think that I'll ever forget it.
And we were in the space above the surgery theater.
We weren't, like, in there or anything, but God, I can't
imagine how much more it would have smelled if I was in the OR.
But oh man, the inside of a body does not smell good.
I've. Never thought of the inside of
bodies having a smell, but of course they do.
I don't like that it's not. Like that I don't.
Like it shocked. That you don't like that Just
like how? The inside of our bodies are wet
all the time. I don't like thinking about
that. That's uncomfortable knowledge
for me. There's.
Another part where they're talking about what was done to
the body. I've made assumptions that his
hands and probably his ears were cut off because they could help
identify him, but for the first time I'm wondering if there was
something more to the eyes and the penis being cut off because
Tyler was in love with Chloe and trying to save her from Griffs.
People said they're boyfriend girlfriend right?
So they probably had a romantic and intimate relationship.
I wonder if Griffs was making a statement about what was his.
I think. You're right about that, it's
like a punishment for Darren to think he could interfere with
Griffs property. Exactly.
Emasculating Tyler literally makes Griffs feel like he's
taking the power back you. Guys know how much I love when
Strike flips back in his notebook during an interview,
Yeah. I.
Love it, it's one of my favorite.
Interview. Techniques.
It's a. Sexy power move as opposed to a
pathetic insecure power move. I don't.
Know if he's using this technique here if he just
genuinely is checking his notes. But this one cracks me up either
way because what he asks Todd was just unexpected.
So he flips back and says just a couple of things.
He flicked back a page in his notebook.
Why did you call William Wright a silly tit earlier?
Unexpected question. Why do you think he asked that?
I think. Because doing that suggests more
knowledge of Wright and more investment than Todd claims to
have. Because there's no clear reason
for him to think that Wright was a silly tit based on what he's
told strikes. So why does he think it before?
We end the chapter. I can't help but notice that
there seems to be a weird sense of loyalty from Todd towards
Kenneth Ramsey. Yeah, there is.
I noticed that as well. Kenneth is like one of the few
people that he actually speaks well of.
Yeah, he reiterates a couple of times what a nice man he is, and
I don't doubt that that's true, but it's strange coming from a
man like Todd. I just wouldn't expect him to
value kindness. Quite the opposite.
My best guess is that Ramsey offers a consistent paycheck and
is blind to who Todd actually is, which works out really well
for him, so therefore he likes him.
I guess that tracks. OK chapter 29.
All right. In chapter 29, Robin meets Albie
Simpson White and has that first gorilla related attack, the
upper. Graph to this chapter reads the
souls of the vicious dead passed into the bodies of those animals
to whose nature their vices had most affinity.
This doctrine probably referred those figures of animals and
monsters which were exhibited to the initiate and that's from
Morals and dogma of the Ancient and accepted Scottish Rite of
Freemasonry by Albert Pike. The.
Figures of animals in this epigraph seems to be referencing
the gorilla figure, I think from this chapter.
I know it's not exactly the same, but the feeling that I get
from the epigraph is that all the evil and the violence that
was done by Robin's rapist and by Griffs has been put into this
little toy gorilla that's forced into her hand and it's put on
exhibit for her. I don't know if that makes
sense, but that's the feeling that I have that makes sense.
Yeah. Yeah.
Agreed, that makes perfect sense in such a poetic description.
And the monster who grabs Robin, he has an affinity to the rapist
who's locked away in prison. So he's sort of an extension of
the rapist and what he's doing to Robin here getting.
Into the chapter. It begins with Robin visiting
Harrods and she finds Alby. I have a break in my color
pattern here because Robin's outside and there's green and
gold, which doesn't fit with what I was saying before.
Do I remember what I was saying before?
Not really. Blue and gold strike green and
silver Robin, but I think it was more gold.
The silver and gold well. Sometimes color is just a color.
There's the. Fun in that.
However, having said that, I did find some very interesting bits
about color in this alchemical dictionary that was reading
through. So the color blue or Azure
occurs in alchemy as the color of the pure and incorruptible
quintessence or Fifth element. Not the Bruce Willis film,
although that element was love, that was.
A good movie. That was a good movie.
I've seen that. So many fucking ties are gonna.
Be shocked, you've never. Seen it of course.
I haven't. And you know what's so funny?
So many people have been responding to me saying that
I've never heard that Christmas song and literally.
Everyone in the world has heard that song, no?
I have had a couple people say they've never heard it either,
but is anyone surprised by this at this point?
It surprised me that it was surprising.
I still can't believe that you've watched Breaking Bad but
you've never seen The Fifth Element.
I had to have something to do at work.
I would never have expected you in a million years to have ever
watched Breaking Bad. That does not seem like a show
that it just doesn't watch. Why?
It's crime, it is. Crime because.
It's popular. There's a lot of stuff that like
seems like part of the general sort of like pop culture.
I don't not watch things just because they're popular.
Well, it's just like there's just seen things that everybody
seems to have seen that you're like, I've never seen this.
I'm like, I wouldn't expect you to have watched Breaking Bad
because of, yeah, it's something that a lot of people have seen
that. I've never seen Breaking Bad on
the other. Does that surprise you that I've
never seen it? Well.
It is and it isn't because you do know all the things things
and all the shows, but you don't like things that are popular I.
Like, I like lots of popular things.
I think you have a nature, a nature.
I have a nature, a pretentious. Hipster nature you have.
A nature. I'll get to it when I get to it.
I'm just going to. Restart the quote.
OK, The color blue or Azure occurs in alchemy as the color
of the pure and incorruptible quintessence or fifth element,
the dying tincture. Another prominent color of the
opus is green, which is associated with Venus and the
Green Lion. The color green signifies that
the matter in the alembic is still immature or unripe in the
same way that unripe fruit is green.
Yes. It.
Also signifies the principle of fertility and growth, which is a
crucial property of the transforming Arcanum and the
Philosopher's stone. The Alchemist stated that only
from green gold, like green gold, the living fertile seed,
could true gold be grown. OK, see when I'm.
You see where I'm going with this?
Well, when? You say green and ripe.
I do keep going. I found it interesting because
of the green dress, right? We loved it as a gift.
We still love it, but it was immature or unright.
Not immature as in like childish, but immature as in the
beginning of their relationship. The first attempt at a gift like
it was meaningful and beautiful, but Strike still kind of
regretted it because he wanted thinking he never see her again.
And Robin only ever got to wear it once before Matthew ripped it
right? So it was green.
But there's hope. Out of green grows the true
gold. The green gold becomes true
gold. We also know how often blue is
associated with them. And that fifth element slash,
the quintessence, is, according to the same dictionary, the
product of reconciling the four worn, quarreling elements into
one harmonious and perfect unity.
The very essence of the body of the metal or stone, the
incorruptible, the pure and original substance of the world,
the mercurial water, is soft and blue, and that's a whole thing.
That's the fundamental stuff, the blue.
So my mind is a little blown with this because he is Cormoran
Blue from the beginning for alchemical reasons and the dress
is green for alchemical reasons. I'm almost feeling like her
dress will be repaired with a gold string.
And although that seems very unrealistic, but if the green is
the immature or the unripe and alchemy is about breaking it
down, her dress was broken down literally, which means that we
must see it repaired into the golden if the symbolism is, if
it's there, if we're correct and how we're looking at it, looking
at. Robin's like Robin's significant
dresses. So there was the green one,
there was the old blue one she had that was years old but
strikes thought she looked particularly sexy in She wore it
on a detective success and at the Ritz.
So those are two green blue. And now her latest dress is a
dusty pink, which is almost at red, which is the final stage
with gold. Rubito is the red, but it's not
quite there because it's pink, right?
Maybe. Oh my God, what if the Robin
gets hit by a bus series, right, and Robin's pink dress is ruined
because she gets blood all over it, making it red.
Is she? Wearing that dress, yeah.
She's wearing that dress at the end of the book when she goes to
the Reds of Murphy and when she wears like a gorgeous gold dress
at some point. Yeah, I'm.
Going to be on high alert. A dress of any fucking color.
Let's. Come back to it.
Yeah. Coming back, we'll put a.
Pin. For.
Real put it on the list. Put on the list I'm.
Definitely keeping anyway. So it says that she's been
inside Harrods twice before for sightseeing purposes.
I too have been there. For that reason, I have never
been there. I'll be honest, I was definitely
the most interested in the food floor.
I'm just shocked, shocking. I know you're.
Not going to believe this, but I too went to Harrods for the
purpose of sightseeing and I also was primarily focused on
the food floor. Crazy we are.
Consistent, very unbrilled really are.
I'm really interested in the imagery when Robin is searching
for Albie and it says that floor by floor, Robin ascended the
Egyptian staircase, which had golden ox Pharaohs and
consolations on its walls and ceilings.
If it had said descending, I'd be spiraling right now with the
psyche thing. But it's just so pretty.
Just the description of it. I didn't.
Realize this, there must be some kind of alchemical thing because
I was reading another book by Marie Something something.
Is she going over like 3 ancient alchemical texts and explaining
some stuff to do with the alchemy and the subconscious or
something? But one of them is Egyptian and
like one of them has been Greek but it's Isis so it's like a
translation. So it all goes back to like
Egypt somehow. Interesting SO.
That just hit me now because I've just been reading that
book. I'm like, oh, Egypt.
Egypt is like alchemy. That's where it started.
And. Also the colors because I looked
it up, it's all blue and gold, which are the strike colors, but
that she's going up. So this is very.
Interesting to me, yeah. You.
Know about the descendant. If she goes up now, she must
descend later. At the end of the book she does
go down the set of stairs in totally different circumstances,
like not beautiful or grand but her heaven runs after her to
meet her halfway as. Far as Robin's search for Albie
Man, searching the store for 2 1/2 hours to find somebody takes
some serious dedication and patience.
She got her steps in for the day.
He sure did. I sure certainly hope so.
I. Could not do Robin's job.
This is I'd have tapped out after 10 minutes in there.
My attention span could never. It sounds horrible just.
The Walking I know how you feel about walking just.
The Walking being in a crowded store for 2 1/2 hours at
Christmas. Not just normal crowded
Christmas crowded. Which also means you're wearing
your winter coat. Absolutely fucking not.
Genuinely, I think I'd rather break a leg.
But I do have one question about this part in the book.
So it says that Alby is helping a mother.
Is this a? Really serious question.
I feel like I feel like we're about to be very serious right
now. Got my.
Serious face on it says that Alby's helping a mother and
teenage daughter find the correct size of riding breeches
while standing next to a life-size fiberglass horse.
Now, I know that this is probably a ridiculous thing to
think, but is there any chance that this is a testing horse
that you could climb on to see if the breeches are comfy, like
in a riding position? Because if not, it should be.
I highly doubt it. Did I actually try to find a
picture of this horse? Yes, I did.
What did you No, Oh no. So if.
Anybody has it or is close and can go look?
I would love to see what this horse looks like Yeah.
For no other reason that it's in the book and I can't find it.
But my question is what is a riding breach?
They're like very, very tight pants that you can wear while
you're wearing riding boots on a horse and I bet that strike
would like to see Robin and some Oh, I imagine so riding breaches
job first. Doesn't matter which one let's.
Hope they have some reason to go riding in book 9 we've.
Been hoping for it since Career of Evil.
I think I shall. Continue to hope, yeah.
I'm sure there's a way to test them without climbing on a
life-size fiberglass horse though.
Probably, but is there a way to test them that's more fun than
climbing on a giant fiberglass horse?
No, I think. Not Robin leaves Harrods and the
text that she gets with her father and the new puppy Betty
is so cute. I just love that both of their
dogs are named after British confectioners.
That's just too cute, Linda. With the eye rolling emoji made
me laugh. Me.
Too. Silkworm Linda right there.
Yeah. It is the return of silkworm
Linda who we left. Betty is a great name for a dog.
My dad and I disagree on this, but I really like people names
for dogs because I find it hilarious.
You know, imagine having a dog and being like, come be your
dentist. That's so funny to me.
It is. People names are good.
Food names are also good. This kind of fits both Betty my.
Youngest dog's name is Fred. The way you said youngest makes
it sound like it's a child. My youngest, Fred, is a good
name, but for reasons I cannot explain, it works well for a
dog. It's not weird enough.
Like, Thomas would be weird, but I love it.
Jeremy. Thomas.
Alfred. Jeremy.
You know, there are some names that work for dogs and some
names that were just too human for dogs.
You know? Come here, Kathleen.
Like, come on. No one's naming their dog
Kathleen. It's charming that they have a
little pattern for naming their dogs.
And also, we still don't know what's hunt about Michael
Ellicott, but we do know that he was not going to sit around and
be sad about Roundtree. He was getting himself a new
puppy. Yeah, he must be an animal
person because we know he likes sheep but doesn't shag him.
He needs a new puppy. Hopefully that rule applies to
the puppy as well. Do you think we'll ever get to
properly meet Michael Ellicott? Like is he going to have some
words of dad advice at a key moment for Robin?
Because I'd love to see it but I don't know if it'll happen
because he's been pretty silent in the background so far.
I. Don't know.
I would love to see it. I would love to see him being
the the quiet voice of reason to Linda.
I'd love to see him maybe witnessing Strike and Robin
together and and saying well she's clearly happier with him
then that would be so cute. I feel like that would just be a
quiet dad thing to do. So in my head that's what's
going to happen. I don't know if it will for real
though. I'm hoping and I'm manifesting
it. I feel like we've seen so much
of Linda and Robin's other siblings but not really a whole
lot of her father and I feel like that could be for like plot
related reasons like about the whole lack of Lorelei or Coco in
a book that's all about strike sexes do.
You think Lorelei's gonna have? You already said that and I
forgot. Yeah.
Not that she'll come back, but we talked about the whole reason
why he didn't say I love you kind of his relationship with
Lorelei. A breakup.
Yeah. I think they'll have to talk
about that because it includes the vow, The vow, the vow.
All of this leads up to the worst part of the chapter, which
is the attack on Robin. And this was so terrifying to
read, especially after she realizes what's been put into
her hand. This was just one of those
moments where I had to stop reading for a few minutes and
like remind myself to breathe and that this is not real it.
Seems extra scary to me because it's happening to her in the
middle of a super crowded store, right out of in the open and no
one notices. And the suddenness of it, the
strength of the grip so that she can't even turn her head, and
the specific detail of fingers height on her carotid artery.
Really visceral and terrifying. Yeah.
I'll tell you this, Joe knows how to write a thrilling novel.
She sure does, you know, And I'm not the least surprised that
Robin ends up never feeling safe by the end of the book, because
this is the first attack and I'm done.
I'm like, no thanks, I'm good. Tapping out, can I?
Put a pause on the man who attacked her really quickly and
say how upset I was at the lady for yelling at her to watch
where she's going. I get it because she was holding
a toddler and sometimes as mothers our instincts are to
react to protect our kids. So I've been in similar
situations but when Robin says someone pushed her and she seems
obviously I'm sure she seemed shaken up.
I'm thinking do better lady. I can only hope if I'm ever in
that situation and another woman has just been attacked and I
happen to be the one who gets bumped into, my response is not
to be nasty to her, but to be someone who helps and supports
her, right? The woman's reaction just really
bothered me. Maybe it's because I've been
guilty of having snap reactions sometimes and it's a bad look
when you see it from this perspective.
I just don't want to be that Lady I feel.
You on this? Because I, too, have been guilty
of snapping at people instead of taking a breath and thinking
about what's going on with them. But, you know, if it's something
you're worrying about, then at least that means you're trying.
So that's a good sign. Yeah.
And. That's got to count for
something. I want to the one to go fight
the man, you know, I'm like, yeah, do I need to roll up for
hands? Yeah, hold my earrings.
Exactly. I'm also learning a ton about
ADHD now that that's a thing that's happening.
The amount of times that I've seen an Instagram meme about
triggering ADHD rage and thinking I'm not just a jerk
sometimes, oh, my gosh, I'm amazed.
It's actually good news. Yeah.
You know, there's actually a a reason.
Yeah. I like that Joe took the time to
specifically mention here that Robin's rapist was sentenced to
life in prison and that all of his applications for parole were
refused. Because I know that there's
definitely been some theories going around that he could pop
back up for a long time. You're right.
I didn't even really connect that because I was never one
that thought anything was going to happen with him again.
And I just, I didn't like those theories because obviously I
don't want that for her. So I'm thrilled that you've
pointed this out because I didn't even notice it.
Thank goodness this is. Also, the first time we've
learned for sure that he killed some of his other victims.
Like it was kind of implied when Robin said, yeah, it was implied
when Robin said I survived him. But now we know for sure that he
attacked six women and killed two of them, I thought.
For sure, we knew that. I don't think we did before
this. Maybe not in book Canon I think
didn't there? Wasn't there a reference to that
in the TV series? Maybe.
Yeah, so I'm pretty sure this first time we learned in the
books that he killed two women. But it turns out that even with
the rapist in prison, you know, even if he's never getting on
parole, Robin can still be horrifically re traumatized by
someone using their knowledge of the rape against her.
So. Don't even need.
To let the rapist out, to have that happen, the.
Fact that Robin had the presence of mind despite how rattled and
scared she is, here to keep the gorilla figure because it might
have her assailant's DNA on it is impressive.
Well, she is Robin. She's been doing this since
Cuckoo's Calling when Strike was getting the death threats from
the one guy which I love. She.
Did do the same thing. Yeah.
Put it in plastic and stick it in the drawer.
She's very cute. Robin's reaction about who to
call about this attack is just reminding me of her experiences
with Matthew. When it says she imagined
telling Murphy what had just happened, he'd be outraged.
He'd demand to know what measures she was taking to
protect herself. And just as suddenly as she
imagined telling her boyfriend, she knew she wouldn't do it.
And I was so happy. My heart just breaks for her.
I feel bad that she doesn't really feel like she has anybody
that she can. Well, she does.
She sure does. She does.
She's just not sleeping with them.
She. Has somebody that she should be
able to talk to about this, but she can't.
And that makes me sad. Yeah.
We're having different reactions to this because, yes, it's
awful. But I had to gloat.
I was so happy. I can't just let the wind go
unnoticed. She knew she wouldn't tell
Murphy, but immediately followed by.
She had to tell Strike, though. No question.
That's what I'm talking about. Yeah.
Love it. This is one of those, you know,
strikes have more rights than Murphy's do.
Yeah, but I'm with you, Lindsay. The more cracks are revealed in
this relationship, the better. I'm thrilled with every single
one. And knowing she can't trust him
enough to tell him about something like this happening to
her. Huge crack Canyon cutting right
through the relationship. There is a countdown on this guy
is ticking. It is speeding up.
He is so close to being done. And she calls Strike instantly,
right? Away, I know.
There isn't an internal model on to tell us, but I'm going to
assume that Robin wanted to talk to him right away because she
needed to. She needed him.
Robin suddenly realized she was very close to tears and mentally
crossed her fingers that Strike wasn't about to react angrily to
chastise her for not having taking more care or not been
quick enough to spot the man who'd done it.
And of course he doesn't. He's been zigging where she
expects him to zag for a while and I'm just so thankful for
Strikes reaction. I wish they were having this
conversation in person so he could have she.
Could have. Gotten those tears out, the feel
of his arms feeling like home. Oh yeah.
I feel like they've argued about safety so many times that Robin
might not remember what it is that he actually gets mad about.
I. Don't think he's ever chastised
her for not being better. I suddenly think she's been
misinterpreting his anger when she's in danger.
This. I know Time Strike reacts and
anger when he's afraid. He's angry at whoever's putting
you in danger, and he's terrified you're going to be
hurt. It's never been about you not
being good enough, Robin. I never.
Oh my. Gosh, and she's been.
Thinking this whole goddamn time I.
Know girl. I think the only time that
Strike has gotten angry at her, rather than just being angry
that she's in danger, is when she decides to do dangerous shit
when she knows it's dangerous because she wants to prove
herself. Yeah, like ink Black heart.
Yeah. Or.
When she doesn't want to take the precautions that he thinks
she should take, like taking a taxi, just take the taxi and.
What is the problem with taking a taxi?
Like why is she? Signed me the fuck up for taking
a taxi. Yes, please.
Why she's so against taking a taxi?
Because. She thinks it makes her look
weak. She thinks it means she's weak.
Yeah, that's. Crazy I.
Know because I'll take a taxi anywhere.
Don't. Tell me twice I'm.
Getting on the crowded subway at Christmas, but yeah.
You articulated that exactly what I was trying to say.
Thank you. Totally agree.
All right, now we're getting to Robbins call to strike and
strikes offer to pick Robin up after her interview with Albie
is just so sweet and kind. He has to know that she's
feeling a bit freaked out and with like a friendly familiar
face afterwards and he wants to see her and make sure she's safe
and keep her away from Murphy. Great intentions.
And, you know, he did not like hearing that she was going to
meet Murphy afterwards. Well.
Neither did I did anyone I wish. That just once she'd say yes,
strike, please come meet me. I'm shaken up and could really
use a hug and a glass of whiskey.
Yes. Please, the man.
Would be out the door so fast he would.
Be breaking land speed record, yes, Yeah.
He would be running. Gazelles everywhere are shaking.
Yeah, Murphy's. Got nothing on him.
Limber fucker I. Really need Robin to learn that
she can have what she wants. She deserves what she wants.
I hope she gets what she wants. She just.
Wants Strike her best friend, who she thinks is hot.
That's totally their song. So their song I.
Appreciate that Robin in this book is being a touch less
resistant to strike, telling her to take precautionary measures
when there's scary stuff going on.
It's a really nice change of pace.
You're telling me, my gosh. Oh, this next thing that I'm
about to read. This one has been pointed at so
many times for new theories for the new book.
Book, it says. Tears stung her eyes, and for a
few seconds she wanted to run, but run where?
Home to Massim, as she'd done after the rape, back to Murphy,
who she knew she wasn't going to tell.
There's a. Third option there, Robin,
there's. An alternative?
You mean an alternative standing?
Right there this. Quote gets pointed at a lot when
it comes to predictions for the next book.
I've seen people saying that she's going to run somewhere at
some point. I believe in this theory a
little less after hearing about Strike and Robin in that pub
that Joe was talking about on Twitter not that long ago.
Because we know it'll be in the first half, the 1st.
Half, yeah. So they can't be separated for
that long. I've never been super big on
this theory because I cannot think of anything that seems
less like Robin, less like the Robin we know than wanting to go
home to Linda right now. Yeah.
I think back home is literally the last place that Robin would
run at this point. I'm sorry.
Yeah. When I read this, I think it
seems obvious where she wants to run to when she says but run
where it's obvious where she wants to run, it's to the man
who's on the phone, the man who's just offered to come pick
her up, The man who she could tell her truth to.
Her main man. Her main.
Man. Is obvious.
It's not massive straight. Man Manson, the only thing that
keeps me sane at times like these is thinking of the day
that Robin will run straight into Strikes arms because it
will happen while his. Arms are home.
She needs to think about that again sometime.
It's been too long. Oh, my gosh.
We're basically almost to September.
It'll be here before we know it. So really, we just have another
year to wait. Yeah.
Strikes parting words to Robin to just be vigilant.
Instantly reminded me of Mad Eye Moody.
You know, constant vigilance. On and vigilance they do.
Have some things in common, including a couple missing leg,
a couple things. Yes, it's.
Also cute that Robin can tell that he's exercising restraint
and how forcefully he's telling her all of this.
You know he's taking note of those times when she's told him
not to yell at her after stuff like this happens.
He's just yelling next to her. He's not yelling at her.
Yeah. Not taking it personally, he's
changing a little bit. He's just holding back from
telling her how much he loves her.
It must be hard to try and emphasize to someone in this
kind of dangerous situation to be careful without fully
explaining why you need them to be careful.
And it's because you love them. Especially someone who isn't
always the most careful sounds. Like we're hoping this kind of
scene might go differently. I'm.
Very much hoping but. Strike does so well at
restraining himself from yelling about her safety this whole book
like he does a good job. He's putting the effort in to
understand her and be who she needs, and who she needs is not
someone who's yelling near her. Well, I think it's just that
he's trying to not make her mad at him.
Well, yes. That too, but if he can keep
that up, then it comes out to the same thing, so right.
Let's go to Chapter 30. You're 30.
In this chapter, Robin interviews Albie Simpson White
and the epigraph Ask Me No More for fear I should reply.
Others have held their tongues and so can I.
And that is poem 6 from additional poems by AE Hausmann.
So creative. I know very, very creative poems
and. One more thing.
Very creative compilation, Additional poems and just
kidding, I had One Poems volume 2.
Some follow up extra poems, it's like.
Whenever you're you're trying to create like a drafts, I got.
Final, final, final, final, final, final.
Yeah. So this epigraph to me is
definitely referring to Albie because there's definitely some
things that he's keeping from Robin in this interview.
It's actually quite an important interview.
It's letting us know as readers that he knows more, and he's
trying to keep the secret for Rupert.
Although if I were him, I'd be real tempted to just give up the
secret at this point. Yeah.
So the beginning of the chapter, Robin and Alby talk a little bit
before they start discussing Rupert.
And it makes me laugh when it says having three brothers, two
of them younger than herself, Robin knew the importance of
food to young men. Not to mention having had a male
best friend for years whose good mood depends on the amount of
sustenance he's received recently.
Which, I mean, yeah, same. It does take me back a little
bit to Cuckoo's Calling when Strike offers to buy Rochelle A
Berger. It's an interview tactic to keep
her there. I don't mean to imply that
there's any sort of parallel. I'm just pointing out that I
really like seeing these detective strategies that we
learned about early on from Strike, but now they're showing
up in Robin and it's fun to see. Yeah, it is.
It's fun to see how she's kind of picked up on his techniques
and started implementing them herself.
Robin suggests eating at the Alfred Tennyson Pub because the
food is good. She said even though she's
making that up, he's never eaten there.
I've looked it up online. Bad news for Alby.
I know we're many years in the future.
I did not see a burger on the menu, though.
Maybe. He can console himself with an
egg mimosa smoked anchovies for only £9.
I have so many questions I. Had a lot of questions too and
the menu answered none of them. I don't know what an egg,
mimosas, comma smoked anchovies is.
That sounds horrific. It sounds like something that
would be on Fear Factor. None of those.
Things go in Mimosas I. Know so.
I'm confused. Speaking of being confused, OK,
I saw something listed under the seasonal oysters that said
pickled cucumbers and I could not get on with my life because
I was pickled cucumbers. That's just a pickle, right?
That's exactly what I thought. According to Google, very
helpful. In the UK, pickle encompasses a
wide range of vegetables and sometimes fruits preserved in a
vinegar based brine. While pickled cucumbers are
common, the term extends to include pickled onions, pickled
beetroot, pickle Lily chutney, and even pickled eggs.
Just like in starter, you can throw anything in the jars and
it comes out pickled. But.
Then it would be pickled a pickled.
Cucumbers it's. Just a cucumber.
My mind can't take this Pickled beetroot sounds really terrible
and I swear I can feel Joe. Like shuddering Joe from.
Across the ocean like fucking. Anything pickled is good.
I really like salty vinegary stuff.
I love pickled cucumbers. Or not cucumbers.
Sorry. Oh, now I'm confusing myself.
I do love pickled cucumbers. Yeah, a pickle.
I like pickled cauliflower. This is bizarre.
I think so too. The UK is just like a whole
different world. This actually all this will
actually tracks for me because one of the British cooking
youtubers shows I watch frequently.
They talk about making a quick pickle and reference like a
bunch of different veggies. That makes no sense.
Quick pickle here. It makes no sense for a couple
of reasons. One, we've already established,
but how is any pickle quick? Isn't the whole point of that
that it takes a while? The pickle, but it's
approximating a pickle in like the flavor.
I can already tell that this part of the episode is going to
be what people comment on the most.
I know there's going to be discourse with a capital DI know
I'm now. Also thinking back to our cheese
and pickle sandwich confusion as we recall, because, you know, it
turned out that pickle was referring to something that was
like a relish, like a bunch of different veggies cut off
pickled Branson's pickle, which I got and tried and still have.
And wait a minute. Wait a minute, are you telling
me that that's not actual pickle chopped up?
Like, I know that it's relish, but there's no Pickles.
It's not. Cucumbers.
It's a bunch of different veggies.
I can't. Even words have meaning.
Words have meaning. Brits.
What the hell? I know.
No, but I, I thought we had established that it wasn't just
a pickle chopped up. That it was.
Oh. You thought made into a rel.
Because relish is Relish is literally Pickles like.
A relish, but. Relish is Pickles.
Let's see, it's. I looked up Branston pickle and
it says that it's made from diced root vegetables.
Yeah. Weed, carrots, onions and
cauliflower. It was really good.
Spiced vinegar sauce. They're like.
They're little crunchy poppy bits.
It was so fucking good. But normally.
Just like a common is Pickles, yeah.
But it was like a chutney, so which is like a relish.
So it was compared like comparing to give a frame of
reference, right? But.
That didn't that did not come through because I would never
take pickle relish and then think it was other vegetables I.
Don't know that I've ever had relish on anything.
Like a hot dog, I've. Never put it on anything.
Maybe I should be putting relish on stuff I don't think I've.
Ever had relish? But I'm relish curious.
I am not relish curious too because like I just.
It's like a hot dog. I mean, they're it's Pickles.
Fuck, what am I doing? We don't even have relish on
that. That I am always curious about.
And, you know, this is just go going back to me going to
concerts all the time. But every time you leave or you
go to a concert or truck party, food truck, fucking hot dog food
trucks, hot dog carts, anywhere. Yes.
And they smell so good. Freaking good.
They got the onions and the Peppers and everything.
I know, I'm like, I know that that's gonna eat my stomach up,
but I want to try it. No, like, what are the odds that
I might get food poisoning? But they smell so good.
They do. I know exactly what you're gonna
say. Yeah, yeah.
Do we? Have Branston Pickles still.
I could do a little cheese sandwich with some Branston
pickle. Anyway, yes it should be Pickled
cucumber, not pickle. No it like other vegetables
would be pickled, while a pickle is just a pickle.
Why does? Cucumber get to be special
because. That's just how it is.
I didn't make the rules. I didn't make the rules.
It's just how it is you. But you should have seen how
long I was staring at the menu thinking Pickled cucumber.
What? It makes sense to me.
Actually, it makes sense to me that all vegetables are equally
pickled and just the preparation is pickle.
Pickle all. Vegetables.
Cucumbers, not special. What the fuck did?
Cucumbers do. They're Pickles.
Nah, they're. Pickles I'm on the British side
with this. I'm I'm with the UKI think it
makes more sense. I think it's more logical and I
like it. Do you?
Actually believe. I don't know if I believe you.
I know, I know. Like, are you doing this to take
the piss? I know.
I'm 100% that system makes more sense.
I think the US OK. If you pickle the carrot, which
they sell this thing at the store that has like spicy
vinegar and all the vegetables are soaked, nowhere does it say
pickle on it because there's no Pickles.
I. Bet all the rest of the world is
just everything is pickled vegetable and the US and US by
osmosis are the only ones who actually call cucumbers Pickles
because that's the default I think.
You're just going against the US, no.
I'm not. That's the normal thing up here
too to call. They're called Pickles here.
I just think it's more logical that all vegetables are equally
pickled if. I said do you want a pickle?
And then I handed you a pickled carrot.
Know what? You mean 'cause I'm North
American too and we call them Pickles?
If I handed you a carrot, that would be crazy.
You should call. It a pickled carrot like a
Pickled cucumber. You can call it a.
Kickle. But then like, what would I call
a? Pickled cauliflower collie ikl.
OK, I'm now calling every vegetable just its first 2
letters plus pickle. So grickle with a grickle green
bean pickle. Well, that.
Would need to be. Gribickle a green.
Bickel Bickel Wikipedia says a Pickled cucumber, commonly known
as a pickle in the US and Canada, and a Gherkin in
Britain, Ireland, South Africa and they.
Do have a separate name for it? Yep.
But is called Gherkin, a smaller pickle that's like sweet.
That's usually what I've experienced is yeah, those are
the small, the small ones, yeah. Do they not even have do they
have kosher Pickles? I know how UK how do you live
they've? Got big Pickles over there I'm
pretty sure. Oh, apparently pickle cucumbers
were first developed for workers building the Great Wall of
China. Wow.
You know what, it's probably because the electrolytes
whenever I have a cramp in my leg.
You know what you do? Eat a pickle.
Gets rid of it like magic.
Also. If you've eaten something really
greasy like a pickle, will counter that because the acid
fuck where's. Chase with my pickle like.
What vegetable is he going to bring you?
Well, we only. Have pickled cucumbers.
So either he's making me a Branston and cheese sandwich or
he's bringing me a Pickled cucumber.
I still think their system is more logical.
If I could retrain my brain I would, but there's no point
going against the flow of culture.
So you know, that's just my stance.
You can't. Help it, she's too closely tied
to British culture. Do you see when I said you have
a nature? A nature of accepting logic and
facts, yes, but still acknowledging the Moray in which
I live. Yes, being.
Contrary. Anyway, there were other things
on the menu. I would get the Caesar salad
with the smoked anchovies. Oh yes.
Can I just say this dude's name? Albie.
Oh yeah, we're interviewing him. We're, we're not technically
here to talk about food. We did go out on a 30 minute
digression about Pickles. It's important.
It is. It is.
Very important feel like. I learned a lot, but yeah, can I
just say that this guy's name, Albie sounds like a Harry
Potter, like Generation 2 point O name, like an alternative
universe like Albus Severus name Albie Simpson White Albie
Simpson White Albus Severus. Yeah, It's the Muggle version,
Yeah. Of a Harry Potter name.
Exactly 1 of the ways that you know that these books are
written by JK Rowling. I.
Wondered if in Albie Simpson White's case, the Albie's short
for Albion because we don't find out his full name in the book.
It's got to be short for something right?
And Albion is what the classic Greeks called Britain.
One of the possible root words for the Albion was the proto
word for White, which in Latin Albus.
Right, because it circles back to Dumbledore, the White
connection I. Assumed it was short for Albert
OH. Yeah, that's probably way more
normal. Robin's internal monologue when
Albie is describing sort of person Rupert is was interesting
to me because to me it reads similarly to other internal
monologues, but from Strike it just sounds like a lot more
jaded and world weary. Where it says this didn't tally
remotely with the idea Robin had formed of Rupert Fleetwood, who
she'd been picturing as just another of the wealthy, wellborn
young male Londoner she'd come across during her detective
career. They existed like tourists in
their own city, taking the best of what it had to offer and
never needing to dirty their feet where regular people trod
unless they hit some personal crisis, usually a sudden drop in
funds caused either by an allowance withholding parent or
an out of control drug habit. What?
She's talking about reminds me a bit of Raphael Chisel, although
presumably most of the men she's talking about don't end up
murdering. We can.
Only hope not. Tourists in their own city also
reminded me a bit of Matthew too, yeah.
Totally, he was. Focused on the littering surface
too, but. Matthew knows about the mango
tree fools. He's clearly very cosmopolitan.
Well, the mango tree, you've got me there.
But I suppose my point is that Robin has now spent almost seven
years seeing some of the worst sides of London and of men in
London. It makes sense that she's become
a bit jaded and weary of it. She's no longer the optimistic
and inexperienced contrast to Strike, I think.
There's a little clue in here that tells us that Rupert is
still alive, especially coming right after Strikes interview
with Jim Todd where there was that whole thing where Todd said
was instead of saying is about Larry McGee.
So Robin asks Alby if he likes Rupert and if they were friends.
Yeah, said Alby with a slight smile.
He's a good guy. So it's the he's a good guy.
We all know and suspect that Alby knows Rupert left and why I
don't think he knows where he is.
I think that he does know that he's alive though, and this is
telling us that he knows that. That was the impression I got as
well. But going back to the picture
that Robin has formed a Rupert in her mind, and we know that
Strike thinks even worse of him than Robin does.
This interview is what starts sort of stripping the paint from
that mental picture, if you will, right?
Because it's dropping some big clues that maybe they've both
misjudged him. It starts off with Robin being
confused by Albie and Rupert's relationship after she gets to
know Albie a bit, right? It says she was slightly puzzled
to know why Rupert Fleetwood, whose behavior regarding the
stolen Neff and towards his pregnant girlfriend suggested
fecklessness and unkindness, should have been good friends
with a young man who seemed decent, hard working and
responsible. So it's a puzzle piece that
doesn't fit. And if the piece doesn't fit,
that means either there's some kind of secret tying together
Albion, Rupert, or Strike and Robin's assumptions about Rupert
are wrong there. Really is a theme of misjudging
someone's character in this book in particular.
Obviously they've done it with clients before, but there are
two big relationships that they each do it with that parallel.
This. I think so.
Robin with Strike and then Strike with Rokeby?
Absolutely. Robin sees Rupert as a man who
can't commit to the woman he claimed to love and just up and
left her, and Strike sees him as a man who ditched a pregnant
woman and left a baby boy to be fatherless.
They're both projecting pretty heavily onto Rupert, if you ask
me. Robin with her hurt with Strike,
and Strike with his hurt with Rokeby.
Ouch, you're right. They both really do.
We. Find out that Albion Rupert are
pretty close friends and a bit about Rupert's personality.
So he was steady. He'd been unhappy at the
boarding school and what he wanted most was family, which is
really upsetting that just when he thought he'd started a new
family with death. So I was like, oops.
Two family. Oops.
Family got a dial back on the family.
But you know what family can also be what you make it.
No, I really hope that they can fall out of love and Co parent
because they could actually have a really nice family.
My hope for each of them is that 10 years down the line, they've
each married really nice people and they're all great friends,
and they just have this really strong extended family for the
kid, and they can have a different kind of love.
Yeah, that would be really great, like.
Daiyu and will not Daiyu Lynn. Exactly.
Yeah. I mean, Robin says they're going
to love each other for the rest of her life.
I think that's because she's that's a projection, right?
But it doesn't actually mean that they can't fall out of
love. I think this is my hope for
them. He.
Also tells Robin that she shouldn't judge Rupert because
of the Neff, suggesting that there's a good reason he took
it. So not for money or because he's
a criminal, but there must be something personal that
justifies it. Do you know being the worst is
all the justification I need, right?
I would rob him blind. And you would think that Strike
would be cool with this too. Did he not steal those Latin
books from the dude because he patronized him?
Or supplies from the army because he wanted them I assume.
Maybe there's like an upper price limit for strike?
Not an F, no. But strike the he's a
kleptomaniac. He should be 100% on the
Rupert's side of this. Stealing out of pure spite is
the best kind of stealing. He.
Gets it also. Can't wait for sleep tight
Evangeline where Strike is going to be Mr. Steal Yo Girl because
his crime spree is escalating. The best theft of all, Yeah.
The ultimate heist, The crowning achievement of crime I want.
To sing Mr. Steal You're a Girl, but we can't do the rest because
it does outfit. That's a Charlotte song.
Moving on to Albie's feelings about Dino and the longcasters.
I'm not like a huge Albie fan just because he's being cagey
and I don't like when people are cagey, but when he said that he
wouldn't piss on Valentine if he was on fire, I felt that in my
soul. I thought Dalby seemed like a
decent guy and his opinions about the Lancasters and
Valentine in particular are very accurate.
I. Definitely don't dislike him,
it's just his caginess that annoys me a little bit but I
appreciated his brutal honesty. I think if he knew about the
baby that he would fess up. I think it's hard for us because
we know but for him it's just a breakup which why should he tell
Decima where he is if it's just a breakup right?
This is why JK Rowling needed Decima to be a bit strange and
making this request because it wouldn't make sense for same
people like Albie to keep Rupert's secret when everyone
knows there's a baby involved. I'd like to think that most of
us haven't worked for people as awful as the long casters, but
having terrible bosses is relatable.
Unfortunately, yeah, I have. Luckily not had any experience
quite as bad as Dino Lancaster, some have come pretty close the
whole. Bit about Dino getting upset if
women didn't look a certain way. It's awful but also a tiny bit
funny on a reread. Knowing that when he meets
Robin, he's gonna tell her that she shouldn't wear black, right?
He's. Right.
Consistent. And correct, yeah, he's just
into fashion. I bet he'd be real into Project
Runway. I'm surprised that you didn't
suggest America's Next Top Model given the fucked up things that
Tyra was asking the girls to do. He wouldn't be a fan.
She'd have him on as an advisor. I can see that Alby says that
there's only one person Dino likes and that's his daughter
Cosima because she's thin, blonde and good looking and I'm
thinking, well that's Robin. It's been a while since I read
that chapter with Robin, but the impression from my memory of it
is not that he didn't seem to like Robin, but he really
thought he was helping her with that advice about her coloring.
He genuinely thinks that this is helpful to people to insult them
or, you know, tell them they don't look good.
Yeah, I mean, he did seem reasonably nice, but.
He probably likes her because she's one of those things.
Thin, blonde, good looking. Yeah, I was going.
To say he wasn't particularly warm to Robin, but he wasn't
really nice to Cosma either, so maybe that's just how he treats
people he likes. Yeah.
You know, he must be really awful to the ones he doesn't
well. Yeah, I mean, we already got a
taste of that in this chapter when Albie talks about Dino's
nickname for Rupert. Yeah, that.
Part's really hard to read. If I were Rupert, the way I
would fantasize about having the most epic Dawson's Creek style
monologue telling off and storming out scene, I'd never be
able to pull it off in real life.
In my head though, it would be great.
Same. It'd be so powerful, you know?
It would be so good when I'm practicing it in the shower.
I would just really put him in his place.
He'd really land. He'd be devastated there.
Really is nothing more satisfying than winning a good
shower argument. Dino called him the jellyfish
BLOB of brainless, semi sentient matter, invasive of species,
fundamentally pointless, a drip off the old BLOB.
What's ironic about this is that he's trying to insult Rupert's
bloodline, his DNA. But plot twist, his DNA is so.
Incredibly. Cruel and to your own son.
Even though Jellyfish creep me out, I can still acknowledge
that they're really interesting and unique creatures and some of
them can be like weirdly beautiful as the longest.
They don't come here very close to touching me.
So he's being very rude to both Rupert and Jellyfish.
And Jelly What? Do you have against fish the.
Text the wetness, the texture, the.
Wetness. I don't.
Want them to touch me because. They live in water.
They're not just naturally wet. Yeah.
But when you touch them, they're going to be wet.
It just. Makes me laugh because every
time we mention sea creatures because I've always been
obsessed with them and Pooles has a she's like what's his face
guard and a maid of the silver sea with the octopus.
Yep, devil fish. It's like this visceral I.
Appreciate them for being cool. I just don't want them to touch
me because I appreciate they're not just over there.
Just stay cool over there where you can't touch me.
That's. I want to do one of those spas
where the fish come pull the dead skin off of your feet or
whatever. Again, I'd rather break my leg.
No thanks. Anyway, did Dino know that
Rupert was possibly his actual son because he was having an
affair with his mother? He can presumably do the basic
math right? I don't.
Know but is that like a projection then when he's
calling him a drip off the old BLOB invasive species?
That's why I'm saying it's ironic because it's to RIP off
the old. He's trying to insult his
bloodline but dude knowing. Dino's personality.
It would honestly make sense to me that he did know and that's
why he was extra mean to reboot, because it seems like the kind
of twisted behavior I would expect from him.
You know, it's funny because I would think the exact opposite.
Given Dino's inability to keep his Dick in his pants literally
at any time, I wouldn't be surprised if it had just
completely slipped his mind that he had had sex with Rupert's
mother at one point. I just feel like you would go
somewhere different with your insults.
I guess I was thinking because he'd see parts of himself that
he doesn't like in Rupert, you know, like the not hot parts
because Dino's not hot. He likes hot, but he's not.
And then he take pleasure in tormenting him because of it.
Because that's repressed, right? Like smashing a mirror, you see
a bad reflection in SO. I'll be speaking, he says.
Mr. Lancaster pointed out the Neff to one of his friends in
front of Rupert and said he'd won it off his waiter's father.
And then he said Peter Fleetwood was even worse at backgammon
than he was at skiing. And that's how Roop's parents
died, said Albie. And he was no longer red, but
rather white. I'm just thinking, you take that
neph Rupert. I kind of wish he had taken it
and hit him over the head with it while he was at it.
Just heated it right in his face.
Yeah, I'm with him. I'm a. 100% of Rupert's side
with this one, and Albie's face turning white with his emotion
about how gratuitously cruel that was really shows he did
genuinely care about Rupert and he's a fundamentally decent guy
and he. Left his job that paid a lot of
money to work retail because the longcasters mistreated people.
That shows integrity on his side.
It does so while they're discussing Rupert and Decima's
relationship. Robin says this to Albie.
I think it'd be kinder for her in the long run to know the
truth rather than be told lies and left wondering why, if
Rupert was supposed to genuinely care about her, he disappeared.
Follow your own advice, girlfriend.
Yeah. I can imagine Joe kind of
smirking when she writes this because you know the.
Truth second. To last thing is about the last
time that Albie saw Rupert. And I think it's clear to
everyone that Albie's lying at this point about not being in
touch with Rupert. Robin is certain that he's
lying, and I absolutely trust Robin's certainties as long as
they're not preceded by. She thought.
No, she knew. Oh, because that is bullshit.
You can. Trust her work certainties, not
her certainties about her feelings.
Those are the. Opposite.
Nobody is buying what Alby is selling here at all.
That's. Two chapters in a row where
they're into being a bad liar, but very.
Different. Very different I.
Love Robin shaking his hand and not letting go.
That is such a strike level power move.
The first time I read this I was just like, oh you know, it's so
good. I felt a little bad because
clearly he's a nice kid, he's trying to help his friend, but
Robin was just so cool, so there.
So. Cool, cool as a.
Cucumber. Cool as a cucumber Who is a who
is a Pickled cucumber? Yep.
I think she uses this tactic specifically because she can see
that Alby's decent, that he does care, so she's safe to be a bit
more forceful than she might be with a hostile witness.
Right? She's applying pressure because
she can sense that it would be possible to break him down with
it, whereas this kind of thing wouldn't work with someone who's
likely to go on the attack against her, you know?
Yeah, very smart. It almost worked.
Nothing. Sums up this interview more than
when Robin says Albie. I think there's something you're
not telling me. I'm not sure if Albie knows
where Rupert is. I do think he's in touch with
him and I do think that he probably knows about he and
Decima being related. He definitely.
Knows about the relatives thing because Rupert told him he had
to tell someone. I think he also might know where
Rupert is actually, because he met up with Tish and Tish has
visited Rupert in Sardinia because she got that Brank
consultancy job from terrorists to pay off the Neff, right.
So I think that connection I'll be does probably know where he
is because Dish does you know when.
Robin is pressing. I'll be at the end of the
chapter. He ends their conversation by
saying sometimes you're better off not knowing things.
And obviously this makes me think of literally everything
between Shrike and Robin, everything that they've built
their relationship on, finding truth, solving mysteries, but
also everything they've kept from each other, like their
feelings and the things they try to hide.
I guess my feeling is how not true this is in most situations.
Yeah, especially in situations where there are romantic
feelings between business partners and best friends.
It's definitely better to know in those situations.
Absolutely. Always, always.
Answer the question exactly. Always answer the question.
Better that than regret it all your life.
That certain line pops in my head though, from the running
grave. Truth to strike with sacrosanct.
You know we loved that line. I loved that line.
It's a great time also to quote Dumbledore when he says.
It is my belief that the truth is generally preferable to lies
and. Yet in the epilogue of this
book, Strike has apparently come to realize that sometimes it's
not so black and white when it comes to telling the lie and the
truth. They should also not tell him
the truth about his name. Let's be honest.
Do you? Need to ask Strike And Robin
looked at him in surprise. She'd have assumed Strike would
think the truth, however unpalatable, was always
preferable to a lie, and she couldn't help remembering his
angry advice to her. We aren't fucking social
workers. And then later, Robin felt a
wave of fondness for her partner, which immediately
occasioned an inner spasm of guilt.
She wasn't supposed to melt inwardly at Strike, showing
unexpected sensitivity and compassion when the man she
claimed to love was probably debating right now when exactly
he should produce that diamond ring.
Fucking never. Murphy, I'll answer that one for
you. Melt inwardly but.
Yeah, by the end of this book, Strike still values truth, but
it seems like he values kindness and family a lot more now than
he might once have. I wonder whose influence that
is. I.
Know. Also, I love that after that,
it's not a full chapter before he's right back to you had to
know, but that's what's called discernment.
Having the wisdom to see when truth is necessary and not so
much and when it's super necessary.
That feels. Like a perfect place to end.
It does. Yeah.
OK, so let's go into a partner's chat.
Partners chat, let's do it. How are you guys?
Much better Good. If.
Things continue to be like painful, then I'll have to do
like a pelvic ultrasound and then they'll probably be able to
see anything that's not supposed to be there.
Those are not as bad as you'd think.
Really. No, it's good.
It's a pretty thin wand, honestly.
Good. They'll bust it out and you'll
be like, whoa, that's a that's going in there.
But all right, it's really fine. But I'm feeling better.
They gave me like 3 different kinds of antiemetics when I left
the hospital the last time. So yeah, they set me up.
They were like, listen, we don't want you coming back here.
But it took me like over a week to eat solid food and then like
I couldn't take any of my medication.
Yeah. And when you don't take your
medication for like a week, it cannot feel good.
Yeah, well, you seem a bit better lively.
Yes, much much. When is your next period
supposed to be my next my? Next period listen, you're going
to have to be share your period tracking app with us Totally
normal, totally, totally data private.
Fine, don't worry my. Projected start date is on the
14th of May be after we already record for the next batch
because we're recording for that I think, yeah, next weekend,
yeah. Are we awesome?
Is that? Good, yeah.
Chase's birthday is the 17th and this weekend is our anniversary
weekend, so if I was recording on our anniversary weekend and
then his birthday weekend, I think he'd be a little annoyed.
Guess what I asked for and got her.
He is annoyed, very annoyed, yeah.
He would be, but we don't need more stuff.
Like I don't want gifts, but our vacuum broke and I did want to
splurge on a very nice new vacuum that will last forever.
So what is arriving today is the Dyson V-15 Detect cordless
vacuum please. Send a link.
Oh yeah, this is how you know that you're middle age.
You've reached it. I am.
So. Fucking so excited.
Oh hang on, I'll send you the American site.
You know what's? So annoying though, David never
wants to buy anything new unless it's completely broken and he'll
try so hard to fix something. That's when.
You have an accident with a hammer.
Oops, oops, someone broke in and smashed this one thing that I
desperately want to replace my. Parents have that, yeah.
Is it nice? Do they like it?
You're like, oh, I'm not saying otherwise.
The only thing that I don't like is that if you get a lot of pet
hair in it, it will start to smell when you run it.
Oh, OK. So make sure you clean it, yeah.
Or clean. Yeah, clean it out.
Yeah, those Dyson vacuums are good.
Anyway, I'm. Really excited.
Congratulations on your vacuum. Thank.
You I will report back next partners chat about how my
vacuum journey is going because vacuum.
Journey, well I hate. Cleaning.
I hate vacuuming, but I feel like if I get a very exciting
new toy to vacuum with, I'll be more likely to do it.
OK, you know so does. That mean that you did not hire.
No, because I couldn't fucking find anyone A.
Nice shirtless man to come clean your house they.
Couldn't even find it like a regular one or anyone much.
Less fucking. No one.
So I gave up. We'll try again when we buy a
house next year or whatever and move.
Yeah. Speaking of buying things, so
you know, this has been a whole journey as well an impulse
journey. Oh, is.
This the fish it's. Pat's fault.
It's all Pat's fault because her fish tank reminded me that I
like fish tanks. And then I've liked having a
beta before. So then what happened was I got
a beta and like 3 gallon tank for it and then I was like, oh,
can I add other things in there? Yes, you can.
But then he got too stressed because the other fish were
really energetic and he was stressed because he was hiding.
So I got another tank for him. But then I was like, oh, it's
kind of small. I feel bad.
And then I had a fish die. RIP.
That's really. Sad, you know.
What? I was over it pretty quickly.
I tried hard to save her though, I really did.
I've done. It.
You're upset about it? Yeah.
A little, but that's that's OK. I know you did your best to save
her. I.
Put her in an isolation tank and we didn't feed her for a couple
days because that's what it said to do.
I bought antibiotics for a $6 fish.
I bought $20 antibiotics. She was looking so much better.
And then I woke up and she was not better.
So I was like, well, I guess I got to go to PetSmart.
There's a tropical fish store right next to it.
But I was, like, going to try PetSmart first because Abby
wanted to go get Shanker a toy. Two birds, one store.
Yeah, but they didn't have it. But anyway, PetSmart was having
a big sale. All their tanks were half off.
So there's a 5 gallon tank for 40 bucks which is 2 more gallons
of the one I have. But then I turn the aisle. 10
gallon tank $46. How can I say No 10?
Gallons. How can?
I say no, it does. It makes financial sense.
Absolutely yes. Like price per gallon I.
Know you gotta break the tank. You get the tank then.
Now we're going to tropical fish store because now I need more
fish naturally. But we got a few more fish, got
the tank all set up. I just sit there and watch it
like it's the TV. Nice, that's good.
Does this eventually end with you basically living in an
aquarium? That would.
Be very cool. We're going to see Project Hail
Mary tomorrow, so that's an hour and a half drive both ways.
Oh. My gosh, I.
Know for a. Theater, where do you live?
It's like small towns nowhere Canadian cities have theaters.
We're just not in a fucking city.
Awful. Because it's the same distance
to the fucking Costco and. This is again, it's upsetting.
Canada is a hellscape in. Kitchener.
I lived 10 minutes down the road from the Costco.
Yeah, and another Costco across the street from my
father-in-law. Like we had all all the.
Costco I was. Spoiled for choice sometimes.
I didn't even go to Costco and now I'm like I.
Would kill for a Costco. I would.
I might I want. To make a trip out to the
theater to go see that sheep detective movie that looks very
cute I. Don't want to see that it.
Looks so cute though. It does, and I would just be
sitting here thinking about Robin's Daddy and Taco I.
Know I just feel bad for the sheep that they're a shepherd
dies that's upsetting who's going to take care of them
they're. Emotionally resilient.
I think they'll be OK. They're going to take care of
the sheep. I.
Generally. Know the previews get me so
worried for that. Look who's looking after the
sheep though. They will look after themselves.
Because they are. Strong and domesticated.
Solving a murder, I think, like, feed to themselves.
Yeah. I think that they're going to
band together. The death of their shepherd is
going to band them together with the power of friendship.
Oh my. God, well, the power of
friendship can overcome anything.
Let me know if it's good and if I should watch it.
Let me know if the sheep are taken care of and I can like
like watch. It I need to know about the
welfare of the sheep. How do you watch things?
It's hard, OK. But.
It I mean, yeah, I do like, what's his face?
Yeah, that. Seems like the sort of thing
that I would want to be like sat in a comfortable seat with
overpriced food and a thing of popcorn that I'm so.
Excited for theater popcorn? Yeah.
It looks cute. I want to see it.
I think it looks cute too. The thought of sheep solving
murder. It just.
It sounds too cute. Yeah, A nice cozy mystery.
I. Would be sitting there the whole
time imagining Robin's dad taking the grandkids there.
It would. Be something that Robin and her
dad could bond over solving Murders in sheep.
It's the perfect crossover. It's the perfect father
daughter. The Movie.
Together. That would be so fucking cute.
Carmen comes too. They take him out for Father's
Day in the year 2026. That would be really cute.
I would be. I would be unable to think of
anything else sitting there watching that movie.
I'm sorry. That's why it would be so great,
because you. Know that Michael Ellicott's
gonna like, have thoughts about the.
Sheep and how it's unrelated. How the sheep look about how
they're behaving. You know, he's gonna have
thoughts about the shepherd's sheep breeding program.
Yeah, it would be so good that. Would be so fun.
Who's gonna take care of the sheep?
They're human though. It's insane.
I'm. Pretty sure that they probably
don't care. They do.
This is like the same kind of thing that she's like, yeah, I
could be friends with lions. Well, they eat other people, but
I'm built different. Would they?
Recognize that we're kindred souls.
I don't know. Maybe, maybe not.
I don't know, just saying I didn't.
Lock my door because David's bringing me Starbucks soon.
Oh, nice. So I'm expecting possibly at
some point, Abby to come barge it in.
Maybe she'll be naked. We never know.
Yeah, I was about to say, the chances always seem to be about
5050. She's kind of getting over it
now, now that she's a big girl who's potty trained, she likes
her underwear. Good for.
Her, I mean. It's about time.
I thought she was going to be 15 in pull ups.
Yeah. Eventually she was going to get
it my. Mom had to anthropomorphize the
little Disney princesses that were on my underwear when I
progressed to big girl panties. They're like the princesses
don't like being pooped on. Yeah, that's smart.
I don't like that. And you know what?
Didn't try that. No, I Paul's going to love this
so much because she had going pee down.
Fine. But with kids, that's always the
hardest part because some kids are really scared of it.
They don't know what's going on. We had to make that itself, a
character that needed to come out.
Yeah. Gotta anthropomorphize the
piece, right? I don't.
Oh, yeah. Don't love it.
Well, if anyone needs potty training tips, just there you
go, You know, Mr. Poop needs to get out.
And then Abby will speak for it and say no, I'm never coming
out. But then all of a sudden she was
like, OK, and then it worked. So you know if it works, it
works. Motivation has to come from
within well. It literally it came from within
and then it was out and now we're good.
She set us up for that one so good.
It's so funny, like talking to other moms and stuff because you
can't phase other toddler moms with poop talk at all.
The way we're we're phasing, we're phasing that's, that's.
Your life. I'm phased.
She's fazed. It's.
Not my life, it's. Not my toddler poop life.
I mean, I have more to life than toddler poop, thankfully.
But you get so much rewarding love from it.
I've heard she's. Trying to trying to be.
Positive about. Kids.
Yeah so I I sent my nephew like 3 books when my sister sent a
picture and said he loves reading all so I sent him the
book called the grumpy. Grumpy monkey, yeah.
Grumpy Monkey book, have you seen that?
Yeah, apparently he. Really loves it.
I can give you some book suggestions that my kids loved,
yeah. That'd be awesome because yeah,
I like buying him books. That's fun.
So if. You live closer, would you do
diaper changes? That's.
Not my job. I can like cook for her, I'm not
doing that. But if?
You if you babysat. Oh, I don't think she would want
me to babysit. No.
Why? I don't think she'd be is a very
reliable babysitter. To be honest.
I would not want to be the babysitter.
She's like I will. Politely.
Decline. No.
Maybe when he's older. I'm really afraid of breaking
babies. I don't really want to, and I
know that's because I don't have a lot of experience with them
and you know, they don't break or whatever, but I think they do
break. I know.
They don't break, but I think that I think they could break.
So once he's older, what's older to you?
I don't. Have to do anything involving a
toilet. Ideally can have like a
conversation. So years, yeah, You miss all the
fun stuff. Yeah, I don't live close enough.
Anyways, I'll see him at the wedding.
OK, so that's the book. And then if you look down,
there's also ABC123 Animal Opposites First words.
There's a bunch of these ones. Oh cute Alpha Prince alpha.
Prince. Oh yeah, we got them.
Oh, they're cheap too. Only one left in stock and it's
40% off. Yeah, the kids really like these
books. This is how Jack learned his
colors. Purchased.
Thank you for the recommendation, I will report
back. I'm sure he will.
He's a very smart baby. How old?
Is he now? Question.
Four months ish. I think it's a.
Fun age, so he'll. Be 8 months at her wedding.
What are? We doing next time Kens, we are
starting Part 3 next time we're doing chapters 31 through 33.
And in that set of chapters we see culpepper running his second
hit piece on strike with the candy, the sex worker stuff we
see strike losing his temper and then rookie and Sasha Lagarde
contact the office. This set of chapters, man, they
really set me on a on a loop rereading them.
It was an emotional roller coaster that'll do it for this
episode. Thank you so much for listening.
If you enjoy what you've heard, don't forget to follow us on
social media. We're on Twitter, Instagram and
Tumblr at the SC Files pod. You can also contact us on our
website at the SC Files pod.com or e-mail us directly at
scfilespodcast@gmail.com. Thank you so much again for
listening and we hope to catch you next time for another
episode of The Strike and Ellicott Files.