Page 21 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

‘Truman said it would be playing into the killers’ hands to talk up the sash and the hallmark,’ he said, sitting down opposite her. ‘It was obvious misdirection. He knew people can be silly about the masons…’

Unsurprisingly, being asked to describe the body seemed to have upset Ramsay.

‘I don’t know whether your partner told you,’ he added, as he fiddled with his cufflinks, ‘but it’s been a very difficult time for my wife and me – dreadful, actually – and then to lose all the Murdoch silver, when we weren’t insured…

we’ve had a horrible couple of years, everything’s been…

just hellish, actually. It’s been hellish. ’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Robin, remembering the jet ski and the dead son. Ramsay blinked rapidly. With no aim other than distracting him a little, Robin looked towards the nearest glass cabinet, which was full of small silver trinkets, and said,

‘You’ve got some lovely things.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Ramsay, brightening, ‘and very affordable!’

To Robin’s consternation, he jumped to his feet again, pulled his white gloves back on, and proceeded to unlock the cabinet.

‘Nice little pocket watch,’ he said, holding it out to her in his cotton-covered palm. ‘Sterling, not plate! Triangular, of course. Masonic symbols instead of numbers, you see? More of a man’s piece, of course,’ he said, when Robin showed no sign of enthusiasm. ‘For the ladies – you’ll like this—’

He picked up a small silver orb charm, and flicked a catch, so that it transformed into a jointed cross.

‘Nice, eh?’ he said. ‘And again, you’ve got your masonic symbols, hidden inside.’

‘Very pretty,’ said Robin.

‘You should drop a hint to—’

Ramsay’s eyes flickered to her bare ring finger.

‘—or just treat yourself. For Christmas.’

To Robin’s relief, Strike now reappeared, his face somewhat contorted. The stairs were steep and his stump still complaining, post-Cornwall.

‘I could do you a good deal,’ said Ramsay, smiling anxiously at Robin.

‘Maybe another time,’ she said, embarrassed.

Ramsay locked up the cabinet with obvious reluctance, returned to his seat behind the desk, and rummaged in the desk drawer for a glossy auction catalogue.

‘I’ve circled everything I bought,’ he told Strike, as the latter sat down next to Robin. ‘So you know what you’re looking for.’

‘Great,’ said Strike, taking the catalogue. The cover read: The A. H. Murdoch Collection and featured a sword and a large silver ship on wheels.

‘Would that be a nef?’ asked Strike.

‘Ah, you know your silver!’ said Ramsay eagerly.

‘Yes, she was commissioned by Murdoch out of silver from his own mine – second largest in Peru, discovered in 1827 – and modelled on the Carolina Merchant , the ship that took the first ever Freemason to America. We were all delighted his great-grandson wanted to hold the auction here in London, rather than in the US…’

Ramsay now launched unstoppably into an explanation of the significance of the Murdoch silver, speaking with the peculiar, tone deaf intensity of the monomaniac.

‘… Murdoch, of course, was Inspector General of the Louisiana jurisdiction…’ ‘… largest, most valuable collection of masonic silver in the world,’ ‘… gadrooned borders…’ ‘… superb nineteenth-century setting maul…’ ‘… bright cut engraving…’

‘We can keep this, can we?’ interrupted Strike, stemming the flow of words by raising his voice.

‘Oh – yes, yes, I’ve got another copy.’

‘Are you on the square yourself?’ asked Strike.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Ramsay. ‘You?’

‘’Fraid not.’

‘Ah. I thought, being ex-military – one of our best customers is a colonel in the Light Infantry. My wife’s father was a mason, too. She’s a Bullen by birth. Bullen & Co? Very old silver firm. They’re down in the London Silver Vaults. Been going a hundred and twenty-seven years.’

‘Wow,’ said Robin, to whom the job of being impressed by interviewees usually fell.

‘But when her father retired a couple of years ago, he handed the business over to m’sister-in-law and her husband.

His choice, of course, up to him,’ said Kenneth sniffily.

‘We’d hoped… but, long story short, Pamela and Geoffrey and Rachel and I worked out a deal, and we took the masonic stock – Bullen & Co had a small side-line in masonic artefacts, nothing on our scale, of course – and we opened this place. ’

‘What kind of business was here before you took over?’

‘A jewellers,’ said Ramsay, ‘so the place was already set up for us, really. Very convenient.’

‘You changed all the codes when you took the place over, though?’ said Strike.

‘Oh yes, of course,’ said Ramsay, before pointing at the catalogue in Strike’s hands and reverting to his favourite subject.

‘I got all the most important Murdoch pieces. Made an offer before the auction, and it was accepted. Put a few noses out of joint, as a matter of fact, hahaha. There were a lot of collectors who were very interested, waiting to bid.’

‘Let’s talk about William Wright,’ said Strike.

‘Of course, anything you need to know, ask away,’ said Ramsay, but he pressed on before Strike could speak. ‘Our security’s really top notch, as you can see, but Knowles was a professional, wasn’t he?’

‘Did you interview him for the job?’ said Strike.

‘Yes, with Pamela, and she liked him at the time, whatever she said afterwards. She was the one who’d been saying we needed someone else, because she wasn’t up to lifting the heavier stuff, especially taking it up and down the stairs – none of us are getting any younger and she’s got problems with her eyes. ’

‘What sort of problems?’ asked Strike.

‘She had that laser eye surgery, and it didn’t work. She’s had a lot of trouble since. So we advertised.’

‘Did you have many applicants?’ asked Strike.

‘Not many. Young people have unrealistic expectations of salaries these days, very unrealistic,’ said Ramsay, bristling slightly, ‘but Wright seemed ideal. Short, but a strong lad – our security chap had resigned a couple of months previously, you see, so I thought Wright could cover both bases, as it were. He did jujitsu.’

‘Was he given the alarm and vault codes when he started here? Keys?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Ramsay. ‘No, of course not. Absolutely not.’

‘Did you see much of him yourself?’

‘Not really. I’d pop in here at lunch sometimes, see how things were going. No, it was really just Pamela – oh, and Jim, coming in to clean two mornings a week. He’s been with us since the start, couple of years now.’

‘This would be Jim Todd?’ asked Strike.

Ramsay didn’t question how Strike knew his cleaner’s surname, but said,

‘That’s right. Lovely man. Fell on hard times, so we helped him out with a job. He cleans for a few different businesses.’

‘So it would’ve been Pamela who had most to do with William Wright?’

‘Yes, and Jim would’ve seen a bit of him, too. More than me. As I say, I’ve been very busy, but it was important to keep the shop going. It’s our baby, you know, and—’

Ramsay’s voice broke, and Robin, thinking again of the dead son, said,

‘This must all have been incredibly difficult for you.’

‘It has,’ said Ramsay hoarsely. ‘Yes. It has.’

His gaze roved, apparently absent-mindedly, back to Robin’s chest. She folded her arms and he looked hastily away.

‘So William Wright was on your security footage, all that Friday the seventeenth of June?’ said Strike, his tone less sympathetic than Robin’s. He’d noticed the ogling.

‘Yes, yes, we’ve always got the camera on, in case of shoplifters. The police took that footage away, after the burglary, or – no, maybe it’s still on here,’ said Ramsay, peering dimly at the computer, ‘but I wouldn’t know how to…’

‘Could I have a look?’ asked Robin. ‘We’ve got a similar camera feed in our office. I might be able to find it.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Ramsay. ‘Password,’ he muttered, and after a couple of attempts, he succeeded in entering it correctly, then ceded his chair to Robin.

‘I understand Wright left the shop for a while, that Friday?’ said Strike.

‘Yes, very briefly, in the afternoon,’ said Ramsay, taking Robin’s vacated seat.

‘Stupid thing. The delivery driver mixed up two crates. Sent the Oriental Lodge centrepiece – you’ll see it in the catalogue, magnificent, it really is – to Bullen & Co by mistake, and delivered some of the things they’d bought to us.

Pamela realised what had happened and sent Wright out to Bullens to get it back.

Embarrassing for Pamela, actually,’ said Ramsay, his face growing a little pinker.

‘If that hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t have known she and her husband had bid on some of the Murdoch collection.

We had a gentlemen’s agreement that Bullen & Co wouldn’t set themselves up in competition with us.

We were to concentrate on masonic silver. ’

‘And Wright brought this centrepiece back, did he?’ said Strike.

‘Yes, in a taxi. He wasn’t gone long. The Silver Vaults are only just up the road.’

‘I think,’ said Robin, her eyes on the computer monitor, ‘I might be able to download the relevant camera footage. Would you be comfortable with us taking a copy, Mr Ramsay?’

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Ramsay.

‘Would you have phone numbers for Pamela Bullen-Driscoll and Jim Todd?’ Strike asked.

Ramsay gave them. Strike now brought out the photograph of Rupert Fleetwood that Decima had given him.

‘In your opinion, is there any possibility that William Wright was this man?’

Ramsay glanced down at Rupert Fleetwood.

‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘No, no. What is he – a waiter? Wright wore glasses, and had a beard. He was dark.’

‘Disregarding the outfit,’ said Strike, ‘and trying to picture this man with a beard, and dyed hair—’

‘No, no,’ repeated Ramsay, who seemed annoyed, ‘no, he doesn’t look at all like Knowles.’

Strike took the picture back.

‘Did the police show you pictures of two men called Niall Semple and Tyler Powell?’

‘Yes, yes, but it wasn’t them, it was Knowles,’ said Ramsay, now almost agitated. ‘I’m certain it was Knowles.’

‘OK,’ said Strike, making a note. ‘Did anyone offer you a different nef for sale, around the time Wright came to work here?’

‘A different nef?’ said Ramsay, confused. ‘No, the Carolina Merchant ’s the only one we’ve ever had in stock. We don’t deal in ornamental objects that aren’t masonic.’

‘Right,’ said Strike, making another note. ‘And is there anything you remember about Wright that seemed odd, or distinctive?’

‘No, not at all. As I say, I didn’t really – oh, but there were the things he searched for. The police found that out.’

‘“Things he searched for”?’

‘Yes, he’d looked things up, on this computer,’ said Ramsay, nodding at the monitor on the desk. ‘The police went all through the what-have-you, and they found he’d been looking at some odd things.’

‘They found his search history?’

‘Yes, exactly. He wasn’t supposed to be on that computer at all.

It’s only there for website orders and our client database.

I said to Pamela, “what was he doing, messing around on the computer?” She said it must have been when she went out for lunch.

You know, a lot of this is down to Pamela’s carelessness,’ said Ramsay, in a sudden burst of temper.

‘We were supposed to be so grateful for her help, but she was the one who left early on Friday, which meant Wright could close the door without setting the alarm!’

‘Really?’ said Robin, who’d just successfully cut, copied and emailed the relevant portion of camera footage to the agency’s address. ‘Why did Pamela leave early?’

‘She – it was a private matter,’ said Ramsay, looking uncomfortable. ‘But even so – damn careless of her.’

‘What had Wright been doing online, d’you know?’ asked Strike.

‘He’d been looking up things about Freemasons, and he’d been on some website that was all about clearing your name and escaping prison and things like that.’

‘It’d be very helpful if you could remember the details of that website,’ said Strike.

Kenneth screwed up his cherubic face.

‘It was called something like “Innocent and Accused”. People complaining they’d been framed, or blamed for things they hadn’t done, and advising each other how to get out of it. Some really nasty stuff on there. Advocating vigilantism, some of them. How to get their own back.’

‘Can you remember what the website looked like? A logo, or colours?’

‘Had a sort of eye-for-an-eye logo,’ said Ramsay. ‘Two hands, each holding an eye.’

‘And there’s nothing else you can tell us about Wright?’ said Strike. ‘Accent, mention of home life, interests…?’

‘Well, he wouldn’t tell the truth about anything like that, would he?’ said Ramsay, sounding frustrated. ‘He was a criminal. He was playing a part. Oh,’ he added suddenly, ‘but there was the email. We think Wright sent a strange email, from here. He used the Ramsay Silver email address.’

‘Who was the email sent to?’ asked Strike.

‘A man called Osgood.’

‘Did you tell the police about this?’

‘Oh yes. Pamela found it, after we’d realised Wright had been using the PC.

The police questioned us about it, but none of us had sent the email.

We were all baffled, we’d never heard of the man – but I daresay Osgood was one of Knowles’ criminal associates.

Possibly he was letting him know he’d managed to infiltrate the shop. ’

‘Would you mind us taking a copy of the email?’ asked Strike.

‘No, of course not. It’s still on there,’ Ramsay told Robin, who found it without much difficulty and forwarded it to both her own and Strike’s accounts.

‘I know you need to get back to your office,’ Strike said to Ramsay, ‘so, last question: would you happen to have the address Wright was living at?’

‘I didn’t keep his CV,’ said Ramsay, ‘but I do remember the street. St George’s Avenue, Newham. I thought that was a good omen, when I saw it. Saint George.’

‘Would you happen to remember the house number?’

‘No, I’m afraid not… maybe directory enquiries…’

‘Well, thanks for meeting us,’ said Strike. ‘It’s been very helpful.’

He got to his feet, holding the catalogue Ramsay had given him.

‘If you have any more questions, don’t hesitate to call me,’ said Ramsay, as he too stood up. Now that Strike and Robin were about to leave, he once again seemed eager and a little pathetic. ‘Here – take my card. Whatever you need…’

They shook hands again.

As Ramsay bustled ahead to open the door for the detectives, Dean Martin’s voice crooned over the shop’s speakers:

Silver bells, silver bells,

It’s Christmas time in the city…