Page 77 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

… no sordid ambitions or pitiful greeds or base considerations can tempt a true Scottish Knight to dishonor…

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

An hour after they’d sat down with Decima, and with no more information gained than they’d learned within the first quarter of an hour of lunch, Strike and Robin left Quo Vadis, both aware that their client was considerably unhappier for having met them.

Decima had continued to insist over her untouched food that Rupert had been William Wright, reiterating the danger posed by Dredge the drug dealer, and dwelling with a kind of morbid despair on the height and build of the body in the vault, which, as she’d emphasised multiple times, exactly matched Rupert, down to height, weight and blood group.

While Strike had left the restaurant with Decima’s official sanction for the trip to Crieff and Ironbridge, he could tell he was about to have trouble with Robin, who looked both angry and worried, so he suggested a coffee at his favourite local café, which was three minutes’ walk away.

Sure enough, once both were sitting at a round metal table outside Bar Italia, Robin said,

‘I don’t feel comfortable about this, Strike.’

‘About what?’ he said, prepared for battle. He’d been marshalling his arguments on the way to Frith Street. The sleeper compartments were booked. The hotel, with its lake views, was waiting.

‘I think that woman’s having a nervous breakdown. She’s convinced herself Rupert’s dead and it’s her fault. We’re just perpetuating—’

‘If we don’t do the job, someone else will,’ said Strike.

‘Then we should put surveillance on Albie Simpson-White. I’m sure he knows where Rupert is.’

‘Decima’s been very clear that she doesn’t want Rupert found, if he’s alive.’

‘But – Strike, come on, that’s insane – you saw her back there—’

‘You’ll probably find a couple of people on any London bus who’re as deluded as she is. She’s not certifiable.’

‘She’s in sole charge of a baby – I’m sorry, I think we’ve got—’

‘A moral responsibility? I agree, which is why the quicker we prove that body wasn’t Fleetwood—’

‘You just want to keep investigating. You want to show up the Met.’

As soon as she heard the words escape her, Robin wished them unsaid. She hadn’t meant it; Murphy had spoken suddenly through her, or perhaps she was projecting onto Strike her guilt about the number of things she herself was concealing from her boyfriend.

‘“Show up the Met”?’ repeated Strike, staring at her.

‘I didn’t mean that,’ said Robin hurriedly. ‘I—’

‘You think this is all an ego trip for me, do you?’

‘No, of course not, I just think you’ve got really interested in that body in the vault, and you’re not thinking about what’s best for De—’

‘What’s best for her is that she stops blaming herself for getting Fleetwood murdered,’ said Strike, ‘because he wasn’t fucking murdered, and someone needs to prove it to her.’

‘But we could prove it, by following Albie Sim—’

‘If Mrs Two-Times hurries up and fucks someone else, or if Plug breaks the law, then yeah, we might have someone free to follow Simpson-White, but how exactly are we supposed to bill Decima for it, when she’s explicitly said that’s not what she wants?’

‘So we let her pour money into investigating the whereabouts of men with no connection to her?’

‘She agreed to it, back there—’

‘You know perfectly well you made her say it!’

‘We can’t take her money without being open about how we’re using it!’

And now Strike took the offensive; he hadn’t wanted to do it, because he’d hoped not to embark on their journey to Scotland with Robin angry at him, but with the trip itself in jeopardy he had no choice.

‘You agreed to take this case, knowing she’s almost certainly deluded about that body being Fleetwood.’

‘I know, but—’

‘The only thing that’s changed is that you’ve met her and feel sorry for her.’

‘Maybe that’s true,’ said Robin, ‘but—’

‘For her, it’s prove who that body was, or nothing.

While Fleetwood’s uncontactable, she’s going to keep trying to prove it was him.

If it’s not us, it’ll be someone else. The difference with us is, we don’t bill for bullshit.

We’re actively trying to do what she wants, and if it turns out Wright was Semple, Powell or de Lion, job done – he wasn’t Fleetwood. ’

‘And if we prove it’s none of them?’

‘Then she’s right: the police might take the possibility it was Fleetwood a bit more seriously, she’ll get her DNA test and bingo, she’s got certainty. You think I’m not trying to help her, but I am. If I can find a way of forcing Valentine to talk—’

‘Why’s it OK to force Valentine to talk to us, but not put surveillance on Albie? Why’s it OK to try and find that girl Tish who Rupert lived with?’

‘Because anything Fleetwood did and said before he disappeared could shed a light on whether he was intending to disguise himself as William Wright. We can justify that on her bills. What we can’t justify is trying to find the living Fleetwood, because the client’s expressly said she doesn’t want us to! ’

‘But she’s going to have to face the possibility at some point!’

‘It isn’t our job to tell the client what she wants investigating,’ said Strike. ‘We aren’t fucking social workers.’

They sat in silence for nearly a minute, during which Robin drank some of her coffee, not looking at Strike.

‘I need to get going,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to get changed, I’m on Plug this evening. If I don’t see you before, I’ll meet you at Euston on Monday evening.’

Strike watched her go, unhappy with the way the conversation had gone, then pulled his muted mobile out of his pocket. He had another missed call from Pat, in addition to the one he’d ignored on the way to Quo Vadis. He called her back.

‘Hi,’ he said, ‘you’ve been trying to reach me.’

‘Yes,’ said Pat, ‘a woman called Bijou Watkins wants to talk to you.’

Strike knew Pat was aware who Bijou Watkins was, but he appreciated the pretence she’d forgotten the smattering of press connecting him with Bijou a few months previously.

‘OK,’ said Strike. ‘I’ve got her details. I’ll ring her now.’

‘Right-o,’ said Pat gruffly, and she hung up.

Strike contemplated Ronnie Scott’s jazz club, which lay almost opposite the café where he was sitting, thinking about what he was about to say. Then he took a lungful of nicotine vapour and called Bijou’s number.