The Hallmarked Man полностью

‘People will tink I do things like det all the time, I don’t, I never did, I vos drunk and she said I could haff half the money…’

‘You’d rather Sofia’s killer got away with it, would you?’ said Robin in a low voice. ‘You’d rather this man stays free to murder other girls? Or d’you really think Sofia got what she deserved, for being silly, and liking ruby necklaces?’

‘No!’ squealed Gretchen. ‘I liked her! She was funny and she vos… she vos sweet…’

‘Then tell me everything you know about this man,’ said Robin firmly.

‘She didn’t tell me anything except his job, and that he had a vife.’

‘And his name?’ said Robin.

‘It vossn’t his real name,’ said Max contemptuously. ‘He wouldn’t use det.’

But Gretchen, who had mingled snot and tears dripping from her chin, whispered:

‘Osgood. Calvin Osgood, but she called him Oz.’

Max heaved a large sigh, put his arm around his girlfriend’s shoulders and said,

‘Und jetzt rufen wir einen Anwalt an.’

‘Yes,’ said Robin, closing her notebook. ‘I think calling a lawyer’s a very good idea.’

‘Well, I sure as hell haven’t got anything to beat what you got yesterday,’ said Strike, when Robin arrived at the office at eleven o’clock the following morning. They were to be lunching with Decima Mullins at Quo Vadis in Dean Street and Strike had suggested a quick in-person catch-up before meeting the client, not because there was much to say that hadn’t already been communicated by text, email and phone, but because he was continuing to seize every opportunity for private chats with his partner.

It was another chilly day, the sky smoke grey, and Robin was wearing a forest green knitted dress and black boots appropriate to both the chilly weather and their client’s choice of restaurant. Strike, who was wearing the only suit that currently fitted him after over a year of intermittent dieting, refrained from telling Robin she looked good. All of that could wait for the Lake District hotel: until then, he thought it best to maintain a strict professionalism.

‘So, what d’you reckon are the odds that Oz and Medina cleared out Wright’s flat?’

‘Getting much, much higher,’ said Robin, trying to sound upbeat.

The triumph she’d felt in the immediate aftermath of her interview with Gretchen and Max had become tinged with anxiety overnight. Once again, she and Strike were in possession of information the police should be given. Strike had said he’d tell Wardle, leaving Robin praying once again that her boyfriend wouldn’t hear where the intelligence had come from, but she had the feeling it was only a matter of time, now, before Murphy realised what they were really up to.

‘But we still haven’t got the full picture, have we?’ Robin said. ‘If it was Oz who cleared out Wright’s flat, why involve Medina at all? Why not empty it himself? Why did it have to be done in two batches; why go back there at all, after Wright was dead?’

‘I had a thought about that,’ said Strike, ‘and if I’m right, it’s because Oz fucked up.’

‘How?’

‘I think Medina was supposed to take anything in the room that might’ve led to an ID of Wright, but there was something in there she couldn’t lift. So Oz goes back for it, then drops it on the stairs, unable to hold it. Wright bought weights after moving in, remember? And unless he’d visited Wright in the lead-up to Wright’s murder, Oz wouldn’t have known they were there.’

‘But why would it matter if the weights were left?’ said Robin. ‘The police already had Wright’s DNA, they couldn’t stop them matching it.’

‘That’s exactly where my speculation stops. I don’t know why it would be urgent to take the weights, but I can’t think of much else a fairly small woman wouldn’t’ve been able to carry, and which Oz himself struggled to lift. I don’t think Oz was supposed to have gone anywhere near Wright’s room, but he had to – and unfortunately for him, Mandy was awake at five a.m.’

‘I still can’t see why he needed Sofia Medina,’ said Robin. ‘She was a liability; she blabbed to her flatmate. And as for being bait, she can’t have been the girlfriend Wright thought was coming to live with him.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because the timescale doesn’t fit,’ said Robin. ‘Gretchen says Sofia only knew Oz for about a month. Sofia might’ve been naive, but I can’t see letting herself get pimped out to a second man, when what she wanted was Oz himself – or his rubies and his jet set lifestyle. Plus, Wright would’ve had to be even worse than naive, agreeing to a girl moving in with him almost as soon as she met him, when he knew people were after him.’