The Hallmarked Man полностью

‘Yeah, I knew why ’e’d asked. Fuckin’ masons,’ Daz said again, no longer smiling. ‘S’not funny, really, is it?’ he said, as though everyone else had been laughing.

‘Can you remember anything else he said?’ asked Robin. ‘Like, where he’d come from? Anything about his family?’

‘Nah,’ said Daz.

‘Don’t fink so,’ said Mandy regretfully, ‘I don’ fink… nah.’

‘Did he ever have visitors, that you can remember?’ asked Robin.

‘Yeah, a girl an’ some dick’ead in sunglasses. But ’e wasn’ ’ere then, wozee?’ Mandy asked Daz.

‘I wasn’t ’ere eiver,’ said Daz.

‘Oh yeah,’ said Mandy, and she smirked. ‘I forgot.’

‘Wright had visitors when he wasn’t in?’ asked Robin.

‘Yeah,’ said Mandy, ‘it was after ’e was killed. No,’ she corrected herself, ‘the girl was before. The bloke was after. I only realised later. Toldja, din’ I?’ she said to Daz, who nodded.

‘Can you tell me about them?’ asked Robin. ‘Starting with the girl?’

‘She come, like, the evening before ’e was killed.’

‘You’re sure of the date? Friday the seventeenth of June?’

Mandy looked alarmed at being asked to be so precise, but then said,

‘Yeah, it was then, ’cause that weekend, when all what ’appened, ’appened, me an’ ’im’ – she pointed at Daz – ‘we’d ’ad a row an’ I told ’im to get out, an’ when I ’eard someone open the front door in the evening, I fort it was Daz come back, so I open our door an’ I seen ’er.’

‘She let herself in?’

‘Yeah, she ’ad a key,’ said Mandy. ‘She looked foreign. Like, maybe Pakistani, but light. Black ’air, really long. An’ wearing a pink top wiv flowers on it,’ she added, and she looked pleased to have remembered it. ‘An’ she was carryin’ a suitcase.’

Beside Robin, Strike’s pen was moving ever faster.

‘An’ I says to ’er, “you movin’ in?” ’cause of Wright sayin’ ’is girlfriend was gonna move in wiv ’im an’ she says, “just visitin’” an’ she didn’ sound English an’ she wen’ upstairs an’ about an hour later, she come back down, ’cause I was lookin’ out of the window—’

‘Lookin’ for me,’ said Daz smugly.

‘No, I wasn’,’ snapped Mandy. ‘I was jus’ lookin’ out the window! She come down an’ she could ’ardly carry the suitcase now, an’ she ’eaves it into the boot of a car an’ off she goes.’

‘What can you remember about the car?’

‘Silver coloured,’ said Mandy. ‘Looked new.’

‘Can you remember a make?’

‘Nah,’ said Mandy. ‘An’ then, really early nex’ day, like, five in the mornin’, I ’ears the front door again—’

‘Couldn’ sleep,’ Daz said smugly. ‘Missin’ me.’

‘Missin’ you, my arse,’ said Mandy loftily, ‘but I fort it was gonna be Daz this time, so I got up an’ I opened our door an’ I seen this guy wiv curly ’air goin’ up the stairs, an’ ’e ’ad an empty suitcase an’ all, an’ ’e looked back at me when I come out into the ’all an’ ’e was wearing sunglasses, indoors. ’E looked a real twat.’

‘Was he black, white…?’

‘White. So I come back in ’ere, an’ I gets back into bed, an’ about ten minutes later there’s this, like, ’uge bang on the stairs, an’ I finks, what the ’ell’s goin’ on, an’ I gets back up and opens the door an’ this twat in the sunglasses ’as dropped the suitcase down ’em, an’ I says, “make more racket, why don’t you?” an’ ’e din’ say nuffing, jus’ dragged the suitcase out the door an’ slammed it. An’ I went to look froo the window again an’ ’e got in the car and off ’e went.’

‘When you say “the car”, you mean the same one the girl had been driving earlier?’

‘Looked like it. Yeah, I fink it must’ve been ’er drivin’, cause ’e put the suitcase on the back seat an’ got in the front passenger seat.’

‘And you’re sure both the man and the girl had been in Wright’s room?’

‘Yeah, I could ’ear ’em walking ’cross our ceiling. An’ I asked Hussein later, “did you see eiver of them people?” An’ ’e said no. An’ then, on the Monday, it was on the news Wright ’ad been killed, and I said to Daz—’

‘I come back Saturday evenin’,’ Daz informed Strike and Robin. ‘She’d suffered enough.’

‘Fuck off,’ said Mandy vaguely. ‘No, so, I says to Daz, “that was weird, those two goin’ in an’ out ’is room”.’

‘I’m only asking this for our information,’ Robin said, ‘not because we’re going to pass anything on. Did you tell the police any of this?’

Daz gave a little ‘huh’ of laughter.

‘Nah,’ said Mandy, showing her brown teeth as she grinned. ‘Jus’ said we didn’ really know ’im.’

Daz, of course, was dealing pot, and possibly other drugs; Strike and Robin had both registered the Ritalin joke, just as they’d noticed the court summons lying on top of the chest of drawers. Robin could well imagine that Daz and Mandy’s dominant emotions on finding police in the house would have been panic and a firm disinclination for letting them enter this squalid room.

Robin asked a few more questions, but Mandy had no information to give about either the couple’s clothing or age; the woman, she said, looked young and the man older, but the hall, she reminded Robin, was quite dark.

‘Did either of you ever see inside Wright’s room?’ Robin asked.

Both shook their heads.