Page 102 of The Hallmarked Man
‘Yeah, I fink I did. Yeah,’ said Todd, and he took another gulp of beer.
‘Did this man have dark curly hair?’
‘What? No. Straight ’air. ’Oo’s got dark curly ’air?’
Strike ignored this question, too.
‘So Wright never told you he was on the run, or needed to go into hiding, or that he’d been wrongly accused of anything?’
‘Like wha’?’ said Todd.
‘I don’t know,’ said Strike, ‘but he visited a website called Abused and Accused, on the Ramsay Silver computer.’
‘I know abou’ that website, police asked us about it,’ said Todd. He was no longer grinning. ‘They asked me ifI’dever bin on it. ’Course I ’adn’t. I never ’ad the password to the fucking computer. It’s on’erif the silly tit was messin’ around on there.’
‘What d’you mean?’ asked Strike.
‘’Cause she was out, wan’ she? Pamela. The day that bloody Whatsit silver arrived, she pissed off early, an’ all.’
‘It’d be helpful if you could run me through what happened that afternoon,’ said Strike. ‘You were at another job when the silver arrived, weren’t you?’
‘Yeah. I said to Pamela, Fursday, “I’ll give you an ’and if you need it.” For overtime,’ he added, ‘’cause I knew one of the fings was massive. Kennef showed us it all, in ’is catalogue. I said, I’ll ’elp, if you need it.’
‘Wouldn’t the Gibsons man be expected to carry the silver downstairs?’
‘You seen them stairs?’ said Todd. Ever since the mention of the Abused and Accused website, his manner had been prickly, and he was now scowling.
‘I have, yeah,’ said Strike.
‘You fink people ’oo don’t ’ave to wanna risk breakin’ their necks? I was there before when a deliv’ry man wouldn’ carry stuff down there. ’Ealf an’ safety, innit? I said to Pamela the firs’ time, gimme a tenner an’ I’ll carry it down, ’cause that was before they got Wright.’
‘Was the previous delivery man who wouldn’t carry stuff down the stairs Larry McGee?’
‘’Oo?’ said Todd. He picked up his pint glass and drank again.
‘McGee delivered the Murdoch silver.’
‘Oh. No. I dunno, I never saw ’im, did I?’
‘So you’d recognise Larry McGee?’
‘No,’ said Todd. ‘’Oo was ’e?’
‘I just told you. The delivery man from Gibsons.’
‘Never ’eard of ’im.’
‘So when did Pamela phone you about the Murdoch silver, can you remember?’
‘Round free. I ’ad to wait till I could leave discreetly, ’cause I was at me ovver job.’
‘So you got there, when?’
‘’Bout ’alf an hour later, an’ Wright ’ad got most of it down wivvout me. It was jus’ the big crate ’e needed me for. Me ’an ’im carried it down.’
‘Did you go back to the Kingsway job after you’d put the crate in the vault?’
‘No, because then Pamela yells upstairs there’s bin a mix-up, and she tells Wright to go an’ get the fing what’d been delivered to ’er place, Bullen & Co, an’ she says to me, “you’ll ’ave to stay, an’ ’elp ’im get it dahnstairs when ’e’s got it.” An’ I says, “I’ve gotta go, I fort this was gonna be a five-minute job,” and she says, “you’ve gotta stay,” an’ I didn’ wanna, because of the ovver job, but she kinda, you know, guilted me into it.’
