Page 87 of The Hallmarked Man

The security man looked down at the card Strike had handed him and raised his eyebrows.

‘You that bloke what solved the Lula Landry thing?’

‘That’s me,’ said Strike. ‘Was McGee was still working here when he died?’

‘Nah,’ said the security man, who was now looking at Strike with curiosity. ‘He wuz sacked.’

‘Any chance I could talk to someone about that?’

Five minutes later, and slightly to Strike’s surprise, because he’d anticipated a rebuff, he was led by the security man into a stark white office with another abstract painting hanging behind the uncluttered desk. Its occupant was a tall black woman in her thirties, who was dressed in a violet trouser suit and wore her hair in long spiral curls. The name plate on her desk declared her name to be Diana Boadu and her accent suggested a private education, though she displayed none of the superciliousness Strike might have expected from her stylish appearance and the beautifully appointed Edwardian building in which she worked. On the contrary, like the security man, Diana seemed intrigued if not mildly excited to be speaking to Cormoran Strike.

‘Why on earth areyouinterested in Larry McGee?’ she asked, when Strike had accepted an offer of coffee, and a redheaded underling had been dispatched to make it.

‘He delivered the Murdoch silver,’ said Strike.

‘Oh,’ said Diana Boadu. ‘I see.’

‘But I’ve just found out he’s dead.’

‘Yes, I heard he’d died,’ said Diana, who didn’t seem unduly saddened by the fact. ‘But that was after we fired him – months later,’ she added, as though afraid that Strike might get the impression the sacking had somehow killed McGee.

‘Any idea what he died of?’

‘Carter might know, our Head of Deliveries, but I think he’s out on a job.’

‘Would you be comfortable giving me Carter’s contact details?’

Strike’s coffee arrived while Diana was dictating Carter’s number. When Strike had thanked the redhead, he said,

‘Could I ask what McGee did, to get himself sacked?’

‘I don’t see why not,’ said Diana. ‘I assume – I mean, given your reputation’ (Strike thought fleetingly of the recent press article abouthis behaviour towards women; apparently not everyone had read it) ‘you’re discreet?’

‘Very,’ he assured her, drawing out his notebook.

‘Well, we suspected him of theft.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. The first incident concerned a pair of nineteenth-century Staffordshire pottery spaniels, which disappeared between the warehouse and the purchaser. The buyer was a fairly absent-minded collector and it took him a week to register that the spaniels hadn’t been in the delivery, because he’d bid on so many lots.

‘It was a tricky situation. They could’ve been stolen at the warehouse and never loaded into McGee’s van, and – well, candidly, there’s always a chance a buyer themselves is working a scam. We investigated, but we couldn’t prove anything, so we gave McGee the benefit of the doubt and reimbursed the buyer out of our insurance.’

‘McGee was alone on the delivery, was he?’

‘Yes,’ said Diana. ‘We usually send people out in pairs, but it was a particularly busy time, so he did this delivery alone. We think he spotted an opportunity.’

‘How much were these pottery dog things worth?’

‘Two to three thousand pounds,’ said Diana. ‘Then – oh, that’s Carter!’ she said in surprise.

Strike looked around to see a fit-looking white man in his early fifties looking through the glass panel of Diana’s door, fist raised to knock.

‘Come in, Charlie,’ she called.

‘Just wanted to tell you, the Burne-Jones delivery’s been postponed again,’ said Carter, opening the door and poking his head inside.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Diana crossly. ‘We aren’t a storage unit. He bought it, he needs to take receipt of it!’