Page 206 of The Hallmarked Man
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… it was only the mistaken justice of a simple people that wanted blood for blood, and was not over-heedful as to whose blood so long as its own sense of justice was satisfied.
John Oxenham
A Maid of the Silver Sea
Robin hadn’t been lying about the steepness of New Road, which made Comrie Road in Crieff look like a gentle incline. It wound its way up the hill behind the High Street and the gradient was such that, in spite of the cold, Strike was soon sweating from pure pain, and, against his will, having to stop every few yards.
‘Listen,’ said Robin, sympathy temporarily dampening down her resentment, ‘I can easily interview Dilys alone.’
‘No,’ panted Strike, ‘I’m coming.’
A mixture of pride, stubbornness and some sad residue of his determination to spend as much time with Robin as possible forced him onwards. Murphy, he thought, while his knee screamed for mercy, would doubtless be gambolling up the hill like a fucking gazelle.
The houses on both sides of the narrow road faced the river below, so that those on the right showed their back view. All were detached and well maintained, some built of brick, others painted and cottagey, with trailing plants around the doors. Robin, who’d been trying to match her speed to Strike’s without dawdling too obviously, suddenly stopped of her own accord, staring at a circular blue plaque on a house in a short terrace.
‘Strike.’
‘What?’
She pointed. He followed her finger and read:
BILLY WRIGHT CBE
1924–1994
LEGENDARY FOOTBALL CAPTAIN
OF ENGLAND AND WOLVES
LIVED AND GREW UP HERE
‘Christ,’ muttered Strike, glad of a chance to stop walking, and trying not to look as though the stick was bearing half his weight. ‘Billy Wright… that should’ve occurred to me… never think of him as William…’
‘And Tyler’s grandmother lives just there,’ said Robin. She was pointing at a house that was rather smaller than those that flanked it, and painted a muddy shade of orange.
‘Just there’, Strike thought, was a relative term. It took him a further five minutes of agony to reach the wooden front door of Dilys Powell.
Robin knocked, then knocked again. They waited.
‘Oh no,’ said Robin. ‘She sounded pretty vague both times I spoke to her… maybe she forgot we were coming?’
Strike barely refrained from swearing. Robin peered in through the dusty window, past the plastic flowers in a jug on the window sill, to an old lady-ish room of armchairs bearing antimacassars, bits of inexpensive china and a patterned purple carpet.
‘Tyler’s parents’ house is a bit further on,’ said Robin. ‘We could try there?’
‘Fine,’ said Strike, trying to look as though this would require no effort whatsoever.
They set off again, Strike now bent sideways, trying to use the stick as a back-up leg.
At the crest of the hill stood a white house larger than Dilys’s, outside which was a For Sale sign. Robin knocked. Nobody answered. She went to peer through a window. The downstairs room was devoid of furniture.
‘Oi!’
The detectives turned. A short and extremely belligerent-looking man with longish dark hair had emerged from the back door of the house opposite. He was wearing a Steely Dan T-shirt and holding an acoustic guitar by the neck and as he hurried towards them, he did precisely what Strike had been trying to avoid for the last fifteenminutes: slipped on his back lawn and tripped. However, he recovered his balance with the aid of his guitar and, hobbling and slightly pigeon-toed, he advanced on them, shouting:
‘What d’you want? Bloody press, is it?’
