Page 119 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

See, therefore, that first controlling your own temper, and governing your own passions, you fit yourself to keep peace and harmony among other men, and especially the brethren.

Albert Pike Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Rite of Scottish Freemasonry

It took a full forty-eight hours for the whites of Strike’s eyes to recover from the pepper spray, during which time he had an emergency tetanus shot and passed his video footage of the dog fight, and the names and addresses of Plug and his friends, to police in Ipswich.

The bites to Strike’s inner thigh meant walking was even more painful than usual, yet his mood remained buoyant throughout.

Not only had Robin agreed to go to Sark with him, she’d chosen not to answer Murphy’s phone call on Valentine’s Day, and her feelings towards Strike seemed to have reverted to their usual state.

Admittedly, Strike didn’t know exactly what that state was, but their friendship, at least, appeared to have been mysteriously and completely repaired.

The universe had apparently decided that, instead of being the butt of a cruel cosmic joke, Strike was to be granted a modicum of hope, and so elated was he, both by the restoration of normal relations with Robin and the fact that he hadn’t fathered a daughter, he was now daring to wonder whether he might have a chance to make the declaration he’d so recently deemed impossible, at some propitious point on the island of Sark.

The earliest he and Robin could travel to the island was on Wednesday of the following week, because the ferry from Guernsey didn’t carry passengers on Monday or Tuesday in the off-season.

Pat had booked the detectives rooms at the Old Forge, the only B Murphy might not be doing it consciously, but she could tell he simultaneously wanted to punish her and push her into admissions that were either reassurances or rebuffs.

He became conciliatory once he heard the pain in her voice, and Robin, too tired to want an argument, forced herself to respond in kind.

The short conversation that followed resolved nothing, and while it ended with Robin in Murphy’s arms, she had to force herself to lie there quietly, with the familiar twist of anger and distress in the pit of her stomach.

‘You all right?’ said Pat gruffly, removing her e-cigarette to ask the question, when Robin entered the office the following morning.

‘Fine,’ said Robin.

She’d just seen something on Instagram which, while not dispelling her personal troubles, had at least forced them to the back of her mind.

‘D’you know where Kim is?’ she asked Pat.

‘She’s in Forest Gate, trying to find that Hussein Mohamed’s house.’

‘How’re you getting on with Powell?’ asked Robin, looking at the long lists of pubs with ‘silver’ in the name, most of them crossed out, that lay on the office manager’s desk. Silver End, Colchester; Silver Ball, Cornwall; Silver Hind, Lymington…

‘No luck. Has he told you’ – Robin knew Pat was talking about Strike, whom she always called ‘he’ when he wasn’t around – ‘there’s only one B fat Barnaby and the fragile-looking Dirk.

With yet another pang of guilt, Robin was reminded that she still hadn’t bought either of her new nephews presents.

She moved into the inner office, sat down at the partners’ desk and was about to call Kim when her mobile buzzed with a text.

To her surprise, she saw a message from Wynn Jones, Tyler Powell’s friend, whom she’d texted the previous day, reiterating her request for an interview, and assuring him that she wasn’t working for the Whiteheads.

Jones’ text had a picture of Robin that had appeared in the press two years previously. He’d written: Is this you?

Yes , Robin texted back. Why?

To her displeasure, Jones responded with a drooling emoji.

Robin knew the world was full of young men whose instinctive reaction to any passable-looking woman was sexualised banter.

She also knew that, in the interests of fostering this new line of communication, she should respond with a laughing emoji.

She did so, unsmiling, then took a deep breath, and called Kim Cochran.

‘Hi,’ said Kim, answering within a few rings. ‘What’s up?’

‘Any luck with the Mohameds’ house?’

‘Not yet,’ said Kim.

‘Right,’ said Robin. ‘Well, I wanted to talk to you about the dark-haired girl Albie Simpson-White met, in the Sun in Splendour.’

‘Clarissa, yeah. What about her?’

‘Well, for a start, her name isn’t Clarissa,’ said Robin. ‘That was Laetitia Benton, the girl we’ve been trying to trace.’

‘No,’ said Kim, with complete confidence, ‘her name was Clarissa, he was calling her “Riss” or something for short.’

‘Laetitia Benton’s friends call her “Tish”,’ said Robin, ‘and I know that was her, because she’s just accepted my follower request in Instagram. The most recent pictures are of her on holiday, not in Sicily, which is where you said she was going, but in Sardinia.’

‘OK, fine, I misheard,’ said Kim dismissively. ‘But we know where she’s living now, so when she comes back from Sardinia—’

‘Thanks to you not taking that bit of surveillance seriously, we’ve missed an opportunity to speak face to face with one of the people who was closest to Rupert Fleetwood before he disappeared. She was our best lead.’

‘I always take surveillance seriously,’ snapped Kim, ‘but that pub was very noisy, and I’m not the only one who’s made a mistake late—’

‘Did you tell Strike you might not have heard correctly?’ asked Robin.

‘I thought I had heard correctly, so why would I tell him I hadn’t? Sorry, but I think you’re making a really big deal out of this, for some reason. You can email her, can’t you?’

‘I’d have thought a woman of your experience would know that it’s far harder for witnesses to refuse to talk in person,’ said Robin.

‘“Witnesses”,’ scoffed Kim. ‘We don’t even know that she knows anything!’

‘So you only put in effort when you’ve decided it’s worth it?’

‘No,’ said Kim, with yet another of her little laughs, ‘but—’

‘You know I’m a partner in this agency, right?’ said Robin.

‘Yes, obviously I—’

‘Then you might want to watch your tone.’

‘I’m just pointing out—’

‘An apology would be great,’ said Robin.

‘OK, fine, I’m sorry!’

Robin hung up.

Her outburst of anger hadn’t provided the catharsis she’d been seeking.

She looked down at her mobile to check whether Wynn Jones had texted again, but he hadn’t, so instead she switched on her computer and went to the missing persons’ website where Sapphire Neagle was listed. The girl still hadn’t been found.

After sitting in thought for a couple of minutes, Robin brought up the interior footage of Ramsay Silver she’d saved.

The existence of a blonde who’d driven the Peugeot 208 had reminded Robin of something to which she’d previously attached no importance. She fast forwarded, then pressed play as the blurry figure of the blonde customer entered Ramsay Silver.

Her face was impossible to make out, but her build was discernible: short, slim yet curvy.

Definitely not, as Robin had wanted to check, a girl who might credibly have been nicknamed ‘Olive Oyl’.

Yet she looked young from the way she moved between cabinets.

Her hair, which was wavy and fairly short, was a whitish blur.

She was wearing a dress, rather than Medina’s pink top and jeans, but carrying a fairly large tote bag over her shoulder. Could it contain a change of clothes?

Robin watched her speaking to Pamela. Pamela donned her white gloves to open a cabinet. Wright came upstairs and heaved one of the medium-sized crates off into the vault.

Todd arrived, but Robin was still watching the blonde. It did seem an odd place for a young woman to shop… of course, she might have a masonic relative…

Now Wright and Todd lifted the largest crate and disappeared from view again, while the blonde, still being attended to by Pamela, pored over something small from the very same glass cabinet from which Kenneth Ramsay had extracted the triangular pocket watch and the orb charm to show Robin.

Pamela opened the cabinet. Something undistinguishable was chosen by the blonde and Pamela moved to the till while Wright reappeared, followed a while later by Todd.

The blonde customer left, now holding a little black bag containing her purchase. Pamela descended the stairs to the vault.

Robin let the footage continue playing while thinking about the blonde and the brunette who’d both driven the Peugeot 208. Two young women, or one young woman swapping clothes and wigs? She strongly suspected the latter, and that the woman in question had been Sofia Medina.

Onscreen, the blurry figures of Wright and Todd were gesticulating at each other, Todd clearly indicating that he wanted to leave, and Wright, from his agitated hand movements, protesting.

Todd departed. Wright now stood alone, back to the camera.

At 17.55, he crossed the shop to use the crank and began to lower the metal blinds over the shop windows.

Robin reached out and pressed pause. She’d just noticed something she hadn’t registered before. She rewound.

It was almost imperceptible, but Wright had tripped slightly on his walk towards the window.

Robin was instantly reminded of a murder victim in a previous case who’d been seen to turn her heel as she’d left work.

In that instance, the explanation had been that she’d been drugged, but that seemed most unlikely in Wright’s case.

Perhaps he was just tired; he’d done a lot of lifting and carrying.

Nevertheless, Robin rewound and watched his slight stumble again, squinting in an effort to make the figure clearer, to no avail.

It looked as though his foot had hit some small obstacle, but due to the many glass cases packed onto the shop floor and the poor quality of the film, it was impossible to see what might have made him trip.

After watching the incident five times in a row she was no wiser, and turned the recording off.

As she did so, another Wynn Jones text arrived.

Wouldn’t mind being frisked by you

Just in case Robin had missed the subtle joke, he’d added two water-drop emojis, which, as Robin knew full well, could denote sweat or ejaculate. Less amused than ever, she nevertheless replied with another laughing emoji.