Page 315 of The Hallmarked Man
‘Police?’
‘Well, we know the team working the silver vault case aren’t exactly happy with us. Could they be trying to catch us interfering?’
‘I wouldn’t put it past the couple I met to try and get us for something,’ admitted Strike.
‘Of course,’ said Robin hesitantly, ‘there’s also the possibility he’s—’
‘MI5?’
‘Well, maybe,’ said Robin.
‘Christ, we’ve fucked off a lot of people over this case,’ said Strike. ‘Have you circulated the Accord bloke’s description to the others?’
‘Yes, and the bit of the number plate I got.’
‘Good,’ he said, and took a swig of whisky. Eyes on the plans of Wild Court and Freemasons’ Hall that lay in front of Robin, he asked,
‘Had any luck with those? I haven’t had time to look properly.’
‘Nothing that’s going to help us,’ said Robin. ‘The shop was created out of a couple of storage rooms at the back of Freemasons’ Hall in 1958. There were two doors in the back walls, but they were bricked up when the rooms became a shop.’
‘There was a door on the basement level, was there?’
‘Yes, when it was a downstairs cupboard.’
‘Where exactly was the door?’
‘At the back of the vault, but as I say, it’s gone, bricked up. There’s also a bit of dead space behind the basement wall where the cupboards are, but to get into that you’d have to tunnel through brick as well.’
‘Is it a big enough space to accommodate a lurking murderer?’
‘Maybe a child on their hands and knees,’ said Robin, ‘but the child would have had to walk in through the front door of the shop first, go downstairs into the basement and break their way through the wall to get into it.’
‘And even Kenneth Ramsay might’ve noticed that happening,’ said Strike. ‘So Wright and Oz can’t have got into the basement that night via Freemasons’ Hall?’
‘No,’ said Robin.
‘Then how the helldidthey get back there without being seen?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ admitted Robin, reaching for another slice of cold pizza. ‘What do you want to look at on the dark web, anyway?’ she said, watching Strike still tinkering with his new laptop.
‘Couple of long shots,’ said Strike, ‘but I’m ready to try almost anything at this point. One thing I wouldn’t mind seeing is Sofia Medina’s OnlyFans account.’
‘It’s gone,’ said Robin, ‘I looked.’
‘Yeah, gone from the surface web, but it occurred to me that it might still be floating around in the cesspit beneath.’
‘Looking for Oz?’
‘Yeah. I know he won’t have been calling himself “Oz” on OnlyFans, but people often adopt usernames that leave clues, even people a damn sight more intelligent than Jim Todd. Rodolphe Lemoine. Sidney Reilly. Laurel Rose Willson – though, admittedly, she was off her rocker.’
‘Who are Rodolphe Lemoine, Sidney Reilly and – who?’
‘Lemoine,’ said Strike, bending down to plug in the new laptop, ‘was a French spymaster in World War Two whose real name was Stallmann, but took his wife’s maiden name for espionage purposes.’
‘Like Todd taking his mother’s maiden name for trafficking purposes.’
‘There you go. Sigmund Rosenblum, otherwise known as the Ace of Spies, presumably liked his initials—’
