Page 318 of The Hallmarked Man
‘Hm,’ she said, her eyes travelling over the office before coming back to rest on Strike, her gaze calculating. ‘OK, well, I’ve been trying to think what to do.’
Strike, who detected a threatening undertone in these words, moved behind Pat’s desk and sat down in her computer chair.
‘Iknowhe’s playing around on me,’ said Mrs Two-Times.
‘Ah,’ said Strike.
‘Escorts,’ she said. ‘I recognise that bank account, too. There’s a place he’s always liked; he’s been using it for years. That’s why he’s always happy for me to go out with my friends.’
The question of why she’d married such a man had barely surfaced in Strike’s mind before he answered it himself. The designer clothes, the immaculate hair, the long lunches, the giggling exchanges withhandsome waiters: presumably these sweetened the strange deal she’d made.
‘He’s kind of well known in his field,’ she said, now examining her perfectly manicured nails. ‘I could cause a lot of trouble for him, if I dragged you into it. It’d mean loads of publicity and he wouldn’t be able to use you to spy on his girlfriends any more, would he?’
Strike’s feeling of foreboding intensified.
‘Or,’ she said, looking up, ‘you could start watching him forme, instead. Get proof of the escorts. I wouldn’t tell him I’d used you and I quite like the idea of him footing the bills for me to get evidence for a nice fat divorce settlement.’
‘That’d certainly be a neat solution,’ said Strike.
‘You agree, then?’ she said.
‘Yeah, I think we could shake on that.’
She got up, took a pen out of the pot on Pat’s desk and wrote her mobile number on a Post-it note.
‘I’d like weekly updates,’ she said, tearing it off and handing it to him.
‘Fine,’ said Strike.
They shook hands. Hers was cold.
‘I didn’t think it’d last,’ she said. ‘Men don’t change, do they?’
‘Well… not often,’ said Strike.
She glanced over at the aquarium.
‘I think your fish is dying.’
Strike waited on the landing until he heard the street door open and close, then called Wardle.
‘Let her go,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t your fault. She’s smarter than him, that’s all. Come up and have a drink if you want one, I’ve got whisky open.’
Five minutes later, Wardle arrived in the outer office, to which Strike had already brought his bottle of Arran Single Malt.
‘Does that happen often?’ Wardle asked, when Strike had told him what Mrs Two-Times had said.
‘First time for me,’ said Strike.
‘Nah, I won’t,’ said Wardle, waving away the offer of whisky as Strike raised the bottle. ‘I was doing a bit too much of that, alone, a few months back. I’ve knocked it on the head for a while.’
‘Ah,’ said Strike, pouring himself a treble. ‘Good for you.’
‘Is that fish all right?’ said Wardle, looking at the gasping black lump at the surface of the tank.
‘No,’ said Strike.
‘Mash up a pea,’ said Wardle.
