Page 45 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

‘Oh, yeah. I was walkin’ down Great Queen Street, just goin’ to one of me ovver jobs, an’ I seen Wright goin’ in there. I says to ’im, next time I seen ’im, “find any sacrificial goats?” Hahaha.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘Said ’e wanted to see Temple Seventeen.’

‘Why?’

‘Dunno, ’e wouldn’t say. Just said “I wan’ed to see it”.

After I found out ’e was Knowles, though, I fort, “Temple Seventeen my arse, ’e was up to sumfing to do wiv the silver ’e was gonna nick”.

They’ve got a museum in there, in Freemasons’ ’All, an’ a shop, wiv books in it.

I fort, “’e was lookin’ stuff up. Tryina find out what it was all worf, that Whatsit silver. ”’

‘Did you tell the police Wright had visited Freemasons’ Hall?’

‘Yeah, ’course,’ said Todd smugly.

‘Did Wright ever tell you someone might come looking for him?’

‘No,’ said Todd, ‘opposite.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘I fort there was a guy watching the shop. I seen ’im ’angin’ around a few times.

After I seen ’im the fird time, I told Wright, keep an’ eye out for ’im.

Big guy, same kinda size as you. Just ’angin’ around.

But when I told ’im, Wright said ’e’d seen ’im, an’ ’e worked at the Connaught Rooms. Didn’ give a toss. After, I fort, “accomplice, wannit”.’

‘Did you tell Pamela or Kenneth about this man?’

‘Didn’ wanna worry ’em. Anyway, it was Wright’s job, ’e was s’posed to be security.’

‘What about the police, did you tell them about this guy?’

‘Yeah, I fink I did. Yeah,’ said Todd, and he took another gulp of beer.

‘Did this man have dark curly hair?’

‘What? No. Straight ’air. ’Oo’s got dark curly ’air?’

Strike ignored this question, too.

‘So Wright never told you he was on the run, or needed to go into hiding, or that he’d been wrongly accused of anything?’

‘Like wha’?’ said Todd.

‘I don’t know,’ said Strike, ‘but he visited a website called Abused and Accused, on the Ramsay Silver computer.’

‘I know abou’ that website, police asked us about it,’ said Todd. He was no longer grinning. ‘They asked me if I’d ever bin on it. ’Course I ’adn’t. I never ’ad the password to the fucking computer. It’s on ’er if the silly tit was messin’ around on there.’

‘What d’you mean?’ asked Strike.

‘’Cause she was out, wan’ she? Pamela. The day that bloody Whatsit silver arrived, she pissed off early, an’ all.’

‘It’d be helpful if you could run me through what happened that afternoon,’ said Strike. ‘You were at another job when the silver arrived, weren’t you?’

‘Yeah. I said to Pamela, Fursday, “I’ll give you an ’and if you need it.” For overtime,’ he added, ‘’cause I knew one of the fings was massive. Kennef showed us it all, in ’is catalogue. I said, I’ll ’elp, if you need it.’

‘Wouldn’t the Gibsons man be expected to carry the silver downstairs?’

‘You seen them stairs?’ said Todd. Ever since the mention of the Abused and Accused website, his manner had been prickly, and he was now scowling.

‘I have, yeah,’ said Strike.

‘You fink people ’oo don’t ’ave to wanna risk breakin’ their necks? I was there before when a deliv’ry man wouldn’ carry stuff down there. ’Ealf an’ safety, innit? I said to Pamela the firs’ time, gimme a tenner an’ I’ll carry it down, ’cause that was before they got Wright.’

‘Was the previous delivery man who wouldn’t carry stuff down the stairs Larry McGee?’

‘’Oo?’ said Todd. He picked up his pint glass and drank again.

‘McGee delivered the Murdoch silver.’

‘Oh. No. I dunno, I never saw ’im, did I?’

‘So you’d recognise Larry McGee?’

‘No,’ said Todd. ‘’Oo was ’e?’

‘I just told you. The delivery man from Gibsons.’

‘Never ’eard of ’im.’

‘So when did Pamela phone you about the Murdoch silver, can you remember?’

‘Round free. I ’ad to wait till I could leave discreetly, ’cause I was at me ovver job.’

‘So you got there, when?’

‘’Bout ’alf an hour later, an’ Wright ’ad got most of it down wivvout me. It was jus’ the big crate ’e needed me for. Me ’an ’im carried it down.’

‘Did you go back to the Kingsway job after you’d put the crate in the vault?’

‘No, because then Pamela yells upstairs there’s bin a mix-up, and she tells Wright to go an’ get the fing what’d been delivered to ’er place, Bullen on the contrary, the checkable information he’d provided had been entirely accurate.

Yet that slip of the tongue about Larry McGee, and his clear discomfort at the mention of the Abused and Accused website, were interesting.

‘Well, thanks for meeting me,’ said Strike, getting to his feet.

‘Pleasure,’ said Jim Todd, but his tone contradicted the word.

Strike walked back up Leather Lane, thinking about the man he’d just left: getting on in years and grubbing for money where he could.

The willingness of a variety of business owners to give Todd work at retirement age interested Strike, as did the fact that said businesses were all in central London, rather than out at some shabby periphery.

Respectable landlords were often unwilling to rent to certain kinds of men, Strike knew, and those same men might also have limited options even when it came to social housing.

Into this category fell those recently released from prison, especially if they’d committed particular kinds of crimes.

Such men needed friends if they were to survive with any degree of comfort in the outside world, and it seemed to Cormoran Strike that, unenviable though Todd’s life might appear, he was being given an unusual degree of quiet assistance that neither his personality nor his talents seemed to justify.