Page 149 of The Hallmarked Man

Robin had a couple more things she wanted to tell Strike, one of which she felt awkward and embarrassed about, while the other might be completely irrelevant to the investigation. While she was wondering whether it mightn’t be easier to broach both of them by text, rather than face to face, Strike texted again.

Newsflash: just heard from Barclay. I put him on Jim Todd this afternoon. Todd cleaned a café for two hours, then made a call from a public phone box and a pointless Tube journey.

How, pointless?

Just sat on the Circle line for an hour, going round, then got off where he got on. There’s definitely something fishy about Todd. Can’t find him in any records. Think he’s using a fake name.

Robin now received a text from Murphy, who was at work. She saw the tell-tale link to rightmove.co.uk, and swiped it away without reading it, instead texting Strike again.

You think Todd’s got a record?

Starting to think it’s odds on.

Having read this message, Robin decided to mention the subject she found awkward. In the small amount of time she’d had over Christmas that hadn’t been dedicated to fretting about her feelings for Strike, or his for her, she’d also been worrying about what he expected her to do regarding porn actor Dangerous Dick de Lion, who, if the cipher note slipped through the office door was to be believed, had been the body in the silver vault. Robin texted:

I wanted to talk to you about Dick de Lion.

There was no immediate response, possibly because Mrs Two-Times was now genuinely on the move. Robin therefore opened Murphy’s text and followed the link to the details of a house in Walthamstow. Unlike most of the two-bed-one-box-room terracedhouses he’d sent her, it looked as though it was recently decorated and stood on the end of the terrace. Murphy’s text read:

Only two bedrooms, though.

Exactly how many IVF babies are you hoping for?was Robin’s immediate thought.

Her phone rang. Strike was calling instead of texting. Trying to ignore the lurch in her stomach, Robin answered.

‘What about de Lion?’ Strike asked.

‘I – well, I’m not going to be able to pretend I’m casting a porn shoot, however much research I do. Sorry, but I’m just not going to be any good at it. If you think that’s the only way to find out where he is, it’ll have to be one of the others.’

She wondered whether Strike was thinking her prudish or inadequate. The truth was that Robin had a strong aversion to pornography. The rapist who’d wrecked her fallopian tubes had kept a stack of movies focusing on throttling and rape beneath the floorboards where he’d also hidden his gorilla mask.

‘I didn’t want to have to involve any of the others on de Lion,’ said Strike.

‘Well, then, shall we concentrate on finding out who the girl was, who posted the note through the door?’

‘Shit, I forgot to tell you,’ said Strike. ‘I know who she is. Her professional name’s Fyola Fay, her real name’s Fiona Freeman, and she lives in Wimbledon. I found a website dedicated to outing female porn stars. Real names, former or current professions, marital status, etc. No equivalent site for men, unfortunately.’

‘There’s a surprise,’ said Robin darkly. ‘Shall I try and talk to her?’

‘We need to think that through,’ said Strike. ‘I don’t doubt she’d be happier talking to you than me, but I’ve found out she lives with a porn director who looks like he lifts buses for weights and eats steroids for breakfast. A bit of covert surveillance on the house might be needed, so we make sure to catch her at home alone.

‘By the way, we seem to have picked up another Gateshead. Crazy-sounding Scottish woman who’s called twice now, asking me to meet her at the Golden Fleece.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ said Strike. ‘She sounds crazy enough to have mistaken me for Jason of the Argonauts.’

Robin laughed, then said,

‘There was something else I was going to tell you, actually,’ said Robin. ‘I know it might not be relevant at all, but I Googled Rita Linda while I was home and got a search result I want you to look at. It’s the only one I’ve found that would explain “it might be in the papers” and Wright “knowing what happened t—”’

‘Shit, got to go, Mrs TT’s active,’ said Strike.

He hung up.

Robin scrolled through her recent photos to find a screenshot she’d saved of a paragraph about ‘Reata Lindvall’, the woman whose name she’d found online while too drunk to read, outside the Bay Horse, and texted it to Strike.

She made herself a cup of tea, grabbed some biscuits, sat down at her laptop and headed back to the abandoned Instagram page of Sapphire Neagle, the missing schoolgirl who’d left online messages for both Calvin Osgood, the real music producer, and Oz, his online impersonator. Robin was trying to identify the school Sapphire had briefly attended before her disappearance. One pretty black girl seemed to have become close to Sapphire during her weeks at the school, judging by the many selfies the two had taken together, but Robin hadn’t yet managed to find the friend’s real name.