Page 172 of The Hallmarked Man
50
… no sordid ambitions or pitiful greeds or base considerations can tempt a true Scottish Knight to dishonor…
Albert Pike
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Rite of Scottish Freemasonry
An hour after they’d sat down with Decima, and with no more information gained than they’d learned within the first quarter of an hour of lunch, Strike and Robin left Quo Vadis, both aware that their client was considerably unhappier for having met them. Decima had continued to insist over her untouched food that Rupert had been William Wright, reiterating the danger posed by Dredge the drug dealer, and dwelling with a kind of morbid despair on the height and build of the body in the vault, which, as she’d emphasised multiple times,exactlymatched Rupert, down to height, weight and blood group.
While Strike had left the restaurant with Decima’s official sanction for the trip to Crieff and Ironbridge, he could tell he was about to have trouble with Robin, who looked both angry and worried, so he suggested a coffee at his favourite local café, which was three minutes’ walk away. Sure enough, once both were sitting at a round metal table outside Bar Italia, Robin said,
‘I don’t feel comfortable about this, Strike.’
‘About what?’ he said, prepared for battle. He’d been marshalling his arguments on the way to Frith Street. The sleeper compartments were booked. The hotel, with its lake views, was waiting.
‘I think that woman’s having a nervous breakdown. She’s convinced herself Rupert’s dead and it’s her fault. We’re just perpetuating—’
‘If we don’t do the job, someone else will,’ said Strike.
‘Then we should put surveillance on Albie Simpson-White. I’msurehe knows where Rupert is.’
‘Decima’s been very clear that she doesn’t want Rupert found, if he’s alive.’
‘But – Strike, come on, that’s insane – yousawher back there—’
‘You’ll probably find a couple of people on any London bus who’re as deluded as she is. She’s not certifiable.’
‘She’s in sole charge of a baby – I’m sorry, I think we’ve got—’
‘A moral responsibility? I agree, which is why the quicker we prove that body wasn’t Fleetwood—’
‘You just want to keep investigating. You want to show up the Met.’
As soon as she heard the words escape her, Robin wished them unsaid. She hadn’t meant it; Murphy had spoken suddenly through her, or perhaps she was projecting onto Strike her guilt about the number of things she herself was concealing from her boyfriend.
‘“Show up the Met”?’ repeated Strike, staring at her.
‘I didn’t mean that,’ said Robin hurriedly. ‘I—’
‘You think this is all an ego trip for me, do you?’
‘No, of course not, I just think you’ve got really interested in that body in the vault, and you’re not thinking about what’s best for De—’
‘What’s best for her is that she stops blaming herself for getting Fleetwood murdered,’ said Strike, ‘because hewasn’tfucking murdered, and someone needs to prove it to her.’
‘But wecouldprove it, by following Albie Sim—’
‘If Mrs Two-Times hurries up and fucks someone else, or if Plug breaks the law, then yeah, we might have someone free to follow Simpson-White, but how exactly are we supposed to bill Decima for it, when she’s explicitly said that’s not what she wants?’
‘So we let her pour money into investigating the whereabouts of men with no connection to her?’
‘She agreed to it, back there—’
‘You know perfectly well youmadeher say it!’
‘We can’t take her money without being open about how we’re using it!’
And now Strike took the offensive; he hadn’t wanted to do it, because he’d hoped not to embark on their journey to Scotland with Robin angry at him, but with the trip itself in jeopardy he had no choice.
