Page 162 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

‘Farah and I decided we ought to look into Decima Mullins after I left the agency,’ said Kim. ‘You never told me she had a baby she’s trying to hide. I wasn’t sworn to secrecy on that .’

‘You total bitch,’ said Robin, taking Strike by surprise. Kim smiled more widely and Branfoot laughed.

‘A baby’s a matter faw celebwation, shawly?’ he said.

‘Except that she’s losing her mind as well as her restaurant,’ said Kim, ‘and you two have been milking her for every penny while you go on jaunts and do pointless surveillance, pretending to find out who that body was. She was at casualty two days ago, convinced the baby’s ill because it won’t stop crying.

That’s who you’re exploiting. And you’ve been colluding in hushing up the kid.

I suppose if you’d alerted a social worker you might’ve been letting someone in on the situation who’d have stopped you milking her for cash. ’

‘Nice angle,’ said Strike appreciatively. ‘Yeah, I can see how the press could spin that. Well-to-do restaurateur with her secret baby, got a delusion about her ex-boyfriend, newsworthy detectives stringing her along… not bad at all.’

The wine arrived. When Robin refused any, Branfoot chortled.

‘My word, I’ve never met anyone who’d turn down a Montwachet ’92. Still, all the more faw us, eh, Mr Stwike – or may I call you Cormowan?’

‘Feel free,’ said Strike.

Once the wine waiter had departed, Strike said,

‘So, what’s the deal? We stop investigating the body in the vault, and you don’t talk about Decima and her baby to the press?’

‘I have no personal intewest in the matter, you understand,’ said Branfoot, ‘but this is pwecisely the kind of thing I feel should be maw stwictly wegulated. Financial exploitation of vulnewable people, exowbitant fees faw vewy little gain, a notably lax attitude to child pwotection – now, I don’t deny you two have done some pwaiseworthy things, but – to speak completely fwankly – I have excellent police contacts thwough my chawitable twust and – cowect me if I’m wong – you were questioned wecently about cowupting witnesses.

Dangling money in fwont of them, which of cawse wenders their evidence suspect in court. ’

‘Well, it sounds like you’ve got us properly stitched up,’ said Strike. ‘Is that everything?’

‘Not quite,’ said the smiling Branfoot. ‘Miss Ellacott’s boyfwiend – I apologise for bwinging him up again—’

Three amuse-bouches now arrived for each of them. The waiter gave loving descriptions of each, but Robin didn’t hear a word of it. She felt slightly sick. If Murphy’s career was ruined through association with her…

‘Where was I?’ said Branfoot, when the waiter had left again.

‘Oh, yes: DCI Murphy. Yes, I’m sowwy to have to mention this, but he’s welevant.

In wather a lot of twouble at work, isn’t he?

Between the dwinking and the wongful awest?

And he’s been passing you infawmation beneath the counter, to boot. ’

‘No,’ said Robin, ‘he hasn’t. The only person who’s passed us confidential information she shouldn’t have is sitting right opposite me.’

Branfoot laughed.

‘I can tell yaw not in politics, Miss Ellacott. Does DCI Murphy pass the smell test ? The public don’t like law enforcement officers who make wongful awests, and wough up suspects, and leak information on murder cases to whichever pwetty young woman they happen to be sleeping with – and that’s befaw we get to the daytime dwinking.

So if you’ll forgive me faw saying so, I think the pwess will find your pawamour smells wather whiffy. ’

‘Well, you certainly seem to have got the goods on us,’ said Strike. He turned to Kim. ‘Picked up anyone good in Lambeth lately?’

‘What?’ said Kim.

‘Anyone been chatting you up in the vicinity of Lord Branfoot’s office? Anyone who owns a flat on Black Prince Road?’

Kim’s expression became strangely blank. She stared at Strike, and Robin, though she knew she should deplore such a thing, found herself hoping that Kim had indeed allowed herself to be talked into going back to that flat. Then she looked at Branfoot.

The mask of the genial buffoon had melted away.

His eyes burned dark in the usually comic, gnome-like face, and suddenly it was easy to imagine him handing over an envelope of cash to a dangerous young criminal, and telling him that he wanted a second young man murdered.

Yet she thought she read calculation rather than panic in Branfoot’s expression.

Perhaps he was reminding himself of the panoply of lawyers, politicians, police, masons and press contacts available to him, should the danger he’d just glimpsed become acute, just as Robin herself had found reassurance in the feel of the pepper spray in her bag.

Strike’s mobile buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket and saw a two-word text from Wardle:

Ed Billings

He returned the mobile to his pocket. The waiter reappeared to take away the plates on which the amuse-bouches had arrived. Then Strike said,

‘One of the “jaunts” Miss Cochran’s just mentioned us taking was to the island of Sark, although you’ll be pleased to hear we didn’t bill Miss Mullins for that. Ever been to Sark?’

Branfoot didn’t answer. His sudden, uncharacteristic stillness was less of a prey animal than of a carnivore preparing to attack.

‘Interesting place,’ said Strike conversationally. ‘Lots to see. And guess who we met there? An acquaintance of yours.’

Strike helped himself to a bread roll. The silence continued unimpeded until the starters arrived.

There was a good deal of fuss in assembling the component parts of Branfoot’s caviar.

Strike, who’d ordered Cornish mackerel, had taken a couple of mouthfuls in the time it took for the waiter to have placed the egg whites, the blinis, the raw onion and the caviar to his symmetrical satisfaction.

When at last the waiter had departed, Strike said to Branfoot,

‘I’d’ve given a grand to hear your hitman explain why he had to kill de Leon in the vault of a masonic silver shop.

What did he do, pass it off as a bit of 3D chess?

Masonic overkill – useful you being a mason, you’ll be able to head them off?

Don’t get me wrong, it fits together. I seriously considered the possibility you’d been pulling a double bluff, especially as you’ve been behaving like a man who believed his hit had come off.

But long investigative experience has led me to the conclusion that if you can have a face-to-face chat with a bloke, he’s definitely not dead. ’

Robin had to admire Branfoot’s sangfroid. Seemingly unruffled, he was piling caviar onto a blini. Kim, on the other hand, hadn’t touched her spiced duck liver terrine.

‘If you were thinking of sending a second hitman after de Leon,’ said Strike, ‘you should know, it’s too late.

He’s already talked. So, since we’re totting up items we think might interest the papers, there’s the Winston Churchill Lodge, to which both you and Malcolm Truman belong, the flat on Black Prince Road, your longstanding association with porn producer Craig Wheaton, photos of you and various adult actors going in and out of the flat, and, from what I hear, a sizeable list of people who, once they realise they’ve been covertly filmed fucking porn stars—’

Kim, who’d picked up her fork, dropped it on her plate with a clatter. Strike grinned.

‘I didn’t think he’d have been able to resist getting you on film,’ he said to her.

‘What did he do, take you to a local bar, introduce you to some good-looking bloke, then retire with apologies? Well, now you know. He wasn’t going home to the wife, he was sneaking off to the flat to wait behind the mirror, flies down, cock in hand. ’

Still, Branfoot didn’t speak. He was continuing to eat caviar.

‘Now, I might be wrong,’ said Strike, ‘but I think masonic policemen, a TV rent-a-gob, secret filming, a bunch of porn stars and a bungled hit will be of far more interest to the papers than a woman who didn’t want her family to know she had a baby, and hired us to find out whether her son’s father is still alive.

But I’ve got a recording of you making implicit threats to expose her,’ he added, tapping the mobile in his breast pocket, ‘so we can add blackmail to the list.’

Robin waited for some kind of outburst from Branfoot, but he merely stared at Strike across the table, mechanically chewing his last blini. At last, he got slowly to his feet and, looking down at Strike, said,

‘You can pay faw your own fucking dinner.’

He threw down his napkin, and, without so much as a glance at Kim, he walked out.

Kim was white-faced and seemed pinned to her chair by shock. Strike raised a hand to hail a watching waiter.

‘Could you cancel Lord Branfoot’s main course, please?’ he said. ‘He’s been called away unexpectedly. And cancel hers, as well,’ he added, pointing at Kim.

‘Are you—?’ began the waiter.

‘She’s sure,’ said Strike.

The confused waiter retreated.

‘So,’ said Strike, turning to Kim. ‘Your turn. You told me you left the force because of “politics”.’

‘I did,’ said Kim.

‘What’s political about giving a co-worker a blow job in a car while you’re both supposed to be on duty?’

Kim’s face grew scarlet.

‘That didn’t happen. People said it did, but it didn’t.’

‘So why’s Ed Billings’ wife chucked him out?’

‘It didn’t happen – that was a total – it was a rumour started by Ray’s ex!’

‘You didn’t give a shit what was true when you went to Dominic Culpepper and told him I’d fathered a baby with Bijou Watkins.

Don’t even think about fucking bullshitting me, ’ he added, when Kim opened her mouth.

‘I know it was you. But once the press have got hold of the film Branfoot took in his fuck pad in Lambeth, and found an ex-policewoman on camera, it’ll take them two minutes to find out you left because you were caught blowing a married colleague—’

‘I didn’t do it, it’s a lie, I didn’t —’

‘Oh, they’ll probably shove in a couple of “allegeds”, but from that point on, nobody’s going to care who else was in that flat. You’ll be the headline for weeks,’ said Strike.

‘You can’t—’

‘Watch me,’ said Strike. ‘How did Branfoot know details of Murphy’s work life?

You told him. How did he know about Decima’s baby?

You told him . But I promise you this: unless you keep your fucking mouth shut about those things going forwards, there will be no holds fucking barred our end.

I’ll make it so no detective agency in the UK will touch you.

Affairs with married men, Ray’s suicide, blowing Billings, popping off to Black Prince Road to film a bit of amateur porn – you think you’re fucking Teflon, but I’ll make sure so much muck sticks to you no power hose’ll get it off, and I won’t give two shiny shits how much of it’s true. ’

Kim’s blush had faded to white again. Her eyes had filled with tears.

Strike returned to his mackerel, acting as though she’d ceased to exist. After a minute, Kim got up unsteadily and walked out of the restaurant.

‘Is it wrong,’ said Robin quietly, ‘that I really, really enjoyed that?’

‘If that was wrong, I don’t want to be right,’ said Strike through a mouthful of mackerel.

‘How did you—?’

‘Wardle. He tried to give me details of why she left the other night, but I was preoccupied with other matters.’

Remembering what those matters had been, he took another gulp of the Montrachet ’92, then said,

‘Wardle’s found out more stuff about Wade King of the green jacket.’

‘Really?’ said Robin, trying to sound simply interested. The mention of the man’s name had triggered a vivid memory of his face, distorted by cubic shadows.

‘He was a long-distance lorry driver until he got sacked.’

‘Long distance,’ repeated Robin. ‘Like—’

‘Our late friend Todd. Precisely.’

‘Has King been travelling to the continent?’

‘Probably. A lot of them do.’

Robin lowered her voice.

‘You think the trafficking ring’s still in operation?’

‘I think it’s possible.’

‘So, this looks as though King could be Oz?’

‘I think that’s possible, too. I’m trying to find out where he was the weekend of June the seventeenth to nineteenth of last year. In the meantime, our security measures remain in place, all right? You stick to daytime jobs and no evening work on your own.’

Robin chose not to argue the point. Relieved by the absence of pushback, Strike said,

‘Go on with what you were telling me in the bar, about Austin H.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Robin. ‘Well, on Truth About Freemasons he asks if the masons protect each other.’

‘Think I saw that,’ said Strike, frowning slightly. ‘Didn’t someone respond saying he was thinking of the Mafia?’

‘That’s right,’ said Robin.

‘Fuzz,’ said Strike experimentally.

‘What?’

‘He didn’t say anything about “fuzz”, did he? I’ve got a feeling I saw the name Austin in connection with “fuzz”.’

‘As in the police?’ said Robin, puzzled.

‘No idea… it’s gone. I’ll go and have a look myself. What did Austin say on Abused and Accused?’

‘That his girlfriend’s father was spreading nasty rumours about him, and he wanted to know how to stop it. Most of the responders advised punching the father.’

‘Yeah, I noticed they’re not really talk-it-through types on Abused and Accused.’

‘But that might fit Rupert, mightn’t it?’ said Robin.

‘Maybe,’ said Strike, though he sounded sceptical. ‘But if “rumours” means Dino Longcaster telling people Fleetwood had nicked his nef, they were true. The one thing literally everyone seems to agree on, Fleetwood himself included, is that he did, in fact, nick the nef.’

Strike sat in thought for a further minute, then said,

‘I might have more information on Fleetwood on Monday. Following a lead. Might go nowhere. I’ll tell you if it comes off.’

Being honest about the lead he’d decided to follow up on Rupert Fleetwood would mean mentioning Charlotte, and nearly every time he’d done that lately Robin had immediately shut the conversation down.

A waiter arrived to clear their plates. Once he’d departed Strike said,

‘Christ knows how much they’re about to sting us for, but let’s have puddings. Might as well be hanged for a sheep and all that.’

Both of them thought, immediately, of the silver sheep charm on the bracelet Robin had never yet worn.