Page 188 of The Hallmarked Man

He had a hunch he’d just seen the man who’d called Jade Semple ‘babe’ and advised her Strike was probably working for a newspaper. He also suspected that Jade might be a fellow hangover sufferer, a conclusion he drew not only from Jade’s habit of texting him when she appeared to be unable to see her phone or use her fingers very well, but from her pallor, the puffiness of her face and the fact that her heavy fake lashes had been applied crookedly. She was elfin-looking, barely five feet tall, with large brown eyes and a small, pointed nose, and smelled strongly of a heavy oriental perfume that reminded him of a friend of his Aunt Joan’s in the eighties, whose scent had been powerful enough to overwhelm barbecue smoke. In this case (unless he was judging her by himself, because he was certain he was giving off a reek of whisky) he suspected she was trying to cover up the fact that she’d slept too late to shower. The small amount of blue-black hair he could see from beneath the raincoat hood looked unbrushed, and there was a deep crease in her left cheek that looked as though it had been made by a pillow. Strike’s best guess was that Ginger Moustache had kept her up late.

‘We’ll go up MacRosty Park,’ said Jade. ‘But, look, Idefinitelydon’t fink it was Niall in that vault now, all righ’? Tha’ was jus’ before I realised what was really goin’ on. I don’ know why I said I’d do this,’ she repeated distractedly.

‘What made you think it was Niall in the first place?’ Strike asked, eyes screwed up against the rain and trying not to limp. He could feel the end of his stump chafing.

‘’Cause of it being a masonic shop, an’ the body sounded a bit like ’im, and righ’ blood group an’ everyfing, an’ because ’e went a bit funny about the masons, after ’is ’ead injury. Did you know ’e’s a mason?’

‘No,’ said Strike. ‘D’you know what degree he was?’

‘Knight of somefing, I can’ remember.’

‘Not Prince?’

‘No, “knight”… all the men in ’is family were masons. ’E was never weird abou’ it ’til ’e got injured, though, it was jus’, like, a social fing, but then ’e wen’ funny, readin’ all the time, so that made me fink, when I seen it was a masonic shop… an’ there was the name, “William Wright”.’

‘He had a connection with that name, did he?’

‘Yeah, kinda. Wright was a famous what-d’you-call-it – botanist – an’ he was born in Crieff, like, two ’undred years ago or somefing.’

‘Niall’s interested in local history, is he?’

‘No, but ’is dad was. ’E self-published a book on masonic ’istory in Perthshire an’ ’e put an ’ole chapter about this William Wright in there, finkin’ ’e was a Freemason, but then it turned out ’e’d never been a mason, so ’e ’ad to cut them pages out of the book. When I seen that bloke at the silver shop was callin’ ’imself “William Wright”, I fort, wasn’t that that guy old Mr Semple got it all wrong abou’? An’ I looked ’im up an’ I was right.’

She crossed the road towards a rainswept park and Strike followed, hoping to God he wasn’t about to be asked to walk across slippery grass, which was the worst of all possible surfaces for his prosthesis.

‘Bu’ then I found ou’ abou’ the woman,’ said Jade bitterly, ‘so I knew wha’ was really goin’ on. I’m only stayin’ ’ere in Crieff because ’e’s gonna ’ave to come back some time. I’m not movin’ back to Colchester so ’e can move some ovver woman in. I’m not makin’ it fuckin’ easy for ’im, after what ’e done. ’E can fuckin’ well come ’ome an’ tell me to my face ’e wants a divorce.’

To Strike’s relief, they entered the park via a smooth, tarmacked path. It was still raining hard, but the cold, fresh air was making him feel less queasy, he could barely smell Jade’s perfume in the stiff breeze, and her loud voice was less deafening in the open. A deserted children’s play area lay to their right.

‘You think he’s with the woman you texted me about, do you? The one who used his credit card, after the body in the vault turned up?’

‘Yeah, I do.’

‘Have the police traced her?’

‘Not yet, but they showed me a picture of ’er, at a cashpoint, usin’ ’is card. Bank security camera. She looks a real skank,’ said Jade savagely. ‘Blonde. ’E always told me ’e din’ like blondes. I din’ even know abou’ that bank account they were bofe usin’. ’E was keepin’ it ’id from me.’

‘He was withdrawing money you didn’t know about?’

‘Yeah. Nobody’ll tell me ’ow much was in there, or wevver it’s all gone now. They jus’ come to me wiv a picture of the woman an’ asked if I recognised ’er, an’ I never seen ’er before in my life. Tattoo on ’er face,’ said Jade bitterly. ‘Classy.’

She bent down and let the Pomeranian off its lead; it bounded away onto the grass while Strike and Jade kept walking along the path.

‘What kind of tattoo did this woman have?’

‘You couldn’ see clear, it was under ’er eye. I shoulda known. I ’eard ’im on the phone to a woman, back at the ’ouse, abou’ a week before ’e buggered off. ’E was sayin’ “meet me at the Engineer”. I walked in the room an’ ’e looked fuckin’ guilty and ’ung up. We ’ad a row. I said, “’oo’re you meetin’? Wha’ Engineer?” ’E said ’e din’t know what I was talkin’ abou’. Fuckin’ liar. I know wha’ the fuckin’ Engineer is, I wen’ an’ looked it up. ’S a pub in Camden. Coincidence. Righ’ by where ’e was takin’ out money from ’is secret bank account.’

‘Are you sure it was a woman he was talking to?’

‘Yeah, I could ’ear ’er, squawkin’ on the other end of the phone,’ said Jade. ‘I was listenin’, froo the door, from the ’all.’

‘You told the police this?’

‘Yeah, an’ they say nobody at the pub remembers seein’ ’im at the Engineer, but so wha’? Crowded. I shoulda known. We on’y ’ad a monf, married, but we’ve bin togevver a lot longer’n tha’, and ’e played around on me – well, I played around on ’im, too – bu’ when we go’ married we bofe said, tha’ was it now, jus’ each ovver, y’know?’

‘Right,’ said Strike.

‘POM POM, NO!’ Jade bellowed, making Strike wince. The dog had picked up something Jade didn’t want it to eat. She strode away across the wet grass while Strike waited where he was in the heavy rain, watching her trying to wrestle whatever it was out of the Pomeranian’s mouth.