Page 132 of The Hallmarked Man

‘He’s got family,’ said Sacha.

‘I don’t mean any criticism,’ said Strike, ‘but my information is that he doesn’t get on with the aunt and uncle in Switzerland, which leaves you, and by your own admission—’

‘D’you think I wouldn’t have done something, if I thought Rupe had genuinely gone missing?’

No, you fucker, I don’t.

Strike could almost see Charlotte’s wide smile. Now starting to take a vindictive pleasure in this interview, he said,

‘Where exactly did it come from, this nef thing?’

‘From Dino’s club.’

‘I mean: was it originally Fleetwood property, or Legard?’

‘How’s that relevant?’

‘Well, where did Rupert think he was going to offload it?’

There was a pause. Strike watched Sacha’s pale face colour.

‘You aren’tseriouslysuggesting…?’

‘Not suggesting anything,’ said Strike dishonestly. He didn’t for a second believe Rupert had stolen the nef on Sacha’s orders, so that it might henceforth grace the sideboard in Heberley House, but he enjoyed hinting that Sacha, so eel-like in his ability to wriggle free of responsibility and culpability, might yet be drawn into the story of the stolen nef and the drug dealer, by police or press. ‘It was a Fleetwood relic, then, was it?’

‘No,’ said Sacha, after another fractional pause, ‘it was ours. I mean, Dad’s sister’s.’

‘Ah,’ said Strike, making a further note. ‘Well, I doubt Rupert would have taken it abroad. He needed cash. He’ll have wanted to sell it. Have you had any press enquiries at all?’ he asked, the idea suggested by his own recent troubles.

‘What about?’

‘Plenty there to keep the tabloids excited, “famous actor’s cousin pursued by coke dealer, does flit with ancestral treasure”—’

‘No,’ said Sacha, ‘nobody – no, there’s been no interest.’

Strike raised his eyebrows to indicate surprise, enjoying the discomfort now apparent in Sacha’s expression.

‘You’re a member of Dino’s, right?’ Strike said. ‘You were the one who suggested Rupert went and worked there?’

‘Yes,’ said Sacha.

‘Any idea why Rupert’s aunt thinks Dino Longcaster’s a “ghastly man”?’

‘Plenty of people think Dino’s a ghastly man,’ said Sacha, forcing a smile. ‘Didn’t you ever hear my mama on the subject?’

‘I did, yeah. Is Tara in contact with Rupert?’ asked Strike, who didn’t doubt the answer was ‘no’, because he could think of little Tara would be less interested in, than an impecunious nephew by a previous marriage.

‘No,’ said Sacha, goaded at last into a display of weak temper, ‘and I’d advise—’

He stopped short, but Strike, whose sole aim now was to needle the actor as much as he could before Sacha terminated the interview, said,

‘You’d advise me not to contact your mother?’

‘Yes, I would.’

‘Drying out somewhere again, is she?’ asked Strike, so politely that it was a few seconds before Sacha seemed to register the sense of his words, at which his colour mounted higher.

‘I’d advise you not to contact her,’ he said, now looking tense, ‘for reasons I’d have thought would be obvious.’