Page 387 of The Hallmarked Man
‘The internet,’ said Strike, ‘tells a different story.’
But when he put his hand in his trouser pocket for his phone, he remembered that it was still in the coat now covering Sapphire in the basement. He picked up one of the phones in his lap instead, which Barclay had taken from Pratt and Jones.
‘Whose is this and what’s the code? Don’t make me fucking get up,’ Strike warned them, ‘because I won’t be sitting down again until I’ve knocked you fucking senseless. Code. Now.’
‘Sixty-nine sixty-nine,’ mumbled Wynn Jones.
‘Of course it fucking is,’ muttered Strike, opening the phone and Googling the picture he needed while his ear throbbed so badly he wondered whether he was going to puke. ‘There,’ he said at last, holding out the phone and picture to show Griffiths. ‘That’s you on stage in Belgium, playing your poxy guitar in a cellar club. My partnerfound this. Funnily enough, your mate Wade King – seen here playing bass – has been trying to scare off the right person all along. Robin’s the one who really broke this case.’
‘That’s not me,’ whispered Griffiths, ‘and I don’t know the man on the b—’
‘Itisyou,’ said Strike. ‘My partner’s done a bit of research, and your poxy pan-European band did a bit of travelling around on the continent in the nineties, didn’t it?’
Wardle now reappeared in the room.
‘There’s something going on, down by the bridge. Police and ambulance are there, I can see the lights from the front windows.’
‘Too busy for us, then,’ said Strike.
‘They fucking won’t be,’ said Wardle with determination. He left the room yet again, and Strike heard the back door slam.
‘He’s like a Mountie,’ he told Griffiths. ‘Always gets his man.’
While Strike was unfamiliar with fainting, he had a dim idea that this swimming sensation might be something a person felt right before they did so, so he didn’t turn his head when he heard more movement behind him.
‘Got her free,’ announced Barclay, moving into Strike’s line of vision, pliers still in hand. ‘She’s in the kitchen, eatin’. Needs it,’ he said, with a menacing look at Griffiths. ‘Any o’ these need roughin’ up? Ah’m in the mood.’
‘Possibly,’ said Strike. ‘We’re still in the information-gathering stage.’
‘Great,’ said Barclay, slapping the pliers into his palm. ‘Where’ve we got tae?’
‘To the way Tyler was lured to Ramsay Silver,’ said Strike, turning back to Griffiths. ‘Todd advises Tyler to pick a new name and disguise himself, even pretend to be left-handed, to hide from his girlfriend’s dangerous, murdering father, and to get a job nobody would expect him to do, so he can earn enough to keep him and his girlfriend when she runs away, too – but in reality to make it as hard as possible for him to be identified after his death.’
‘I don’t know anything aboutanyof this!’ whimpered the bearded man on the floor.
‘Which one’s he?’ Barclay asked Strike.
‘Mickey Edwards.’
Barclay took two strides across the room and kicked Edwards sohard in the side of the head the man was knocked over onto his side, dragging Jones and Pratt with him.
‘She’s fuckin’ told me about you,’ said Barclay, standing over the heap of gasping, spluttering men.
‘You can’t do this,’ shouted a wild-eyed Griffiths from the sofa.
‘Yeah, don’t do it,’ Strike told Barclay, taking another swig of whisky, ‘in front of Wardle.’
‘Where’s he gone?’
‘There’s something happening at the bridge, he’s gone to investigate. Anyway,’ Strike said, his head still swimming as he turned back to Griffiths, ‘you could persuade Tyler to play a part at work, but you couldn’t police him at home, could you? Where did you dump his Wolverhampton Wanderers weights? And his hands, his eyes, his dick and his ears? Petts Wood?’
Griffiths looked greyer than ever, but he said,
‘I don’t know what you’re—’
‘Petts Wood, where you and Medina drove after you’d visited Wright’s room in the early hours of the morning,’ said Strike. ‘If Powell’s ears, or his dick, or his weights, turn up there, that’ll be a sizeable bit of evidence.That’smore’n a footprint.’
Strike heard himself slurring, but didn’t think it could be the whisky; he hadn’t had enough. Possibly it was blood loss? His light-headedness was intensifying. He took another large swig of Teacher’s.
