Page 57 of The Hallmarked Man
‘So you didn’t think Wright was Jason Knowles, Mandy?’ asked Robin.
‘You did,’ said Daz, before his girlfriend could answer. ‘When it was on the news, you said, “fuck, ’ewason the run!”Iwas the one what said ’is voice was off. ’E wa’n from Doncaster,’ Daz informed Robin. ‘I ’ad a mate from Doncaster.’
‘You think he was putting the accent on?’ asked Robin.
‘Yeah,’ said Daz.
‘Could he have been Scottish?’ she said, thinking of Niall Semple.
‘Dunno,’ said Daz. ‘Maybe.’
‘Could he have been upper class, and trying to sound working class?’ Robin asked, thinking of Rupert Fleetwood.
‘Maybe,’ said Daz again.
‘I seen ’im out there,’ said Mandy, who seemed to want to reclaim the detectives’ attention, and she pointed towards the hall. ‘Seen ’im the day ’e arrived.’
‘Did he have much stuff with him?’ asked Robin.
‘Just a suitcase,’ said Mandy. She bent down, retrieved a lighter from beside a sock on the floor, and lit her cigarette.
‘Which room did he have?’ asked Robin.
‘One above this,’ said Mandy, pointing at the ceiling. ‘S’even worse. ’Alf the size. Mind, there was on’y one of ’im.’
‘Were you the people who identified William from the pictures in the press?’
‘Nah, that was Hussein,’ said Mandy, exhaling smoke. ’’E’s moved out now, ’im an’ ’is wife an’ daughter. They wuz in the rooms on the top.’
‘D’you know their surname?’ asked Robin. ‘Where they went?’
‘Mohamed, their surname was. Syrian. Dunno where they went. Their little girl was in a wheelchair. They got council ’ousing fast, because of being shoved up top, ’ere. Maybe if I shoved Clint in a wheelchairwe’dget an ’ouse, ’an all,’ said Mandy bitterly.
Daz got out of bed, bare-chested and -footed, and switched on the kettle standing on top of the fridge. He was somehow both skinny but also soft-looking, a small white paunch hanging over his jeans. A large tattoo on his back showed the Roman numerals for four and twenty.
‘Did you see much of Wright?’ asked Robin.
‘Bit, yeah. Fort ’e was weird, din’t we?’ Mandy said to Daz.
‘Yeah,’ said Daz, with a snigger. ‘Looked like one of them on Guess ’Oo.’
‘Wh—? Oh, the children’s game?’ said Robin, after a few seconds’ confusion.
‘Yeah,’ said Daz, who was now looking for teabags. ‘Wiv ’is beard an’ ’is glasses… if ’e’d ’ad an ’at, hahaha… an’ ’e was fuckin’ orange… fake tan. An’ ’e worked out. Seen ’im getting’ fuckin’ ’eavy boxes delivered, an’ I said, “what’s that then?” An’ ’e said, weights, got ’em off eBay, really pleased wiv ’imself… carryin’ ’em upstairs… we could ’ear ’im fumpin’ around up there.’
Strike was taking rapid notes. Clint, who’d already consumed his first biscuit, helped himself surreptitiously to a second from the packet on the bed behind his mother.
‘We sorta laughed at ’im,’ said Mandy, ‘’cause ’e told me people might come round lookin’ for ’im, an’ if they did, we should say ’e weren’ there. Fort ’e was biggin’ ’imself up – but then look what ’appened,’ she said, with an air of dim surprise.
‘Did he say who might come looking for him?’ asked Robin.
‘Nah.’
‘He said “people”, did he? Plural?’
‘’E said “someone”, an’ then ’e said, “or ’e might send someone”.’
‘Makin’ out the mob was after ’im,’ said Daz, with a chortle. Turning to face them holding his tea, which he’d made in a mug bearing a cartoon picture of a penis captioned ‘Mr Bellend’, he said,
