Page 184 of The Hallmarked Man
‘Yeah, and you said you didn’t know.’
Robertson shoved more nicotine gum into his mouth, then said, watching Strike closely,
‘Dodgy Freemasons are always news.’
‘I’d imagine so,’ said Strike, not yet so drunk that he was going to unintentionally hand Robertson a story that might lay both of them open to being sued.
‘Rumour is, the membership of the Winston Churchill Lodge skews heavily towards police.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. I got talking to a journo mate who was covering the masons in ’99,’ said Robertson, dropping his voice still lower. ‘When the Home Affairs Committee produced their report into Freemasonry in public life, remember that?’
‘No,’ said Strike, who’d spent a good deal of 1999 in Kosovo. ‘What did it say?’
‘That there’s a lot of unjustifiable paranoia about Freemasons, but they don’t help themselves by being so secretive, and there were cases where allegations of masonic influence might be justified. Theforensic scientist involved in the Birmingham Six investigation was a Freemason, as was uncovered by the Home Affairs Select Committee’s investigation into masonic influence. “As regards the forensic scientist we conclude that freemasonry could have been a factor in the close and unprofessional relationship he enjoyed with the police.”
‘Anyway,’ said Robertson, dropping his voice still lower, and still watching Strike for his reaction, ‘I was talking to this guy the other day, and I slipped Branfoot’s name into the conversation, and he said, yeah, Branfoot’s a mason, and he heard Branfoot changed lodges a couple of years ago. Apparently he used to be in one of the ones that are packed with aristos. Then, according to my source, he moved to the Winston Churchill.’
When Strike didn’t speak, Robertson said in a half-jocular growl,
‘C’mon. You’ve got something on Branfoot.’
‘He jumped on Culpepper’s anti-me bandwagon and I wanted to know why, that’s all.’
Strike had just been handed a plum bit of intelligence, but felt too anaesthetised by misery and alcohol to take much pleasure in it. The bar full of male voices and laughter, the pimply young barman in his polyester waistcoat, the smell of cheap whisky and the sight of Robertson’s vigorous chewing was suddenly even more intolerable than his cramped compartment.
‘Need some sleep,’ he informed the journalist as he stood up.
‘You’ll keep me posted,’ said Robertson, ‘right?’
‘Sure,’ said Strike.
He grabbed his whisky bottle by the neck and set back off along the train, swaying with its motion.
Back on his lower bunk, he considered texting Robin to tell her about Branfoot attending the same lodge as Malcolm Truman, but what was the fucking point? She’d be enjoying a post-coital laugh with her CID boyfriend right now. The news could keep until Ironbridge. However, one vindictive thought brought a kind of cold comfort.
He had a bloody good reason, now, for digging deeper into Detective Chief Inspector Malcolm Truman, who so coincidentally happened to share a masonic lodge with Lord Oliver Branfoot, and anyone who didn’t like Strike going after a member of the Met – Ryan Fucking Murphy, to take just one example – could stick their objections right up their arse.
58
Some girl, who here from castle-bower,
With furtive step and cheek of flame,
’Twixt myrtle-hedges all in flower
By moonlight came
To meet her pirate-lover’s ship…
Matthew Arnold
A Southern Night
Robin, who’d spent much of the weekend pretending to be excited about the house she and Murphy were going to view on Thursday evening, was glad to have an excuse to get up before her boyfriend on Monday. She wanted to be waiting outside Juniper Hill High School in Finsbury Park before the first students arrived, so as to maximise her chances of waylaying Tia Thompson, friend of the missing Sapphire Neagle.
Standing on the opposite pavement to the entrance of the large, ugly grey comprehensive, watching the first pupils enter the school in their red sweatshirts, Robin was attempting, but failing, to block out thoughts of Strike.
