Page 118 of The Hallmarked Man
The nameless feelings that course through our breast,
But they course on for ever unexpress’d.
Matthew Arnold
The Buried Life
Robin was in the bathroom on the landing. She’d retreated there because she didn’t want to answer Pat’s questions and now, for the second time in three weeks, she was sitting on a toilet with her head in her hands, infuriated and enraged by Cormoran Strike.
Had she thought him some kind of Sir Galahad? No, never; she knew him too well, but like millions of women before her, Robin would rather have thought the man of whom she was so fond was better than this. She believed he’d never met Candy the sex worker, but the fact remained that if Strike could have just resisted having sex with a woman he’d inveigled into helping him on a job, Culpepper wouldn’t have had a peg on which to hang his scurrilous story.
Five minutes later, Robin returned to the office, to find Strike still shut up inside the inner office, and Pat with the telephone receiver clamped to her ear, listening to someone. Robin was hanging up her coat when Pat said,
‘I’m just going to put you on hold, Mr Rokeby.’
So fraught had the events of the morning been so far that Robin didn’t immediately register the name. Only on turning to face theoffice manager, and seeing Pat’s expression of mingled amazement and fear, did the import of what she’d just heard hit her.
‘It’s his father,’ Pat breathed.
‘Oh my God,’ whispered Robin. Of all the things that she thought might tip Strike completely over the edge this morning, his father was foremost. ‘What does he want?’
‘To speak to him,’ mouthed Pat, with a jerk of the head towards the out of sight Strike. ‘He says he can’t call him on his mobile, because he’s got him blocked. And he said, if he wasn’t available, he’d like to speak toyou.’
Robin could hear Strike’s muffled voice, still talking to Fergus Robertson in the inner office. The call might end at any moment.
‘Tell him both of us are busy but that you can take a message and one of us will get back to him. And then textmethe message, don’t send—’
The door to the inner office opened.
‘We going to have this catch-up, then?’ said Strike, scowling.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Robin, trying her best to sound matter of fact.
She walked past him into the inner office, and he closed the door on Pat, who still had the receiver pressed to her chest.
‘Robertson’s going to write it up, with a complete denial from me,’ said Strike, who was breathing as though he’d just done what he really wanted to do, which was to beat Culpepper into a purée. ‘Says he’ll put in a bit of “the Cormoran Strike I know”, mention the UHC, the Shacklewell Ripper, public service, grateful clients…’
‘Great,’ said Robin.
Neither was looking the other in the eye. Robin could hear Pat’s voice rising and falling in the outer office again. Strike moved to the window and looked down through the Venetian blinds into Denmark Street.
‘And he said he was going to call off – yeah, he has.’
Down in the street, the older journalist had just taken a phone call, presumably from Robertson. He then moved to tell the younger man that there was no point hanging around, because Strike had made the only comment he was prepared to give, to their colleague.
‘Right,’ said Strike, not looking at Robin as he sat down, but pulling his notes on the silver vault case towards him, ‘I’ve got news on Larry McGee. I spoke to his daughter last night.’
His adrenaline levels were refusing to drop; vivid mental images ofpunching Dominic Culpepper so hard his teeth splintered kept recurring. The idea of telling Robin how he felt about her had, naturally, fled: there were imperfect moments for such a declaration, and then there were times when speaking would be outright lunacy, and Strike would have been hard-pressed to imagine a less auspicious occasion than having just been forced to explain how badly he’d treated another woman, then taken Robin’s advice on how best to fight an accusation of harassment of a sex worker.
‘So,’ he said, trying to focus on the notes he’d taken while speaking to McGee’s daughter, ‘there was nothing fishy about the death. Post-mortem revealed myocardial infarction related to poorly managed diabetes. Basically, the security guy at Gibsons was right: he really let himself go after being sacked.’
‘Was McGee on good terms with his daughter?’ asked Robin, who was also attempting to sound businesslike.
‘She hadn’t seen him for nearly ten years. First she knew he was dead was the police knocking on her door. From what she told me, he wasn’t a loveable guy; walked out on her mother when she was six, always looking to make a bit of easy money, creepy around women, got sacked from a previous job for allegedly feeling up a co-worker. I asked if she knew why he’d think he was coming into money and she had no idea, said nobody in the family had much to leave, especially to him. I asked if she thought he’d ever have nicked stuff from work, or colluded in a robbery, and she said she’d easily believe it of him. They cremated him and left the ashes at the crematorium,’ Strike added. ‘Said nobody in the family wanted to handle them. Anyway’ – he flicked back in his notes – ‘did you read my email about Jim Todd?’
‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘You think he might’ve known McGee outside work?’
‘I’m not convinced his “who was he?” was a slip of the tongue, nor am I convinced Todd wasn’t the one who accessed “Abused and Accused” at work,’ said Strike. ‘He got antsy when I mentioned it and given how slack they are in that shop generally, I’m not taking Todd’s word for it that he couldn’t get online in there. From what he told me about his living arrangements, I doubt he’s got a computer at home. Calling Wright a “silly tit” for looking stuff like that up at work could’ve been self-recrimination. People slip up that way. So, what d’you think about putting some surveillance on him?’
