Page 6 of The Hallmarked Man
‘A drug dealer! And my f-father had – had called the police on him…’
‘Why did your father call the police?’
‘Because Rupe had taken – but I still think he had a right to it!’ said Decima shrilly.
‘A right to what?’
‘A… a nef.’
‘A what?’ said Strike, looking up. He’d never heard of such a thing.
‘It’s a big silver table ornament,’ said Decima, sketching an object some two feet square in the air with her free arm, ‘s-seventeenth century… in the shape of a ship… it used to b-belong to Rupe’s parents. D-Daddy and Peter Fleetwood used to play backgammon and bet, and one night they were drunk, Daddy w-went and won this nef from Peter…’
‘So Rupert thought he had a right to it, because it had once been his parents’?’
‘Y – no – look, right after Daddy won it from Peter, Peter and Veronicadied! So you’d think he’d’ve g-given the nefbackto Rupe, if not when he was a child, then when he needed money so badly! But he d-didn’t –his own godson!How c-could he c-call the police on him?’
Because he’d nicked his bloody silver,was Strike’s unsympathetic thought, but aloud he said,
‘He had a drug dealer after him too?’
‘Yes, but that was all Zac’s fault!’
‘Who’s Zac?’
‘Rupe’s housemate – he got mixed up indrugs, incoke, and there was this proper, realgangsterafter him, because Zac hadn’t paid what he’d promised, or something, and Zacran for it, his parents got him a job out inKenya, and Rupe got stuck with Zac’s rent and security deposit and then this awful dealer was pursuingRupefor payment of Zac’s debt,threateninghim—’
‘D’you know what the drug dealer’s name was?’
‘They called him Dredge, I don’t know his real name. He wasliterallythreatening to kill Rupe unless he got his money, because he thought Rupe was rich, like Zac, but he’snot– there’s hardly anything left in his trust fund, he could barely cover all the outstanding bills Zacleft him with, because his aunt and uncle used nearly all the money left by Rupe’s parents to send him to a b-boarding school near Zurich heloathed –and then my father sacked him from D-Dino’s, and that’s why he took the nef, because he was desperate!Iwanted to help him out financially, but he refused, because heknewpeople were saying he was only with me for my m-money!’
Strike strongly suspected there were things he wasn’t being told. Fleetwood seemed to have had no scruples about brazen theft, so it seemed unlikely he’d refused a loan or a gift of money from his girlfriend. Strike thought it far more likely that the young man had shown a token reluctance to let Decima help him pay off the dealer, trying to maintain the fiction that he loved her for herself, and assuming that she’d continue to press the offer. When she’d taken him at his word, he’d turned to other ways of cashing in on the wealthy Longcasters.
‘OK,’ said Strike, turning a page in his notebook. ‘When’s the last time you saw Rupert?’
‘On S-Sunday the fifteenth of May,’ said Decima thickly, groping again for the red diary. ‘I c-cooked him dinner. He was r-really worried about Dredge coming for him, and about being unemployed, with the baby coming. So, yousee, don’t you?’ said Decima, her eyes imploring. ‘He must have taken the nef to that shop, Ramsay Silver, and they agreed to take it, but they c-couldn’t let him have the money until they’d found a buyer! And then Ramsay Silver had a vacancy, and Rupe t-took it, just to havesomemoney coming in! He’ll have thought, once the nef was sold, he could get Dredge off his back, and stop being William Wright, and come back to me! B-but then Dredge must have tracked him down and k-killed him!’
This was the first time Strike had ever met somebody who wanted an assurance their loved one was dead, rather than alive. This, he supposed, was the most extreme manifestation of a phenomenon with which he was only too familiar: a woman absolutely refusing to accept that her partner wasn’t what she thought him.
‘When did you last hear from Rupert?’
‘On the t-twenty-second of May… we talked on the phone. He was moving out of his house that weekend, so we d-didn’t talk for long… we – we—’
Sobs overcame her once more. Strike drank more of his now cool coffee. At last Decima said,
‘We argued. I wanted Rupe to j-just give the nef back to Daddy,but he refused, which wasn’tlikehim, he wasn’t usually like that, at all – he just told me it was his and he was keeping it! So you see’ – her voice rose to a wail – ‘it’smyfault, what happened! It’smy faulthe went to Ramsay Silver! He thought he had nobody on his side, he was desperate… and then he was k-killed! His phone’s dead, his social media stopped – I went to the police, I was frantic with worry, and they didn’t get back to me forweeks, and in the end they told me R-Rupe’s in New York, which is justridiculous, he’snot, Iknowhe’s not!’
‘Why do the police think he’s in New York?’
‘They took his aunt’s word for it! She c-claims Rupe rang her on the twenty-fifth of May and told her he’d got a job there, but that’sridiculous, he doesn’t know anyone in New York, what would hedothere?’
‘What’s Rupert’s aunt’s name?’
‘Anjelica Wallner. She’s anawfulwoman, Rupehatesher! That’s what’s so ridiculous–he wouldn’t tellAnjelicaanything!’
‘Have you spoken to Mrs Wallner yourself?’
‘Yes, but she just shouted “he’s in America!” and told me to stop p-pestering her! Rupe… well, he hadn’t told her we were together… she hates my father, or something…’
