The Hallmarked Man полностью

‘He was withdrawing money you didn’t know about?’

‘Yeah. Nobody’ll tell me ’ow much was in there, or wevver it’s all gone now. They jus’ come to me wiv a picture of the woman an’ asked if I recognised ’er, an’ I never seen ’er before in my life. Tattoo on ’er face,’ said Jade bitterly. ‘Classy.’

She bent down and let the Pomeranian off its lead; it bounded away onto the grass while Strike and Jade kept walking along the path.

‘What kind of tattoo did this woman have?’

‘You couldn’ see clear, it was under ’er eye. I shoulda known. I ’eard ’im on the phone to a woman, back at the ’ouse, abou’ a week before ’e buggered off. ’E was sayin’ “meet me at the Engineer”. I walked in the room an’ ’e looked fuckin’ guilty and ’ung up. We ’ad a row. I said, “’oo’re you meetin’? Wha’ Engineer?” ’E said ’e din’t know what I was talkin’ abou’. Fuckin’ liar. I know wha’ the fuckin’ Engineer is, I wen’ an’ looked it up. ’S a pub in Camden. Coincidence. Righ’ by where ’e was takin’ out money from ’is secret bank account.’

‘Are you sure it was a woman he was talking to?’

‘Yeah, I could ’ear ’er, squawkin’ on the other end of the phone,’ said Jade. ‘I was listenin’, froo the door, from the ’all.’

‘You told the police this?’

‘Yeah, an’ they say nobody at the pub remembers seein’ ’im at the Engineer, but so wha’? Crowded. I shoulda known. We on’y ’ad a monf, married, but we’ve bin togevver a lot longer’n tha’, and ’e played around on me – well, I played around on ’im, too – bu’ when we go’ married we bofe said, tha’ was it now, jus’ each ovver, y’know?’

‘Right,’ said Strike.

‘POM POM, NO!’ Jade bellowed, making Strike wince. The dog had picked up something Jade didn’t want it to eat. She strode away across the wet grass while Strike waited where he was in the heavy rain, watching her trying to wrestle whatever it was out of the Pomeranian’s mouth.

Jade reminded Strike of his oldest friend’s wife, Penny Polworth, not in looks – Jade was prettier, notwithstanding the crooked false eyelashes and bed hair – but in the way she spoke about her vanished husband. The Polworths had always seemed to Strike to live in a state of mutual animosity they appeared to consider the only natural condition for a man and a woman living together. Both seemed happiest on the occasions when they’d got their own way over the wishes of the other, and they constantly griped about each other, whether together or apart. Strike well remembered Polworth’s frank explanation of the reason he’d proposed (I thought of the money I’ve spent chasing gash, and the hassle, and whether I want to be watching porn alone at forty, and I thought, this is the whole point. What marriage is for. Am I going to do better than Penny? Am I enjoying talking shit to women in bars? Penny and me get on all right. I could do a hell of a lot worse. She’s not bad-looking. I’d have my hole already at home, waiting for me, wouldn’t I?). Strike had been best man at the wedding, and he seemed to remember both Polworths seeming happy enough on the day, but never, even once, had he envied their relationship; indeed, he couldn’t remember envying any marriage, except perhaps (he recognised it with an inward pang, never having really considered the matter before) that of Ted and Joan, who’d seemed to like each other just as much as they loved each other.

‘We’ll go this way,’ Jade called to Strike, beckoning him across the grass.

Rather than explain about his leg, Strike gritted his teeth and hobbled across the slippery grass to Jade and the Pomeranian, which had started yapping again, having been deprived of whatever rancid object it had been trying to swallow.

‘We can go over by the trees,’ said Jade, setting off again. ‘More shel’ered.’

As they walked, Strike pulled out his vape pen.

‘I ’ad one just like that,’ said Jade, squinting up at Strike, ‘but ’e fuckin’ took it off me.’

‘Who did, Niall?’ asked Strike, most of whose concentration was now given over to not stumbling.

‘Yeah, said ’e didn’ want me vaping. Fuck’s sake, I give up smoking for ’im, an’ going out anywhere, and bein’ stuck up in fuckin’ Crieff in the cold. I could at least ’ave a vape, couldn’ I?’

‘Can’t see why not,’ said Strike tactfully. ‘What did you mean when you said Niall was “a bit funny” about the masons, post-injury?’

‘’E was readin’ about ’em all the time, an’ not talkin’ for hours. An’ one day ’e went on a run an’ went all the way to fuckin’ Dunkeld.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Twenny-odd miles away. An’ ’e was stuck on the bridge.’

‘What d’you mean, “stuck”?’