Page 91 of The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8)

The eyes of the cheerful and of the melancholy man are fixed upon the same creation; but very different are the aspects which it bears to them. To the one, it is all beauty and gladness… The other idly or mournfully gazes at the same scene, and everything wears a dull, dim, and sickly aspect.

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

Two and a half hours after leaving Crieff, Strike broke his journey south in the small Scottish town of Moffat, where a café in the market square supplied him with a coffee and a burger and a welcome chance to rest his right knee.

The mud on his coat and trousers had dried and the rain had eased off, but the mid-afternoon sky was already darkening.

He supposed many would find Moffat picturesque, but Strike saw everything with the jaundiced eye of the hungover and miserable.

His knee was swollen and sore, and the statue of a ram standing atop a pile of rocks, visible through the café window, darkened his mood still further.

Sheep, even when cast in bronze, had a tendency to remind him of Robin’s father, the professor of sheep medicine, and of the evening he and Robin had spent at the Ritz together, when she’d first given Strike this information.

Taking out his phone, he brought up the photograph Jade had texted to him, of the note Niall Semple had left behind when he’d disappeared.

Omnia in numeris sita sunt

generative

occult

chaos

salutary

generative

chaos

divinity

salutary

RL knows where

All Strike understood of this note was the Latin, which in English read: everything lies veiled in numbers.

He looked up ‘botanist William Wright’ on his phone, and saw that the man had indeed been born in Crieff, and was buried in Edinburgh.

He Googled Dunkeld, and saw that the bridge there had been built by Freemason Thomas Telford, and learned furthermore that a bridge over the River Dee had been built by the equally masonic Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Remembering that Semple had wanted to meet an unknown woman in a pub called the Engineer, he wondered vaguely whether masonry appealed particularly to engineers, or vice versa.

He looked up the masonic degrees, and learned that there were no fewer than nine called ‘knight’. He opened Truth About Freemasons again, and searched the site for anything involving the SAS or the armed forces.

He found only two vaguely relevant threads. The first, dated 2015, was discussing how many decorated soldiers were Freemasons.

K of the East:

Paddy Mayne, one of the founder members of the SAS, definitely was. Died in a collision with a parked tractor in Ireland, after a masonic dinner.

Jeroboam9:

Pretty sure Austin ‘Fuzz’ Hussey (also SAS, Battle of Mirbat) was a mason.

Harry O’Dim:

Not true about Hussey, but Johnson Beharry VC definitely is.

The only other mention of the army Strike could find was a further short exchange.

St Geo:

Is it true a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret died in Op Toral?

DeMolay:

Yes

St Geo:

‘a combat of two religions, meeting head to head, like two goats of darkness on the bridge of the Infinite’ - Pike

Strike re-read the quotation. Something was nagging at him… bridges…

His mobile rang and he saw the number of his friend and longest-standing police contact, Eric Wardle.

‘Hi,’ he said, answering. ‘What’s up?’

‘You got photos of the silver shop body,’ said Wardle.

‘Ah,’ said Strike. Unlike Robin, his pulse didn’t start racing on learning that the Met knew this. ‘Problem?’

‘Well, the team working the case is seriously fucked off at you,’ said Wardle. ‘Guy who leaked them to you’s been suspended.’

‘For the record, it was done on a subcontractor’s own initiative. Not saying I’m not pleased to have the pictures, though.’

‘She’s a shit-stirrer, that Kim Cochran,’ said Wardle, whose tone was flat. ‘She’s caused trouble on every job she worked, from what I’ve heard. Man-eater.’

Strike chose to pretend he hadn’t heard that.

‘What are they more worried about, that I’ve got the pictures, or that they fucked up, claiming the body was Knowles?’

‘Both. And they probably think you’re about to upstage them. Again.’

‘It’s not them I’d be upstaging if I identify that body, it’d be Malcolm Truman,’ said Strike. ‘Are they going to own the mistake, or keep pretending it was Knowles?’

‘Dunno. Just thought you should know, they’ll be looking for any reason to clobber you, if you get under their feet.’

‘Warning noted,’ said Strike. ‘Any line on what happened to Knowles’ body yet?’

‘No idea. I’m signed off work.’

‘You ill?’ asked Strike.

‘Not really,’ said Wardle. Then, evidently feeling this required explanation, he said, ‘Doctor says it’s depression.’

‘Ah,’ said Strike, ‘right.’

Wardle had lost his brother to a hit-and-run a few years previously. Strike knew he’d been trying to act as a surrogate father to his four nephews and nieces ever since. Meanwhile, Wardle’s wife had left him, taking their own three-month-old baby with her.

‘Thinking of getting out, actually,’ said Wardle.

‘Of the Met?’ said Strike, keen to clarify what Wardle meant. Men sometimes took a different way out. He’d known a couple.

‘Yeah,’ said Wardle. ‘I’m just… fucking tired.’

‘Job at the agency, any time you fancy taking it,’ said Strike. ‘Change of pace. Friendly team – if you don’t count me, obviously.’

‘Huh,’ said Wardle, in a forced laugh.

‘Fancy a pint when I get back to London?’

‘Yeah, all right. Where are you?’

‘Scotland,’ said Strike. ‘I’ll call you when I get back to town.’

‘Right,’ said Wardle, though he didn’t sound enthusiastic.

Call finished, Strike looked out of the window, feeling even more depressed. The rain was falling more thickly outside. He pulled out his vape, caught the censorious eye of the waitress, put it back in his pocket and ordered a second coffee.