Page 126 of The Hallmarked Man

‘A what addict?’

‘Spice. Synthetic cannabis. It’s bloody everywhere. She was sweating like she was in a sauna. Spoke about three words a minute. Nearly five hours it took, to break her.’

Murphy took a swig of water, as though the memory of it made him hoarse.

‘Christ, I’m looking forward to this. I need a break.’

‘Me too,’ said Robin untruthfully. In fact, she’d have given almost anything to be driving in the opposite direction, back to her solitary flat and work, even if that was where the man who’d seized the back of her neck was.It’ll ’appen again unless you fuckin’ give this up.

They arrived at last, by darkness, at the old stone house in Masham where Robin had grown up. Her father had strung white lights in the old lilac tree in the front garden. When Robin pressed the doorbell there was a rush of welcome during which Betty the new puppy dashed outside and had to be rescued from the middle of the road by Murphy. Here was Stephen, Robin’s eldest brother, and Jenny, his tall wife, in such an advanced state of pregnancy it took her three goes to get up out of her armchair to greet the newcomers, and Jonathan, Robin’s youngest brother, who’d now graduated from university and was working for a brand management consultancy in Manchester; Robin’s dark-haired father, in his horn-rimmed spectacles, and her mother, Linda, whose affection for Murphy meant he received just as warm a hug as Robin did. The family had delayed dinner so Robin and her boyfriend could join them. They all settled around the scrubbed kitchen table, on a floor covered in sheets of newspaper due to the presence of the so far un-housetrained Betty, whose tail caused her entire body to undulate as she wagged it non-stop. With a slight raising of her spirits, Robin drank wine and ate the chicken and mushroom casserole her mother had cooked, and the news that her ex-husband, Matthew, was also in town for Christmas, with his second wife and son, caused her barely a tremor of emotion.

‘She’s pregnant again,’ Linda informed the family, ‘that Sarah. I saw her in the Co-op.’

‘Well, good luck to her,’ said Robin, determinedly offhand.

‘When are you due?’ Murphy asked Jenny.

‘Third of January,’ said Jenny, ‘but honestly, he can come tonight if he wants. I’m sick of the bloody heartburn.’

‘It’s a boy?’ said Robin, who hadn’t known this.

‘Yeah, and they reckon he’s going to be well over nine pounds,’ said Stephen.

‘I’m glad one of us is happy about that,’ said Jenny.

‘We’ve been worried,’ said Linda, mock-reproving, as she looked down the table at her daughter-in-law. ‘She was still working until a month ago,’ Linda told Robin.

‘Only the small stuff, Linda,’ said Jenny, who was a vet. ‘No horses or cattle.’

‘I thought Martin would be here,’ said Robin.

Martin was the third of the Ellacotts’ four children, who, until very recently, had lived with his parents, although he’d now moved in with his pregnant girlfriend in nearby Ripon.

‘No, they’re coming tomorrow,’ said Linda, with just that shade of reserve that told Robin there was a story that her mother didn’t want to share in front of company.

Robin was glad to get to bed in her old room. Murphy fell asleep almost as soon as he lay down. Robin listened to the sounds of the others going in and out of the bathroom, of Annabel’s parents checking on her in Martin’s old room, of Jonathan moving around in the attic conversion where, as the last-born, he’d had to sleep when young. She wondered for a few minutes what was in the flat, square box Strike had given her for Christmas, which she’d left at the bottom of her holdall when unpacking, rather than taking it downstairs and putting it beneath the Christmas tree, as she and Murphy had done with the presents they’d bought the family, and each other. Strike’s box had the size and weight appropriate to a piece of jewellery, but she could think of nothing less likely than her detective partner giving her something so personal, not when he’d been scared out of buying her perfume one year because the names had seemed too intimate. The memory of Strike telling her he’d panicked at the idea of giving her a bottle labelled something like ‘Shaggable You’ made her smile in the dark.

It’ll be fine, she told herself, listening to Murphy’s slow breathing.It’s only four days.

35

Why not, then, have earlier spoken,

Written, bustled? Who’s to blame

If your silence kept unbroken?

Robert Browning

Waring

Strike considered self-pity an unjustifiable waste of time, yet the dejection gripping him the following morning refused to lift. Whatever Robin had said previously about the strains of a family Christmas, who was to say she wouldn’t be softened by the festive atmosphere once she got to Masham? There’d be kids and carol services, and maybe mulled bloody wine, and everyone charmed by her immensely eligible CID officer… Strike had only ever visited Masham once before, to gatecrash Robin’s wedding. Well, he was fucked if he’d do that a second time.

He was currently sitting in his BMW, keeping watch over a builders’ warehouse to which he’d tailed the unemployed Plug. While watching the warehouse doors for Plug’s reappearance, Strike exacerbated his own despondency by pondering the many other dilemmas facing him.

Fergus Robertson’s article had appeared in theTelegraphthat morning. As the detective supposed he should have foreseen, some tattered code of honour among hacks had prevented Robertson from telling the world the real reason that Dominic Culpepper was currently determined to trash Strike’s reputation, but he’d intimated that Strike had made many enemies during his investigative career and quoted Strike in full as regarded his denial of everything pertaining to Candy, and his empty threat of legal action. Perhaps, Strike thought, eyes onthe warehouse, he really should hire a lawyer. The costs would be exorbitant, but he had a nasty feeling his rebuttal wouldn’t be sufficient to make the Candy story disappear for good.

He had no intention of accepting his father’s offer of financial help, which he was certain stemmed from a desire on Rokeby’s part to bolster his own public image. Strike considered that Rokeby had violated a territorial boundary by calling his office in Denmark Street and speaking to one of Strike’s employees. Yes, Robin was probably right: the wisest course was to ignore his father, but if she returned from Masham engaged, Strike would consider all previous pledges cancelled.