The Hallmarked Man полностью

‘Well, he’s thick as shit, you see,’ said Valentine. He raked his hair out of his eyes, glaring at Robin through the huge black pupils. ‘He didn’t believe my father would call the police, because of publicity, but my father doesn’t give a shit what the press say about him and he certainly wouldn’t care what they write about Fleetwood. I told him at the party my father had rung the police as soon as he realised the nef had gone, so he panicked and fucked off again. Decima ought to have paid him what the nef was worth, to make him give it back. Apparently she hasn’t learned her lesson.’

‘What lesson?’

‘That if you want to turn a gigolo into a permanent fixture, you need to keep coughing up,’ said Valentine. ‘She married another leech in her twenties, did she mention that?’

‘No,’ said Robin.

‘Well, she did, so the family’s been here before. Mullins was a better-looking Fleetwood. Shitty business ideas, trying to make everyone invest, then bolt for someone better-looking once he realised Decima wasn’t actually a cashpoint, just shaped like one.’

The waitress arrived with Valentine’s lager. As he clearly wasn’t going to thank her, Robin did it.

‘Are you ready to order?’ asked the waitress.

‘I’m not eating,’ said Valentine.

‘Spaghetti carbonara, please,’ said Robin, who felt one of them should justify taking up a table. The waitress left again, and Robin said,

‘So you think Rupert left your sister for another woman?’

‘It’s what most of her boyfriends do.’

‘Your sister Cosima was upset by what Rupert said to her, at the party, right?’

‘So?’

‘What did he say to upset her?’

‘That’s none of your fucking business.’

‘Well, it is my business,’ said Robin, ‘because I’m being paid to find out why Rupert disappeared.’

‘He hasn’t fucking disappeared, he’s in America.’

‘How d’you know that?’

‘Sacha told me.’ After a slight hesitation, Valentine said, ‘Fleetwood was rude to Cosima when she told him he shouldn’t have gatecrashed, all right?’

‘She approached him, did she? To tell him he should get out?’

‘No,’ said Valentine, but then, ‘possibly.’

‘Sacha told my partner that Rupert seemed to have come looking for a fight. Who did he want to fight with? Cosima? You?’

Valentine sipped his Peroni.

‘Because I don’t think it adds up,’ Robin persisted, ‘that he went there just for free drink. He was moving out of his house that weekend. That’s always stressful, and hard work. Plus, I spoke to a good friend of Rupert’s, Albie Simpson-White—’

‘Who?’

‘He used to work at your father’s club. The way he described Rupert, gatecrashing that party would be quite out of character.’

‘But he did it,’ said Valentine, ‘so Albie What-ever-the-fuck’s powers of perception don’t seem great, do they?’

‘Sacha said Cosima was in tears. Does she cry that easily, in the middle of a party, just because a gatecrasher’s rude to her?’

‘Are you trying to be funny?’ said Valentine, suddenly aggressive, and leaning in.

‘I’m simply—’

‘If you or your fucking partner go anywhere near Cosima—’

‘We won’t need to, if you just tell me—’

‘Did you hear what I just said to you?’

‘Why did you agree to talk to me?’ asked Robin, feigning composure. When he’d leaned in she’d seen the slight residue of white powder around his nostrils; he’d taken cocaine either in the car or just before leaving God’s Own Junkyard. ‘People usually agree to an interview because they want to find out what we already know.’

‘Is this what the great detective’s taught you? Transparent little mind games?’

‘It’s not a mind game, I’m—’

‘D’you sit at Brokeby’s one and a half feet, drinking in his wisdom?’

‘Two feet, one fake. You’re thinking of his legs. But go on.’

‘That’s exactly the sort of thing he’d say, the point-scoring little fucking pedant.’

‘He’s hardly little,’ said Robin.

‘You’d know, of course.’

‘We’re seriously doing penis innuendoes, are we?’ said Robin.

‘Quod si non aliud potest, ruborem ferreo canis exprimamus ore.’

‘You’ll have to translate, I’m afraid. I never did Latin.’

‘Ask your fucking boyfriend to do it.’

‘My boyfriend doesn’t speak Latin, either.’

‘He’ll understand that.’

‘Cormoran Strike isn’t my—’

‘Oh,’ said Valentine. ‘Got bored already, has he? That was quick.’

‘We’re not together, and we never have been,’ said Robin. ‘I’m here—’

Her phone rang again. It was Linda, a second time. Robin refused the call.

‘You two were fucking as soon as he left Charlotte,’ said Valentine.

‘You’ve been misinformed,’ said Robin.

‘It’s you who’s been misinformed, dear.’

‘I think I’m more likely to know who I’m sleeping—’

‘Did you know he knocked her around?’

‘Mr Longcaster, I—’

‘Rather not hear hard facts about your hero?’

‘Cormoran Strike isn’t my hero, he’s my business partner,’ said Robin.

‘Charlotte told me you were pretty fucking starry-eyed whenever he walked in the room.’

‘She saw us together for about a minute and a half, tops,’ said Robin, starting to lose her cool against her will. ‘And as I recall, I was looking at her the whole—’