Page 331 of The Hallmarked Man

The second covered the side of his head and Robin closed her eyes—

She heard him choke, splutter and gasp; the grip on her neck loosened; she sprayed again and again and heard him swear – now he was trying to evade the spray but still kneeling on her—

With every bit of strength she could muster she punched blindly upwards with her right hand and heard the thud of knuckle on bone—

She opened her eyes; they began to water from the noxious vapour now thick in the air, but she knew where to aim, now—

Another spray and another, directly to his face—

She drew breath and her lungs burned, too, but no matter: she screamed as loudly as she’d ever screamed in her life, now hanging on to fistfuls of his curly hair.

104

To envenom a name by libels, that already is openly tainted, is to add stripes with an iron rod to one that is flayed with whipping…

Albert Pike

Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Rite of Scottish Freemasonry

Strike was currently on the M4, heading back towards London. His detour to Yeovil and the Quicksilver Mail had been pointless: nobody at the pub had recognised Tyler Powell’s picture.

‘Nah, Dave was quite, you know – porky,’ one of the barmaids had told him, sketching an invisible hula hoop around her own middle to demonstrate the sizeable girth of the vanished Dave.

Tempting though it was to believe that Tyler Powell had packed on the pounds to become ‘Dave’, Strike thought it unlikely he could have gained that substantial a belly in a month, so having thanked them all he returned to his BMW and headed off for London. In spite of his touchily defiant statement to Robin that he’d cope just fine with another few hours’ driving, his right leg was cramping. He was also extremely hungry; his Beefy Boys’ Dirty Boy Burger now a distant memory. The anger he continued to feel towards Ralph Lawrence kept recurring, like heartburn.

Ten miles from the city, his phone rang.

‘It’s me,’ said a panicky voice. ‘Danny de Leon.’

‘Got my message, did you?’ said Strike. Too tired, sore and hungry for any social niceties, he said, ‘I warned you when we met I’d have to go ahead without you if you left it too long to spill the beans.’

‘I didn’t know who to contact,’ said the agitated voice. ‘OK? I didn’t know how you do something like this—’

‘Then you should’ve called and asked me,’ said Strike. ‘I’ll send you the contact details for a journalist called Fergus Robertson, who’s already interested in Branfoot, but you need to make the callnowif you’d rather not live the rest of your life known as Branfoot’s predator-for-hire, and make sure you act bloody contrite about what you did.’

‘Make sure I what?’

‘Act contrite,’ said Strike loudly. ‘Ashamed. Guilty. If you don’t want to be charged, and you want to avoid his retaliation, expose the fuckernow.’

Strike ended the call and drove on, wondering whether it mightn’t be a good idea to stop at the next services to eat, rather than waiting until he reached the heart of London.

Ten minutes later, at Heston services, Strike texted Danny de Leon Fergus Robertson’s contact details, noting as he did so that there was still no response from Robin to his texted apology. He then visited the bathroom and, having peed, headed to get some food, thinking of nothing except his own depression and the appropriate noises he was going to have to make when Robin announced her engagement.

When his mobile rang yet again, and he saw it was Fergus Robertson, he let the call go to voicemail. Presumably de Leon had just contacted the journalist and Robertson wanted confirmation from Strike that the man was legit, but as Strike had just reached the front of the queue for food, he ignored the call.

Strike was mildly surprised when Robertson called again while he was waiting for his coffee, and for a third time as Strike was about to take a seat to eat his sandwich.

‘What?’ said Strike, answering at last.

‘I’m trying to do you a favour,’ came Robertson’s impatient voice.

‘Been in touch already, has he?’

‘What?’

‘De Leon. About Branfoot.’

‘What are you talking about?’