Page 370 of The Hallmarked Man
‘See,’ said Rena, once again without prompting, and ignoring the menu the barmaid had set in front of her, ‘he give me this.’
She groped under her layers of dirty clothing and freed a silver necklace. It bore an odd pendant: a chequerboard square.
‘Niall gave that to you, did he?’ said Strike, eyeing the thing.
‘Aye. He said it wuz magic,’ said Rena. ‘Fur protection. He give it me when we met. An’ he wuz gonnae give me more. He told me. At the bridge.’
‘He was going to give you more silver jewellery?’
‘Aye, yeah, Ah think so. He’s hid it, at the bridge.’
‘At the bridge where I met you?’
‘Aye, Ah think so. Or maybe the one next tae it. Ah dunno.’
‘Did Niall have a briefcase with him when he met you?’
‘Aye,’ said Rena, ‘an’ it was really heavy. Ah think there was more in there.’
‘More silver?’
‘Aye.’
Rena’s beer arrived and she gulped half of it down with relish.Strike wondered how well lager mixed with clonazepam, the drug she’d told him she was on.
‘So Niall told you he was off to get Ben, when he met you?’
‘Aye,’ she said, with a sudden resurgence of anger, ‘’cause no other fucker’s gonnae get him, are they?’
‘Did you and Ben grow up together, after your parents died?’
‘Naw. Ah hadtae go an’ live with mah gran an’ he wen’ with our uncle. Our uncle isnae married, an’ Ben was older. He didnae wanna little girl.’
Strike was reminded immediately of his mother, and her forcible separation from Ted at the age of two. Would Leda’s life have been better had she been able to remain with her brother? Would Rena’s?
‘Ahthinkhe’s mah brother,’ said Rena restlessly. ‘Ahthinkhe is.’
‘Where were you living, when Niall got in touch with you last year?’ asked Strike. ‘Still with your grandmother?’
He judged her to be in her mid to late twenties, although it was hard to be sure. She might be younger than her lined and hollow face suggested.
‘Naw,’ said Rena, ‘she’s long gone. Ah wiz in a Place.’
The inflection on the word suggested Rena might have been in a psychiatric facility, or perhaps a drug dependency unit.
‘Did Niall tell you how he knew where you were?’
‘Ah think Ben mighta told him,’ said Rena vaguely.
‘So you and Ben kept in touch?’
‘Sometimes. He told me,’ she said, with sudden animation, ‘aboot a battle on mah birthday, nineteenth July, an’ they wouldnae give this big guy who got killed, who was, like, really fuckin’ brave, an’ he wasnae from Britain, he wiz from Fuji or somewhere, Ah dunnaw where, an’ they never give him a proper medal ’cause nobody was s’posed tae know they were there, so that’s the kind of fuckin’ shit they get up tae in the army.’
‘Talaiasi Labalaba,’ said Strike. ‘Battle of Mirbat.’
‘How d’ye know that?’ asked Rena, half-excited, half-unnerved.
‘There’s a statue of him at the SAS base in Hereford,’ said Strike.
