Page 69 of The Hallmarked Man
‘Really?’ said Robin, sitting down as Pat entered the room, holding two mugs of coffee, which she set down beside each partner.
‘Cheers, Pat,’ said Strike.
‘Biscuit?’ she asked.
‘No, thanks. Trying to be good.’
‘I won’t, either,’ said Robin. ‘Christmas coming.’
‘A biscuit won’t hurtyou,’ said Pat.
‘You can close the door behind you, Pat,’ said Strike.
The office manager left, now smirking.
‘Go on, about Pamela and Todd,’ said Robin.
‘Todd’s happy to meet, but can’t till the nineteenth. Pamela Bullen-Driscoll all but told me to fuck off.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Very genteel,’ said Strike, ‘and very cold. “Ay’ve said all Ay’ve got to say to the police, Mister Strike.”’
‘Oh,’ said Robin. ‘I got your email about Jade Semple, by the way.’
‘Yeah, another one who’s not keen on talking to me. I’ve sent her screenshots of my bona fides and no response whatsoever. Maybe she’s not as keen on finding her husband as she claimed to the press. There was a fairly shirty man with her when we spoke.
‘But I’ve been all through the Ramsay Silver camera footage for the relevant days,’ said Strike. ‘If you come round here, I’ll show you the edited highlights.’
So Robin picked up her coffee and rolled her chair around to sit beside Strike, and he smelled a trace of the perfume he’d bought her.
‘Right,’ he said, opening his notebook to a page on which were listed many different times, so he knew where to stop the footage. He pressed play and, immediately, fast forward.
‘Oh dear,’ said Robin.
‘Yeah,’ said Strike.
The quality of the black and white film was very poor, the outlines of the cabinets, tables and silverware in the empty shop fuzzy.
‘Knew that camera was a pile of shit. Right,’ said Strike, watching the minutes pass rapidly on the small digital clock in the corner of the screen. ‘Twenty to nine, Pamela Bullen-Driscoll arrives.’
He pressed play. A boxy-looking woman appeared in silhouette behind the door’s glass panel, her facial features indistinguishable. She entered, turned on the lights, then punched in a number on the keypad beside it to turn off the alarm. Strike pressed fast forward again.
‘She opens the warped door to the basement on the third push, and we can deduce she was hanging up her bag and making herself acoffee, because she comes back upstairs minus handbag and plus mug. She raises the blinds,’ said Strike, as Robin watched Pamela wield a metal crank to do so. ‘Note, by the way, that the right-hand one’s damaged. It doesn’t go fully to the bottom of the window – another supposed bit of security Ramsay hasn’t bothered to fix or replace. At eight fifty-four, our murder victim arrives. That,’ he said, pressing play again, ‘is William Wright.’
A suited man as fuzzy and indistinct as Pamela entered the shop. His dark beard covered a lot of his face, as did his glasses, which had thick frames that were visible even on this poor-quality film, and Robin was reminded of Daz’s comment that Wright had looked like a character from Guess Who?. Wright raised a hand in greeting to Pamela, who was now sitting at the desk.
Strike pressed fast forward again.
‘Nothing interesting in the morning,’ he said, while Pamela and Wright moved around the shop floor in comically quick fashion. ‘Business is slow. Three browsers, only one of whom buys anything – him,’ said Strike, pointing at an elderly man zooming between glass cabinets.
Strike pressed play again at 11.46, and they watched William Wright write a receipt for the old man.
‘Definitely left-handed,’ said Robin.
‘Exactly,’ said Strike, pressing fast forward again. ‘Then, at three minutes past one, Kenneth Ramsay turns up.’
Sure enough, Ramsay appeared, recognisable to Robin because of his blur of silver hair.
