Page 60 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)
What were the wise man’s plan?—
Through this sharp, toil-set life,
To work as best he can,
And win what’s won by strife.
Matthew Arnold Empedocles on Etna
Though technically on Christmas leave, Strike was sitting at the partners’ desk.
To spare himself another trip upstairs he’d brought down the holdall he’d packed for his brief stay at Lucy’s, plus two carrier bags full of Christmas presents for the family, comprising the pastel-coloured scarf he’d chosen for Lucy in Liberty’s, a bottle of gin for Greg, gift tokens for his eldest and youngest nephews and, for Jack, his favourite, a survival kit Strike would have loved himself when young.
Among other things, the khaki rucksack contained water purifying tablets, a compass, emergency food rations, camouflage make-up, an elaborate penknife and a couple of safety light sticks.
The last of these had reminded Strike of the tube-shaped object that had fallen from William Wright’s pocket on the night he’d shared a takeaway and cannabis with Mandy and Daz, and which Wright had claimed was a blood sample.
What the hell that had really been, Strike still had no idea.
Pat was now on Christmas leave, but she’d propped another handwritten card against the aquarium.
DON’T FEED, THERE’S A TIME RELEASE BLOCK OF FOOD IN HERE, WILL LAST A WEEK.
The subcontractors were on various jobs, which left Strike alone and free to do a bit of research he preferred to do in privacy: trying to identify the woman who’d shoved the cipher note through their office door.
This meant trawling through stills advertising porn films, and he didn’t fancy being discovered with an erection, nor did he much relish the idea of explaining to the accountant why he was charging porn to the business account, which was why he was trying not to pay for anything.
Starting on the premise that the blonde might have worked with Dangerous Dick de Lion, if she knew or feared he’d been murdered, Strike was working his way steadily through de Lion’s oeuvre, which included such titles as Twelve Horny Men and The Ass House.
The man had done ‘crossover’, meaning he worked in both straight and gay porn, so Strike was currently squinting at various naked or scantily dressed women in an attempt to identify the woman he’d seen only once.
He was staring at a brunette being penetrated both anally and orally when his mobile rang.
‘Hi,’ said Robin. ‘Sorry to call on Christmas Eve.’
‘No problem,’ said Strike, shutting down the window on his computer as though she could see what he was doing, and hoping his hard-on would subside enough to concentrate. ‘What’s up?’
‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen today’s Telegraph ?’
‘No,’ said Strike, with an ominous feeling that, if nothing else, was helping to subdue his erection. ‘There’s not another—?’
‘No,’ said Robin, ‘nothing about you, but there’s a picture of Lord Oliver Branfoot in it, and Strike, he’s standing beside the customer we saw in Ramsay Silver. That tall man who had one eye looking up at the ceiling.’
Sitting on her bed, still in her pyjamas, Robin waited for Strike’s response. After a few seconds, he said,
‘Shit.’
‘Kenneth Ramsay said your name in front of him, remember? Not mine, though.’
‘Who is he, the customer?’ said Strike.
‘Sir Victor Lambert,’ said Robin, reading it from the newspaper. ‘He sits on the Branfoot Trust and I’ve just looked him up; he’s a banker. But he can’t have ordered Wright’s murder, can he? He’d hardly have gone shopping at Ramsay Silver afterwards.’
‘That’d seem unwise,’ agreed Strike.
‘So…’ said Robin, unwilling to put into words what she was thinking; if she’d worried that connecting Sofia Medina with the murder of Wright might sound far-fetched, this, surely, was a hundred times more so.
‘You think Lambert mentioned to his mate Branfoot that I’ve been nosing around at Ramsay Silver,’ said Strike, ‘and Branfoot, who ordered the hit on Wright, panicked and started gunning for us?’
‘Well… I know it’s a stretch,’ said Robin, ‘but you can’t say it doesn’t fit.
Shanker said “you were seen”, and we knew all along that could only have been Ramsay Silver or St George’s Avenue.
I know Branfoot’s a real rent-a-quote, but why’s he suddenly so interested in the private detective business?
Why’s he out to get us? And he’s on the telly, which fits the cipher note, too. ’
Robin heard someone coming upstairs. Right now she’d be delighted for Murphy to find her on the phone to Strike; indeed, she might ask him to leave the bedroom until they’d finished the call.
However, the footsteps moved on past her bedroom door, and she reflected that Murphy would probably make sure his run was a long one, after the scene in the kitchen.
‘Well,’ said Strike at last, ‘there’s no reason, just because a man’s a raging self-publicist, he can’t also be a crook. Look at Jeffrey Archer. Look at Savile.’
He got to his feet and, once again, stood contemplating the corkboard on the office wall, where the four present candidates for William Wright were pinned, eyes on Dick de Lion, with his fake tan, his peroxided hair and his very white teeth.
‘Might be worth finding out which way Branfoot swings, sexually speaking.’
‘He’s married,’ said Robin, who’d done some speedy Googling before calling Strike. ‘To a woman. She’s here in this picture in the Telegraph , with Branfoot and Lambert. They’ve got two sons.’
‘Strong motive, if he’s been doing the dirty with de Lion, and doesn’t want the family and the papers to know,’ said Strike.
‘Still doesn’t explain why de Lion would have gone to work at Ramsay Silver, but…
yeah, I think we’ll need to take a closer look at Branfoot.
I might call Fergus Robertson again, see what he can tell me,’ said Strike, turning away from the board to write a reminder to himself in the notebook open on the desk.
‘We’ve had another threatening phone call, by the way. ’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yeah. “Leave it or gow-too will get you.”’
‘What’s “gow-too”?’
‘Exactly what I asked him. He hung up.’
‘Is it a name?’
‘Not one I’ve ever heard of. Anyway, be on the watch for him, or it, or them. I also spoke to Sacha Legard.’
‘Really?’ said Robin, with a slight inward tremor. ‘How did that go?’
‘Pretty informative,’ said Strike, and he described the interview, leaving out some of the more aggressive things he’d said to Legard, and concluding, ‘so one of us needs to speak to Valentine Longcaster, and if he’s not willing, we’ll see whether his sister Cosima can explain what Fleetwood was doing, gatecrashing an A-list party where he wasn’t wanted, to talk to the family he’d nicked a large bit of silver from.
I’ve looked Cosima up. Remember Legs?’ he said, in reference to a teenage girl the agency had watched for a while, because her mother believed her to be having an affair with her own ex-boyfriend.
‘Yes,’ said Robin, who’d tailed the filly-like blonde teenager on a few occasions.
‘Well, she looks just like her. You might have to do that interview, if it comes to it. She’s only eighteen; I’ll probably be accused of more sexual harassment if I go anywhere near her.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Robin.
‘And there’s something else,’ said Strike. ‘Last night, I sent Shah to watch the entrance of Freemasons’ Hall. Guess who turned up for his six-thirty lodge meeting, apron bag in hand?’
‘DCI Malcolm Truman?’ said Robin, with a sinking feeling.
‘Right in one,’ said Strike. ‘Shah got some covert snaps.’
‘Interesting,’ Robin forced herself to say.
‘How’s things in Masham?’ Strike asked, moving to the window and staring down into Denmark Street, where last-minute panic buyers were wending their way in and out of the music shops.
‘Lousy. I’ve just had a blazing row with my mother.’
‘Ah,’ said Strike, thinking it was a shame it couldn’t have been Murphy as he watched an ageing hippy below, hurrying along with a ukulele under one arm and a stack of vinyl records under the other. ‘Well, it’s the season for it.’
‘When are you off to Lucy’s?’
‘Trying to leave it as late as possible,’ said Strike. ‘Aiming to arrive at the party halfway through, pleading pressure of work.’
‘If I have to suffer, so should you,’ said Robin. ‘Go early and help prepare the food or something. Earn some Brownie points.’
‘That reminds me,’ said Strike. ‘Thanks for my present.’
‘You’ve opened it already?’
‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘I wasn’t going to do it in front of Greg.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he’s a cunt,’ said Strike, who thought this reason enough.
Robin’s gift had been a monthly delivery of Cornish food and beer; he’d been touched by it, and was glad to have opened it without the necessity of explanations, or hearing comments about either his waistline or the woman who seemed to know him so well.
He didn’t really want the call to end, but couldn’t think of any reason to prolong it, so when Robin said, ‘I suppose I’d better go,’ he agreed that he should, too, wished her a good Christmas and hung up.
He’d just settled back at his desk, feeling marginally better for his chat with Robin, when the landline phone rang in the outer office.
There was no longer any danger that it was Charlotte, who’d often called on special occasions and holidays, especially when drunk, but he was on high alert for journalists, who might be seeking to extend the Candy story into a Yuletide serial, so he got up and moved to Pat’s desk, switched on the speaker and let voicemail play.
Once Pat’s gravelly voice had finished saying that the office was closed for Christmas there was a click, and a manic-sounding woman’s voice with a strong Scottish accent spoke.
‘Aye, Ah need help, he give me a bit, but there’s more, he told me, it’s all hid under the bridge but Ah need help tae get it, so come tae the Golden Fleece, ask for me there, Ah’ve gottae keep movin’, Ah’ve got people after me, Ah’m nae kiddin’, come tae the Golden Fleece.’
The message ended, leaving Strike staring at the phone in total bemusement.