Page 120 of The Hallmarked Man
She went to fetch a third chair without waiting for an answer. Though irritated by the intrusion, Robin took advantage of the distraction to pull her mobile out of her pocket and read the texts Pat had sent her.
Rokeby says he saw the thing in the paper and wanted to offer his own lawyers, says he’ll pay. Said he knows Cormoran never did it and that Culpepper’s a shit. Says he feels bad the illegitimate stuff keeps being dragged up.
Pat had then sent a second text.
He was very nice.
‘Love the goldfish, by the way,’ said the beaming Kim, who’d returned with one of the fold-up chairs. She sat down and crossed her legs, which made the clinging black dress ride halfway up her thighs.
‘So,’ she said, ‘none of my contacts can tell me why they didn’t give out details of the getaway car to the press. Like I said before, there seems to be something really weird going on around this case, everyone’s being super cagey, but anyway: it was a light-coloured Peugeot 208 with fake plates. It arrived at the end of Wild Court with one person in it, but after leaving Wild Court there were two, though no clear view of either of them. It headed west along the A40 then disappeared into a residential area, where they think it might have changed plates again. That’s as much as I’ve got so far, but I’ll keep trying.’
‘That’s very helpful, thanks,’ said Strike, once again injecting a note of finality into his voice, but this time Kim ignored it.
‘I’ve got news on Plug, too.’
‘Really?’ said Strike.
‘Yes. Whatever was in that shed has been moved. I followed Plug and his son to the allotment just after midnight. They were in there ten minutes, then took something out wrapped in a sack. It was big; it took two of them to carry it, and it was either dead or drugged.’
‘Shit,’ said Strike. ‘I called the bloody RSPCA, as well.’
‘Maybe that’s why they got rid of whatever it was,’ suggested Robin. ‘An inspector visited the shed and Plug heard about it.’
‘Then,’ said Kim, as though Robin hadn’t spoken, ‘they slung it in the back of Plug’s van and drove it all the way to Haringey, where they took it into a shitty house on Carnival Street.’
‘Plug and his son used to live in Haringey,’ said Robin. ‘Maybe a friend’s agreed to look after whatever it is?’
‘And after that,’ said Kim, still without acknowledging Robin in any way, ‘they came out and went back to Plug’s mum’s place.’
‘Get the number of the house in Carnival Street?’ asked Strike.
‘Yeah, number fifteen,’ said Kim.
‘OK, good work,’ said Strike, ‘write it up for the file. Might be worth keeping an eye on that house, as well.’
As she stood up and picked up her chair, Kim said to Strike,
‘D’you want coffee? I’m making some.’
‘Oh – yeah, that’d be great, thanks,’ said Strike.
‘Robin?’
‘No thanks,’ said Robin automatically, although in fact she’d have liked one, too.
Kim smiled and left, leaving the door open.
‘What were we just saying?’ asked Strike, running a hand over his face.
‘We were talking about Wright’s left-handedness,’ said Robin. ‘I take it you told Decima about it?’
‘Yeah. We took the case on the basis we wouldn’t string her along, right?’
‘Of course,’ said Robin.
‘So I told her the truth: we haven’t yet found any evidence to suggest Fleetwood was Wright, and it’s looking even less likely than it did at the start – at which she burst into tears, begged me to keep investigating and told me she’s left another load of messages for Sacha Legard to try and make him talk to me, seeing as he’s ignoring my emails.’
Kim reappeared with a mug of coffee.
