The Hallmarked Man полностью

‘Yes, very briefly, in the afternoon,’ said Ramsay, taking Robin’s vacated seat. ‘Stupid thing. The delivery driver mixed up two crates. Sent the Oriental Lodge centrepiece – you’ll see it in the catalogue, magnificent, it really is – to Bullen & Co by mistake, and delivered some of the things they’d bought to us. Pamela realised what had happened and sent Wright out to Bullens to get it back. Embarrassing for Pamela, actually,’ said Ramsay, his face growing a little pinker. ‘If that hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t have known she and her husband had bid on some of the Murdoch collection. We had a gentlemen’s agreement that Bullen & Co wouldn’t set themselves up in competition with us. We were to concentrate on masonic silver.’

‘And Wright brought this centrepiece back, did he?’ said Strike.

‘Yes, in a taxi. He wasn’t gone long. The Silver Vaults are only just up the road.’

‘I think,’ said Robin, her eyes on the computer monitor, ‘I might be able to download the relevant camera footage. Would you be comfortable with us taking a copy, Mr Ramsay?’

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Ramsay.

‘Would you have phone numbers for Pamela Bullen-Driscoll and Jim Todd?’ Strike asked.

Ramsay gave them. Strike now brought out the photograph of Rupert Fleetwood that Decima had given him.

‘In your opinion, is there any possibility that William Wright was this man?’

Ramsay glanced down at Rupert Fleetwood.

‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘No, no. What is he – a waiter? Wright wore glasses, and had a beard. He was dark.’

‘Disregarding the outfit,’ said Strike, ‘and trying to picture this man with a beard, and dyed hair—’

‘No, no,’ repeated Ramsay, who seemed annoyed, ‘no, he doesn’t look at all like Knowles.’

Strike took the picture back.

‘Did the police show you pictures of two men called Niall Semple and Tyler Powell?’

‘Yes, yes, but it wasn’t them, it was Knowles,’ said Ramsay, now almost agitated. ‘I’m certain it was Knowles.’

‘OK,’ said Strike, making a note. ‘Did anyone offer you a different nef for sale, around the time Wright came to work here?’

‘A different nef?’ said Ramsay, confused. ‘No, the Carolina Merchant’s the only one we’ve ever had in stock. We don’t deal in ornamental objects that aren’t masonic.’

‘Right,’ said Strike, making another note. ‘And is there anything you remember about Wright that seemed odd, or distinctive?’

‘No, not at all. As I say, I didn’t really – oh, but there were the things he searched for. The police found that out.’

‘“Things he searched for”?’

‘Yes, he’d looked things up, on this computer,’ said Ramsay, nodding at the monitor on the desk. ‘The police went all through the what-have-you, and they found he’d been looking at some odd things.’

‘They found his search history?’

‘Yes, exactly. He wasn’t supposed to be on that computer at all. It’s only there for website orders and our client database. I said to Pamela, “what was he doing, messing around on the computer?” She said it must have been when she went out for lunch. You know, a lot of this is down to Pamela’s carelessness,’ said Ramsay, in a sudden burst of temper. ‘We were supposed to be so grateful for her help, but she was the one who left early on Friday, which meant Wright could close the door without setting the alarm!’

‘Really?’ said Robin, who’d just successfully cut, copied and emailed the relevant portion of camera footage to the agency’s address. ‘Why did Pamela leave early?’

‘She – it was a private matter,’ said Ramsay, looking uncomfortable. ‘But even so – damn careless of her.’

‘What had Wright been doing online, d’you know?’ asked Strike.

‘He’d been looking up things about Freemasons, and he’d been on some website that was all about clearing your name and escaping prison and things like that.’

‘It’d be very helpful if you could remember the details of that website,’ said Strike.

Kenneth screwed up his cherubic face.

‘It was called something like “Innocent and Accused”. People complaining they’d been framed, or blamed for things they hadn’t done, and advising each other how to get out of it. Some really nasty stuff on there. Advocating vigilantism, some of them. How to get their own back.’

‘Can you remember what the website looked like? A logo, or colours?’

‘Had a sort of eye-for-an-eye logo,’ said Ramsay. ‘Two hands, each holding an eye.’

‘And there’s nothing else you can tell us about Wright?’ said Strike. ‘Accent, mention of home life, interests…?’

‘Well, he wouldn’t tell the truth about anything like that, would he?’ said Ramsay, sounding frustrated. ‘He was a criminal. He was playing a part. Oh,’ he added suddenly, ‘but there was the email. We think Wright sent a strange email, from here. He used the Ramsay Silver email address.’

‘Who was the email sent to?’ asked Strike.

‘A man called Osgood.’

‘Did you tell the police about this?’