Page 3 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)
‘Which policeman is this?’ asked Strike, who had prior experience of those who asserted imaginary ties to the police to justify their lunatic theories.
‘Sir Daniel Gayle. He’s a retired commissioner. His daughter works for me. I asked her whether I could talk to Sir Daniel, and he spoke to some people, then told me the police never got DNA confirmation. They never proved it was that Knowles man, not beyond doubt.’
‘What’s your interest in finding out who the man was?’ asked Strike.
‘I just need to know,’ said Decima. Her voice was trembling. ‘I need to. I need to know.’
Strike drank some coffee to give himself thinking time.
Odd features of the case of the body in the vault came back to him.
The body had been naked and heavily mutilated, which had naturally fanned the flames of press interest before the victim had been revealed as a violent criminal, at which point, public sympathy and interest had dwindled considerably.
Knowles, the press reported, had so severely beaten the female cashier at a building society he’d previously robbed that she’d been left with a fractured skull and seizures.
In fact, there’d been general agreement that, however nasty his end, Jason Knowles had probably had it coming.
‘Are you worried the man was someone you know?’ Strike asked.
‘Yes. I think . . no,’ said Decima, suddenly passionate, tears appearing in her eyes, ‘I know it was him, and… I need proof, because… I need proof. I just need somebody to prove it.’
‘Who exactly—?’
‘He was someone very close to me, and he matched the body exactly , and it all fits: the silver, and him being m-murdered, and he disappeared at the same time – it was him. I know it was.’
The lonely house, the tearful woman: Strike felt as though he’d been plunged back into the situation he’d left in Cornwall, but with far stranger overtones. Unable to think of anything else to do, he flicked open his notebook.
‘All right, what similarities are there between the body and the man you know?’
‘I’ve written it all down,’ said Decima at once, reaching for the red notebook, and she flicked to the back of what was revealed to be a weekly diary, where Strike saw several densely written pages.
‘My friend was twenty-six – the press said the body was of a man in his mid-twenties to mid-thirties. William Wright was left-handed; so was my friend. The body was blood group A positive – that’s the same.
Five feet six or seven – that matches. Wright was interviewed for the job on the nineteenth of May – I didn’t see my friend that day.
Wright moved into a rented room on May the twenty-first – that fits, because my friend was moving out of his house that weekend – I wanted him to bring all his things to my place, but he wouldn’t.
I didn’t understand where he was putting it all. It must have been this rented room.’
Having tried and failed to think of a more tactful way of posing his next question, Strike said,
‘And why would your friend have changed his name and gone to work in a silver shop?’
‘Because – it’s complicated.’
‘Have you reported him missing?’
‘Yes, of course, but the police aren’t helping , they just took his aunt’s word for it that—’
She broke off, then said in a higher-pitched voice.
‘Look, I know it was him, I know it was, all right?’
Strike, Robin and their subcontractors had a name for the kind of people who’d emailed and phoned their office in increasing numbers as the agency’s profile grew, desperate to tell the detectives that they were being spied on by domestic appliances, that Satanic rings were being run out of Westminster, or that they were in relationships with celebrities who were unaccountably withholding their affections due to malign forces: Gatesheads.
The distinguishing characteristics of a Gateshead were an irrational belief, a dislike of common sense questions and an inability to contemplate alternative explanations for their dilemmas.
The woman sitting opposite Strike was currently presenting a classic set of symptoms.
‘You said Sir Daniel Gayle’s daughter works for you,’ Strike said, hoping to unravel the problem by tugging on a different thread. ‘What exactly—?’
‘I’ve got a restaurant,’ said Decima. ‘The Happy Carrot, on Sloane Street. She’s my ma?tre d’.’
Strike happened to know the restaurant in question, which, in spite of the name, wasn’t a vegan café but a very well-reviewed and expensive eatery offering organically produced food, to which Strike had recently tailed an unfaithful commercial pilot and his mistress.
Unless Decima was lying about being Valentine’s sister she came from money: the Longcasters were a very wealthy family, and Decima and Valentine’s father, whom Strike had never met, but about whom he knew far more than he’d ever wanted to, owned one of the most expensive private members’ clubs in London. Trying yet another tack, he asked,
‘How well did you know the man you think was the body in the vault?’
‘ Very well, ’ said Decima. ‘I—’
To Strike’s consternation, something now stirred beneath Decima’s poncho, as though her breasts had developed independent motion. Then, making Strike jump, an ear-splitting screech echoed through the kitchen.
‘Oh God!’ said Decima in panic, scrambling to her feet. ‘I hoped he’d sleep—’
She now struggled out of her poncho, which caused her fine hair to stand up in the static, to reveal a very small baby strapped to her in a fleecy sling.
‘You mustn’t tell anyone about him!’ Decima told Strike frantically over the baby’s squalling. ‘ You mustn’t tell anyone I’ve got a baby! ’
Strike’s disconcerted expression appeared to trigger still more panic in Decima.
‘He’s mine! I can show you the birth certificate! I had him three weeks ago! But nobody knows about him, and you mustn’t tell them!’
Robin had chosen a fine fucking day to get a sore throat, thought Strike, as Decima tried and failed to extricate herself from the harness attaching the screaming baby to her.
Finally, and mostly because he wanted the noise to stop, he went to her aid, successfully prising apart a clasp in which part of the poncho had become entangled.
‘Thank you – I think he’s hungry – I’m feeding him myself…’
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Strike at once, more than happy to go and sit in his car if that was what it took not to have to watch.
‘No, I – if you’ll just turn your back—’
He willingly did as he was bidden, turning to stare through the window not covered with a bin bag.
The baby’s screams dwindled; Strike heard the scraping of chair legs and a small whimper of pain from Decima.
He tried not to visualise what was happening behind him, and hoped to God she wasn’t one of those women who’d happily bare their breasts in front of strangers.
At last, after what felt much longer than a couple of minutes, she said in a shaky voice,
‘It’s all right, you can turn round.’
Decima had pulled the poncho back over herself and the baby was once more hidden from view. As Strike sat down again, Decima said tremulously,
‘Please, you can’t tell anyone I’ve got him! Nobody knows, except the people at the hospital!’
While he’d thought she was living here alone, Strike had been agreeable to keeping her secrets, notwithstanding his suspicion that she wasn’t in perfect mental health.
She’d given no indication of suicidality, and she had family; if she wanted to hide out at her miserable inherited house, it wasn’t any of his business.
However, Strike didn’t want the burden of being the only person who knew this baby existed, outside the hospital.
‘Haven’t you got a—?’ He struggled to think of someone whose responsibility women who’d just given birth might be. ‘A health visitor, or—?’
‘I don’t need one. You can’t tell anyone about Lion. I need a guarantee— ’
Strike, who was fairly sure she’d just told him her son’s name was ‘Lion’, which didn’t strengthen his reliance on her mental health, said,
‘Why don’t you want anyone to know you’ve got a child?’
Decima burst into tears. When it became clear she wasn’t going to stop any time soon, Strike looked around for kitchen roll, saw none, so pushed himself back into a standing position and limped off in search of toilet roll.
The small bathroom off the hall had an old-fashioned chain-operated cistern and a dead spider plant on the windowsill.
He took the entire roll off its holder, returned to the kitchen and set it in front of the weeping Decima, who sobbed her thanks and groped one-handed for a few sheets.
Strike sat back down in front of his open notebook.
‘This man you think was killed in the vault,’ said Strike. ‘Is he your baby’s father?’
Decima began to sob even more loudly, pressing toilet roll to her eyes. Strike took this as a ‘yes’.
‘ He hasn’t left me! ’
She’d already told Strike her ‘friend’ was twenty-six, and Strike judged her own age to be nearing forty.
Strike’s own mother had married a man seventeen years younger than herself, at whose hands Strike remained convinced (though the jury hadn’t agreed) she’d died.
Jeff Whittaker had married Leda Strike for the money he’d believed she had, and had been furious to discover that it was tied up in ways that meant he couldn’t touch it.
In consequence, Cormoran Strike wasn’t very well disposed to much younger men who attached themselves to wealthy older women.