Page 132 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

‘Yeah,’ said Jones, his smirk widening. ‘But you gotta make it worth my while if I’m gonna tell you that.’

There was yet another bark of laughter in the background.

‘Tyler’s not there now, is he?’ said Robin, struck by a sudden suspicion. ‘Listening to you talk to me?’

Robin heard a door opening and slamming and a lot of chortling.

‘No, ’course not,’ said Jones, grinning more broadly than ever.

‘Could you introduce me to the friend you’ve got there, listening in?’ Robin asked.

The camera made a dizzying spin as Jones turned his phone to face a young man with crooked brown teeth, who was sitting on a sagging tweed armchair.

Robin assumed the door behind the latter was the one that had just been slammed, either for comic effect by the snaggle-toothed youth, or by a third party who’d just left.

He waved at Robin, leering, and the camera phone swung back towards Jones.

‘Don’t you want to put Dilys’s mind at rest, Wynn?’ Robin asked.

‘I’ve told ’er ’e’s gone to work in a pub, an’ ’e’s told her, and I’ve told ’er it’s not me calling ’er,’ said Jones impatiently.

‘Lugs doesn’t want ’er to know where ’e’s working ’cause ’e doesn’t want the silly old cow bothering ’im, that’s all, but ’e’s told ’er ’e’s alive and she keeps saying “stop it Wynn Jones, I know that’s you”. ’

Robin decided to try another tack.

‘Tyler stopped talking to you, you say?’

‘Yer.’

‘When was that?’

‘Can’t remember. Round Christmas?’

‘You’re certain it was really Tyler calling and texting you, though?’

‘’Course I am.’

‘Tell me about Tyler and Anne-Marie,’ said Robin, planning to circle back to the name of the pub.

‘Ain’t nothing to tell.’

‘They were in a relationship, weren’t they?’

‘Nah, it was that Chloe Griffiths ’e ’ad the throbber for.’

The young man with bad teeth laughed again in the background.

‘This is Chloe who lived opposite him?’

‘Yeah. Anne-Marie was nothing, ’e didn’t care. Well,’ Jones corrected himself, ‘’e cared she was dead, but not cause they were shagging.’

‘Wasn’t Anne-Marie Tyler’s girlfriend?’ said Robin.

‘Nah. Just mates.’

‘My information is that Tyler was very upset when they split up.’

‘’Oo told you that, bloody Faber White’ead?’

‘I haven’t spoken to the Whiteheads,’ said Robin.

‘It was that Chloe he liked, not Anne-Marie. He had the proper ’orn for Chloe, and she led him on, and the silly sod thought ’e was going to get somewhere, but I coulda told ’im he was wasting his time.’

‘Why’s that?’ said Robin.

‘She got stuff out of ’im, but never done nothing with ’im, and then she dropped him fucking flat and buggers off with another bloke. Snobby,’ Jones added. ‘A-levels and all that. She wasn’t gonna go with some mechanic.’

‘What stuff did Chloe get out of Tyler?’ asked Robin.

‘Bought her a fucking bracelet, all with flowers on, for her birthday,’ said Jones, as though this was an outlandish thing for Powell to have done, and Robin’s mind darted to the silver charm bracelet hidden in her wardrobe, which she’d still never worn.

‘But ’e never got anything back out of her, silly sod. ’

‘Did Tyler ever mention silver to you, on the phone?’ asked Robin.

‘Silver?’ scoffed Jones. ‘Why’d he be talking about bloody silver?’

‘I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking. Can you remember any phone conversation where Tyler mentioned silver, or something that might’ve sounded like silv—?’

‘Sylvain, maybe,’ said Jones, apparently struck by a sudden thought. ‘Sylvain Deslandes.’

‘Who’s Sylvain Deslandes?’ said Robin.

‘Wolves left-back.’

‘A footballer?’

‘Yeah,’ said Jones, smirking again at the London woman’s lack of elementary knowledge.

‘Can you remember Tyler talking to you about Sylvain Deslandes, or do you just think it’s possible that happened?’

‘We could’ve talked about ’im, yeah,’ said Jones. ‘Lugs rated ’im.’

‘D’you know a girl called Zeta?’ asked Robin. ‘She was living in Ironbridge around the time Tyler left.’

‘No, I don’t know no Zeta,’ said Jones. ‘I don’t live in Ironbridge, I live in Apeton.’

‘Zeta told me Tyler overheard her talking about him, and he threatened her.’

‘Don’t blame ’im,’ said Jones forcefully. ‘If they was saying shit like that about me, I’d’ve bloody decked ’em – girl or not,’ he added, and took another swig of lager.

‘Did Tyler ever borrow any of the cars at the garage where he worked?’

‘No, ’course ’e didn’t. Why?’

‘Zeta says a car nearly hit her on Wellsey Road, and she thought—’

‘ Wesley Road,’ Jones corrected her, with a local’s pedantic pleasure in correcting the ignorant out-of-towner.

‘So you do know Ironbridge?’ said Robin.

‘I was at school there, wa’n I? And I go there for a drink sometimes.’

‘But you’ve never run across Zeta?’

‘No, and if she’s saying Lugs fuckin’ tried to run ’er over, she’s a fuckin’ attention-seeking liar.’

‘What about Rita?’ said Robin. ‘Did you ever hear Tyler mention anyone of that name?’

‘Zeta, Rita – ’oo’s next, Peter?’

‘Ryvita,’ said the out-of-sight youth with the crooked teeth, and both young men guffawed.

‘So he never talked about a woman called Rita, or Reata?’ Robin persisted.

‘Bloody ’ell, I jus’ told you, it was fucking Chloe Griffiths ’e liked,’ said Jones impatiently, ‘so Zeta and Rita and all those tossers going on about the crash, they was talking bollocks, and if they was claiming ’e done stuff to them, too, they’re full of shit, all right?

Chasing clout off the back of all what ’appened. ’

‘Wynn, I’d be really glad if you’d give me the name of the pub where Tyler’s working. I’d just like to reassure Dilys that he’s alive, and that’ll be the end of it.’

‘Maybe I’ll give you the name if you give me something,’ said Jones, and the out-of-sight young man snorted with laughter.

‘Did Tyler have any other friends I might talk to, about where he’s gone?’ said Robin, ignoring the second hint that Jones wanted quid pro quos.

‘No,’ said Jones, and then, ‘well, yeah, he had friends, but nobody knows more’n I know.’

‘Can you please give me the name of the pub where he’s working, Wynn?’

Jones took a large swig from his Carlsberg can, emptying it, then crushed it one-handed and bent down to fetch another; Robin caught a glimpse of a dirty carpet and an overflowing ashtray.

‘Whachew gonna give me?’ said Jones, his fat face even redder for having bent over. He laid his mobile on his lap and Robin now saw a nicotine-stained ceiling and the underside of the can Jones was opening before his face filled the screen again.

‘Don’t you want to put Dilys’s mind at rest?’ asked Robin.

‘That old cow badmouths me, I don’t give a shit whether ’er mind’s at rest or not,’ said Jones. ‘Tell you what—’

Jones’ friend had started laughing harder than ever, although the punchline hadn’t yet been delivered.

Robin thought she knew what was coming; it had become ever more likely since that first drooling emoji.

Jones either didn’t know Powell’s whereabouts, or had promised his friend he would keep his secrets.

He was boorish and childish, and a woman he was unlikely ever to meet was good only for amusing himself and his mates with.

‘—show us your tits and I’ll give ya—’

Robin ended the call.

She slumped back in her chair and rubbed her tired eyes.

She couldn’t help thinking that Powell’s friendship with the crudely offensive Jones tended to add weight to the portrait of him given by Chloe and Zeta, rather than the one offered by Dilys and Griffiths.

Opening her eyes again, Robin looked back down at her notebook.

For some reason, she was experiencing a tiny, nagging doubt, but she didn’t know why.

Had she just missed something, failed to make an important connection?

She read back over her notes, but couldn’t see anything obvious, so she tried to remember everything Jones had said, aside from the bits she’d thought important enough to transcribe.

Dilys thinks Jones pretending to be Tyler.

Bracelet for Chloe. Zeta, Rita, who’s next, Peter? Apeton. Wesley Road.

Robin heard the door of the flat open and close; Murphy had returned. He entered the room seconds later, rummaging in his gym bag.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake – I’ve left my phone at the fucking gym.’

‘Here,’ said Robin, holding out her own.

Murphy called his own phone and, after a brief conversation, hung up.

‘They’ve got it at the front desk. Shall I pick up a curry on my way back?’

‘That’d be great,’ said Robin, yawning.

Murphy departed again. Robin sat thinking about Tyler Powell, for whom she’d never found any social media. Turning back to her laptop, she opened both Twitter and Instagram and began searching for variations on the names ‘Lugs’ and ‘Powell’.

After twenty minutes, she found an Instagram account she thought might, possibly, have been Tyler’s: LugzCarz.

It featured nothing but pictures of vintage motors interspersed with photos of engines on which the person posting was working.

The account had few followers, but two things made Robin suspect it was Powell’s: there had been no additions since May of the previous year, when Powell had left Ironbridge under a cloud of suspicion, and beneath a picture of a 1965 Austin-Healey Mark III somebody had replied: fuck off posting cars like we don’t know what you did .

However, as far as clues to Powell’s current whereabouts went, the account was useless.

Robin closed down the website, stretched and got to her feet.

Murphy had left his gym bag behind. It had leaked a puddle of clear fluid. Evidently he hadn’t put the lid of his water bottle on securely enough.

Robin opened the bag, to find a tangle of damp gym clothes. Sure enough, the bottle contained only dregs, and the top wasn’t properly screwed back on.

A faint smell made her sniff her fingers. Unable to believe the evidence of her nose, Robin put her index finger into her mouth.

Still crouched, tasting pure spirit, she felt again that icy wave of shock she’d felt on finding the diamond stud that had flown from the bedclothes in that house in Deptford, the day she’d left Matthew for good.

She thought of the upswing in gym sessions and runs that she’d imagined were doing Murphy so much good.

She recalled Christmas Eve, when she’d thought, if she hadn’t known better, he’d been drinking, like her brothers.

She remembered the night of their worst row.

Blank-faced, she fetched kitchen roll and mopped up the spilled excess on the floor, then set the water bottle, with its incriminating dregs, on the coffee table.

She stood for another minute, staring at it, then headed into the kitchen, where she made a methodical search of the cupboards that turned up no spirits whatsoever.

The sky outside was dark; she hadn’t noticed night falling.

She headed into the bedroom and opened Murphy’s wardrobe.

Presumably her boyfriend had searched other people’s cupboards and drawers in a professional capacity, but private detectives rarely if ever got to rifle through the personal belongings of suspects.

Robin had to stand on tiptoe to access the top shelf. Behind a pile of T-shirts and a small box of foreign currency and old charging leads was a hessian bag that clinked when she touched it. She tugged it down, already certain of what she was about to see.

There were six bottles of vodka inside, one of them almost empty.