Page 32 of The Hallmarked Man

‘I’m meeting Bijou,’ said Strike, looking Robin straight in the eye. Though she’d have given anything not to, Robin felt herself turn red. ‘Thanks, though,’ Strike added, looking down at the clearly fuming Murphy. ‘This has been extremely helpful.’

13

And then the sudden sleights, long secresies,

The plots inscrutable, deep telegraphs,

Long-planned chance-meetings, hazards of a look,

‘Does she know? does she not know?’

Robert Browning

In a Balcony

The work rota was so arranged that Strike and Robin didn’t meet again until Friday, which was cold and cloudless. Central London was now fully decked in its Christmas finery, and eleven o’clock found Robin in Mount Street in Belgravia, standing beneath one of the extravagant banners of silver lights that stretched across the road, pretending to be talking on her phone while the ex-wife of their professional cricketer client shopped in Balenciaga.

Though she was gloved and coated, the chill nipped at every exposed bit of Robin’s skin. She felt low and tired, because she was still not sleeping well. Strike’s visit had left an uncomfortable undercurrent in its wake. Murphy had returned to the subject of the body in the vault the following morning, outlining the dangers of provoking a man who’d already ordered his own nephew killed and reminding Robin, yet again, that more people than Strike would be put in danger if Lynden Knowles came to believe he was being investigated for Jason’s death. Robin had tried very hard not to sound defensive or angry as she reiterated that neither she nor Strike had any intention of going near Jason’s uncle, and assured him that the secret of the plainclothes man was completely safe with them.

She might have said far more. She might have reminded Murphy that she stood in no need of lectures on the dangers of tangling withcareer criminals, because she and Strike had already come up against a criminal family every bit as sociopathic as Lynden Knowles’ appeared to be. She might even have said aloud the thing that both of them knew, which was that everything Murphy was saying was coloured by his dislike of her partner. She’d refrained, though. She didn’t want an argument.

Robin would ordinarily have texted Strike to ask what he thought about taking Decima’s case, but lurking embarrassment at having been caught out in the lie about Bijou Watkins prevented her doing so. Now she stood staring across the road at a motif carved in stone over the windows of Balenciaga; it was either a tree or a sheaf of corn. Possibly she was being influenced by the masonic symbolism she’d been reading up on during her Tube journey that morning: the sheaf of corn, she now knew, represented bounty and charity to Freemasons.

Hearing her name, Robin started and looked round. Strike was walking towards her. She’d been expecting to hand over to Shah, and then only in an hour’s time. Pretending to finish her call, Robin slipped her phone back into her pocket.

‘Plug’s heading for Ipswich again,’ were Strike’s first words. ‘Christ knows what he’s up to there. Anyway, Shah’s tailing him, and he told me you were here.’

‘You’re early,’ said Robin. ‘I’m still on her for another hour.’

‘I know. I wanted to talk over the silver vault case in person. I’ve just had Decima Mullins on the phone again.’

‘Hang on,’ said Robin, eyes on the door of Balenciaga, ‘Mrs A’s on the move.’

The brunette, who was wearing a long black coat of faux-fur and very high-heeled boots, had emerged from the shop carrying a large shopping bag, and now sauntered on up the street. Robin and Strike set off on the opposite pavement, keeping pace with her, though twenty yards behind.

‘What did you tell Decima?’ asked Robin.

‘The truth,’ said Strike, ‘leaving out the plainclothes bloke, obviously. I said the circumstantial evidence points strongly towards it being Jason Knowles, but that there’s no absolute confirmation yet that it’s him.’

‘And what did she say?’ said Robin.

‘She begged me to try and prove who Wright was,’ said Strike. ‘So, what d’you think?’

‘I thought you didn’t want the job?’

‘I’m not going to lie,’ said Strike. ‘I’m getting interested in that body.’

But this, of course, wasn’t the whole truth.

Since realising how little Murphy wanted them to investigate the corpse in the vault, Strike had come to see how many opportunities this case offered with regard to the furtherance of his plans regarding Robin. Given the sensitivity around the undercover NCA agent, Strike had a perfect excuse to insist he and Robin did the bulk of this case together, excluding the subcontractors. The need for confidentiality would justify regular closed meetings between the two of them and, as a bonus, they might need to visit the home towns of the other candidates for William Wright, so as to rule them out. That would mean long car trips, plenty of joint interviews and debriefs and, with luck, overnight stays. He even had an excellent excuse to bring up Charlotte’s suicide note again, when outlining why Sacha Legard and Valentine Longcaster might not be keen on talking to him.

Strike didn’t doubt that some would call him cynical, but that didn’t trouble him in the slightest. After all, he fully intended to give Decima Mullins value for money, and if they managed to prove that Fleetwood hadn’t been the man in the vault, their client would have the resolution she needed.

The brunette on the other side of the road entered a jewellers. Strike and Robin turned automatically to look into a window opposite, watching the reflected shopfront.

‘But,’ said Strike, ‘if investigating is going to cause trouble between you and Murphy, we’ll pass.’

Caught off-guard, Robin looked up at him.