Page 240 of The Hallmarked Man
Strike brought up a fresh article on his phone and handed it to Robin. There, among seven other mugshots dating from 1997, were Todd’s familiar tiny eyes and wide mouth, though back when the picture had been taken Todd had a full head of dull brown hair. Bruising to his upper cheek suggested he’d put up a fight when Belgian police had cornered him. He’d been arrested as part of a pan-European grooming and trafficking gang that lured young women with promises of modelling careers, or jobs as housekeepers for wealthy people in the UK.
Todd, Robin saw, had served twelve months for his crimes, receiving the shortest term of any of the men arrested. None of the girls rescued had accused him of physical abuse, only that he’d knowingly moved them around between brothels and groups of abusers in France, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium. Robin was sceptical that Todd’s role had been confined to chauffeur: there was no guarantee that every single victim had been found, and his subsequent conviction for rape in the UK suggested he’d been lucky to escape a longer sentence. However, as Robin saw, Jim Todd had been in jail when Reata Lindvall and her daughter vanished, so he definitely couldn’t have killed them.
‘Interesting,’ she said, passing Strike back his phone.
Still hoping for an improvement in the atmosphere, Strike said,
‘I’ve also found out what that text was, that made Pamela leave the shop early.’
‘How?’ said Robin, failing to repress a note of professional rivalry. She considered Pamela her own witness, and had been proud of getting so much information out of the woman.
‘Tracked down her husband and talked to him this afternoon. They’re separated. Pamela chucked him out, because he shagged an old girlfriend he found on Facebook.’
‘So what did the text say?’
‘It was supposedly from the old girlfriend, telling Pamela that she and the husband were having an affair and were deeply in love, and asking Pamela to meet her at Debenhams café on Oxford Street to discuss the matter. However—’
‘It wasn’t really from the girlfriend?’
‘Precisely. Burner phone. Pamela got home on Friday after waiting in Debenhams café alone until closing time. She let rip at her husband, who panicked and gave himself away by saying “it was only once”, before realising the text had been sent from an unknown number. So, someone knew enough about Pamela and Geoffrey’s private life to know exactly how to lure Pamela out of the shop – Geoffrey says she was already suspicious about the true nature of his reinvigorated friendship before she got the fake text. I asked Geoffrey who might have known about all this, and he said he and Pamela had a couple of rows about it, back when he was running Bullen & Co and she was working at Ramsays.’
‘So anyone in either shop might have overheard?’
‘Exactly. The other thing Geoffrey told me was that it was definitely the genuine Oriental Centrepiece in the crate that arrived at Bullen & Co, which he opened to check the contents. He’s an expert on antique silver, so I think we can take his word for it.’
‘Right,’ said Robin, trying not to feel aggrieved that Strike had found all this out, rather than her. ‘Well, I’ve spoken to Ivor Powell, Tyler’s father, in Florida.’
‘And?’
‘He said he’s had a few texts from Tyler and that he’s working in a pub. He seemed annoyed I was bothering him with what he called Dilys’s “rubbish” and refused to send me Tyler’s texts. I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t had any at all. He gave the impression he simply didn’t care about Tyler.’
A waiter arrived at the table to take Strike’s drinks order. When he’d departed, Strike said,
‘That message from Griffiths’ daughter about Powell was interesting.’
‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘It certainly paints a different picture of Tyler to the one her father was pushing.’
‘Pat hasn’t found Powell in any pubs called “the silver something” yet. ’Course, he might be doing a Todd and going under a different name. A different different name to William Wright, I mean.’
‘I’ve also looked into the car crash that killed Anne-Marie Morgan and Hugo Whitehead,’ said Robin. ‘It really does look like Hugo just lost control of the car in the storm. The Mazda’s anti-lock braking system failed and it skidded into the back of an articulated lorry, the airbags failed to deploy and the car went up in flames. I assume people in Ironbridge latched onto the anti-lock brakes failing, but in those conditions it was likely, especially if Hugo was driving too fast.’
‘So we don’t think Powell fled Ironbridge because he had a guilty conscience?’
‘He might not’ve caused the crash,’ said Robin, ‘but I’d still like to hear what that other girl, Zeta, who had a bad experience with him has to say.’
Strike’s beer arrived, served by a waiter asking if they were ready to order food. Strike ordered beef, Robin chicken, and the waiter retreated again. Mrs Two-Times’ group erupted into shrieks of laughter; Robin glanced over to their table to see Mrs Two-Times flicking her expertly coloured hair out of her eyes, talking to a very handsome, dark-eyed waiter.
‘I’d imagine it’s occurred to you that we’ve got an unusual number of sex offenders congregating around this crime?’ Strike asked Robin. ‘McGee felt up a workmate on a previous job, Todd’s a rapist and trafficker, Oz appears to groom young women—’
‘You probably won’t like my answer to that,’ said Robin.
‘Which is?’
‘That men perennially underestimate how many of their fellow men are perverts and predators. You know what they say: “all women know a rape victim, no man knows a rapist”.’
Strike decided to retreat to slightly safer territory.
‘This feels like a pro job, not a first kill. There aren’t many people cold-blooded enough to spend a couple of hours with a fresh corpse, carving it up and dissecting it, late at night in an underground vault. That took strong nerves.’
