Page 90 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

Now that her hope was shattered her mind dropped naturally into a grim groove…

John Oxenham A Maid of the Silver Sea

Four hundred and fifty miles away, Robin was standing in an industrial estate in Walthamstow, watching the entrance of a large storage unit that housed God’s Own Junkyard.

This was a combination of shop, hire service and museum containing hundreds of neon signs, some reclaimed from old businesses, others made to order.

Robin had got a glimpse of the blazing Technicolor interior while the models, photographer, make-up artist and assorted underlings had been taking in racks of clothes and accessories.

She’d also caught a brief glimpse of stylist Valentine Longcaster, who she recognised from the pictures she’d found online.

He had dirty blond hair with a long fringe and was wearing black jeans, a red shirt and a multicoloured waistcoat.

Valentine had posted a few arty shots of neon signs on his Instagram the previous week, and, in response to a question from somebody who seemed to be a friend, had said he was ‘prepping for photoshoot Tues’.

Robin’s excitement about what she’d found out that morning from Tia Thompson had somewhat dissipated, and not only because it was bitingly cold, and awkward to be standing amid pallets and parked vans while curious car mechanics passed her, one of them scratching the two inches of buttock visible above the waistband of his sagging jeans.

No, the main reason for Robin’s increased misery was that she’d recognised one of the models who’d entered the storage unit: Ciara Porter, tall and angular-looking, with milk-white skin and white blonde hair.

The papers never failed to remind readers of gossip columns that Ciara had a degree in English from Cambridge, but to Robin, she’d forever be one of the women Cormoran Strike had slept with.

London was littered with them, apparently: possibly she’d sat opposite one of them on the bus just now, or been served coffee by another before boarding it…

Stop obsessing about him, for God’s sake, you need to get over this.

Robin doubted she was going to get anything at all out of these hours of surveillance in the cold.

She couldn’t enter God’s Own Junkyard, because it was closed to the public for the photoshoot, and when Valentine eventually emerged, all he had to do was get into a car and drive away from her; she had no way of forcing him to talk to her about Rupert Fleetwood.

However, she was still glad – if this resentment and misery could be called gladness – to have found a pretext to avoid that damn Lake District hotel.

There was a mechanic a short distance away, tinkering with a car. He was wearing a bandana over the lower half of his face, like a bandit. Robin wished she had one, too, even if it might look odd. She could no longer feel her lips or toes.

Her phone rang: Murphy.

‘Hi, Ryan.’

‘I need to ask you something,’ he said, sounding angry.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Robin, turning to walk a short distance away. It was about time she changed position, anyway.

‘Has your agency been trying to get hold of photos of William Wright’s body?’

Oh, shit.

‘What – why are you asking me that?’ said Robin.

‘ Answer the bloody question! ’

‘Ryan, I – Strike and I didn’t try and get them, but – yes, Kim Cochran managed to get copies.’

‘For FUCK’s sake, Robin!’

Robin removed the phone a couple of inches from her ear.

‘D’you realise – I fucking told you how sensitive that whole case is!’

Apparently the news that the Met no longer believed Jason Knowles to have been the body in the vault hadn’t yet reached Murphy.

‘Kim did it on her own initiative,’ said Robin. ‘We didn’t ask her to do it. How did—?’

‘The stupid fucker she got them from was seen making copies, and then he was seen drinking with her, and now he’s been fucking suspended without pay. D’you realise—?’

‘I realise you’re blaming me for something I haven’t done,’ said Robin, temper now rising. ‘I’ve just told you, we didn’t ask her to do it, she thought she was being help—’

‘Well, it’s not fucking helpful to me when you start undermining a fucking police investig—’

‘What have we undermined? We looked at a few pictures!’

‘Why would bloody Cochran think pictures would help with finding Fleetwood?’

‘Well, the client thinks Fleetwood was the body, so obviously—’

‘You need to stop fucking stringing that woman along and tell her it was Knowles!’

‘Maybe you should go and talk to the team working the case, if you want to know how likely they think it was Knowles,’ said Robin angrily. ‘I’ve got to go.’

She hung up, now torn between rage and misery on account of Murphy as well as Strike.

It was just as well she hadn’t told him that MI5 had warned them off investigating Niall Semple, wasn’t it?

Or about DCI Malcom Truman’s alleged membership of the masonic lodge?

Or the rubber gorilla hidden in her sock drawer?

The man with his face covered like a bandit was still watching her.