Page 38 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

‘It was dreadful,’ said Pamela, with a shudder. ‘Ay had no idea anybody had been in the shop over the weekend. Wrayght didn’t work Saturdays, Kenneth looks after Rachel at the weekends, and Ay couldn’t be there, because Ay was attendin’ may cousin’s wedding.’

‘Presumably,’ said Robin, ‘you and Mr Ramsay were the only ones who knew the codes and had keys?’

‘Yes – well, I suppose Todd mayt have known where the camera controls were, but he shouldn’t have known the alarm or the vault codes, and he definitely didn’t have keys…

Kenneth came rushing in after Ay arrayved, frayghtened he’d missed John Auclair, sneaking out of his office, as usual – he’s hanging by a thread at his day job – so he went down into the basement, and then he yelled out. ’

Pamela swallowed.

‘Ay called down, “are you all rayte, Kenneth?” Ay thought he’d maybe slipped over, hurt himself.

He didn’t answer. Ay went to the top of the stairs.

Ay said, “ are you all rayte? ” And he still didn’t answer, so Ay went down there…

he could have stopped me seeing,’ said Pamela bitterly.

‘He could have warned me… it was dreadful. Ay still have nayghtmares.… did Kenneth tell you? About Wrayght’s hands being missing, and… and everything?’

‘A little bit,’ said Robin. ‘It must have been awful.’

‘It was ghastly – and then John turned up. Ay’d just come back upstairs, to call the police.

Ay nearly passed out in front of John. Ay’d just said to the operator, “there’s a body, we’ve found a body,” and then Ay had to sit down.

John left – Ay can’t blame him, who’d want to be mixed up in that ?

Then Kenneth came upstairs, babbling, and Todd came up, too.

He’d seen, of course. He’d been cleaning the bathroom when Kenneth went down there.

Horrible man,’ said Pamela, with another shudder. ‘Horrible.’

‘Jim Todd, you mean?’ asked Robin.

‘Yes. Ay don’t like him at all. Ay don’t think he’s trustworthy.’

‘Really?’

‘Something very sneaky about him. Kenneth has appalling judgement,’ said Pamela, becoming suddenly heated again. ‘ All the people Kenneth hired… he only cares if they’re cheap!’

‘Was Wright cheap?’ Robin asked.

‘Yes, and that’s a perfect example of what Ay’m talking about!

’ said Pamela, in frustration. ‘They were paying their first security chap next to nothing, so naturally, he took the first job offer he got, and because they were losing money hand over fist, they didn’t replace him.

But Ay didn’t want to be there alone when Ay went to help out, Ay couldn’t manage carrying everything up and downstairs, and how Rachel was supposed to do it, if she ever gets well enough – so Kenneth advertised for a sort of jack-of-all-trades, a salesman who could do heavy lifting and security. ’

‘He said there weren’t many applicants,’ said Robin.

‘No, of course not, not on the salary he was offering! There weren’t many applicants. Ay told him Ay didn’t think much of Wrayght’s CV. Misspellings all over it.’

‘Misspellings,’ repeated Robin.

‘Yes. And then he layed. ’

‘Wright did?’ said Robin.

‘No, Kenneth! He agreed we shouldn’t interview Wrayght, then sneaked his email address on to the list and Ay didn’t realise until Wrayght turned up that Kenneth had hoodwinked me into offering the man an interview.

And then ,’ said Pamela furiously, ‘he accused me of making the mistake, me of adding his email address to the list, bay mistake!’

‘That seems very unfair,’ said Robin, who was most interested in this information. ‘How many people did you end up interviewing?’

‘Just three – well, two. One of them didn’t turn up – the one Ay thought mayt be quite good.

Ay suppose he had a better offer. So it was just Wrayght and this boy who was seventeen and looked as though he couldn’t fayt his way out of a paper bag.

So, of course, with the physical requirements, Wrayght was the only choice. ’

‘He claimed to be from Doncaster, didn’t he?’ said Robin. ‘Did he have a Yorkshire accent?’

‘Ay don’t really know. He didn’t sound very refayned… polite enough,’ said Pamela grudgingly, ‘but Ay knew straight away he knew nothing about silver or antiques, whatever he’d said at interview. Not even a basic understanding. He asked me what the lion passant meant!’

‘What does it mean?’ asked Robin.

‘The lion passant,’ repeated Pamela, with slight disbelief at Robin’s own lack of knowledge. ‘The most basic , common British hallmark. It means the item is sterling silver: point nine two five purity. When Ay explained that to Wrayght, he said “that’s funny”.’

‘“That’s funny,”’ repeated Robin. ‘What was funny about it?’

‘Ay’ve no idea,’ said Pamela. ‘But afterwards, when we found out he was Knowles, Ay thought, Ay should have known , from the name “William Wrayght”. They’re a well-known firm in Sheffield.

They make silverware for hospitality. That’ll be where Knowles got the idea. Ay felt so silly for not seeing it.’

‘Mr Ramsay says Wright used the work computer to look things up,’ said Robin.

‘Yes, he visited “Truth About Freemasons” or some such sayte. Ay suppose you could argue he was traying to learn, but there’s no proper information on silverware on a sayte layke that .

Just conspiracy nonsense, and people going on there to discuss masonic plots, and Freemasons arguing with them – nothing about masonic objects . ’

‘Mr Ramsay’s given us the camera footage from the day the Murdoch silver arrived, but we haven’t had a chance to look at it yet,’ Robin fibbed. ‘Was it a normal kind of day?’

‘Yes,’ said Pamela, but there was a slight wariness in her tone. ‘Well – not with the Murdoch silver arrayving. But otherwayse it was normal.’

‘Mr Ramsay told us the silver arrived late,’ said Robin.

‘It did, yes. He’s been sacked – the delivery man from Gibsons. Ay’d had dealings with him once before. Name of Larry McGee. Careless, not at all the kaynd of person you’d trust with valuable deliveries. Ay’m not surpraysed Gibsons got rid of him.’

‘The silver was meant to arrive at lunchtime, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, but it didn’t get there until a quarter past three, and then McGee refused to carry it down to the vault, just dumped the crates in the middle of the shop, so Ay had to call Todd to come and help Wrayght lift it.

Todd does Frayday afternoons at an office on Kingsway that closes at lunchtime, so he was nearby. ’

‘And did anyone open the crates, to check the silver?’ asked Robin.

‘Yes, of course, Ay did mayself. Ay’m very careful about security, Ay wasn’t going to let those two handle valuable objects without me present.

Ay opened the vault for them, and once they’d carried the crates inside, and were back upstairs, Ay went down, and took off the lids mayself.

That’s when Ay opened the big crate and found McGee had delivered our things to Ramsays, so Ay knew the Oriental Centrepiece must be here .

Wrayght went to fetch it from may husband.

’ For a second, Pamela looked as though she might cry again, but she took a deep breath then said, ‘Afterwards, if you can believe it – after everything that had happened! – Kenneth grumbled that Ay’d bought a few things from the collection for Bullens.

Said Ay’d broken a gentlemen’s agreement.

Absolute nonsense! Nothing we bought was masonic, just a few nayce bits of general silverware.

Ay think Kenneth believes anything A. H.

Murdoch touched is his, by divayne rayte! ’

‘He’s a personal fan of A. H. Murdoch, then?’ said Robin.

‘Oh, yes. Murdoch wrote books, you know. Kenneth’s got all of them.

He belongs to some grotty little lodge in Lewisham – Kenneth, not A.

H. Murdoch. May father was a mason, too, that’s whay Bullen & Co had a little saydlayne in masonic goods while he was alayve, but Daddy wasn’t anywhere near as silly about it all as Kenneth. ’

‘So, once you’d put the Murdoch silver in the vault, it was a completely normal day?’ asked Robin. ‘You closed at the usual time, and so forth?’

A fractional pause followed, in which Robin was certain Pamela was reminding herself that she was caught on camera.

‘Ay had to leave a little early. Ay had an awful headache,’ said Pamela. ‘Ay’ve had them ever since the laser surgery.’

‘You got a text, didn’t you?’ said Robin casually. ‘Just before you left?’

‘What?’ said Pamela. ‘Oh – yes…’

Tears rose suddenly in Pamela’s eyes again.

‘Ay don’t want to talk about that. It had nothing to do with any of this, the Murdoch silver, or Wrayght. Ay asked Todd to man the shop until Wrayght got back. Everything was quayte safe. And then I went home.’

Leaving untouched the question of how Wright and Todd were supposed to have locked the door, set the alarm or opened the vault to place the centrepiece in it, Robin said,

‘I don’t suppose there’s any possibility of you giving us a clip of your own footage – just from when William Wright came here that Friday, to pick up the centrepiece?’

‘Well… Ay don’t see why not,’ said Pamela, still sniffing, but turning to her keyboard. Coffee and sympathy appeared to have softened her considerably. ‘But you won’t faynd it very helpful, Ay’m afraid. He’s only visible for a few seconds.’

When the segment of footage had been forwarded to her email, Robin said,

‘Would you mind looking at a picture for me?’

She took a copy of Rupert Fleetwood’s photo from her bag and held it out.

‘Our client would like to know whether this could have been William Wright.’

Pamela raised her reading glasses and peered at Rupert in his burgundy waiter’s uniform. Robin could tell she was having difficulty focusing. When Pamela shook her head, her stiffly lacquered hair didn’t move at all.

‘No, definitely not.’

‘You were all agreed William Wright was Jason Knowles, weren’t you?’ said Robin. ‘Everyone who worked at the shop, I mean?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Pamela. ‘Yes, it was definitely Knowles. Well, it made perfect sense. He’d spotted an opportunity. The security at Ramsays…’

‘The cameras look very old,’ said Robin.

‘ Old? ’ said Pamela, with resurgent scorn. ‘Bullen & Co replaced those models nay on twenty years ago, and the outside one hasn’t worked in all the tayme they’ve owned the shop. Kenneth never got round to fixing it. Thought just the sayt of it would be a deterrent.’

‘Right,’ said Robin. As she returned Fleetwood’s photo to her handbag, she said,

‘Mr Ramsay mentioned a funny email that had been sent from the shop, a week before the robbery. To a man named Calvin “Oz” Osgood? Saying they could help him with a problem?’

‘Yes, Wrayght sent it,’ said Pamela at once. ‘Well, it certainly wasn’t me , and Kenneth didn’t do it. Nayther of us had ever heard of the man.’

‘What about Jim Todd?’ asked Robin.

‘He shouldn’t have had the password to the computer,’ said Pamela. ‘ Ay certainly never gave it to him.’

‘Mrs Bullen-Driscoll, this has been so helpful,’ said Robin warmly, getting to her feet. ‘I really do hope the problems with your eyes get better.’

‘Thank you,’ said Pamela, also standing up. ‘You’ve been… very kaynd.’

Ten minutes later, Robin was standing alone beside the entrance to Chancery Lane Tube station, her mobile clamped to one ear, a finger in her other, and a broad smile on her face.

‘Ellacott,’ said Strike’s voice, audible even over the roar of the surrounding traffic, ‘you’re a fucking marvel.’