Page 265 of The Hallmarked Man

‘Careful on the steps,’ called a young ferryman behind them. ‘They’re slippery.’

Cursing himself anew for forgetting his stick, Strike moved at a snail-like pace up the steep stone steps of the harbour, which were indeed dangerously slimy, even though the rain had now passed off. At last, leg throbbing, he reached the top of the flight to see three tractors, one of which was pulling open-sided passenger trailers that were already almost full of people, and two of which were being loaded with luggage.

‘Squeeze on,’ shouted the ticket collector, beckoning Strike and Robin forwards. ‘Gawn, there’s room!’

Robin found a narrow strip of seat beside a large man in a paint-stained beanie hat, while Strike crammed himself in beside two women who had shopping bags perched in their laps. Robin couldn’t see how the vehicle could possibly hold any more people, but the last two ferry passengers, both male and clearly local, judging by the greetings they threw the tractor drivers, ambled up and, seeing no seat space, simply climbed onto the edge of a trailer, unconcerned, remaining standing while clinging on to the metal poles holding up the roof.

The tractor driver started up the engine, and towed the line of trailers through a short tunnel in the hillside, then up a very steep road, Robin worrying unnecessarily about the standing men, who seemed oblivious to any danger. A couple of minutes later, the tractor arrived at the top of the hill and came to a halt outside a cream-painted pub, the Bel Air, over which both the Sark flag and Union Jack fluttered. All passengers disembarked and set off in different directions on foot, leaving Strike and Robin alone to take stock of their surroundings, while the tractor bearing their green-tagged luggage disappeared from view.

Ahead stretched something in the nature of a high street, though to people used to London it had a very strange appearance: no cars, single-storey buildings, and a thoroughly sleepy air.

‘Right,’ said Strike, ‘de Leon’s mother lives on Rue des Laches, which is supposed to be close.’

He was wearing the pinched expression that told Robin he was already in a lot of pain. They headed a short distance up the road, which was really a dirt track, level though puddled, with stones protruding here and there. Only now did Robin fully appreciate the implications of a total lack of buses or taxis; they had a lot of walking ahead, because they’d arrived on the east of the island and their B&B lay to the south.

To her relief, the first wooden signpost they reached pointed them left, towards the Rue des Laches. They proceeded along a second track, with fields on one side and houses on the other, until Strike said,

‘That’s it, there.’

The low-roofed house was painted pale blue and looked rather shabby. A couple of bare-branched apple trees stood in the front garden. As Strike and Robin walked up the front path, a burly, bearded man rounded the corner of the building, pushing a wheelbarrow full of logs.

‘Morning,’ called Strike. ‘My name’s Cormoran Strike, this is Robin Ellacott, and we’re looking for Mrs de Leon.’

‘She’s gone over to St Peter Port,’ said the man suspiciously. ‘What d’you want with her?’

‘To ask her about her son, Danny.’

‘Oh yeah?’ said the man, setting down the handles of the wheelbarrow. His expression had hardened. ‘Why?’

‘Can I ask who—?’

‘I’m his brother,’ said the man. ‘Older brother. Richard de Leon.’

To Robin’s alarm, Richard now picked up one of the short logs in his wheelbarrow and, holding it in the grip of one hand, advanced on them slowly. She was reminded of Ian Griffiths bursting angrily out of his house in Ironbridge clutching his guitar, but the elder de Leon brother presented a very different calibre of threat. While shorter than Strike, his forearms were massive, and the broken veins in his face suggested long days of hard labour, out of doors.

‘What’s Danny to you?’ he said.

‘Just wanted to know whether you or your mother have heard from him lately,’ said Strike.

‘No,’ said Richard. ‘We haven’t.’

‘He hasn’t come home to Sark, then?’

‘No,’ said Richard. ‘He hasn’t.’

‘Have you heard from him lately?’

‘No,’ said Richard, for the third time. ‘He’s not here. Haven’t seen him, haven’t heard from him.’

‘For how long?’ asked Strike.

‘What d’you wanna know that for?’

‘We’re investigating an unidentified body,’ said Strike, reaching a hand into his pocket, but keeping his eyes on the log in Richard’s hand. ‘Friends of Danny’s in London are worried it was him. This is my card.’

De Leon all but snatched it from Strike’s hand and glared at it suspiciously.

‘“Private detective”?’ he said, with a snort, as though Strike had handed him a joke item.