Page 289 of The Hallmarked Man
‘Don’t you want to put Dilys’s mind at rest, Wynn?’ Robin asked.
‘I’vetold’er ’e’s gone to work in a pub, an’’e’stold her, and I’ve told ’er it’s not me calling ’er,’ said Jones impatiently. ‘Lugs doesn’t want ’er to know where ’e’s working ’cause ’e doesn’t want the silly old cow bothering ’im, that’s all, but ’e’stold’er ’e’s alive and she keeps saying “stop it Wynn Jones, I know that’s you”.’
Robin decided to try another tack.
‘Tyler stopped talking to you, you say?’
‘Yer.’
‘When was that?’
‘Can’t remember. Round Christmas?’
‘You’re certain it was really Tyler calling and texting you, though?’
‘’Course I am.’
‘Tell me about Tyler and Anne-Marie,’ said Robin, planning to circle back to the name of the pub.
‘Ain’t nothing to tell.’
‘They were in a relationship, weren’t they?’
‘Nah, it was that Chloe Griffiths ’e ’ad the throbber for.’
The young man with bad teeth laughed again in the background.
‘This is Chloe who lived opposite him?’
‘Yeah. Anne-Marie was nothing, ’e didn’t care. Well,’ Jones corrected himself, ‘’e cared she was dead, but not cause they were shagging.’
‘Wasn’t Anne-Marie Tyler’s girlfriend?’ said Robin.
‘Nah. Just mates.’
‘My information is that Tyler was very upset when they split up.’
‘’Oo told you that, bloody Faber White’ead?’
‘I haven’t spoken to the Whiteheads,’ said Robin.
‘It was that Chloe he liked, not Anne-Marie. He had the proper’orn for Chloe, and she led him on, and the silly sod thought ’e was going to get somewhere, but I coulda told ’im he was wasting his time.’
‘Why’s that?’ said Robin.
‘She got stuff out of ’im, but never done nothing with ’im, and then she dropped him fucking flat and buggers off with another bloke. Snobby,’ Jones added. ‘A-levels and all that. She wasn’t gonna go with some mechanic.’
‘What stuff did Chloe get out of Tyler?’ asked Robin.
‘Bought her a fucking bracelet, all with flowers on, for her birthday,’ said Jones, as though this was an outlandish thing for Powell to have done, and Robin’s mind darted to the silver charm bracelet hidden in her wardrobe, which she’d still never worn. ‘But ’e never got anything back out of her, silly sod.’
‘Did Tyler ever mention silver to you, on the phone?’ asked Robin.
‘Silver?’ scoffed Jones. ‘Why’d he be talking about bloody silver?’
‘I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking. Can you remember any phone conversation where Tyler mentioned silver, or something that might’ve sounded like silv—?’
‘Sylvain, maybe,’ said Jones, apparently struck by a sudden thought. ‘Sylvain Deslandes.’
