Page 93 of The Hallmarked Man

He wasn’t being combative just because he was hungry and had only a supermarket salad to look forward to, nor because of Lawrence’s aura of easy assurance; Strike had met plenty of his ilk in the army. What Strike found offensive was the man’s assumption that he had only to hint he was MI5 for Strike to accept this as fact. Strike considered that he was owed a little more respect, so sat back in his chair without returning Lawrence’s smile and sipped from the chipped Arsenal mug Pat had deemed appropriate for her boss.

‘People better placed than you are already looking for Niall Semple,’ said Lawrence.

‘Yeah?’ said Strike. ‘My agency’s got a one hundred per cent success rate in tracking people down we’ve tried to find, but if you locate him before we do, give us a shout.’

He’d half-hoped to wipe the smile off Lawrence’s face with that, but no.

‘What d’you know about Semple?’

‘Nobody’s seen him alive since a corpse of his approximate height, weight and age turned up in a vault in Holborn.’

‘Who are you working for? A newspaper?’

‘If you are who you’re hinting you are, you can always hack our computers and find out,’ said Strike.

Lawrence’s smile didn’t flicker. The impression given was that he’d dealt with obstructive dolts like Strike too often to let them anger him.

‘Mr Strike,’ he said, ‘Niall Semple wasn’t the man in the silver vault. You have my personal guarantee on that.’

‘OK,’ said Strike. ‘Bung me the proof and we’ll cross him off our list.’

‘Unfortunately,’ said Lawrence, ‘I can’t provide proof without breaking the Official Secrets Act.’

‘Can’t count him out, then, can I?’ said Strike, unimpressed by the hint that he might be endangering national security by identifying a body.

Strike detected a certain chagrin in Lawrence that his appeal to Queen and country hadn’t worked. Lawrence now glanced down at the place where Strike’s prosthetic leg was concealed by the desk.

‘Herrick, yes?’ he said, referring to the British military operation in Afghanistan.

‘Yeah,’ said Strike, knowing full well he was supposed to be flattered Lawrence knew this.

‘I understand you may have a – a certain fellow feeling for Semple, being ex-military yourself—’

‘I don’t need to have fellow feeling for a missing person to try and find out whether they’re living or dead,’ said Strike. ‘It’s my job.’

‘You haven’t got the resources we do.’

‘And yet, with all your resources, you haven’t found him.’

‘You’re fond of publicity, Mr Strike, but publicity, in this case, could do harm.’

Strike knew he had the whip hand now; he could tell Lawrence regretted his descent into personal attack immediately, because the man said swiftly,

‘Look – we’re on the same side.’

‘I want to find out whether Niall Semple’s dead. You want to stop me finding out. Those are very different fucking sides. Shall I tell you what I think’s going on here?’

‘Please do,’ said Lawrence, reaching for his coffee.

‘Worried by the possibility of a tabloid leak now I’m looking for Semple, you’ve decided a quiet approach should be made to me, to let the matter drop. The fact that high-level bureaucrats are trying to warn me off’ – he saw Lawrence’s eyelid flicker, and was pleased to see the man hadn’t liked being described as a bureaucrat – ‘makes me think Semple might have been injured on an operation you don’t want the public to know about. He’s brain damaged and might be aliability. Bottom line: it’d suit you if he’s dead, but you’d far rather it hadn’t happened in a newsworthy way.’

For a moment, they looked, unblinking, into each other’s eyes, Lawrence’s pale blue into Strike’s brown.

‘All right,’ said Lawrence, setting down his coffee and standing up. ‘Thanks for your time. Should you at any point wish to contact me, call that number.’

He took out a flat silver case and laid a thick white business card on the desk. ‘Goodbye.’

He left without a second handshake. Rather than walk him to the door, Strike picked up the card Lawrence had left and examined it, unimpressed. It bore only the man’s name, which Strike wasn’t necessarily accepting was his real one, and a mobile number. Strike opened the wings of the noticeboard and pinned the card beneath Semple’s picture, then he turned back to his PC, opened Facebook and sent a new message to Semple’s wife.