Page 377 of The Hallmarked Man
‘Hi,’ said Midge’s voice. ‘We’re nearly in. Robin thought you might like a blow-by-blow. She’s almost got the back off.’
Robin, who was slightly shorter than Midge, and somewhat thinner, was kneeling inside one of the old cupboards in the Ramsay basement, from which they’d removed all cleaning products. Only her feet were visible as she used Midge’s claw hammer to prise out nails.
‘What does it look like?’ said Strike. ‘Recently tampered with?’
‘There are new nails,’ said Midge, ‘but we still don’t know whether the wall’s intact behind the board.’
Kenneth Ramsay was sitting on the steep wooden steps leading down into the basement space, his head in his hands.
‘Got it,’ came Robin’s muffled voice, and Strike heard scuffling and thuds.
Dishevelled and dusty, Robin manoeuvred herself backwards out of the cupboard, dragging the board that had been at the back of the cupboard with her.
‘Give me your sledgehammer,’ she told Midge. ‘The bricks have been reassembled but they’re loose.’
‘Did she just say the bricks are loose?’ a very tense Strike asked Midge.
‘Yeah,’ said Midge, as she passed Robin the sledgehammer. The latter crawled back into the cupboard, only her feet protruding, and Strike heard more muffled thuds.
‘What’s happening?’
‘She’s trying to break through the wall.’
Robin had battered the bricks as hard as she could in the cramped space and one of them fell through into the empty space beyond. With a definite clang, it hit something metallic.
‘Torch,’ she called to Midge, who provided one.
‘Did she—?’
‘She wanted a torch, I gave her one,’ said Midge.
Coughing in a small cloud of dust, her eyes watering, Robin pushed the sledgehammer back out of the cupboard and turned on the torch, so she could see through the hole left by the fallen brick.
The torch’s beam fell upon a treasure trove of silver, crammed into the dead space behind the wall. She saw the Oriental Centrepiece, ugly and ornate; the silver mauls and set squares; John Skene’s ceremonial dagger and, its silver sails and rigging cast in shadow on the wall behind it, the nef of theCarolina Merchant. In a far corner were what looked like balled-up clothes. The shirt was covered with rusty brown stains.
Robin wriggled backwards out of the cupboard and reached up for the phone in Midge’s hand.
‘It’s there,’ she told Strike. ‘Looks like all of it. Plus Wright’s clothes.’
‘Shoes?’
‘Can’t see any.’
‘Fuck,’ said Strike.
He’d thought it likely, on the balance of probabilities, that the Murdoch silver had never actually left the shop, but hearing that theory confirmed was an immense relief. Then he heard a loud, echoing wail.
‘The hell’s that?’
‘Er – that was Mr Ramsay,’ said Robin.
The shop owner had flung himself onto all fours to squeeze himself into the cupboard and peer through the hole Robin had made. Now he was sobbing hysterically, only his legs and backside visible.
‘Hang on,’ said Robin, as Ramsay’s echoing wails filled the small space, and she climbed the stairs back up to the shop floor. ‘He’s a bit overwrought,’ she said quietly.
‘I’ll bet he is,’ said Strike.
‘I wonder how long it took Todd to make the hole in the wall,’ said Robin. ‘The mortar was old and crumbly, so I don’t think it would have been that hard. The worst bit would have been him cramming himself into the cupboard to do it.’
