Page 286 of The Hallmarked Man
He was hyper-aware of Kim sitting rigidly beside him as he paid his bill. He didn’t doubt she felt angry and humiliated, but he didn’t care. Having paid, he got up with difficulty, pins and needles in his legs, and said, without looking at her,
‘See you at the office.’
He left, and only by a miracle of luck did he avoid tripping over the rug for a second time.
89
Half-way, for one commandment broken,
The woman made her endless halt,
And she to-day, a glistering token,
Stands in the wilderness of salt.
Behind, the vats of judgment brewing
Thundered, and thick the brimstone snowed:
He to the hill of his undoing
Pursued his road.
A. E. Housman
XXXV, More Poems
Robin felt as though she’d been away from London for a fortnight, instead of the forty-eight hours that had actually passed. Worst of all was the jitteriness that had returned almost as soon as the storm-tossed plane had landed. She now realised how safe she’d felt in Sark. She was back in noisy, crowded London, where any of the men you passed might have a gorilla mask hidden at home; she resumed looking over her shoulder every few yards and taking counter-surveillance dashes into traffic and last-second exits from Tube trains.
Nor was this suppressed, ever-present fear the worst of her worries. She and Murphy met for dinner in an Italian restaurant on Saturday evening, and talked. She repeated that she loved him, said she felt no distance and that she definitely wanted them to move in together. She tried not to remember Strike holding her hand across the kitchen table at the Old Forge, or about how understanding he’d been when she’d cried. She had to forget all that. She was moving in with Murphy.
She stayed at Murphy’s flat overnight and remained there onSunday. They had sex twice; he seemed far happier than he’d been lately, and Robin told herself she was, too.
To Robin’s surprise, late on Sunday afternoon, Tyler Powell’s friend Wynn Jones sent her his agreement to speaking to her that evening by FaceTime.
‘Everything OK?’ asked Murphy, observing her expression as she read Jones’ text.
‘Fine,’ said Robin. ‘Just someone I’m trying to talk to about Rupert Fleetwood.’
She wondered why she was still lying to him about exactly what she was doing on the silver vault case and supposed it was force of habit.
‘Listen, d’you mind if I do an hour at the gym?’ asked Murphy.
‘No, of course not,’ said Robin.
She felt relieved at the prospect of being alone, and even gladder Murphy wasn’t present when, ten minutes after he’d left the flat, Strike called her.
‘Can you talk?’ he asked in a croaky voice.
‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘Are you all right?’
Strike, who was lying on his bed in his attic room with his prosthesis off, said,
‘Yeah, I’m fine.’
In fact, his stomach had been upset all day, which he suspected was the fault of the kebab he’d bought on the way home from the Blind Spot the previous evening, because his hunger had been unassuaged by a few exorbitantly priced chips and three calamari rings. He’d slept late, then lain on his bed trying to ignore his gastro-intestinal discomfort while vaping and continuing to search for Jim Todd’s mother online, an ice pack strapped to his painful knee. He’d soon need to put his prosthesis back on, because that evening he was due to tail Plug.
‘I’ve got big news,’ he went on, ‘I got a call last night from a man claiming to be Rupert Fleetwood.’
