Page 165 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

Seems as if we’d got to the end of things…

John Oxenham A Maid of the Silver Sea

Preferring to leave the environs of Heberley House well behind him before he took a break for something to eat, Strike drove south to the city of York. Sitting in his parked BMW, and looking forward to a late pub lunch after he’d got this unpalatable duty out of the way, he phoned Decima Mullins.

When he’d finished giving an account of his interview with Tara, Decima said in a high-pitched voice,

‘No – that can’t be true. He’d never have – he wasn’t even in contact with Tara – no, she must be lying!’

‘She’s got the nef,’ said Strike, ‘and frankly, I feel stupid for not remembering that there was an ex-wife who’d be delighted to piss off Dino Longcaster, isn’t strong on ethics and has money to burn.

She claims not to know which hotel Rupert’s working in, but I think she’s telling the truth about him working in one of them.

She pulled strings to get him and Tish Benton jobs with the chain.

I’m sorry, I know this isn’t the answer you were hoping for, but—’

‘So you’re going to call round all the Clairmont hotels, when he’s not even there ?’

‘I think he is at one of those hotels,’ said Strike, trying to inject sympathy rather than impatience into his voice, ‘and no, I’m not going to call them. This ends the case.’

‘Wh – you’re walking out on me?’

‘There’s nothing to be done now that you can’t do yourself, so it would be wrong to keep billing you. I’m sorry,’ he repeated. ‘I know you didn’t want to believe Rupert’s alive, but—’

‘It’s not that – how can you say that?’ she cried. ‘Of course I’d rather think he’s alive, but he’d never have left me like this, never !’

‘Sometimes we’re mistaken about people, however well we think we know them,’ said Strike, still striving for patience. ‘I’m sorry, but as far as I’m concerned, the job’s done. I wish you luck,’ he concluded lamely, ‘and – better times.’

This call ended, Strike left the BMW and, limping slightly again, set off in search of food. While walking, he called Robin and told her the story of his trip to Heberley.

‘… so it’s over,’ he concluded. ‘The job of identifying William Wright returns to the Met. We’re out.’

Strike wasn’t surprised that a shocked silence followed these words.

‘But why did Rupert leave like that?’ said Robin at last. ‘Why do it so cruelly?’

‘I can only assume the easiest explanation is the right one,’ said Strike. ‘He didn’t want a baby and took the coward’s way out. Anyway, I’m starving and there’s a pub ahead, so I’ll talk to you later.’

The name of the pub, the Old White Swan, reminded Strike unhappily of Ironbridge, but as he didn’t want to have to walk any further he entered to find a pleasant space with white and blue painted walls.

He’d just bought himself a pint of alcohol-free beer and ordered fish and chips when his Met contact, George Layborn, called him.

‘Hi,’ said the policeman. ‘I got your email about Wade King.’

‘Ah,’ said Strike, sincerely hoping that this would wrap up the entire silver vault case completely. ‘So…?’

‘He was in France from the sixteenth to the eighteenth of June last year.’

‘France?’ repeated Strike, frowning.

‘Yeah, driving a lorry full of Scotch from Speyside to Cannes.’

‘This is cast iron, is it?’

‘Fully corroborated, yeah.’

‘Shit,’ said Strike. ‘No – I mean, that’s good to know. Cheers, I owe you one.’

He hung up. Layborn’s information, while useful, was unwelcome. Had Wade King been Oz, that would have settled everything, but as it was…

He accidentally dislodged his vape from his pocket in replacing his notebook there; it rolled away under an empty neighbouring table, and as Strike bent to pick it up again, he thought again of the tube-like object William Wright had dropped, which Mandy and Daz had thought was a doob tube, and which Wright had claimed had been a blood sample, and he wondered, yet again, what it had really been.