Page 160 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

Had she willed it, still had stood the screen

So slight, so sure, ’twixt my love and her:

I could fix her face with a guard between,

And find her soul as when friends confer,

Friends—lovers that might have been.

Robert Browning By the Fire-Side

The readjustment of Robin’s work schedule would have made it extremely difficult to cover the agency’s current jobs, had they not resolved Two-Times.

Strike had asked Wardle to prioritise finding out anything he could about Green Jacket, also known as Wade King, and in the meantime, Strike was postponing taking the next client off the waiting list, a man who feared his wife, a high-ranking civil servant, was cheating.

‘We should try workin’ smarter, not harder,’ asked Barclay, when his and Strike’s paths crossed at the office on Thursday.

‘Like that’s ever fucking worked,’ growled Strike.

On Friday afternoon Strike returned to his attic flat after several hours’ surveillance of Plug, who was still, infuriatingly, at large, to change into a suit for dinner with Lord Oliver Branfoot.

While knotting his tie, he reminded himself that he’d have to act better than he’d ever acted in his life when Robin told him she was engaged.

‘Congratulations,’ he muttered aloud, while looking into his bathroom mirror, which was the only one he had. His reflection looked as though it was announcing a death.

Wardle phoned Strike while the latter was heading down the metal staircase towards the street.

‘Got you a bit on Wade King.’

‘Excellent. Go on.’

‘Thirty-six, was a long-distance lorry driver until a few months back, currently unemployed, lives with a girlfriend in Rainham, one kid. A neighbour suspects him of domestic abuse – the girlfriend wears dark glasses a lot.’

‘Any previous?’

‘Aggravated assault when he was twenty-five. Nothing since. Never been inside.’

‘Any idea how he lost his job?’

‘No,’ said Wardle, ‘but he worked for the company for five years before they fired him.’

‘Interesting,’ said Strike.

It was hardly a surprise to discover that King was violent, but Strike had expected to hear that the man was very young, living in some squalor, desperate for money and recently released from jail: in short, exactly the kind of youth Lord Branfoot could use as a henchman.

Why would a man who until recently had had a steady job, albeit one he’d now lost, not to mention a partner and child at home, attempt to abduct a woman, purely for cash?

And he’d been a long-distance lorry driver…

the dead Todd had also had a long-distance driving job from which he’d been fired. Could this be coincidence?

As Strike travelled by cab towards the Goring, one of the very few five-star hotels in London he’d never visited, he found himself musing once more on the mysterious Oz.

Maybe, as Robin had suggested, King was Oz?

Had the police just arrested then released the man Strike believed had killed at least four people in under a year?

He pulled out his notebook and wrote himself a reminder to find out, if at all possible, where Wade King had been when William Wright and Sofia Medina had been murdered.

Upon arrival in the Goring’s cocktail bar he found Robin already seated at a small, round table beside the marble fireplace, framed botanical prints on gold paper on the wall behind her, and looking (which made nothing any easier) as good as he’d ever seen her, with her strawberry blonde hair clean and loose and wearing a high-necked, form-fitting dress of dusky pink, which Strike found sexy in its ostensible demureness.

As he approached her, she set down the same magazine he’d read in the Savoy, with the windswept Cosima Longcaster on its cover.

‘Hi,’ he said, pulling out a velvet chair to sit down, and he added, because what did it matter, now? ‘You look great.’

‘Thought I should make an effort,’ said Robin, trying to deflect the compliment, though it had pleased her.

Rather than admitting she’d chosen the pink rather than the black version of the dress because of Dino Longcaster’s unsolicited styling advice, she said, ‘I bought it online, because I needed something to cover my neck.’

‘Ah,’ said Strike. ‘Marks?’

‘Trust me, you don’t want to see what’s under here.’

Try me, thought Strike.

She handed him the menu with her right hand, but her left was out of sight.

‘Have you ordered?’ Strike asked.

‘Not yet. I’m going to have something non-alcoholic.’

Having asked the waiter for a whisky and a mocktail, Strike turned back to see Robin pushing her hair out of her face with a left hand that bore no jewellery whatsoever.

Robin, who’d noticed his sharp glance, checked the back of her hand in case there was something there she hadn’t noticed: smeared mascara, for instance, as he’d failed to inform her about in Ironbridge.

‘Any particular reason for not drinking?’ Strike asked, wondering whether abstaining from alcohol was a concomitant of egg harvesting.

‘Just don’t fancy it,’ said Robin, choosing not to say that she wanted to be in full possession of her wits. She’d be getting a cab home, but there was still the walk between pavement and door. ‘Why?’

Strike suddenly decided to carry the battle into the enemy’s territory.

‘Wardle told me Murphy’s fallen off the wagon.’

‘Oh,’ said Robin, far from pleased Strike knew this. She wanted distraction, not discussions about her relationship. ‘Well – yes, he had a lapse, when things were so tough for him at work. But he’s back at AA now. He’s doing fine.’

‘Right,’ said Strike. ‘Still moving in together?’

‘No, actually,’ said Robin. ‘The house fell through.’

‘Ah,’ said Strike. ‘Still looking, then?’

‘It’s on hold just now, with everything else we’ve got on. Anyway,’ she said, clearly not wanting to pursue the subject of house hunting, ‘I’ve found someone on Abused and Accused who also posted on Truth About Freemasons – that, or two people using the same username.’

‘Seriously?’ said Strike, surprised. ‘What’s the name?’

‘Austin H,’ said Robin.

The word ‘fuzz’ popped incongruously into Strike’s mind; why, he didn’t know, but before he could pursue the subject, a plummy male voice said,

‘Hello, hello!’

Strike and Robin looked up to see Lord Oliver Branfoot, tall and podgy, with his trademark messy hair and drooping eyes, a genial smile curving his full lips.

Beside him, in a skin-tight, knee-length black dress, stood Kim Cochran.