Page 37 of The Hallmarked Man
He flicked a light switch and illuminated both the stairway and a cramped basement area. The steep wooden stairs creaked as the threesome descended. The small space below smelled slightly of mould and looked as though it had been fitted out on the cheap, many years previously. The steel door facing them had a second keypad beside it and a wheel handle; to the right was a door that stood ajar to reveal a cramped toilet, and to their left was a sink, some laminate cupboards bearing mugs and a kettle, and a couple of wall pegs.
‘We’ll look away,’ said Strike, as Ramsay moved to tap in the code on the keypad.
‘Oh,’ said Ramsay distractedly, ‘yes – thank you.’
When the door had audibly swung open, Strike and Robin turned back to see the place where William Wright had died.
The vault, illuminated by a single bare lightbulb hanging from the low ceiling, was high enough for an average-sized man, if not Strike, to stand upright in, and deep enough to accommodate a man of the same height lying down. The walls were of brick, and lined with currently bare shelves. The vault contained nothing except five crates of varying sizes, all stamped with the name Gibsons, which Strike knew to be a minor auction house. He took out his notebook.
‘Those,’ said Ramsay, pointing, ‘are the crates the Murdoch silver came in… all stolen,’ he said, staring around at the shelves, ‘and I’d never even seen it.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes… it was supposed to arrive on Friday at lunchtime. I came here to receive it,’ said Ramsay, as though the silver had been a visiting potentate, ‘but Gibsons had lots of deliveries that day, so it was delayed, and I had to go back to work. Pamela called later to say it had arrived…’
‘Pamela is…?’
‘Pamela Bullen-Driscoll. My sister-in-law – my wife’s sister. She was helping us out at the time, with Rachel being so ill. Gone back to her own business now.’
‘You had houseguests over the weekend, didn’t you?’ asked Strike.
‘That’s right, and I couldn’t leave Rachel alone with them, so I didn’t come in over the weekend.’
‘But you were here on Monday morning, when the theft was discovered?’
‘Oh, yes, because I wanted to see John Auclair myself.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘Very important silver collector,’ said Ramsay. ‘Very wealthy… he’d asked me to put the Murdoch silver aside for him to view, before we offered it to anyone else. That’s why Pamela never took it out of the vault, just unpacked it and put it on the shelves…
‘I came down here – opened the door… and it was all gone… and Wright – well, Knowles,’ said Ramsay, pointing at the floor, ‘was there. Face down. His hands were missing. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It didn’t look real.’
‘Face down, you say,’ said Strike, who was making notes.
‘That’s right. And there was dried blood around the head and…’
Ramsay swallowed, looking sick.
‘News reports said he was naked,’ said Strike.
‘Yes, he was, except – yes, he was naked.’
‘I heard a hallmark was carved into the body’s back?’
‘How do you know about that?’ Ramsay gasped, staring up at Strike.
‘It was mentioned in a news story,’ lied the detective.
‘Oh… I didn’t think they were going to give that out… yes, it was the Salem Cross. The Murdoch hallmark.’
Strike made a note, then said,
‘And the body was naked, except for…?’
‘I… DCI Truman told me not to talk about that.’
‘Really?’ said Strike, looking down at Ramsay.
