Page 131 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

Half-way, for one commandment broken,

The woman made her endless halt,

And she to-day, a glistering token,

Stands in the wilderness of salt.

Behind, the vats of judgment brewing

Thundered, and thick the brimstone snowed:

He to the hill of his undoing

Pursued his road.

A. E. Housman XXXV, More Poems

Robin felt as though she’d been away from London for a fortnight, instead of the forty-eight hours that had actually passed.

Worst of all was the jitteriness that had returned almost as soon as the storm-tossed plane had landed.

She now realised how safe she’d felt in Sark.

She was back in noisy, crowded London, where any of the men you passed might have a gorilla mask hidden at home; she resumed looking over her shoulder every few yards and taking counter-surveillance dashes into traffic and last-second exits from Tube trains.

Nor was this suppressed, ever-present fear the worst of her worries.

She and Murphy met for dinner in an Italian restaurant on Saturday evening, and talked.

She repeated that she loved him, said she felt no distance and that she definitely wanted them to move in together.

She tried not to remember Strike holding her hand across the kitchen table at the Old Forge, or about how understanding he’d been when she’d cried.

She had to forget all that. She was moving in with Murphy.

She stayed at Murphy’s flat overnight and remained there on Sunday. They had sex twice; he seemed far happier than he’d been lately, and Robin told herself she was, too.

To Robin’s surprise, late on Sunday afternoon, Tyler Powell’s friend Wynn Jones sent her his agreement to speaking to her that evening by FaceTime.

‘Everything OK?’ asked Murphy, observing her expression as she read Jones’ text.

‘Fine,’ said Robin. ‘Just someone I’m trying to talk to about Rupert Fleetwood.’

She wondered why she was still lying to him about exactly what she was doing on the silver vault case and supposed it was force of habit.

‘Listen, d’you mind if I do an hour at the gym?’ asked Murphy.

‘No, of course not,’ said Robin.

She felt relieved at the prospect of being alone, and even gladder Murphy wasn’t present when, ten minutes after he’d left the flat, Strike called her.

‘Can you talk?’ he asked in a croaky voice.

‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘Are you all right?’

Strike, who was lying on his bed in his attic room with his prosthesis off, said,

‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

In fact, his stomach had been upset all day, which he suspected was the fault of the kebab he’d bought on the way home from the Blind Spot the previous evening, because his hunger had been unassuaged by a few exorbitantly priced chips and three calamari rings.

He’d slept late, then lain on his bed trying to ignore his gastro-intestinal discomfort while vaping and continuing to search for Jim Todd’s mother online, an ice pack strapped to his painful knee.

He’d soon need to put his prosthesis back on, because that evening he was due to tail Plug.

‘I’ve got big news,’ he went on, ‘I got a call last night from a man claiming to be Rupert Fleetwood.’

‘ What? ’

‘Yeah. Quite the coincidence, after you saying you were surprised he hadn’t been in touch. He gave me the nickname he claims Decima used for him, admitted to stealing the nef, but when I pressed him for something only he and Decima would know, he hung up.’

‘Oh,’ said Robin.

‘He had a bass voice. I’ve emailed Decima to ask whether that fits Rupert, though knowing her, she’ll say someone must’ve been putting it on.

I think I’ve found Todd’s mother, too. She’s in Harlesden, so I’m going to check her out as soon as I’ve got time, see whether Todd’s been in touch.

And one other thing,’ said Strike, hoping there wasn’t about to be a row.

‘Kim’s resigned. I’ve just got the email. ’

‘ Oh, ’ said Robin again. For the first time in days, her spirits lifted. ‘Why—? Did something happen, or—?’

‘Yeah, something happened,’ said Strike, who’d decided he needed to be honest about this, even if it led to trouble. ‘She turned up for surveillance and she was in a state. Her ex has gassed himself in his car.’

‘Oh my God!’

‘And then his ex turned up at Kim’s, to give Kim a hiding.

She arrived in the bar and she was crying, she’d been roughed up and…

well, she was leaning on me and putting her hand on my leg and—’ He remembered the naked photograph, but decided against mentioning it.

‘I’d had a few. I told her to sod off and she took offence.

Well,’ Strike admitted, ‘I was fairly offensive. Anyway, it’s a two-line resignation: “I wish to terminate my contract with immediate effect. Kindly forward the balance of payment.”’

‘Right,’ said Robin, feeling slightly dazed. This was a lot to process in a single phone call. ‘Well… to be completely honest… I’m glad to see the back of her.’

‘Thank Christ,’ said Strike, relaxing slightly.

He’d been worried about Robin’s reaction; specifically, that she might be uptight about him having more of what might be generally termed ‘woman trouble’.

‘In better news, Wardle’s handed in his resignation at work, so we won’t be short staffed for long. ’

‘Great,’ said Robin. ‘Well, I’ve just had a breakthrough with Wynn Jones. I’ll be FaceTiming him in half an hour.’

‘He still flirting?’

‘If you can call it “flirting”, sending me aubergine emojis,’ said Robin.

‘Sending you what?’ said Strike, on whom this comment was lost. He’d never used an emoji in his life.

‘I’ll explain some other time,’ said Robin. She’d never yet discussed erect penises or the symbols used for them online with Strike, and wasn’t going to start now. ‘I’ll let you know how I get on. Speak later.’

Robin made herself a coffee and, at the appointed time, called Wynn Jones on her laptop. After just a few rings, he answered with the words ‘all right?’

Jones was a heavy-set youth with a double chin and almost no neck.

His very short dark hair had already receded to reveal a large expanse of shiny red forehead.

One of his eyes was larger than the other, which gave him an unfortunate look of craftiness.

With his weathered appearance and his tartan shirt, he’d have blended in easily with any of the land workers Robin had known in Masham, some of them school mates who were uninterested in academic life because they had farms on which to work and, in some cases, to inherit.

Jones was sitting in what looked like a very cramped and none-too-tidy sitting room.

The leatherette sofa bore evidence of having been shredded in places by a cat’s claws.

Buckled beer cans and takeaway cartons were piled on a low table to Jones’ left and the edge of a dartboard was visible over his head, the surrounding wall pockmarked with holes.

Jones was clutching a can of Carlsberg, and though it was barely six o’clock in the evening, he had the slightly sloppy, glazed look of a man who’d already had several beers.

‘Hi,’ said Robin. ‘Thanks very much for agreeing to talk to me, Wynn.’

‘’S’all right,’ said Jones. He glanced off camera and raised his eyebrows at someone or something out of sight; a knowing, amused look.

‘She ’ot, then?’ said a voice off-camera.

‘Yeah, not bad,’ said the smirking Jones.

‘So, as I explained, Wynn,’ said Robin, pretending she hadn’t heard this, ‘I wanted to talk to you about Tyler, because his grandmother thinks—’

‘’E was a body,’ said Jones, and Robin heard gruff chortles from the man off camera. ‘Senile, i’n she? Smart London detective like you shoulda worked that out by now, if you’ve talked to her.’

Chippy distaste for the capital and its denizens was also familiar to Yorkshire-born Robin, so she ignored this comment.

‘Dilys doesn’t believe the man who’s called her since July is Tyler. She thinks—’

‘It’s me, yeah,’ said Jones, looking unabashed. ‘Daft old cow. I’ve told her it’s not. Lugs told me to tell ’er, so I did.’

‘Lugs?’

‘That’s what we call him. “Lugs”. You and Jonny Rokeby’s boy should be paying me, by rights. Telling you stuff you should already know.’

The man off camera laughed.

‘Dilys is always thinkin’ people are tryna trick her,’ said Wynn. ‘Thought the postman had nicked her pension book last year, daft old bat. Lugs is sick of ’er, anyway. Making him do her shopping and all sorts.’

‘Have you heard from Tyler since he left?’

‘Yeah, but then he got pissed off with me,’ said Jones, grinning more broadly than ever.

‘Why was that?’

‘Called him a fuckin’ coward, din’ I?’

‘Why did you call him a coward?’

‘Should’ve just fuckin’ thumped all of ’em what were saying shit about him and that crash,’ said Jones, and he took another sip of lager. ‘’S what I’d’a done, if they were talking shit about me . Made himself look proper fuckin’ guilty, running away.’

‘So you’re sure Tyler’s innocent, are you?’

‘Why’re you askin’ me that, if you’re on Dilys’s side?’

‘I’m just trying to find out where Tyler’s gone and whether anyone’s hurt him,’ said Robin.

‘Nobody’s bloody ’urt him, he’s fine! An’ he wouldn’t never of done nothing to his Mazda. Go all the way to Birmingham to fuck with it? Bloody load of balls.’

‘People said the car was tampered with in Birmingham, did they?’

‘“People” didn’t say it. Fuckin’ Faber White’ead did.’

‘This is Hugo’s father?’

‘Yeah. He was putting it about someone on the car park camera, fiddlin’ with it.’

‘Really?’ said Robin. ‘D’you know what that person looked—?’

‘There wasn’t nobody there,’ sneered Jones. ‘White’ead didn’t want to believe his dipshit fucking son was speeding. Sabotage my arse.’

The person off camera laughed again.

‘Tyler was at home the night of the crash, right?’ said Robin.

‘Yeah, ’e ’ad a cold or something.’

‘Were his parents there?’

‘No, they’d buggered off to Florida by then.’

‘D’you know where he’s gone, Wynn?’