Page 59 of The Hallmarked Man
‘Can you remember anything else he said?’ asked Robin. ‘Like, where he’d come from? Anything about his family?’
‘Nah,’ said Daz.
‘Don’t fink so,’ said Mandy regretfully, ‘I don’ fink… nah.’
‘Did he ever have visitors, that you can remember?’ asked Robin.
‘Yeah, a girl an’ some dick’ead in sunglasses. But ’e wasn’ ’ere then, wozee?’ Mandy asked Daz.
‘I wasn’t ’ere eiver,’ said Daz.
‘Oh yeah,’ said Mandy, and she smirked. ‘I forgot.’
‘Wright had visitors when he wasn’t in?’ asked Robin.
‘Yeah,’ said Mandy, ‘it was after ’e was killed. No,’ she corrected herself, ‘the girl was before. The bloke was after. I only realised later. Toldja, din’ I?’ she said to Daz, who nodded.
‘Can you tell me about them?’ asked Robin. ‘Starting with the girl?’
‘She come, like, the evening before ’e was killed.’
‘You’re sure of the date? Friday the seventeenth of June?’
Mandy looked alarmed at being asked to be so precise, but then said,
‘Yeah, it was then, ’cause that weekend, when all what ’appened, ’appened, me an’ ’im’ – she pointed at Daz – ‘we’d ’ad a row an’ I told ’im to get out, an’ when I ’eard someone open the front door in the evening, I fort it was Daz come back, so I open our door an’ I seen ’er.’
‘She let herself in?’
‘Yeah, she ’ad a key,’ said Mandy. ‘She looked foreign. Like, maybe Pakistani, but light. Black ’air, really long. An’ wearing a pink top wiv flowers on it,’ she added, and she looked pleased to have remembered it. ‘An’ she was carryin’ a suitcase.’
Beside Robin, Strike’s pen was moving ever faster.
‘An’ I says to ’er, “you movin’ in?” ’cause of Wright sayin’ ’is girlfriend was gonna move in wiv ’im an’ she says, “just visitin’” an’ she didn’ sound English an’ she wen’ upstairs an’ about an hour later, she come back down, ’cause I was lookin’ out of the window—’
‘Lookin’ for me,’ said Daz smugly.
‘No, I wasn’,’ snapped Mandy. ‘I was jus’ lookin’ out the window! She come down an’ she could ’ardly carry the suitcase now, an’ she ’eaves it into the boot of a car an’ off she goes.’
‘What can you remember about the car?’
‘Silver coloured,’ said Mandy. ‘Looked new.’
‘Can you remember a make?’
‘Nah,’ said Mandy. ‘An’ then, really early nex’ day, like, five in the mornin’, I ’ears the front door again—’
‘Couldn’ sleep,’ Daz said smugly. ‘Missin’ me.’
‘Missin’ you, my arse,’ said Mandy loftily, ‘but I fort itwasgonna be Daz this time, so I got up an’ I opened our door an’ I seen this guy wiv curly ’air goin’ up the stairs, an’ ’e ’ad an empty suitcase an’ all, an’ ’e looked back at me when I come out into the ’all an’ ’e was wearing sunglasses, indoors. ’E looked a real twat.’
‘Was he black, white…?’
‘White. So I come back in ’ere, an’ I gets back into bed, an’ about ten minutes later there’s this, like,’ugebang on the stairs, an’ I finks, what the ’ell’s goin’ on, an’ I gets back up and opens the door an’ this twat in the sunglasses ’as dropped the suitcase down ’em, an’ Isays, “make more racket, why don’t you?” an’ ’e din’ say nuffing, jus’ dragged the suitcase out the door an’ slammed it. An’ I went to look froo the window again an’ ’e got in the car and off ’e went.’
‘When you say “the car”, you mean the same one the girl had been driving earlier?’
‘Looked like it. Yeah, I fink it must’ve been ’er drivin’, cause ’e put the suitcase on the back seat an’ got in the front passenger seat.’
