The Hallmarked Man полностью

‘No comment,’ said Robin coldly, refusing to look the young man in the face, but here came an older man, his phone recording in his hand.

‘Did you know about Candy, Miss Ellacott? Did you meet her?’

‘No comment,’ repeated Robin; she was at the door, had opened it, and slammed it in the reporters’ faces.

Up the two flights of metal stairs she ran, her operation site aching, until she reached the glass door. The first thing she saw on entering was Pat’s alarmed face; then she heard her detective partner’s voice as, probably, could the entire street.

‘YEAH, I’LL LEAVE A FUCKING MESSAGE! YOU TELL THAT CUNT I’M COMING FOR HIM, ALL RIGHT?’

‘Oh, for God’s—’

Robin ran through the dividing doorway into the inner office.

‘IF HE THINKS THE ONLY THING I CAN GET ON HIM IS THAT HIS WIFE—’

Strike’s first clue that his partner had arrived was his phone being wrenched out of his hand.

‘The fuck—?’

Robin stabbed at the screen to end the call.

‘You can’t go to war with Culpepper,’ she said fiercely, backing away from Strike while keeping a tight, two-handed grip on his phone. ‘You can’t! He’s got a national newspaper on his side!’

Strike looked at her, his expression thunderous.

‘So you’ve seen it. Obviously.’

‘Yes, I’ve seen it.’

‘He’s not fucking doing this to me. He’s not fucking doing it. I’ll fucking destroy that fucker, I’ll make him wish—’

‘Strike—’

‘They’ve paid some fucking – they’ve dragged up some—’

‘I know what they’ve done! We need to talk!’ said Robin, slamming the dividing door on the staring Pat.

Strike was pacing in his shirt sleeves.

‘What?’ he threw furiously at Robin, who was watching him. ‘You need me to say it, do you? Fine, I’ll fucking say it: I’ve never hired a sex worker – I’ve never hired one, full fucking stop, but I’ve sure as fuck never done it to entrap anyone.’

‘I know,’ said Robin (did she know? God, she hoped she did), ‘but this isn’t the way to deal with it, you’re just giving Culpepper more to print, threatening him!’

Robin wished her voice wasn’t shaking, but she had to ask the next question; matters had gone too far for polite avoidance of the subject.

‘Who was the woman in the first article?’

Strike now knew the fury of a cornered predator. His business under attack, his relationship with Robin threatened; he knew he owed her an explanation, and that it was crucial she heard the truth from him, and that he made it sound as unsordid as possible, but all he really wanted to do was start punching out windows.

‘Her name’s Nina Lascelles,’ he said. ‘The Honourable Nina Lascelles, if you want the full fucking – and she’s how I got hold of the manuscript of fucking Bombyx Mori,’ he said, referring to a book the agency had been keen to get its hands on. ‘Culpepper told me his cousin worked at the publishers, and gave me her contact details. We met, we went to the Roper Chard party together, she ran me off a copy of the manuscript. There was no seduction, no promise of anything. She enjoyed the adventure.’

‘And?’ said Robin, who was still holding Strike’s mobile tightly in both hands.

‘And I invited her to dinner with me at Lucy’s the next night. As a thank you.’

Robin, who’d never been invited to Lucy’s for dinner, couldn’t understand why Strike, most private of men, would have mixed business and family in this way.

‘And then—?’

‘I slept with her,’ said Strike aggressively, ‘yeah. Twice. And then I never called her again. But there was no fucking coercion, no quid pro quos, nothing.’

‘Right,’ said Robin.

‘It was – one of those things. I didn’t particularly—’

He had just enough sense to bite off the end of that sentence, but Robin had heard it, anyway. Didn’t particularly fancy her.

But you slept with her anyway, thought Robin, because of course you did. And now look.

‘She wanted a relationship,’ said Strike, who thought this was a point in his favour. ‘She wanted to keep it going. That’s why – I could tell she was carrying a grudge, the night I saw her at the Dorchester. She claims I fucked up one of her best friend’s lives, too.’

‘Whose?’ said Robin in alarm, visualising fresh vistas of fertile scandals for the tabloids to explore.

‘No fucking idea. Probably some cheating wife we investigated. But she guessed I was there on a job, at the Dorchester, so when Mr A told his ex he knew what she was up to—’

‘Well, going forwards,’ said Robin (Strike would have said exactly the same, she knew, had it been a question of another employee), ‘maybe you shouldn’t be doing the kind of jobs where you might bump into former girlfriends.’

‘There aren’t that fucking many of them!’