Page 379 of The Hallmarked Man

Night had fallen by the time Strike decided it was safe for him to re-enter the small town that had seemed so quaintly beautiful by daylight. It had an entirely different aspect now, or perhaps it was what Strike knew about one of its inhabitants that had endowed the broad, black Severn and the gigantic arched bridge with menace. Between the river and the bridge to his left, and the houses that seemed to tumble down the steep hill on his right, he experienced some of the primitive mistrust of ravines and chasms, a sense of being hemmed in and trapped. He thought of the seemingly bottomless al-Hota gorge, the dead who’d been thrown there, and the tales told of what lay in the depths.

The lights of the Swan Taphouse, where he and Robin had argued, twinkled cheerfully up ahead. He took the hairpin bend right into New Road, which they’d climbed on foot, passing the blue plaque commemorating Billy Wright, and a lit window in Dilys’s muddy orange cottage, before parking a few doors down from Tyler Powell’s old family home.

As he got out of the BMW, a tall figure emerged from the darkness.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Strike.

‘Just heard from Wardle; they’re still in the pub in Horsehay,’ said Barclay. ‘Fifteen-minute drive from here. Unless there’s someone in there who’s happy wit’oot any lights, the house is empty.’

‘How many others did he leave with?’

‘There were two up front but probably more in the back o’ the van.’

‘Tried the doorbell?’

‘Aye. Naebody answered.’

‘Right,’ said Strike, checking his coat pockets for his skeleton keys, handcuffs and the heavy fisherman’s priest, ‘I’m going in. If you see any sign of him or the van returning, call me.’

‘An’ if Ah hear ye yellin’ “help”?’

‘Ignore me, obviously.’

Strike set off up the street. The night was crisply cold, the moon a waning crescent hanging sickle-like over the trees on the opposite bank of the Severn. No lights shone inside the Powells’ old house, though the For Sale sign had disappeared: presumably Ivor had at last received an offer that satisfied his greedy expectations.

Strike turned right, and headed down the path leading to Ian Griffiths’ back door. Pulling out his skeleton keys he set to work, hoping there wasn’t going to be a chain or bolt across the inside.

After a couple of minutes, the lock cooperated and the door opened, with a faint creak. Strike stepped over the threshold into the pitch-black hall and closed the door quietly behind him.

A musky, dirty smell that had been absent the last time he’d been here filled his nostrils, although possibly the joss sticks, of which he could still detect a faint trace, had masked it previously. Moving cautiously and quietly, he entered the sitting room and pulled the curtains across the window before switching on his phone’s torch. The beam fell almost at once on the small model of the Manneken Pis. He looked slowly around the room by torchlight. As before, tacky souvenirs were in evidence everywhere. The light’s beam illuminated the poster of Jesus smoking a joint, and caused the Thai elephant to glint before travelling to the plentiful photographs of Chloe, demonstrating what a good father Ian Griffiths was, how proud of his daughter, now travelling abroad with her handsome boyfriend. And there was the picture of the pretty woman wearing a red beaded necklace, arms around the young Chloe. Strike wondered whether she was still alive. For Griffiths, that ruby necklace seemed to be the equivalent of Daesh’s orange execution jumpsuits.

Just as Strike was about to leave the room, he heard the distant ringing of a mobile.

Instantly turning off his torch, he stood stock still, listening.

A clunk overhead that made the light fitting quiver. Someone was in the room directly above him.

He moved stealthily to flatten himself against the wall beside the door into the sitting room, as a male voice became gradually clearer.

‘’S me, Jonesy. ’Oo else would it be? You jus’ called me, you tit – you pissed?’

Someone was coming downstairs, somebody large and heavy, by the sound of them. The hall light went on. Strike slid his phone into the left pocket of his overcoat and extracted Ted’s fisherman’s priest from the other.

‘Yeah, go on… hahaha… no, I was having a kip… wha’?… shitfaced last night, ’s’why… yeah, obviously… babysitting, aren’ I? All right, yeah, I’ll get ’er ready… hahaha… cheers.’

Strike heard footsteps, a faint rustle, followed by a thump. It sounded a lot like the noise Griffiths had claimed had been made by Dilys when she’d left the room, banging into a hall table.

‘You need ta wash,’ he heard the man say. ‘Mickey wants a go, they’re coming back.’

‘I can’t reach the stuff,’ said a girl’s pitiful voice. ‘He tied me up again.’

‘I’ll wan’ something if you make me come down there,’ said the man. ‘Blow job, or you can stay mucky.’

Strike moved as quietly as possible out into the hall, the priest in his fist. Nobody was visible. He rounded a second corner.

Directly ahead, to the left of the stairs and with his back to the detective, stood a man the same size as Strike himself, with a fat neck and short dark hair. He appeared to be preparing to go down through an open trapdoor, beside which lay a bunched-up rug.

Wynn Jones either heard or sensed Strike. He turned his head, but too late: the fisherman’s priest had already begun its descent.