Page 156 of The Hallmarked Man
She sinks upon the ground;—her hood
Had fallen back, her arms outspread
Still hold her lover’s hands; her head
Is bow’d, half-buried, on the bed.
Matthew Arnold
Tristram and Iseult
Robin was relieved to have one project to focus on at the moment, a place to concentrate her energies, where she couldn’t keep fretting about personal matters: trying to persuade Gretchen Schiff, the former flatmate of Sofia Medina, to meet her in person.
Medina’s OnlyFans page had disappeared from the internet, presumably at the behest of her family, so Robin was unable to see any of the men who might have been asking her for real world contact. Gretchen was therefore her best hope of further information on Sofia. There’d been long lulls between Robin’s messages and Gretchen’s responses, but Robin was becoming increasingly convinced that there was, as she’d put it to Strike, ‘something there’. While Gretchen’s suspicion and unwillingness to engage might be explained by the traumatic aftermath of learning that her flatmate had been murdered, the young woman still hadn’t pushed back on the idea that Sofia could have been involved in a robbery, and this omission was as suggestive as Gretchen’s constant probing to find out more about the man with the fake name Robin was investigating.
Finally, to Robin’s delight, the student agreed to meet her on Thursday, choosing the Montagu Pyke, a Wetherspoons pub, as the venue for the interview.
Heavy rain was falling on the day of their lunchtime rendezvous. Robin was on high alert walking to the pub, glancing back regularly and taking all possible counter-surveillance measures, including crossing the road unexpectedly to see whether anyone plunged into the traffic after her, but was confident she hadn’t been followed.
She was glad to get out of the rain, but the pub, she thought as she entered it, wasn’t exactly what you’d call cosy or intimate. It had once been a famous music venue, and was large enough to fit a few hundred people, with a very high, arched ceiling and maroon walls, on which hung large posters of acts that had once appeared here, including The Who, Jimi Hendrix and – Robin’s eyes were drawn to the huge picture instantly – the Deadbeats, Strike’s father’s band, with the long-haired Jonny Rokeby to the fore in his bell-bottom jeans and a leather jacket worn open over a bare chest. Robin waited for a group of young people who looked very hungover to order pitchers of cocktails, bought herself a coffee, then took a table where she had a clear view of the entrance.
Robin recognised Gretchen as soon as she walked into the pub, folding up a wet umbrella as she came. She was a curvy girl with thick, naturally golden hair that fell to her shoulders, sallow skin and a pair of clear green eyes. She wore no make-up and her fleece added inches to a very large bust.
Gretchen was accompanied by a tall, stringy, intense-looking young man whose hair was tied up in a bun and who sported a goatee and round-rimmed glasses. They both bought beers, and when Gretchen spotted Robin, who’d sent the student her photograph, she muttered something to the young man, and the pair headed over to her.
‘Hi,’ said Robin, as they reached her, smiling as she held out a hand, which Gretchen shook, though she didn’t return the smile. The young man ignored Robin’s outstretched hand when it was offered to him.
‘You’re Robin?’ said Gretchen.
‘That’s me.’
Gretchen’s English, as Robin had known from their only phone call, was virtually accent-less, though she was Austrian.
‘This is my boyfriend, Max.’
‘Hi, Max,’ said Robin, as the couple sat down opposite her. ‘Are you at the University of West London as well?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What are you studying?’
‘Digital Marketing,’ said Max. He had the air of a man determined not to give out more information than was strictly necessary.
‘Would either of you like anything to eat?’ asked Robin, pushing the menu towards them, but both shook their heads. Max hadn’t taken his messenger bag off his shoulder.
‘Well, as I’ve already explained to you, Gretchen, our agency’s investigating a robbery,’ said Robin.
‘Vy areyouinvestigating it?’ said Max. ‘Vy not the police?’
‘The police are investigating as well,’ said Robin.
It might be true, Robin thought. Somebody at the Met might have gone back to St George’s Avenue and asked Daz and Mandy for more details about the people who’d entered Wright’s room and left carrying suitcases.
‘But our client doesn’t think they’re taking it seriously enough, because the stolen objects weren’t very valuable,’ Robin went on.
This, too, could be true: all Robin knew for certain had been in William Wright’s room were his weights and the suit and glasses he’d worn to work at Ramsay Silver.
‘So vy do you vant to know about Sofia?’ asked Max, whose accent was far stronger than his girlfriend’s.
