Page 254 of The Hallmarked Man
Always a little further; it may be
Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow
Across that angry or that glimmering sea…’
‘What’s that?’ asked Robin.
‘Poem by James Elroy Flecker,’ said Strike. ‘Adopted as a kind ofmission statement by the SAS. It’s carved into their mess bar at the base in Hereford and it’s on the clock tower, which is inscribed with the names of men killed in service. One poor bastard survived commando operations, then got killed in a bloody hit and run in America.’
‘You’ve been inside the SAS base?’ asked Robin, with some curiosity.
‘Once. Part of an investigation in the SIB. Have to say, their haul would give Kenneth Ramsay a run for his money.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘They’ve got entire glass cases full of silverware, and let’s just say a few valuable souvenirs formerly belonging to dictators might’ve found their way into SAS pockets while surrenders were being taken. They’ve got Uday Hussein’s personal pistol in a case on the wall. Took it from beside his dead body. The general feeling on the keepsakes is, “you want ’em, come and get ’em”. Doubt anyone fancies their chances.
‘What bothers me about Semple as Wright, though, is that I can’t see who’d want to bump him off. Murdering him discreetly in the basement of a silver shop without claiming responsibility doesn’t really seem Islamic State’s style.
‘With Tyler Powell, it’s the other way round. We’ve got a clear motive for revenge, because people believed he was responsible for two deaths himself, but we still come back to: why kill him in the vault? Powell sounds the reverse of Semple: a fairly blunt instrument. Why go through all the levels of deception, with all the things that could go wrong, just to get him undercover in a silver shop and murder him somewhere so inconvenient?’
‘Especially when they could just have fed him a peanut,’ said Robin, and Strike laughed. ‘What about Fleetwood?’
‘He’s still tied with Powell as highly unlikely, as far as I’m concerned,’ said Strike, ‘but I haven’t forgotten him. Kim’s on Albie again tonight. Finding Tish Benton would help…’
Another silence fell and Robin felt compelled to break it.
‘Has Pat made any progress on Hussein Mohamed?’
‘Yeah, there are three of them registered as living in the Forest Gate area. I think it’s going to come down to old-fashioned shoe leather and door-knocking.’
‘I think heisgoing to Ipswich,’ Robin said, as they followed Plug’s van onto the M11.
‘I’ve been looking at Todd’s poker book, the one he left behind,’ said Strike. ‘There are pencilled notes in the margins that are interesting.’
‘Saying what?’
‘It’s not what he wrote, he was only jotting down bits of his own poker wisdom. It’s how he writes. I’ll lay you odds Todd’s dyslexic. The spelling’s all over the place, and that’s even with correctly spelled text to guide him.’
For a second or two, Robin didn’t understand why this was significant.
‘Oh,’ she said, as the realisation hit her. ‘William Wright’s CV?’
‘Exactly. Full of misspellings, Pamela said.’
‘You think Todd wrote it?’
‘I think it’s a strong possibility. Todd would’ve known exactly what Kenneth Ramsay was looking for, and could have tailored Wright’s CV to fit – the jujitsu, previous work in an antiques shop and so on. Somebody helped Wright learn enough about silver to pass the interview, as well. Todd worked at Ramsay Silver for two years before Wright showed up, and I’d imagine anyone in sustained contact with Kenneth Ramsay would end up knowing more about masonic silverware than they ever wanted to.’
‘You think it was Todd who put Wright’s email address on the “for interview” list?’
‘I do, yeah. Then he panicked when he heard Pamela didn’t like the CV, and added Wright’s name to the interview list without her noticing. I didn’t buy his claim that he didn’t know how to get on the computer when I spoke to him. I think Todd helped Wright get that job, and I think he knewexactlywhat was happening at Ramsay Silver on the night of June the seventeenth, which is why he insisted on continuing to play poker until four in the morning, to make sure he had a rock-solid alibi.
‘Anyway, I’m currently trying to track down Todd’s ex-hooker mother to see if she knows where he is… Did you see, Patterson’s been sentenced?’
‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘Two years.’
‘Not nearly fucking long enough for me,’ said Strike. When Robin didn’t respond, he said,
