Page 267 of The Hallmarked Man
Wondering whether she was going to call Murphy, Strike proceeded alone past the pub’s bathrooms, which lay on the opposite side of a small yard, and were labelled Men/Hommes and Women/Femmes, and entered the Bel Air.
A few locals were watching horse-racing on the large flatscreen in the front room, which was carpeted in red. The pub made Strike think of his old Cornish local, the Victory, having a distinctly nautical air that extended, in the second of two rooms, to a bar fashioned out of a wooden rowing boat. He bought himself a pint, enquired about food, was informed that pizzas were all that were on offer, ordered two, then went and sat down, with relief, at a table in the corner, beside a wall full of framed old music posters, featuring not only the Beatles and Bowie, but his father’s band, the Deadbeats.
Robin, meanwhile, was walking up the main street, the Avenue. Barring a shop selling silver jewellery, nearly everything was closed, but at last she spotted a kind of general store, which was open and which seemed to provide everything from basic household goods to greetings cards and toys. She was just about to enter when, glancing left, she saw a large figure walking towards her, and recognised Richard de Leon. Catching sight of Robin, he turned hastily and strode back towards the Rue des Laches.
Robin carried her purchase, a walking stick with a rubber handle, back to the pub. Drawing level with the Rue des Laches she looked down the lane, but Richard de Leon appeared to have retreated back into his mother’s house.
She found Strike in the back room of the Bel Air, where she handed him the stick.
‘Yes, youdoneed it,’ she said in exasperation, as Strike opened his mouth to remonstrate. ‘We’ve got to walk to the B&B after this. Strike, come on, I even got it in army green so nobody’ll think you’re a big girl’s blouse.’
Strike grinned, though reluctantly, because he could just imagine Murphy striding, unimpeded, over the island, possibly with his bloody gym bag and water bottle.
‘Should’ve brought one with me,’ he admitted. ‘Thanks. I’ve ordered you a pizza, it was all they had.’
‘Great,’ said Robin. ‘I’ve just run into Richard de Leon again, by the way. He wasn’t threatening,’ she added, forestalling Strike’s question. ‘He didn’t say anything at all, just spotted me and turned back the way he’d come.’
‘Strange,’ said Strike, as a group of people settled at a neighbouring table. He took a sip of his zero-alcohol beer, then said, in a lower voice, ‘I was going to tell you this before I fell asleep on the plane. That Scottish Gateshead I thought might be Niall Semple’s dead best mate’s sister? I think I’ve found a few traces of her online over the weekend. She’s started and abandoned two different Twitter accounts and a Facebook page over the last seven years. See for yourself.’
Robin flicked through the pictures on Strike’s phone. Rena Liddell’s posts were often cryptic and occasionally garbled. She seemed fond of random pictures of clouds, doorways and blurry shots of the backs of passers-by, but not of selfies. Her profile picture on all three accounts was a cartoon picture of a purple and blue bat.
‘Zubat,’ said Robin.
‘What?’ said Strike.
‘Her avi, it’s a Pokémon called Zubat. My brother Jon was mad about Pokémon when he was a kid. But she’s calling herself @Mirbat, not @Zubat.’
‘That’s one of the things that made me almost certain it was her.’
‘Youlike Pokémon?’ said Robin, laughing as she looked up.
‘No,’ said Strike, ‘Mirbat’s a coastal town in Oman. There was a battle there in 1972: nine SAS guys versus two hundred and fifty Communist rebels. The SAS won.’
‘Nine against two hundred and fifty?’
‘Best of the best,’ said Strike, just as he had in Ironbridge. ‘Wouldn’t be surprised if Rena heard about the battle from her brother, hence the name.’
Robin scrolled down through Rena’s chaotic and garbled output. A preoccupation with Muslims and the danger Rena felt they posed to the UK were very evident throughout her posts. A few of her tweets had been reported and taken down. Judging by those that remained, Robin suspected they’d been extremely Islamophobic.
‘I think we’re talking serious mental illness, addiction or both,’ said Strike. ‘She posts in spurts, with hiatuses for months, but she’s beenwriting less and becoming more incoherent lately. However, if you look back to 2015, she managed to say something when she might’ve been on the right meds…’
Robin scrolled backwards and saw:
there telling me my brother\s dead I don’t think hes really dead. don’t believe it.
‘’Course,’ said Strike, ‘if Richard de Leon’s telling the truth and he hasn’t heard from Danny since June the eighteenth last year, Rena Liddell becomes irrelev—’
Strike’s mobile rang in Robin’s hand.
‘Wardle,’ she said, handing it back.
‘I’ll take it outside,’ said Strike, with a glance at the group at the next table.
The walking stick, Strike had to grudgingly admit, was helpful and enabled him to get out into the courtyard more speedily than he would have done without it.
‘What’s up?’ he asked Wardle.
‘Hi,’ said the policeman. ‘Nothing urgent. I just wanted to ask… were you serious about a job at the agency?’
