Page 74 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

Along the path that the Moon travels are nine conspicuous Stars…

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

Robin withdrew again. To her displeasure, Kim was taking her time about leaving the office, standing beside the door and fiddling with the contents of her shoulder bag. As Pat’s chair was empty, Robin assumed she was in the bathroom on the landing. Kim looked round, and said, smiling,

‘Didn’t want to do that, but he had to know.’

‘Know what?’ said Robin.

‘Probably shouldn’t say,’ said Kim, maddeningly smug. She pulled on her coat, and left.

Meanwhile, in the inner office, Strike was trying to contact his old friend, lawyer Ilsa Herbert, the woman through whom Strike had met Bijou in the first place.

Ilsa couldn’t be blamed for Strike and Bijou’s two-night stand; indeed, she’d tried to warn him off the woman after their first night together, telling him she was mouthy and indiscreet, but Strike – exasperated by the unsolicited advice and angry about Robin’s deepening relationship with Murphy – had made it clear to Ilsa that his private life was none of her concern.

Ilsa’s mobile was engaged. Strike redialled several times, and the five minutes it took him to reach her felt like an hour. At last, she answered.

‘Hi, Corm.’

He knew immediately from her tone that she knew what he was calling about.

‘I’m just going to get somewhere a bit more private,’ she said.

Strike listened to her footsteps, wishing she was running. At last Ilsa spoke again, her voice echoing slightly.

‘OK, I can talk.’

‘What d’you know about Honbold and Bijou Watkins?’ he said.

‘How—?’

‘I’ve just had a tip-off he’s having her followed.’

‘Oh, God. Well, rumours are flying that Honbold’s taken out a super-injunction.’

‘Why?’

‘To stop the papers printing that he doesn’t know whether Bijou’s baby is his or yours.’

Strike didn’t speak immediately, because the worst of the imaginings that had run through his head while waiting for Ilsa to pick up had just come true.

He’d used protection when he’d slept with Bijou, because he wasn’t a fool.

After he’d told her he didn’t want to see her again he’d realised that her target, all along, had been the married QC whom she hoped to force to leave his wife; Strike had been an enjoyable diversion and a possible means of making Andrew Honbold jealous.

Bijou and Strike had both subsequently lied to the QC, saying their acquaintanceship had never gone further than drinks.

Honbold, a well-known scourge of the tabloid press, had been thrown out by his wife after his affair with Bijou hit the papers, and until this morning, Strike had considered the matter closed, assuming, in the absence of other information, that Honbold would be marrying Bijou once his divorce came through.

‘It’s not mine,’ he said, and then, ‘it can’t be, if she hasn’t had the kid yet.’

‘She has, she had it early,’ said Ilsa. ‘Well, she’s saying it was early…’

‘Can’t they tell?’ said Strike, who was almost entirely ignorant of everything concerned with birth and newborns.

‘I don’t know the details, Corm.’

‘Why the fuck does Honbold – has she told him we—?’

‘ She didn’t tell him,’ said Ilsa hesitantly.

‘Corm – I’m sorry, I tried to warn you. The whole of chambers knew you and she had slept together, it was bound to get back to Honbold at some point – I mean, before she got pregnant, she wanted him to hear about it, to make him jealous.

Apparently a journalist got wind of the fact that Honbold thinks the baby might be yours, and Honbold went straight to the High Court to stop him printing.

He doesn’t want to be all over the papers again, but I think he and Bijou have broken up.

I suppose he’s having her followed because he’d rather not pay child maintenance.

He’s trying to prove she’s still sneaking around with you. ’

‘ It can’t be mine, ’ said Strike.

He didn’t like the silence that followed.

‘What?’ he said aggressively.

‘I don’t—’

‘You know something.’

‘Corm—’

‘ Just say it! ’

‘OK, fine. She had a little trick when she was trying to get Honbold to leave his wife. She’d take used condoms out of the bin and…’

‘She wouldn’t have done that to me,’ said Strike, as his innards crawled with panic. ‘It was Honbold she wanted.’

Again, Ilsa didn’t speak.

‘D’you know something else?’ Strike said.

‘I don’t know it, they’re just rumours,’ said Ilsa. ‘Lawyers are terrible goss—’

‘What rumours?’

‘OK, there’s this story doing the rounds that Honbold is taking some drug that lowers sperm count, so he thought it was strange that he’d been able to get her pregnant, and then it got back to him about you and her, and he went ballistic and now he’s convinced it’s yours.’

‘When was it born?’ said Strike, trying to remember times and dates, to find the numerical formula that would prove, beyond doubt, that he wasn’t the father.

‘I don’t know exactly – early December?’

This was nowhere near precise enough for Strike. If the baby had been born at term, there was a chance…

‘I literally heard about all this yesterday afternoon when people were whispering about the super-injunction,’ said Ilsa. ‘He must have only just hired this private detective—’

‘Yeah, I think he has,’ said Strike, who was now actually sweating beneath his suit jacket. ‘If you hear anything else—’

‘Yes, of course, I’ll call you,’ said Ilsa. ‘Corm, I – I’m sorry.’

‘You tried to warn me,’ said Strike, which cost him some effort. ‘Listen, can you send me Bijou’s number? I deleted it.’

‘OK.’

‘And can you please not tell Robin about any of this? I’d rather tell her myself.’

‘Of course.’

The call ended, and Strike opened the door to the outer office, where Pat sat typing. Robin was absent.

‘Where—?’

‘Loo,’ said Pat gruffly.

Strike’s phone buzzed. Ilsa had just sent him Bijou’s contact details. He retreated into the inner office, thinking… he couldn’t call her now, not with Robin just about to walk back in. It would have to be later, after lunch with Decima.

Meanwhile, inside the small, dank bathroom on the landing, Robin was washing her hands, thinking that if Strike was going to praise Kim’s undeniably impressive bit of detective work when she emerged, she might not be able to respond with much grace.

‘Everything all right?’ she asked again, when she’d rejoined him.

‘Yeah, Kim just wanted to discuss some personal stuff,’ said Strike, struggling to sound casual.

‘She sees you as the firm’s HR rep, does she?’ said Robin.

‘Christ knows,’ said Strike.

Robin sat down again and said,

‘So: the couple in the Peugeot. You don’t think—?’

‘Oz and Medina?’ said Strike, trying to concentrate (he thought he could count on Kim not telling Robin anything about Bijou – Kim, he was certain, would like nothing better than to think she and Strike had a slightly sordid secret that excluded his partner). ‘Got to be a chance.’

Robin picked up the photograph that showed the footprint in the blood around the corpse’s head.

‘That looks small for a man’s foot, doesn’t it?’

‘Yeah, I thought so, too,’ said Strike.

‘And it was under the body.’

‘Great. I mean, yeah,’ said Strike, still struggling to focus.

‘The mutilation, the sash – it looks like very deliberate staging,’ said Robin. ‘Why didn’t they get rid of the footprint?’

‘Maybe they didn’t notice it, then moved the body over it, while they were mutilating him.’

‘You know, if Medina was driving that Peugeot to pick Oz up after the killing, she might not have seen blood on him,’ said Robin. ‘Whoever did it waited for livor mortis to start setting in before they got started cutting the body up…’

Robin’s phone now buzzed, and she saw a text from her brother Stephen.

‘Everything OK?’ Strike asked, in response to Robin’s look of shock.

‘Yes, fine, my sister-in-law’s just had an emergency Caesarean… God above, the baby was nearly eleven pounds.’

‘Same as me,’ said Strike, still striving to sound normal.

‘When have you had an emergency Caesarean?’ said Robin.

‘No, I was nearly eleven pounds. It’s how I got my name.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘“Cormoran”. He was a Cornish giant. My mother said she was going to call me that, as a joke, my aunt took her seriously and said she couldn’t, so of course that’s what I got called, to piss off Joan.’

‘They’re calling him “Barnaby”,’ said Robin, looking at the picture of her new nephew, who was bright red, swaddled in a hospital towel, with a sumo wrestler’s indignant face. ‘Born on Friday the thirteenth.’

‘Who was?’ said Strike.

‘My nephew. Today’s Friday—’

‘Oh,’ said Strike. ‘Yeah, of course.’

He wasn’t a superstitious man, but he thought that might well change, after today.