Page 313 of The Hallmarked Man
‘A whole week’s going to be a stretch unless we’ve got rid of this bloody silver vault case,’ he said. ‘Is there something up with him, by the way?’
‘Who, Dev? No, I don’t think so. Why?’
‘He’s been fairly brusque with me lately, and I notice he’s coming to you with queries about leave, not me.’
‘He hasn’t said anything,’ said Robin. ‘Um… I might have worked out what that note Niall Semple left for his wife means.’
‘What?’ said Strike, thoroughly taken aback.
‘I’ve been reading that book you downloaded.Morals and Dogma of the Ancient—’
‘—and Accepted Whatever of Bollocks, yeah,’ said Strike. ‘How did that help?’
Robin looked at her computer screen and read aloud:
‘“Question: What is the most occult number?
‘“Answer: 5, because it is enclosed in the centre of the series.
‘“Question: What is the most salutary number?
‘“Answer: 6, because it contains the source of our spiritual and corporeal happiness.
‘“Question: What is the most fortunate number…” You get the idea,’ she said. ‘If I’m right, Niall was leaving Jade an eight-figure code: two, five, zero, six, two, zero, one, six. I suppose it’s too much to hope that opens the Ramsay silver vault?’
‘Doubt it,’ said Strike, as Robin passed a Post-it note to him across the desk and he looked down at the string of numbers. ‘There are no nines. The most worn key on that pad was nine… could be a date, though. Twenty-fifth of June 2016.’
‘Oh God, I didn’t spot that! What happened on the twenty-fifth of June 2016?’
Strike Googled it.
‘Five new species of orchid were discovered in the Philippines.’
‘I was thinking more of what was happening in Semple’s life,’ said Robin, amused.
‘That date’s three weeks after the last confirmed sighting of him alive, so your guess is as good as mine.’
Strike opened his notebook to the page with Spanner’s instructions on how to install the anonymising browser. He wasn’t thinking aboutSark, or of the night they’d eaten curry at the office, or of sharing a bed with Robin after she’d escaped Chapman Farm; he was thinking about how this kind of situation had been exactly what he’d hoped would naturally arise in the course of the silver vault case, and how bloody pointless it had been to take on the damn investigation, in the end.
‘I’ve got another bit of news,’ said Robin. ‘Hugo Whitehead’s father called me earlier.’
‘Remind me?’
‘His son Hugo crashed Tyler Powell’s car.’
‘Oh yeah. What did he say?’
‘I told him we’re trying to trace Tyler Powell and he says he’s happy to speak to me, as long as his wife doesn’t find out, because it upsets her too much to discuss the car crash, so I’m going to their house on Monday evening, when she’ll be at a friend’s.’
The office landline rang.
‘Could be Rena Liddell again,’ said Strike, and he grabbed the receiver.
He could hear traffic.
‘Aye… it’s me again…’
Strike gave Robin a thumbs-up.
