Page 363 of The Hallmarked Man
I wasn’t suggesting Tyler’s interrailing with you.
To this, Chloe had made no reply.
‘Bit aggressive,’ said Strike, handing Robin’s phone back.
‘It is, isn’t it? I know she might just not want to be bothered with it—’
‘Idon’t want to be fucking bothered with it,’ said Strike, running a hand over his unshaven face, ‘but Rena Liddell called me at seven o’clock this morning. She’s been discharged from hospital and claims she’s fine now she’s back on her clonazepam, though it hasn’t done much for her paranoia, being sectioned. She wants to meet me, but she’s scared “they’re listening in”. We’re going to meet at the Engineer in Camden, where she and Semple had a drink before he disappeared. Ralph Lawrence turning up again is a risk we’ll have to take.’
As Strike hadn’t shouted about Wade King, Robin thought she ought to exercise similar restraint, so rather than query the advisability of further antagonising MI5 she said,
‘So Rena’s the reason you want to keep investigating?’
‘No, I’d decided to carry on before she called. I came in here after I got back from the whole stabbing-and-hospital clusterfuck and I had… maybe not a revelation, but an idea, about the Gibsons delivery and the Oriental Centrepiece, and the more I think about it, the more I think I might be on to something. Blame Tom Waits.’
‘The singer?’ said Robin, confused.
‘Yeah. Listen to this.’
Strike pressed a button on his keyboard, and a tinkling piano began playing.
‘Wait for the chorus,’ said Strike.
…a soldier’s things,
His rifle, his boots full of rocks,
And this one is for bravery
And this one is for me
And everything’s a dollar
In this box…
‘I… don’t understand,’ said Robin.
‘Come round here,’ said Strike, beckoning her to his side of the desk, and he smelled her perfume again as she moved to look at the frozen footage from Ramsays’ internal camera on Strike’s monitor. While Tom Waits continued to sing, Strike pressed play.
Larry McGee entered the shop, dumped the crates, and left.
Wright took the first crate down to the basement.
The young blonde arrived and engaged Pamela’s attention.
Wright took the second crate down to the vault.
He took the third crate downstairs.
Todd entered the shop and helped Wright lift the largest crate downstairs.
Wright returned to the shop floor.
Todd was still in the basement. He remained there for nearly twenty minutes.
Todd reappeared.
The blonde left.
