Page 122 of The Hallmarked Man

She could tell by Strike’s expression that he was now interested, so she continued,

‘The last known sighting of Sofia alive was on the Thursday afternoon, so the day before the Murdoch silver arrived at Ramsay Silver. On Friday afternoon, a girl matching Sofia’s description and wearing a very similar or identical outfit drives to St George’s Avenue in a silver car, lets herself into Wright’s room, removes things in a suitcase and leaves the house. A silver car – possibly the same silver car – turns up early next morning, a curly-haired man goes into the house and comes out with more stuff in a suitcase. Somebody else is driving. The following day, Sofia’s murdered in the middle of nowhere, near an old abandoned van.’

‘A van,’ repeated Strike.

‘I know it’d fit better if it had been an abandoned Peugeot 208—’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Strike. ‘A man emailed Calvin Osgood, thinking he was Oz, and asking whether he was still interested in buying his van, remember?’

‘Oh God, of course!’

Strike stroked his chin, eyes narrowed.

‘You know, women can be useful in certain situations.’

‘Thanks,’ said Robin.

Strike almost smiled for the first time since waking.

‘I mean, the presence of a woman usually makes everything seem more innocuous. Rightly or wrongly, people see a man and a woman and they think “couple going about their ordinary business”, not “off to commit theft and murder”.’

Strike took a pull on his vape pen. He really needed to increase the concentration of nicotine, because it wasn’t satisfying him nearly as much as a Benson & Hedges would have done.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘for the sake of argument, let’s say Sofia Medina hooked up with one of the guys who bumped off Wright. Let’s push it a bit further and say that man was our curly haired friend Oz. She tellsher flatmate she’s going to be away all weekend because she knows she’ll be assisting Oz in nicking the Murdoch silver and murdering William Wright.’

‘When you put it like that,’ said Robin, ‘it starts sounding less credible. She was a student. She had prospects. Why on earth would she agree to get involved in murder?’

‘He could’ve been coercing her.’

‘How?’

‘Young women whose families don’t know they’ve got OnlyFans accounts can be vulnerable to blackmail.’

‘But what was he blackmailing her to do?Shecan’t have killed Wright and she wouldn’t have been much use carrying the Oriental Centrepiece, either.’

‘Well, with a girl who looks like that, the obvious answer would be acting as bait.’

Both of them immediately thought of the pixelated Candy, posing in her red underwear in the paper.

‘Wright told his neighbours a girlfriend would be coming to live with him,’ said Robin. ‘Could that have been Sofia Medina? Could she have been the one who persuaded him to go and work at Ramsay Silver?’

‘It’s a theory,’ said Strike, who was thinking the thing out. ‘Maybe Wright thought he and Medina would be doing a Bonnie and Clyde, not realising there were people behind her who were going to gouge out his eyes and cut off his dick?’

‘Maybe there’s no connection,’ Robin said, losing confidence again.

‘’Course, Medina might not have realised the job was going to involve murder and mutilation,’ said Strike. ‘Oz might’ve kidded her that it was only burglary, maybe spun her some yarn about how he had a right to the silver, that she was helping him get back what was rightfully his. He could’ve claimed Ramsay had done him wrong in some way, and this was revenge. Or – hang on.’

Strike got to his feet and went to consult the card on the noticeboard where he’d written everything they’d found out so far about Oz.

‘The real Osgood got another email meant for Oz,’ said Strike, reading the card. ‘A girl wrote to him in bad English, wanting to know about a prank Oz played on her cousin…’

‘Bad English,’ repeated Robin. ‘You think the girl was Spanish?’

‘Could well be,’ said Strike. ‘Shame the dozy prick deleted the emails.’

‘But what kind of “prank” would involve Oz entering the shop under cover of darkness and coming out covered in bloodstains?’

‘She might not’ve noticed the bloodstains if he was staggering under the weight of the Oriental Centrepiece,’ said Strike.