Page 66 of The Hallmarked Man

‘Why have we got a fish tank?’

It was nine o’clock on Wednesday morning and Strike had just entered the office to find his office manager shovelling gravel into the bottom of an aquarium standing on a side table beside the sofa, where previously there had been a fake pot plant.

‘Because nobody told me Tilly’s nan was getting her one,’ said Pat sourly, over the clatter of gravel.

‘Tilly?’

‘One of my great-granddaughters,’ snapped Pat. ‘She wanted goldfish, it’s her birthday. I bought the whole kit and caboodle and then I find out her other nan’s bought her the lot. I’ll have to go out at lunch and get her something else.’

‘I assume you’re planning on putting fish in it?’

‘Well, I’m not going to shove a cat in,’ said Pat irritably.

Strike had no wish whatsoever to add the care of goldfish to his daily workload, but given Pat’s current irascibility he decided not to ask why she didn’t just sell the aquarium on eBay. As he headed for the kettle, he placed a sheet of paper headed ‘Hussein Mohamed’ on Pat’s desk. He’d asked her to make a search of online records for the Syrian family who’d lived upstairs from William Wright, and had a wheelchair-bound daughter.

‘We’ve had a couple of funny phone calls,’ Pat told him, over the clatter of gravel.

‘How, “funny”?’

Pat set down her bag of gravel, crossed to the desk and pressed a button on the phone. A reedy, petulant male voice said,

‘This is Calvin Osgood. I’d be grateful if you’d call me back immediately and tell me what this is all about. And for the record,nobody calls me Oz.’

The man dictated his mobile number and hung up.

‘That’s all right,’ Strike told Pat. ‘He’s just a bloke who got a strange email from Ramsay Silver. I’ll call him back after I’ve had a coffee. What’s the other funny call?’

Pat pressed the answer machine button again. Low, guttural breathing issued from the speaker, followed by a male voice rasping:

‘Leave it an’ you won’t get ’urt.’

‘That it?’ said Strike, turning to look at the machine as it beeped again. ‘Bit non-specific.’

‘Yeah,’ said Pat. He could tell she was trying to hide an unease for which he couldn’t blame her. They’d both been in the office when Pat had opened an explosive device. As Strike moved towards the kettle, he mentally reviewed the cases currently on the agency’s books, wondering exactly what ‘it’ they were supposed to leave.

Two-Times had been taken on as a client again because, whatever his personal peculiarities, he always paid his bills on time. However, unless his fetish for unfaithful women had developed a strange new offshoot, Two-Times would hardly be calling the office to tell them to stop tailing his wife. That left Plug and the silver vault case.

‘It could be one of the blokes who dragged Barclay off the roof of that compound,’ he said. ‘Kim thought Plug might have clocked her the other day, as well. I’ll check.’

‘Is that a new shirt?’ said Pat, squinting at him.

‘Er – yeah,’ said Strike. He’d put it on that morning because of his imminent tête-à-tête with Robin. Now he felt vaguely self-conscious, as though Pat had read his mind.

‘Suits you,’ she said gruffly, and returned to her fish tank.

Once at the partners’ desk, and fortified by half a mug of strong coffee, Strike called Kim. Her immediate response was a hitherto unexhibited sharp defensiveness.

‘Plug didn’t really spot me, I was just being super-careful,’ shesaid. ‘I thought there was a remote chance. Anyway, I was wigged up and wearing glasses. There’s no way he could have traced me to this agency, I just thought it was best if I didn’t follow him again too soon afterwards.’

‘Right,’ said Strike. He hadn’t forgotten that the job swap in question had meant Kim got to accompany him to the Dorchester in a backless dress.

‘It was probably Robin,’ said Kim. ‘She lost him, remember, at Victoria? He might’ve spotted her and deliberately shaken her off. She isn’t as careful as she should be about disguises, given she’s been in the press a l—’

‘Well, there’s no guarantee it was anything to do with Plug,’ said Strike. ‘I’ll let you get on.’ He hung up, drank some more coffee, then returned Calvin Osgood’s call.

Strike was halfway through explaining who he was, and why he was calling, when Osgood interrupted in the thin, whiny voice Strike imagined a mosquito might have, should it be granted speech.

‘I know who you are, you explained in your email! I haven’t gotanythingto do with Ramsay Silver. I told the police all this – somebody out there’spretendingto be me. That’s who this person must’ve thought they were emailing!’