Page 90 of The Hallmarked Man
‘Er…’ Bradley scratched his goatee. ‘Firs’ time, it was the Saturday night after.’
‘The day following the delivery?’ said Strike. ‘Before the body and the theft were discovered, on the Monday?’
‘Yeah,’ said Bradley. ‘It was before all that was on the news. I jus’ asked ’im why ’e’d ditched Dave an’ buggered off, an’ ’e talked a load of his usual boll—’
Unlike Carter, Bradley was slow at finding a synonym for the wordhe’d decided not to use in front of Diana. After a tongue-tied pause he substituted, ‘rubbish’.
‘What did he say?’ asked Strike.
‘Told me ’e’d been ’eld up by an “’ot little blonde” who lured him up a side alley,’ said Bradley, with a smirk.
‘Chrissake,’ muttered Carter, with an eye-roll.
‘I told ’im ’e was full of it,’ said Bradley. ‘’E jus’ laughed. Told me ’e wanted to leave Gibsons anyway, and ’e was gonna be coming into a decent bit of cash soon, so it made no odds to him, getting the ’eave ’o.’
‘Any mention of where this cash was coming from?’
‘No,’ said Bradley, ‘I fort ’e meant a will or somefing. We didn’ talk long. I never much liked ’im. ’E just lived up the road, so I sometimes ran into ’im.’
‘Ever see him after that?’
‘Yeah, once. End of October, same pub. ’E’d really let ’imself go. Looked like ’e’d packed on a coupla stone. I asked if ’e’d ’ad his windfall yet, and ’e bit my bloody ’ead off, said ’e’d never said ’e was gonna be getting a windfall, and walked out. Next I ’eard, ’e’d been found dead in his flat, after a neighbour complained about the smell. It was in the local paper.’ He continued in a self-consciously grave voice, ‘Sad way to go.’
‘In the paper, was it?’ said Strike, who was still writing.
‘Yeah.’Ounslow ’Erald. Natural causes. Always looked like ’e had ’eart disease. That sorta corned beef skin, y’know? ’S’ow my old man went.’
‘Proper catch for a hot young blonde,’ said Carter, and Bradley sniggered.
26
… desist!
— The warrior-part of you may, an it list,
Finding real faulchions difficult to poise,
Fling them afar and taste the cream of joys
By wielding such in fancy…
Robert Browning
Sordello: Book the Fifth
‘But that’s so…weird,’ said Robin, on the phone to Strike half an hour later, while he was walking back to the office.
‘It is, yeah,’ said Strike, a finger in his free ear to block out the sounds of traffic. ‘Very weird.’
His leg was paining him again, but, remembering Murphy’s gym bag and water bottle, he was resisting the temptation to hail a cab.
‘McGee seems to have thought he was going to be paid enough to make it worth his while to sacrifice his job,’ said Strike, ‘but paid for what?’
Robin, who was sitting in her Land Rover outside a house in Pimlico that Mrs Two-Times was visiting, didn’t answer immediately. After a short silence, both partners spoke at once.
‘I can only—’
‘I was think – go on,’ said Strike.
