Page 44 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

I’ve my taste of truth,

Likewise my touch of falsehood…

Robert Browning Mr Sludge, ‘The Medium’

At a quarter to two on Monday afternoon, Strike headed out for Holborn to interview Jim Todd, the Ramsay Silver cleaner.

Having a pretext to call Robin, he did so, because maximising contact with her fell into the categories of both playing to his strengths and not letting Ryan Murphy change his game plan.

‘Hi,’ said Robin, answering on the second ring. ‘I’ve just found out why we can never get Rupert’s friend Albie at Dino’s. He hasn’t worked there for five months.’

‘Couldn’t they just have bloody told us that?’ said Strike. Robin was also walking somewhere with heavy traffic, and he had his free forefinger in his opposite ear, so as to be able to hear her.

‘No, because according to the waitress I just waylaid in the street, they aren’t allowed to give out information about staff over the phone. She says Albie’s gone to work at Harrods, so that’s where I’m heading. Where are you?’

‘Nearly at Leather Lane.’

‘Mucky Ricci’s old place,’ said Robin, referring to an old gangster who’d been a suspect in a previous case.

‘Exactly.’

‘Any particular reason for calling, or just checking the masons haven’t done me in yet?’

‘Yeah, I’ve just heard back from my SIB mate, Hardacre.

Semple was definitely SAS and was invalided out in 2015 following a traumatic brain injury that left him in a medically induced coma for three months.

No details available, even to the Military Police, which makes me think he was definitely E Squadron. ’

‘So Lawrence must be MI5?’

‘I think we have to accept that as a working assumption,’ said Strike. ‘To change the subject completely: what were you going to tell me on Saturday, about Osgood’s Facebook page?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Robin, who in her current state of sleep deprivation had forgotten she hadn’t passed this information on, though she’d put it in the file.

‘Well, the same girl – she’s called Sapphire – appears in the comments on both the real Osgood’s Facebook page, and fake Oz’s Instagram page.

I did some digging and I think I’ve found her.

Her name’s Sapphire Neagle and here’s the thing: she’s on a missing persons’ website.

She stopped posting to social media in November and hasn’t been seen since. I know that might be coincidence, but—’

‘Known online contact with a man who definitely isn’t who he says he is, is suggestive,’ said Strike.

‘Well, exactly,’ said Robin. ‘I’m not saying she’s with Oz, or that he’s done away with her, God forbid, but it’s got to be a possibility. I was thinking of calling the charity to see what they can tell me. What d’you think?’

‘Can’t hurt. We should touch a police contact, find out whether they know what happened to her, as well. Incidentally, did the Land Rover get through its MOT?’

‘No,’ sighed Robin. ‘They rang ten minutes ago. They say it’d need more money spent on it than it’d be worth in scrap,’ she said, trying not to sound as sad as she felt.

She had a sentimental attachment to the old car she’d have found hard to explain to anyone who didn’t know how much she associated it with her escape from her first husband, who’d never liked it, and with the career that meant so much to her.

‘You could charge part of a new one against the business,’ said Strike.

‘Another Land Rover would be useful. It’s good, having a car that works for the country as well, that doesn’t stick out in rural areas.

Gives us options. Well, let me know how you get on in Harrods. Got to go, I’m at Leather Lane.’

Call finished, Strike proceeded down the narrow street lined with shops, fast food restaurants and market stalls, thinking about Robin’s defunct Land Rover, now destined for the scrapyard.

While not as attached to the car as Robin was, it seemed somehow to mark the end of an era, and it occurred to him that his Christmas present to Robin might need rethinking, in light of the news of the car’s demise.

The Craft Beer Co, the pub Todd had chosen for this interview, stood on a corner, was decorated with hanging baskets and a three-dimensional model of the royal standard over the door.

Strike glanced up at the harp, the lion rampant, and the three lions passant as he entered the wooden-floored space.

Strike recognised Jim Todd, not by his face, because the quality of Ramsay’s camera footage was so poor, but by his shape.

The cleaner was sitting on a leather bench with a full pint on the table in front of him.

Short and very rotund, Todd had small hands and feet, tiny blue eyes, a wide, thin-lipped mouth, and patches of fluffy greyish hair around his ears, though he was otherwise bald.

He was wearing old trousers, a grubby-looking jacket, and his pinprick eyes were fixed on a young woman in a very short skirt who was standing by the bar.

‘Cameron, is it?’ said Todd, when Strike joined him, half a pint of IPA in his hand.

‘Cormoran, but I answer to both,’ said Strike, taking the chair opposite. ‘Thanks for meeting me, I appreciate it. This your local?’

‘Kinda. I’m just up the road. Got a little room, ’andy for me jobs. Me an’ a bunch of Pakistanis, packed in over a Lebanese restaurant, hahaha.’

‘Yeah, London housing’s no joke,’ said Strike, pulling out his notebook. ‘You clean for a few different businesses, right?’

‘’S’right.’

‘All in the same area?’

‘Holborn, Covent Garden, yeah. Word of mouf. I do a good job,’ said Todd, still smiling, but with a faint suggestion of defiance.

‘Well, as I said on the phone, this is really just for background. How many hours a week do you do at Ramsay Silver?’

‘Monday an’ Fursday mornings, regular, an’ a bit of overtime, polishin’ stock an’ stuff.’

‘How long have you been there?’

‘Two years now.’

‘Did you answer an ad, or…?’

‘’Novver bloke I clean for mentioned me to Ken Ramsay, an’ Ken took me on.’

‘Did you have a lot to do with William Wright?’

‘Saw ’im a bit, yeah. But you mean Knowles, not Wright, dontcha?’ said Todd, grinning more broadly, as though he’d caught Strike out.

‘The police still haven’t got a firm ID,’ said Strike.

‘Fort they ’ad?’

‘No,’ said Strike. ‘But you’re confident it was Knowles, are you?’

‘Oh yeah,’ said Todd, still grinning. ‘No, it was Knowles. We all agreed, me, Ken and Pamela.’

‘Pamela’s got difficulties with her sight, though, hasn’t she?’

‘What? Yeah, but she ain’t blind .’

‘Did the police show you any pictures, other than Jason Knowles’?’

‘Showed us a couple, yeah,’ said Todd.

‘Can you remember the names of the men concerned?’

‘One of ’em was a soldier.’

Strike made a note before saying,

‘Was Knowles’ picture a mugshot?’

‘Yeah,’ said Todd, and answering the unasked question he said, ‘it weren’ just that. ’E looked like Wright.’

‘Wright was pretty well disguised, from what I’ve seen on the shop’s security footage.’

‘Well… yeah,’ admitted Todd.

‘Looked like he was one of those men who can grow a thick beard,’ said Strike.

‘It was fick, yeah,’ conceded Todd. ‘Some blokes can do that, can’ they? Go from ’ere’ – Todd tapped a stubby forefinger at a point two inches beneath his eye – ‘to ’alfway down yer neck. Pamela told ’im to tidy it up a bit, but Wright told me ’e ’ad acne scarring. Wanted to keep it ’idden.’

‘Really?’ said Strike, and he made another note before saying, ‘I’ve got a few pictures here, if you wouldn’t mind having a look. I think you’ll have seen at least one of them before.

Sure enough, when Todd laid eyes on the pictures of Niall Semple, he said,

‘Yeah, that’s ’im, that’s the soldier.’

He passed over the picture of Tyler Powell with a slight shake of the head, but lingered, grinning again, over the photo of the man Strike had no choice but to call Dick de Lion, until they found out his real name.

In the least lewd picture of him Strike had managed to find online, de Lion was shirtless.

‘Woss ’e – a stripper?’

‘Not as far as I know,’ said Strike.

‘Mind, ’e was that colour, Wright.’

‘Fake tanned?’

‘Yeah. Could of bin ’im, maybe…’

Todd squinted, and Strike assumed he was trying to visualise the blond Dick de Lion with dark hair, a full beard and glasses. De Lion had brown eyes and very white teeth, although these had possibly been enhanced in the photograph.

‘ Could of bin ’im,’ said Todd.

‘How sure are you? Out of ten?’

‘Dunno… five? But it could of bin ’im – Wright was a bit—’

Instead of finishing the sentence, Todd raised his right hand and let it hang, limply, from his wrist.

‘What?’ said Strike. ‘Camp?’

‘Poncey. Yeah.’

Todd turned from the picture of de Lion to that of Rupert Fleetwood.

‘Nah,’ he said, ‘don’ fink so.’

He handed the pictures back.

‘Did you have much to do with Wright, at the shop?’ Strike asked.

‘A bit.’

‘Talk to him at all?’

‘A bit,’ repeated Todd.

‘What was his accent like? Did he sound like he was from Doncaster?’

‘Wouldn’ know ’ow that sounded,’ said Todd.

‘He couldn’t have been Scottish, and faking an English accent?’

‘Don’t fink so.’

‘Or trying to sound more working class than he was?’

‘One of them’s posh, is ’e?’ said Todd, gesturing towards Strike’s pictures.

Strike ignored the question.

‘What did you and Wright talk about?’

‘Freemasons,’ said Todd promptly, grinning again. ‘’E asked questions about ’em, all the bloody time.’

‘Are you one?’ asked Strike.

‘Hahaha,’ said Todd. ‘Not me, guv.’

He buried his face in his pint and drank a couple of inches before setting it down again.

‘D’you think he got interested in Freemasons after starting work at the shop, or was this something he’d been interested in before he was hired?’

‘Dunno. ’E was def’nitely into it all, though. Wen’ an’ looked round Freemasons’ ’All, in ’is lunch hour.’

‘Really?’ said Strike.