Page 114 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

How shall I name him?

This spare, dark-featured,

Quick-eyed stranger?

Matthew Arnold The Strayed Reveller

Strike’s anxiety about the results of the DNA test had become acute by the fourth afternoon without news, so he called Bijou while walking towards the shabby street in Holborn where the vanished Jim Todd, or Todd Jameson, as Strike now knew him to be, had lived until very recently.

‘I haven’t heard anything yet,’ Bijou snapped. ‘I’ll let you know when I do!’

‘You’re sure the samples got there, are you?’

‘Yes, I had an acknowledgment email!’

‘Some of these places get back to you within a couple of days,’ said Strike.

‘There’s been a weekend,’ said Bijou, with what Strike considered a deplorable lack of concern. ‘I told you, I’ll be in touch when I hear anything.’

He walked on, hamstring aching, his mood dark.

Not only was he on tenterhooks about the DNA results, relations with Robin continued to be icy.

Her latest communication was a long email detailing the movements of the hired Peugeot used in the Ramsay Silver theft and murder, crediting Murphy for the information in a way that suggested, passive-aggressively, that Strike ought to pass on his thanks to the CID officer.

Strike had simply responded ‘very interesting, let’s discuss’.

He’d followed this up with a brief text telling her he wanted to put surveillance on Lord Oliver Branfoot to try and find out the location of the flat where the covert filming was taking place.

Robin hadn’t responded, probably, Strike thought, because she was still angry he was trying to prove the Freemasonry connection between Oliver Branfoot and Malcolm Truman.

He arrived outside the busy Lebanese restaurant above which Todd had been living and rang each of the bells beside a grubby grey-painted side door without any response. He therefore took up a position in a doorway opposite, watching and waiting.

The restaurant operated a takeaway service as well as seated dining, and appetising smells trailed after those who passed Strike with their recently purchased dinners.

Dusk had fallen when, at last, a short young brown-skinned man, wearing a stained white tunic that suggested he was a kitchen worker, rounded the corner of the street and approached the grey door.

Strike crossed the road at once, reaching his target just as the man put his key in the lock.

‘Evening,’ said Strike. ‘Would you happen to know if Jim Todd’s in?’

‘Todd?’ repeated the young man, blinking tired, bloodshot eyes. He had thick black brows, and a faint but perceptible Punjabi accent. ‘You know him?’

‘Not well.’

‘Where is he?’

‘That’s what I was hoping to find out,’ said Strike.

‘He’s your friend?’

‘No,’ said Strike. ‘Just looking for him.’

‘He owe you money?’

‘No,’ said Strike. ‘Why?’

‘He owes me money. Fifty quid,’ said the young man. ‘Tell him that, when you find him.’

‘Lent him cash, did you?’

‘Won it off him.’

The young man turned his key in the lock, which was stiff.

‘How did you win it?’ asked Strike.

‘Poker,’ said the other, as the door opened.

‘You wouldn’t happen to be one of the people who were playing poker overnight with Todd on the night of June the seventeenth to eighteenth last year?’

The young man looked taken aback and not a little wary at this question.

‘I’m a private detective,’ said Strike, pulling out a card. ‘I’m investigating a murder. Did you have to talk to the police about Todd? Confirm an alibi?’

‘Yeah,’ said the young man.

‘He was definitely playing cards with you that night?’

‘Yeah,’ said the other.

‘Until what time?’

‘Four. He wanted to keep the game going. Wasn’t even winning.’

‘When did you last see Todd?’

‘I dunno… week, maybe? Why’re so many people after him?’

‘There’s been someone else?’ said Strike. ‘Apart from me and the police?’

‘Yeah. ’Nother guy came looking.’

‘When?’

‘Dunno,’ said the young man vaguely. ‘Wednesday?’

‘White guy?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Curly hair?’ said Strike.

‘I don’t know,’ said the kitchen worker. ‘He was wearing a hat.’

‘Wasn’t wearing sunglasses indoors, by any chance?’

‘Yeah,’ said the young man, mildly surprised by what he clearly thought was a lucky guess.

‘Did you talk to him?’

‘Yeah. He was banging on Todd’s door. I was trying to sleep. I went outside and said, “Todd’s gone. Fuck off making that noise.” He said, “where’s Todd gone?” I said, “I don’t know, but he owes me fifty quid.” He said, “you’ll never see that”, and he left.’

Strike pulled out his wallet and extracted five tenners.

‘Your help could be very valuable to me,’ he said. ‘Can you remember anything else about the man who came looking for him? Facial features? Build? Clothing? Accent?’

Eyes on the tenners, the young man said,

‘He wasn’t as big as you.’

‘OK. Anything else?’

‘When he walked away… it was funny.’

‘A limp?’

‘Kind of.’

‘Is Todd’s room still empty?’

‘No, my friend’s taken it.’

‘Would your friend mind me having a look?’

‘I can ask him.’

He led Strike into a stairwell that smelled worse than Daz and Mandy’s, back in Newham. There was a slight suspicion of stale urine. A fluorescent light overhead was flickering.

Strike hauled himself up by the banister behind the kitchen worker.

The building had clearly been adapted so as to house as many tenants as possible, and Strike doubted the alterations had been done with planning permission.

A door ahead stood ajar, revealing a grubby shower room.

Four more doors had been crammed in. His guide knocked on the second.

‘Gagandeep?’

After a minute’s conversation in Punjabi through the flimsy door, a second brown-skinned man opened up.

He was tall, bearded, equally exhausted-looking and wearing nothing but boxer shorts.

Understandably suspicious, he turned to his housemate and another conversation in rapid Punjabi ensued, at the end of which Gagandeep permitted Strike to enter.

The room, the dusty window of which looked straight on to the brick side of a building opposite, was small and contained a few pieces of very old, cheap furniture.

The narrow bed, Strike thought, must have been uncomfortable for the almost spherical Todd.

There was flaking paint on the walls, a naked overhead bulb and a much-stained carpet.

‘Did Todd leave anything behind?’ asked Strike.

‘Yeah,’ said Gagandeep.

He crossed to the wardrobe and opened it to reveal his clothes lying partially piled beneath an inadequate number of wire hangers. After a few seconds’ digging, Gagandeep retrieved an old hardbacked book, which he held out to Strike: Know When To Hold ’Em: Win Big Every Time.

‘I’d like to buy that from you,’ said Strike, pulling more cash from his wallet before handing five tenners to his first helper.

‘And if either of you see the man who was banging on Todd’s door again’ – he pointed at the card in the kitchen worker’s hand – ‘call me. There’s more money in it, if you can give me a lead on him. ’