Page 66 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

In every man’s career are certain points

Whereon he dares not be indifferent;

The world detects him clearly, if he dare,

As baffled at the game, and losing life…

Thus, he should wed the woman he loves most

Or needs most, whatsoe’er the love or need…

Robert Browning Bishop Blougram’s Apology

Strike spent New Year’s Eve on surveillance in the Stapleton Tavern in Haringey, watching Plug drink in the new year with a group of equally rough-looking friends.

He used the time productively. He and Jade Semple had been in intermittent text contact ever since Lucy’s party, and they continued to text backwards and forwards tonight.

She was very obviously drunk again. Although she continued to insist that she no longer believed her husband had been the body in the vault, her readiness to keep communicating with Strike suggested a lurking doubt.

Strike hoped he might, through sheer persistence, be on the verge of securing a face-to-face interview with her.

He was determined not to pass up the chance of securing an evening alone with Robin in a decent restaurant, hundreds of miles away from Murphy or any other fucker who wanted to interrupt.

Of course, if he declared himself and Robin shot him down, the rest of the round trip would be singularly uncomfortable, but there’d always be reasons not to risk it.

If the worst happened, he’d simply have to deal with it.

He’d accommodated the loss of half a leg, after all.

His partner’s Christmas Day response to his foray into truly imaginative gift-giving had given Strike hope.

She must have understood what he was implicitly telling her when she examined those silver charms, all of them freighted with memories and private jokes, mustn’t she?

Didn’t opening his present in the early hours of Christmas Day indicate an unusual eagerness to know what he’d given her?

The five kisses that had followed her thank you, the use of the word ‘love’ – admittedly followed by ‘it’ rather than ‘you’ – could this be the behaviour of a woman trying to keep a man firmly at arm’s length?

And where had Murphy been, while Robin was typing in all those ‘x’s?

Was it too much to hope for that they’d had an argument?

Such ruminations enabled Strike to endure the long, unproductive hours watching Plug with good grace. However, on arrival back in cold, deserted Denmark Street at three a.m., his pleasant musings were rudely interrupted.

A large, still wet letter ‘G’ had been painted in scarlet on the street door of the office.

Strike stood contemplating it for a full minute, dismissing within seconds the possibility that he was looking at the tag of some drunken graffiti artist. No other door in Denmark Street had been so decorated, and it seemed far too much of a coincidence that anyone should have randomly slapped up the one letter of the alphabet that had recently acquired an ominous double meaning for the agency on the upper floors.

Was he supposed to take this ‘G’ to symbolise the letter emblazoned in the middle of the square and compasses of Freemasonry’s most identifiable sign?

Had it been chosen because an eye of providence or an acacia tree would have required more artistry?

Or was this a message for Robin, who’d been Witness G in the trial of her rapist and would-be killer?

Inwardly cursing the necessity, Strike hauled himself upstairs to his attic flat, dug out cleaning materials, and returned to the street to remove the letter, though, having no white spirit, he was able only to render what had been there illegible, leaving a large red smear.

The door would definitely need repainting before the landlord next saw it.

It was four before Strike finally removed his prosthesis, wondering whether he should tell Robin what had happened. He didn’t want to drag up her rape again. Was this, perhaps, an obvious case of least said, soonest mended?

Only as he connected his mobile to its charging lead did he notice that he’d received a voicemail message at some point overnight, and play it.

‘’S is Valentine Longcaster,’ said a slurred, upper-class voice, against a background of clatter and chatter. ‘I’ve got all your fuckin’ messages. I’ve got nothing to fuckin’ say to you. Do’s all a favour an’ make your new year’s fucking resolution gassing yourself.’

Strike set his alarm, yawned and got into bed.

Valentine’s response to the emails Strike had sent him wasn’t a surprise.

Several times, when full of drink, cocaine or both, Valentine had informed rooms full of people that this , pointing at Charlotte, was his favourite fucking person in the world.

It seemed that, unlike the determinedly oblivious Sacha, Valentine wasn’t prepared to pretend he’d forgotten the contents of Charlotte’s suicide note, in which she’d blamed Strike’s refusal to pick up the phone for the planned overdose, and the slitting of her wrists in her bath.

His phone buzzed. He picked it up to see a text from Jade Semple.

all rightg you can come on the q17hb ut don’t tell noone because they djnat woant me talking to you

Great , Strike texted back, with a shrewd idea who ‘they’, who didn’t want her to talk to him, might be. See you on the seventeenth.

He lay back down to sleep, thinking that the year had, after all, started on a positive note, and already planning strategic manoeuvres that had nothing whatsoever to do with the missing Niall Semple.