Page 70 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)
Slow, slow and softly, where she stood,
She sinks upon the ground;—her hood
Had fallen back, her arms outspread
Still hold her lover’s hands; her head
Is bow’d, half-buried, on the bed.
Matthew Arnold Tristram and Iseult
Robin was relieved to have one project to focus on at the moment, a place to concentrate her energies, where she couldn’t keep fretting about personal matters: trying to persuade Gretchen Schiff, the former flatmate of Sofia Medina, to meet her in person.
Medina’s OnlyFans page had disappeared from the internet, presumably at the behest of her family, so Robin was unable to see any of the men who might have been asking her for real world contact.
Gretchen was therefore her best hope of further information on Sofia.
There’d been long lulls between Robin’s messages and Gretchen’s responses, but Robin was becoming increasingly convinced that there was, as she’d put it to Strike, ‘something there’.
While Gretchen’s suspicion and unwillingness to engage might be explained by the traumatic aftermath of learning that her flatmate had been murdered, the young woman still hadn’t pushed back on the idea that Sofia could have been involved in a robbery, and this omission was as suggestive as Gretchen’s constant probing to find out more about the man with the fake name Robin was investigating.
Finally, to Robin’s delight, the student agreed to meet her on Thursday, choosing the Montagu Pyke, a Wetherspoons pub, as the venue for the interview.
Heavy rain was falling on the day of their lunchtime rendezvous.
Robin was on high alert walking to the pub, glancing back regularly and taking all possible counter-surveillance measures, including crossing the road unexpectedly to see whether anyone plunged into the traffic after her, but was confident she hadn’t been followed.
She was glad to get out of the rain, but the pub, she thought as she entered it, wasn’t exactly what you’d call cosy or intimate.
It had once been a famous music venue, and was large enough to fit a few hundred people, with a very high, arched ceiling and maroon walls, on which hung large posters of acts that had once appeared here, including The Who, Jimi Hendrix and – Robin’s eyes were drawn to the huge picture instantly – the Deadbeats, Strike’s father’s band, with the long-haired Jonny Rokeby to the fore in his bell-bottom jeans and a leather jacket worn open over a bare chest. Robin waited for a group of young people who looked very hungover to order pitchers of cocktails, bought herself a coffee, then took a table where she had a clear view of the entrance.
Robin recognised Gretchen as soon as she walked into the pub, folding up a wet umbrella as she came. She was a curvy girl with thick, naturally golden hair that fell to her shoulders, sallow skin and a pair of clear green eyes. She wore no make-up and her fleece added inches to a very large bust.
Gretchen was accompanied by a tall, stringy, intense-looking young man whose hair was tied up in a bun and who sported a goatee and round-rimmed glasses.
They both bought beers, and when Gretchen spotted Robin, who’d sent the student her photograph, she muttered something to the young man, and the pair headed over to her.
‘Hi,’ said Robin, as they reached her, smiling as she held out a hand, which Gretchen shook, though she didn’t return the smile. The young man ignored Robin’s outstretched hand when it was offered to him.
‘You’re Robin?’ said Gretchen.
‘That’s me.’
Gretchen’s English, as Robin had known from their only phone call, was virtually accent-less, though she was Austrian.
‘This is my boyfriend, Max.’
‘Hi, Max,’ said Robin, as the couple sat down opposite her. ‘Are you at the University of West London as well?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What are you studying?’
‘Digital Marketing,’ said Max. He had the air of a man determined not to give out more information than was strictly necessary.
‘Would either of you like anything to eat?’ asked Robin, pushing the menu towards them, but both shook their heads. Max hadn’t taken his messenger bag off his shoulder.
‘Well, as I’ve already explained to you, Gretchen, our agency’s investigating a robbery,’ said Robin.
‘Vy are you investigating it?’ said Max. ‘Vy not the police?’
‘The police are investigating as well,’ said Robin.
It might be true, Robin thought. Somebody at the Met might have gone back to St George’s Avenue and asked Daz and Mandy for more details about the people who’d entered Wright’s room and left carrying suitcases.
‘But our client doesn’t think they’re taking it seriously enough, because the stolen objects weren’t very valuable,’ Robin went on.
This, too, could be true: all Robin knew for certain had been in William Wright’s room were his weights and the suit and glasses he’d worn to work at Ramsay Silver.
‘So vy do you vant to know about Sofia?’ asked Max, whose accent was far stronger than his girlfriend’s.
‘A girl was seen entering and leaving the burgled room on Friday the seventeenth of June. She had long black hair and was wearing a very similar outfit to the one Sofia was wearing when she was found. Then a man with dark, curly hair entered the room, in the early hours of the following morning. We think the pair of them then drove off together in a silver car.’
At the mention of the curly haired man, Max’s face lost expression, and Gretchen reached suddenly for her beer bottle and took a clumsy gulp.
‘But obviously,’ Robin said, masking the thrill of excitement that had just passed through her, ‘lots of women have long black hair and wear pink tops. It’s just that the sighting of a girl matching Sofia’s description in those unusual circumstances, just twenty-four hours before Sofia was found dead, made us wonder whether there was a connection. ’
The pause that followed ought, Robin thought, to have been full of protestations – ‘Sofia would never have committed burglary’, ‘it can’t have been her’, ‘you’ve got the wrong person’ – but the two students sat frozen, without looking at each other.
Even so, Robin could almost see the invisible communications flying between them. Now what? Just say something. Anything.
‘But as you say,’ said Max at last, ‘der are lots of vimmin who look like det, vid long hair and zo on. And I don’t tink she’d be involved in somezing like det,’ he added, turning in rather artificial fashion to look at his girlfriend. ‘Vould she?’
‘No,’ said Gretchen. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Did you know Sofia well, Gretchen?’ asked Robin.
‘Yes,’ said Gretchen, but she added quickly, ‘only because we shared a flat. I advertised on the college noticeboard and she applied. We had different friends.’
‘Did you like her?’ asked Robin.
‘Vy does it matter if Gretchen liked her?’ said Max superciliously.
Ignoring him, Robin addressed Gretchen again.
‘Did any of her male friends have dark, curly—?’
‘No,’ said Gretchen, too quickly.
Yes, thought Robin, it was definitely the dark, curly haired man who had the couple worried.
‘But you weren’t in the same friendship group,’ said Robin, ‘so you might not have known, if she was involved with someone like that?’
‘No,’ said Gretchen, clearly striving for a casual tone. ‘Maybe not.’
‘I read in the papers about Sofia’s OnlyFans account. You were concerned she was making it too easy for men to find out where she was—’
‘That wasn’t me,’ said Gretchen quickly. ‘Somebody else said that, to the papers. It wasn’t me.’
‘Vot hass det got to do vid der robbery, an OnlyFans account?’ demanded Max. ‘Dere’s nothing illegal, posting your own nudes. Det’s not a crime.’
‘No, of course it isn’t,’ said Robin, and, addressing Gretchen again, she asked,
‘Did you ever hear Sofia mention a man called William? William Wright?’
‘No, I never heard her talk about a William,’ said Gretchen.
‘Villiam, no, I never heard her talk about, eider,’ said Max.
‘What did you think of Sofia, Max?’ Robin asked. If he wanted to talk, let him talk.
‘I only knew her because of dem sharing a flat,’ he said, but he couldn’t resist adding, ‘she vos a party girl.’
‘ Sag das nicht, ’ muttered Gretchen.
‘Der’s nothing wrong vid being a party girl,’ Max told his girlfriend. ‘She vos det type, det’s all. She showed me her – vot is it? Requisiten, ’ he said to Gretchen. ‘Der first time I came to der flat. Der vigs and dat.’
When Robin looked politely enquiring, Gretchen muttered,
‘He means, her props.’
‘Props?’ said Robin blankly, and then she realised what was meant, and said, ‘Oh, for pictures to post online?’
‘ Ja, ’ said Max. ‘Sex toys and vigs and so on.’
‘Right,’ said Robin. She turned to Gretchen. ‘I suppose the police asked you about all of this?’
‘Yes,’ said Gretchen.
‘And about Sofia’s love life?’
‘Yes,’ said Gretchen reluctantly. ‘She was popular.’
‘She vos always viz men,’ said Max. ‘Everybody knows det.’
‘Did she have a particular boyfriend?’
‘Not – no,’ said Gretchen. ‘I don’t think so.’
Had Gretchen been this shifty with the police, or had her halting speech been put down to shock, or faulty English?
‘Did Sofia ever tell either of you she felt threatened, or worried, by any of the men who visited her OnlyFans site?’ Robin asked.
‘She voss enjoying the attention. She vossn’t vurried,’ said Max.
‘So you never saw Sofia with a man with dark, curly hair?’ Robin asked Gretchen, but Max answered for her again.
‘Gretchen has already said no. She’s tolt the police everything she knows.’
‘I don’t know everyone Sofia met,’ said Gretchen. ‘I told the police so. It’s like Max says. There were lots of different men.’
‘Did you ever know her to steal anyth—?’
‘No,’ said Gretchen.
‘Are you sure?’ said Robin.
‘She could… forget to return things,’ said Gretchen uncertainly, ‘but that’s not like robbing somebody’s flat.’
As friendliness was getting Robin nowhere, she decided a change of tone was warranted.
‘Why did you agree to meet me, Gretchen?’ she asked, no longer smiling.