Page 46 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

… the souls of the vicious dead passed into the bodies of those animals to whose nature their vices had most affinity… To this doctrine probably referred those figures of animals and monsters which were exhibited to the Initiate…

Albert Pike Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

Harrods stood in massive red brick splendour in the heart of Knightsbridge, outlined in the dull mid-afternoon with golden lightbulbs, its green and gold awnings stretching over windows full of clothing, handbags and jewellery Robin could never have afforded.

She’d only ever entered the department store twice before: once with her ex-husband, shortly after they’d arrived in London and purely for sight-seeing purposes, the second time with her mother, for identical reasons.

Today, Harrods’ windows were displaying the usual range of designer goods in snowy settings and, on stepping inside, Robin found herself immersed in a sumptuous Christmas fantasy where, if you walked the halls long enough, with their lavish, twinkling decorations, you might be tempted to believe that you, too, could stage a holiday of high glamour and luxury for your loved ones, at least until you started checking price tags.

The place was so large it was disorientating, and Robin couldn’t blame the various shop assistants she importuned for assistance for being impatient; they were overwhelmed by the Christmas crowds, and some were understandably suspicious of her desire to locate a brother whose department she couldn’t remember.

Floor by floor Robin ascended the Egyptian staircase, which had golden ankhs, pharaohs and constellations on its walls and ceiling, and scanned enormous rooms full of merchandise, looking for the young man whose photographs she’d studied on Facebook.

At long last, after two and a half hours of solid searching, Robin found Albie Simpson-White in the sports department on the fourth floor, where he was standing close to a life-size fibreglass horse, assisting a mother and her teenaged daughter to find the correct size of riding breeches.

He looked incredibly young to Robin, who knew from his Facebook page that he was twenty-four: tall, blond and baby-faced, with a complexion many women would have envied.

She lurked among the Aertex shirts until Albie had finished with his customers, then, before anyone else could corner him, she approached the counter.

‘Albie?’

He looked slightly surprised to be addressed by name, even though it was displayed on a badge on his suit lapel.

‘I’m Robin Ellacott and I’m a private detective.’ She slid her card across the counter. ‘I’d really like to talk to you about Rupert Fleetwood. Not here, obviously, but if you get a break, or after work. We could have a coffee, or a drink?’

He looked down at her card, blinked at it for a few seconds, then said,

‘Has – who – has Decima hired you?’

‘That’s right,’ said Robin.

Albie glanced around, then said in a low voice,

‘I told her, I don’t know where he’s gone! I’ve told her! She kept calling me. I don’t know where he is! ’

‘I’d be very grateful for a quick chat,’ said Robin. ‘Just for background. Decima’s incredibly worried about Rupert.’

‘There’s no need for her to be worried!’

‘How do you know? Are you in touch with him?’

‘No,’ said Albie, colour mounting in his boyish face, ‘but I’m sure he’s fine!’

‘We could really use all the background we can—’

‘Who told you I was here?’

‘I spoke to a friend of yours from Dino’s, Lina.’

Albie glanced at a suited man also wearing a name tag standing some ten yards away, then back at Robin.

She could tell that, like the majority of people unexpectedly confronted by a private detective, Albie was as scared of refusing to talk as he was of speaking to her.

What did she know? What might be the consequences of sending her away?

‘All right,’ he said nervously, ‘I’ll meet you at the staff entrance at eight.’

‘Where’s the staff entrance?’

‘Twenty-eight Basil Street.’

‘Thanks very much, Albie,’ said Robin. ‘You can keep my card, just in case you need my mobile number.’

Albie pocketed it quickly, then turned to a customer waiting to pay for a pair of trainers.

Robin returned to the ground floor to while away the time before her interview, postponing a return to the icy street.

She had just entered one of the food halls when her phone buzzed.

She took it out and saw that her mother had texted her a picture with the caption ‘say hello to Betty’ and an eye-roll emoji.

The picture showed Robin’s father, Michael, holding a jet black Labrador puppy in his arms.

Robin returned the phone to her bag without responding and set off again, with a vague idea of buying some chocolates or biscuits to take home to Masham.

However, it was almost impossible to walk more than a few feet unimpeded, and she was buffeted constantly by shoppers both irate and aimless.

Since leaving the cult where she’d worked undercover, Robin had found no enjoyment in finding herself in a mass of bodies, especially in windowless spaces.

Just as she was thinking she’d rather wait out on the chilly pavement after all, her eye fell on a clear plastic tube full of festively coloured jelly beans: red, green and white.

She was reminded of the tube William Wright had claimed was a blood sample.

Perhaps her niece, Annabel, would like the jelly beans? Robin reached out for them—

A large hand closed painfully around the back of her neck, holding her so tightly that she couldn’t turn her head or cry out, the strong fingers tight on her carotid artery, and Robin was so shocked she couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening, or even raise her arms, and the shoppers kept shuffling all around her—

The man holding her – she knew it was a man, by the size and strength of the hand compressing her neck – was forcing something small and rubbery into her own left hand, and she closed her hand into a fist, fighting to draw breath to shout, but he squeezed her neck more tightly, and she knew she must open her hand, if that’s what he wanted, and did so, and he pressed what felt like a small lump of rubber into her grasp, then hissed in her ear,

‘ It’ll ’appen again unless you fuckin’ give this up. ’

He released but simultaneously pushed her so hard in the back that she toppled forwards into a woman who was carrying a toddler; the former shrieked at the impact and dropped the jar of brandy butter she’d been holding, which cracked open on the floor.

‘Watch what you’re doing!’ shouted the woman, staggering to regain her balance, and the toddler began to cry, and heads turned.

‘I’m sorry, I’m really sorry – someone pushed me—’

Neck still throbbing, Robin turned and stood on tiptoe, and thought she saw a slight disturbance at a distant doorway, as though someone was forcing their way out of the food hall at speed, but it was impossible to see her assailant through the forest of heads.

Now trembling, Robin looked down at the object he’d forced into her hand. It was a small rubber model of a gorilla.

For several long seconds she stared at it, trying to tell herself the man had been mentally ill, that she’d been a random recipient of a nonsensical gift, that he’d mistaken her for someone in the crush, that this didn’t mean what she was terrified it meant.

It’ll ’appen again unless you fuckin’ give this up.

The rapist who had ended her university career and ruined her fallopian tubes had worn a rubber gorilla mask to attack her and six other girls, two of whom had died from strangulation.

He’d been sentenced to life and was still in jail, all applications for parole refused.

Robin’s identity had been hidden from the press when she gave evidence in court, aged nineteen.

How could a stranger know she’d been Witness G?

‘Excuse me!’ said a cross voice, and a tall, patrician-looking man reached past Robin to seize a boxed Christmas cake.

Robin moved out of the way, the small rubber gorilla still clutched in her left hand, and blundered out of the food hall, looking for a way outside, fruitlessly scanning the face of every man she passed.

She wanted to drop the gorilla, throw it away somewhere, but her assailant’s hand had been bare, so it might have his DNA on it, like the rubber mask of her serial rapist, which had been found hidden beneath the floorboards in the ‘study’ his wife had never been permitted to enter. Robin stuffed it into her handbag.

Heading in what she thought must be the direction of Brompton Road, passing cosmetic counters and struggling through more dense crowds, she imagined telling Murphy what had just happened.

He’d be outraged. He’d demand to know what measures she was taking to protect herself.

And, just as suddenly as she’d imagined telling her boyfriend, she knew she wouldn’t do it.

She had to tell Strike, though. Had she ever told her partner that her almost-killer had worn a gorilla mask? She didn’t think she had.

The cold had deepened outside and night was rapidly falling. Robin moved to stand beside one of the brightly lit windows, out of the way of the shopping hordes, her breath rising frostily before her. Strike answered his mobile within a couple of rings.

‘Hi,’ said Robin, trying to sound casual. ‘How was Todd?’

‘Interesting,’ said Strike. ‘Any luck on Albie Simpson-White?’

‘Yes,’ said Robin, ‘he’s meeting me after work.’

‘Great.’

‘Yes… I’m actually calling because something strange just happened,’ said Robin, doing her best to sound mildly interested, as opposed to profoundly shaken.

When she’d related the incident, Strike said incredulously,

‘He put a toy gorilla in your hand?’

‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘And the thing is… the man who – you know – when I was nineteen – the reason I left uni – he wore a latex gorilla mask, during the… attack.’

Robin suddenly realised that she was very close to tears, and mentally crossed her fingers that Strike wasn’t about to react angrily, to chastise her for not having taken more care, or not been quick enough to spot the man who’d done it.

‘OK,’ said Strike, and to her relief, while he sounded serious, he didn’t sound angry. ‘Where are you speaking to Simpson-White?’

‘I thought somewhere round here, in a pub or something.’

‘D’you want me to come and pick you up afterwards?’

‘What?’ said Robin, with a half-laugh. ‘No, of course not. The middle of town’s packed. I’ll just—’

‘What are you doing afterwards?’

‘Meeting Ryan,’ said Robin.

‘Take a taxi,’ said Strike.

‘There’s no—’

‘ Take a bloody taxi. ’

‘All right, all right, I’ll take a taxi,’ said Robin. She checked the time, and started walking towards the staff entrance where she was supposed to be meeting Albie. ‘Maybe,’ she said, striving for a calm, objective tone, ‘it was – I don’t know, a coincidence or—’

‘It wasn’t a coincidence.’

‘No,’ said Robin, as double-deckers rushed past her, the faces of passers-by illuminated by the golden glow of Harrods’ windows. ‘I don’t think it was either.’

Tears stung her eyes, and for a few seconds, she wanted to run. But run where? Home to Masham, as she’d done after the rape? Back to Murphy, who she knew she wasn’t going to tell?

‘Just be vigilant,’ said Strike, and she could tell he was exerting maximum self-restraint not to say it more forcefully, ‘all right?’

‘I will,’ said Robin. ‘I promise.’