Page 127 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

‘But I don’t know whether I do want kids,’ said Robin, and her relief at saying this to someone other than Murphy felt like taking off a tourniquet.

‘If I had a baby, I couldn’t do this any more.

I’m sure there are women who could do both, but I don’t think I’m one of them.

It isn’t that I don’t like kids, I can totally see why people want them and love having them, I get it, as much as you can when you haven’t done it yourself, but I love this so much.

It wouldn’t be the same if I had children, I’d be more worried about taking risks, I’d feel guilty about the hours, it would mean divided loyalties, and I’m worried I’d resent them for having to give this up, or not being able to give it what I can give it now.

Is that selfish?’ she asked, looking at Strike with tear-filled eyes.

‘Bloody hell, it’s the opposite of selfish,’ said Strike robustly. ‘If everyone thought properly about having kids before they did it, there’d be a lot fewer fucked-up people in the world.’

‘The doctors say I should freeze my eggs, and Ryan wants me to, he paints it as me having options… maybe I should,’ said Robin, wiping her eyes on her sleeve.

‘Maybe that’s the smart thing to do… it’s just all been forced on me, and finding out that that fucking rapist took the chance away from me… ’

She wiped her eyes, noticed the cheese sauce on her hair, and wiped that off, too.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Strike again, at a loss as to what else to say.

‘It’s fine,’ said Robin, blowing her nose. ‘It was nothing, compared to what you went through.’

‘What, my leg? It’s different, not worse,’ said Strike.

‘Once you’ve been inside a military hospital, trust me, you count your bloody blessings.

My amputation was below knee. That’s a whole different ball game to above the knee.

I’m not paraplegic. Didn’t have my genitals blown off, I’ve still got my sight – just, after that bloody spray.

I do fine.’ Afraid that it might be too soon for humour, he nevertheless added,

‘Obviously a blow, knowing I’ll never dance Swan Lake again.’

To his relief, Robin laughed.

‘D’you ever think about the person who planted the IED?’

‘Not much,’ said Strike. ‘He did what he thought he had to do. It wasn’t personal.’

‘I don’t s’pose it was personal with my rapist, either,’ said Robin.

‘That’s different,’ said Strike again.

Robin took a deep breath and said,

‘I’m really sorry I laid all this on you.’

‘What friends are for,’ said Strike.

But he’d never been in such a quandary as the one he now faced. Could he really tell her now, when she was reeling from a recent pregnancy loss, ‘Here’s something you might want to factor in when thinking about the future: I love you’?

‘Let’s just talk about the case,’ said Robin, withdrawing her hand from his. ‘Please.’

‘All right, but let’s eat first,’ said Strike.

So they ate, each consumed by their thoughts.

Strike was furiously pondering what to do for the best, trying to examine the question from all sides.

She’d just shared something deeply personal.

Didn’t that open the door for him to do the same?

They were alone together at last, in the most remote place they were ever likely to visit, where nobody else could reach them or interrupt.

Wasn’t it madness to let this chance go?

Yet he was afraid that by speaking now, when Robin was clearly already in a state of crisis, he’d transform himself, perhaps for ever, from friend and confidant into another source of pain and confusion.

Robin noticed Strike’s slight scowl, and wondered whether he was thinking her as chaotic and careless as she felt herself to be, for getting into such a mess, for slumping into her spaghetti and sobbing, and she had a sudden mental image of Kim Cochran, always neat and professional and cheerful, her personal life in perfect order.

We’ve all made mistakes. Admittedly, I never married one of mine…

When both had finished their dinner, they moved at Robin’s suggestion into the sitting room next door, which had a beamed ceiling and a brick fireplace with a wood burner, Robin carrying the wine.

‘Fire?’ suggested Strike, because the room was chilly, and while that didn’t much bother him, he knew from experience it tended to bother women.

‘Great,’ said Robin, who’d already pulled a throw off the sofa to wrap around herself.

She looked around the low-ceilinged room, at the ship in a bottle and a china horse standing on the mantelpiece, at yet another seascape on the wall and the array of pamphlets advertising the attractions of Sark spread on a side table, and thought how much she’d have liked being here if not for that text of Murphy’s.

She felt physically tired, but craved mental stimulation, and was conscious, too, of a desire to prove to Strike that she was still up to the job, no matter her personal problems.

‘So,’ she said, while Strike was busy with old newspapers and logs, ‘we’re back at the question of why Wright was killed in the vault, if it wasn’t a masonic double bluff.’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike, whose spirits had sagged at these words.

She wanted to talk about work. Was this a deliberate closing of the door on any more personal conversation?

Was she as aware as he was of the unusualness of this situation – the isolated house, the hundreds of miles between them and London – and seeking to restore relations to a professional footing?

With reluctance, and a heaviness of heart, he reached the conclusion that bringing up his own feelings right now would be a mistake; possibly an irrecoverable one.

‘All right,’ he said, having successfully lit the fire, closed the door on the wood burner and dragged himself back up into a standing position by using the mantelpiece beam, ‘what reasons do people have, for killing in particular places?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Robin.

Strike poured himself more wine and sat down in a wicker chair, which creaked loudly.

‘I can think of four.’

‘Really?’ said Robin, taken aback.

‘Yeah. Chance, convenience, opportunity and necessity.’

‘Well,’ said Robin, pulling the throw tighter around herself, soothed by having an intellectual exercise to engage her mind, and grateful for the fire, ‘it definitely wasn’t chance, was it?

Wright and his murderer didn’t find themselves in that vault at that time in the morning by chance. It was pre-arranged. Organised.’

‘Agreed,’ said Strike.

Robin drank more wine, trying to focus.

‘What came after chance?’ she asked.

‘Convenience. Covers domestic murder, in particular. I think we can discount that. As far as places to commit murder go, I’d struggle to think of one more inconvenient than an underground silver vault.’

‘So, then – opportunity?’

‘Opportunity would fit fine if the killer had been Kenneth Ramsay, Pamela Bullen-Driscoll or Jim Todd. The vault might well have been one of the very few places they’d have had the chance to bash a strong young man over the head from behind, without witnesses.

Unfortunately, they all have unbreakable alibis.

So we’re left with necessity. The vault was literally the only place the killing was possible. ’

Correctly interpreting Robin’s lack of response Strike said,

‘I can’t think why it would have been necessary to do it there, either.

Even if we accept the premise that Wright was lured to his death on the promise of a cut of the proceeds from the robbery, why did the killer make it so difficult for themselves?

If a victim’s after easy money, there are a hundred other scenarios they could be persuaded into, and they’d be bound to offer the back of their head at some point. Why there ?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Robin again. ‘I feel as though we’ve got a lot of pieces from different jigsaws.’

‘We have,’ said Strike. ‘Semple, Powell, Fleetwood – Knowles, come to that… fuck knows what “Barnaby’s” is.’

Watching the dancing flames Robin said,

‘How often do you think there’s a murder case where both the killer and his victim were pretending to be someone else?’

‘Infrequently, I’d imagine,’ said Strike, ‘but I’m sure more killers would do it that way, if they could arrange it. Wright’s false identity worked brilliantly in his murderer’s favour. When you can’t identify the victim, it’s bloody difficult to see why anyone wanted them dead.’

Both watched the flames dancing in the wood burner for a while. Then Robin said,

‘I keep thinking about Wright. The way Daz and Mandy described him… he sounded…’

Robin’s voice trailed away. She drank some wine.

‘“Sounded”?’ Strike prompted her.

‘Well, a bit… lonely, or lost, or something… It seems so silly to go downstairs to your neighbours and eat a takeaway and smoke dope with them, and let them get a really good look at you, if you’re in disguise because you’re planning a burglary.

If Wright knew he was only going to be there a short time, why get friendly with Mandy and Daz?

And ordering weights to his flat – why would you do that , if you knew you’d only be there a month? ’

‘Two very good points,’ said Strike.

‘D’you still think Todd wrote Wright’s CV?’ Robin asked.

‘I do, yeah,’ said Strike. ‘Ergo, Wright thought Todd was an associate, maybe even a friend… but that throws up more questions, doesn’t it?

If Todd was a double agent, convincing Wright he was on his side, but actually luring Wright to the vault for Oz to kill, we arrive back at the perennial question, why did the murder have to be in the vault?

And why the hell would Wright have agreed to walk into the vault at one o’clock in the morning, with the man he was running from?

This isn’t a Shakespearean comedy, where a man styles his hair differently and instantly becomes indistinguishable from his own sister.

A curly wig’s hardly an impenetrable disguise. ’