Page 353 of The Hallmarked Man
‘I’m assuming you didn’t ask Fleetwood to steal the nef. He nicked it, then brought it here because he couldn’t think where else he might be able to offload it, right?’
He took Tara’s silence for assent.
‘How much did you give him for it?’
‘That’s none of your business. You can tell fucking Dino—’
‘He’s not my client,’ said Strike.
‘Don’t lie to me, I’m not stupid, and he hasn’t told you the full story, but you can tell him I’ve got the witnesses. Lottie Hazlerigg and Angus Lyall told me all about it!’
‘All about what?’
‘Dinocheated. Healwayscoveted that nef, and Peter Fleetwood was so pissed the night he bet it, he was probably seeing two backgammon boards. Lottie and Angus were there and they saw it happen, they know what Dino did, but nobody wanted to challenge him, because he can turn bloody nasty, as I well know. He dislocated my bloody shoulder when—’
‘Yeah, I’ve heard the story about your shoulder,’ said Strike. ‘I remember the overturned table and the burns to your leg, I know you found him in bed with a teenager hired to serve at a party. I’m only interested in the nef.’
‘I’m telling you about it!’ she snapped. ‘Dinoalwaysbullied Peter, treated him as though he was still his fag at Eton, even when I was married to him. So you can gorightback to that piece of shit and tell him from me—’
‘I’ve just told you, he’s not my client. I’m working for his daughter, Decima.’
‘Why does she care about the bloody ship?’
‘She doesn’t. She’s only interested in the whereabouts of Rupert Fleetwood. Did Rupert mention Decima when he came to see you?’
‘No.’
‘So how much was it worth to you, to get one over on Dino?’
‘I’ve just told you, that’s none of your bloody busi—’
‘Itismy business, because if you gave Fleetwood fifty grand he’ll have been able to hide himself far more efficiently than if you gave him a tenner.’
Tara glared at him, took another drag on her cigarette, then said through a cloud of smoke,
‘I gave him six grand. There. Happy?’
‘I think you gave him something else, as well.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like a job abroad, at a Clairmont hotel.’
‘I’m not in charge of hiring and firing.’
‘I doubt anyone on the board’s going to turn down the only surviving Clairmont if they say they want their nephew by marriage given a job in a restaurant or a kitchen. I doubt they’d even protest too much if you leaned on them to offer a brand consultant job to the only other person who knew where the nef had gone.’
‘Well,’ said Tara, eyes narrowed over her coffee cup, ‘aren’tyouclever?’
‘The evidence points that way, yeah,’ said Strike. ‘Which hotel is Fleetwood hiding out in?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Tara. ‘I told them to find him something, and they did. I don’t know where he went. He wrote me a thank you card, though. Nice manners. I don’t remember any thank you letters fromyou.’
‘What the fuck would I thank you for?’ said Strike.
She was old, no longer the beauty who’d enchanted blue bloods and rock stars in the early seventies before marrying the safe bet: Sir Anthony Campbell, with his solid family money behind him, and his castle on Arran, but the way Tara was sparring with him held a spark of her vanished allure. Her fearlessness, her arrogance, her casual cruelty, in combination with her staggering beauty, had once held men captive, but Strike had been inoculated against that faint whisper of dangerous charm through prolonged contact with the daughter who’d so resembled her. Strike and Charlotte had once wondered whether their mothers had ever met; there was a photograph of Tara with Jonny Rokeby, after some concert or other: had he screwed her, too? ‘Maybe we’re brother and sister,’ Charlotte had said, an idea Strike found repulsive rather than exciting.
‘Did Rupert tell you why he wanted to go abroad?’
