Page 138 of The Hallmarked Man
‘If I have to suffer, so should you,’ said Robin. ‘Go early and help prepare the food or something. Earn some Brownie points.’
‘That reminds me,’ said Strike. ‘Thanks for my present.’
‘You’ve opened it already?’
‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘I wasn’t going to do it in front of Greg.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he’s a cunt,’ said Strike, who thought this reason enough. Robin’s gift had been a monthly delivery of Cornish food and beer; he’d been touched by it, and was glad to have opened it without the necessity of explanations, or hearing comments about either his waistline or the woman who seemed to know him so well.
He didn’t really want the call to end, but couldn’t think of any reason to prolong it, so when Robin said, ‘I suppose I’d better go,’ he agreed that he should, too, wished her a good Christmas and hung up.
He’d just settled back at his desk, feeling marginally better for his chat with Robin, when the landline phone rang in the outer office. There was no longer any danger that it was Charlotte, who’d often called on special occasions and holidays, especially when drunk, but he was on high alert for journalists, who might be seeking to extend the Candy story into a Yuletide serial, so he got up and moved to Pat’s desk, switched on the speaker and let voicemail play. Once Pat’s gravelly voice had finished saying that the office was closed for Christmas there was a click, and a manic-sounding woman’s voice with a strong Scottish accent spoke.
‘Aye, Ah need help, he give me a bit, but there’s more, he told me, it’s all hid under the bridge but Ah need help tae get it, so come tae the Golden Fleece, ask for me there, Ah’ve gottae keep movin’, Ah’ve got people after me, Ah’m nae kiddin’, come tae the Golden Fleece.’
The message ended, leaving Strike staring at the phone in total bemusement.
39
And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts
Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
About the life before I lived this life…
Robert Browning
The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church
Robin had the inevitable row with Murphy quietly, in their room, once he’d returned from his run. Now showered, and wearing a sweater Jenny had bought her, which Robin had thought it tactful to bring home for Christmas, she told her boyfriend exactly what she thought of him talking to Linda behind her back, and demanded why, if he had questions about the Candy story, he couldn’t have asked them of her.
‘You know why,’ Murphy said, also keeping his voice low. He’d been apologetic at first, flushed and sweaty after his run, but in the face of Robin’s anger had become increasingly irate himself. ‘Because you won’t hear a bloody word against Strike and the last time I mentioned I’d seen him in the paper, I got the silent treatment.’
‘I’ve told youmultiple timesStrike can be an annoying sod,’ said Robin, who was sure she must have done. She’d thought it often enough.
‘You must’ve said it when I had headphones on,’ retorted Murphy. ‘You always keep as quiet about him to me as you do me to him.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘“I’m on my way to look at another house.”’
‘What?’
‘That’s what you said to Strike, when we were on the way to see the house in Wood Green. “I’m on my way to look at another house.”’
‘Well, wewereon the way to see a h—’
‘Yeah.Wewere.’
‘I d—’
‘Wewere,’ said Murphy, no longer keeping his voice down. ‘You and me. “We.”’
‘Lunch!’ called Jonathan up the stairs.
As might have been expected, the atmosphere around the kitchen table hummed with undercurrents as the family consumed a large pasta bake. Linda was unusually quiet, but fortunately Annabel’s artless chatter filled the spaces where Robin’s conversation with her mother and boyfriend might have been, and Betty provided a distraction by producing a large turd right beside the Aga.
