Page 388 of The Hallmarked Man
‘You enjoyed mutilating that body, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘Masonic misdirection, yeah, but you fucking enjoyed it. Tyler Powell saw you. He knew what you were. He wanted to get Chloe to safety, so you carved him into pieces. But it was all too ’laborate. Yeah, Ramsays had shit security, an’ a vault with no camera… Medina upstairs, keepin’ Pamela busy… Todd lets you out and you hide – where? Bog? Cupboard? Stay hid till Todd coughs to tell you the coast’s clear. ’N then you sneak up behind Tyler, and you slam him over the back of the head with a fucking maul and keep beating it till you’ve smashed his skull in.’
Strike heard the back door open. Wardle returned to the now crowded room.
‘One of your mates has just thrown himself off the iron bridge,’ he informed the handcuffed men. ‘Didn’t want to take the rap.’
Strike tried to say ‘that’s a coincidence’, but the words wouldn’tcome. In any case, nobody in the room would have understood. Edwards burst into tears again.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ snarled Barclay, ‘or Ah’ll fuckin’ make ye.’
‘Someone’s coming up here,’ said Wardle to Strike. ‘Police. I’ve told them we’ve found a kidnapped girl. They’ll be here any minute. We need to get the cuffs off this lot.’
‘Fair ’nough,’ said Strike. He tried to stand, but fell backwards into the seat.
‘Stay where ye are, fer fuck’s sake,’ said Barclay. ‘Ah’m callin’ an ambulance.’
Possibly combining heavy blood loss and neat whisky hadn’t been the very best idea, Strike was prepared to concede that now, but he had to keep talking, because he wanted the man to knowheknew. While Wardle was busy uncuffing the men on the floor, Strike said,
‘You killed him, and stepped in the blood round his head. And you didn’t notice – too panicky. You needed to get upstairs, with your fake fucking beard, in your suit and glasses, with y’bloodstained trainers in a Ramsays bag, but wearing his shoes, to pretend to be William Wright, and fake him leaving the shop, and head into Covent Garden station.
‘An’ you tripped,’ said Strike, ‘because your tiny fuckin’ feet couldn’t fill his size nines.’
‘Strike, stop fucking talking,’ said Wardle’s impatient voice. ‘Let it go.’
‘You wen’ back t’the shop to mutilate the body. Couldn’ turn on the light… so you didn’ notice that footprint… it had dried… didn’t smudge… proves killing happened well before the mut’lation… but Todd wouldn’ help ’less it looked like the murder h’pened at night…’cause he was done for Belgium, an’ you got away scot-free… an’ don’t you fuckin’ tell me you never been to Belgium…’
Strike brandished Jones’ mobile at Griffiths.
‘That picture… your f’kin gig… see th’blonde in the picture? Thass Reata Lindvall, who died two months later… her daughter dis’ppeared… useful prop, little girl… f’r a man who wants to ’tract young women… an’ she grew up an’ she was useful, too, wasn’ she? In d’ffrent way… “Jolanda” means “violet” or “purple”… Chloe told ’im her real name… when they take ’part your computer… find a Google search on name Jolanda…’
‘Where is she? Wha’ve you done with ’er?’
‘He told me she’s under the concrete floor,’ whispered a childish voice.
Still wearing Strike’s overcoat, Sapphire stood, ghost-white, in the doorway.
Griffiths made to run for it, but he’d gone barely three paces when Barclay brought him down with a loud and satisfying bang.
‘Hard evidence,’ said Strike, opening the contacts on Jones’ phone. ‘Here we go…’
The number was stored under ‘LUGS NEW’. Strike pressed it.
Somewhere in another room, they heard the ringtone: Steely Dan’s ‘Do It Again’.
In the mornin’ you go gunnin’…
‘There y’are,’ Strike told Jones. ‘You’ve been played. He murdered your mate.’
Strike foolishly assumed standing up might make him feel better. The last thing he saw before his eyes rolled backward in his head and he passed out, was Jesus, smoking a joint.
EPILOGUE
He had found what he had sought with such labours and persistency. What else mattered?
John Oxenham
A Maid of the Silver Sea
124
