Page 390 of The Hallmarked Man

‘Any ID on the body under the floor yet? Anyone contacted Belgium for Jolanda’s DNA?’

‘They’re doing it today, apparently. Oh, and that real music producer bloke, Osgood? They’ve retrieved his deleted emails.’

‘And?’

‘A cousin of Sofia Medina’s contacted him from Spain. Medina had told the girl she and her music producer boyfriend were going to play a joke on someone who’d double-crossed him.’

‘Did said trick involve him hiding a load of silver and robbing a shitty flat?’

‘Apparently,’ said Wardle.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ said Strike again.

‘I hear Quincy Jones is never happier than when breaking into silver shops,’ said Wardle, and, glum though he felt, Strike laughed. It was the first time in a long time he’d heard Wardle make anything close to a joke. Sex definitely cheered a man up… perhaps Strike, like Wardle, should start cutting his losses…

Call ended, he continued towards his BMW until a loud, husky voice called him by name. Turning, he saw Jade Semple, whose hand he’d briefly pressed as he headed into the church.

‘Will you come to the reception?’ she said breathlessly.

‘Yeah, of course,’ said Strike, though he’d far rather not have done.

So he drove to the hotel and joined the mourners flocking like morose crows in a large function room decorated in blue, where there were many circular tables but nowhere near enough chairs. A buffet was laid out along the length of one wall, but nobody was yet eating. Deciding the chairs should be left for the elderly and immediate family, feeling self-conscious and conspicuous because of his bandaged ear and slightly regretting not having brought painkillers with him, Strike bought himself a low-alcohol beer and headed towards an exterior smoking area, spotting the distinguished-looking Ralph Lawrence in the distance as he did so. The latter gave Strike a slight nod which the detective reciprocated: a gesture appropriate both for their degree of acquaintanceship, and the mixture of dislike and respect Strike suspected both felt for each other.

Once outside, having a good pretext and unable to resist the impulse, Strike called Robin.

‘Hi,’ he said, when she answered. ‘Where are you?’

‘In the back of a taxi,’ said Robin. ‘I should be at the hotel in ten minutes.’

She was currently travelling along a road in Sardinia fringed with palm trees, beneath a clear blue sky. As she’d flown into the capital, Cagliari, she’d felt as though she’d entered the Raoul Dufy print over her mantelpiece: glittering sea, pastel-coloured houses, hot sun on her skin. She knew her interlude on the island would be very short, which made the beauty of the place and the glorious weather bittersweet. At best, this was only a temporary reprieve from the myriad problems that remained behind her in gloomy grey London: she felt strangely as she had in the hospital, after her ectopic pregnancy; the same sense of unreality seemed to lie over everything.

‘Is the funeral over?’ she asked.

‘Just finished,’ said Strike. ‘Jade wanted me to come to the wake. I’m calling because Wardle just got an update from the murder investigation team.’

‘They’re still talking to us?’ said Robin, in surprise.

‘One of them is,’ said Strike, choosing not to give details. ‘Anyway…’

Robin’s reaction, when Strike had finished passing on Iverson’s information, wasn’t as celebratory as her partner had expected.

‘If I’d only twigged sooner,’ Robin sighed, staring out at the glittering sea to her left. ‘If I’d realised the same girl was calling me…’

‘Easy mistake,’ said Strike.

‘No, I should have known there was something up,’ said Robin. ‘She said the “Jockey & Horse” instead of the “Horse & Jockey,” “Wellsey Road” instead of “Wesley”. And I remembered something else last night: the first time she called me, I heard someone writing – it’ll have been Griffiths, telling her what to say, won’t it?’

‘Probably,’ said Strike.

‘I should have known,’ repeated Robin.

‘But Griffiths is completely fucked,’ said Strike.

‘I know, and I’m glad,’ said Robin, ‘but I can’t stop thinking about Jolanda. What a terrible, terrible life. Abducted by your mother’s killer. Forced to play a part for ever. And then, just as you think you might actually be able to break free… and there’s Tyler, too… I feelas though we’d sort of got to know him, by the end, without realising it. I think he was a genuinely good person.’

‘Me too,’ said Strike. ‘Maybe not book smart, but he was interested enough in the outside world to know Assad’s called the Lion of Syria, and he was a grafter, and he was prepared to run all kinds of risks to get the girl away from Griffiths.’

‘I suppose, as Jolanda got older, Griffiths couldn’t keep her entirely hidden. He had to let her go to school if he wanted to live in the UK.’