Page 106 of The Hallmarked Man

‘That’s right,’ said Robin.

Albie glanced around, then said in a low voice,

‘Itoldher, I don’t know where he’s gone! I’vetoldher! She kept calling me.I don’t know where he is!’

‘I’d be very grateful for a quick chat,’ said Robin. ‘Just for background. Decima’s incredibly worried about Rupert.’

‘There’s no need for her to be worried!’

‘How do you know? Are you in touch with him?’

‘No,’ said Albie, colour mounting in his boyish face, ‘but I’m sure he’s fine!’

‘We could really use all the background we can—’

‘Who told you I was here?’

‘I spoke to a friend of yours from Dino’s, Lina.’

Albie glanced at a suited man also wearing a name tag standing someten yards away, then back at Robin. She could tell that, like the majority of people unexpectedly confronted by a private detective, Albie was as scared of refusing to talk as he was of speaking to her. What did she know? What might be the consequences of sending her away?

‘All right,’ he said nervously, ‘I’ll meet you at the staff entrance at eight.’

‘Where’s the staff entrance?’

‘Twenty-eight Basil Street.’

‘Thanks very much, Albie,’ said Robin. ‘You can keep my card, just in case you need my mobile number.’

Albie pocketed it quickly, then turned to a customer waiting to pay for a pair of trainers.

Robin returned to the ground floor to while away the time before her interview, postponing a return to the icy street. She had just entered one of the food halls when her phone buzzed. She took it out and saw that her mother had texted her a picture with the caption ‘say hello to Betty’ and an eye-roll emoji. The picture showed Robin’s father, Michael, holding a jet black Labrador puppy in his arms.

Robin returned the phone to her bag without responding and set off again, with a vague idea of buying some chocolates or biscuits to take home to Masham. However, it was almost impossible to walk more than a few feet unimpeded, and she was buffeted constantly by shoppers both irate and aimless. Since leaving the cult where she’d worked undercover, Robin had found no enjoyment in finding herself in a mass of bodies, especially in windowless spaces.

Just as she was thinking she’d rather wait out on the chilly pavement after all, her eye fell on a clear plastic tube full of festively coloured jelly beans: red, green and white. She was reminded of the tube William Wright had claimed was a blood sample. Perhaps her niece, Annabel, would like the jelly beans? Robin reached out for them—

A large hand closed painfully around the back of her neck, holding her so tightly that she couldn’t turn her head or cry out, the strong fingers tight on her carotid artery, and Robin was so shocked she couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening, or even raise her arms, and the shoppers kept shuffling all around her—

The man holding her – she knew it was a man, by the size and strength of the hand compressing her neck – was forcing something small and rubbery into her own left hand, and she closed her hand into a fist, fighting to draw breath to shout, but he squeezed her neckmore tightly, and she knew she must open her hand, if that’s what he wanted, and did so, and he pressed what felt like a small lump of rubber into her grasp, then hissed in her ear,

‘It’ll ’appen again unless you fuckin’ give this up.’

He released but simultaneously pushed her so hard in the back that she toppled forwards into a woman who was carrying a toddler; the former shrieked at the impact and dropped the jar of brandy butter she’d been holding, which cracked open on the floor.

‘Watch what you’re doing!’ shouted the woman, staggering to regain her balance, and the toddler began to cry, and heads turned.

‘I’m sorry, I’m really sorry – someone pushed me—’

Neck still throbbing, Robin turned and stood on tiptoe, and thought she saw a slight disturbance at a distant doorway, as though someone was forcing their way out of the food hall at speed, but it was impossible to see her assailant through the forest of heads.

Now trembling, Robin looked down at the object he’d forced into her hand. It was a small rubber model of a gorilla.

For several long seconds she stared at it, trying to tell herself the man had been mentally ill, that she’d been a random recipient of a nonsensical gift, that he’d mistaken her for someone in the crush, that this didn’t mean what she was terrified it meant.

It’ll ’appen again unless you fuckin’ give this up.

The rapist who had ended her university career and ruined her fallopian tubes had worn a rubber gorilla mask to attack her and six other girls, two of whom had died from strangulation. He’d been sentenced to life and was still in jail, all applications for parole refused. Robin’s identity had been hidden from the press when she gave evidence in court, aged nineteen.