The Hallmarked Man полностью

She knew exactly why she’d been so careless, of course. Relieved at being alone, and not having to fake cheeriness for Murphy, she’d sunk back into brooding about Strike and Bijou Watkins, then been distracted by the presence at the shoot of Ciara Porter.

Nervy, angry at herself, and in spite of the fact she’d eaten barely anything all day, Robin took only two bites of the sandwich she made herself, then threw the rest in the bin. She debated calling her boyfriend, but decided against it, still angry about the way he’d spoken to her earlier. In any case, she couldn’t tell him about the man with the dagger; he’d overreact, and the last thing she needed right now was the burden of his concern, or renewed insistence that she shouldn’t be investigating the body in the vault.

No, the only person she could tell – the only person she had to tell – was Strike. She picked up her phone again and contemplated calling him, then decided she’d tell him the following day when they were in Ironbridge.

The man upstairs was probably out, because no music was pounding through the ceiling. This was good: Robin would be able to hear movement on her landing, have advance warning of anyone trying to get inside her flat. She went to run herself a bath. Twice, she hurriedly turned off the taps, convinced she’d heard a sound outside the front door.

Nobody’s going to break in. Calm down, for God’s sake.

She got into the bath, trying to enjoy the feeling of hot water, to relax. She needed to be able to sleep: she’d be up at five the following morning to pick up the hire car in which she’d be driving to Ironbridge, to interview Tyler Powell’s grandmother.

The gorilla mask swam into her mind’s eye, the pupils glinting in the street light. He was the third man who’d come at her, out of the dark: she remembered the hands throttling her in the stairwell, the scream of her rape alarm, the knife slicing her flesh…

Charlotte Campbell brandishing a knife on a barge; it’s on him Charlotte’s dead; a premature baby with an injured arm; fifty-five per cent chance of a live birth; the box at Chapman Farm; you don’t know what it’s like, to worry yourself sick about your daughter; a bracelet, a dagger and a rubber gorilla, hidden from the man she was house-hunting with; when you start undermining a fucking police investigation… We’re just trying to find Rupert Fleetwood… I’m really disappointed we didn’t get the house… Me? I’m great. Don’t worry about me…

She couldn’t tell the people who were supposed to love her the truth, because they didn’t want the truth, they wanted her to be the person whose lies weren’t lies.

The bath wasn’t helping. Charlotte Campbell had bled out in a tub like this…

Robin got out and pulled out the plug as though she could drain her dark thoughts with the water, dried herself and put on pyjamas. For the very first time since moving into this flat, she wished she didn’t live alone, and at once she remembered the night Strike had come to stay, when he’d snored on the sofa bed and she’d found the sound reassuring, because their office had just been destroyed by an explosive device…

Why was she thinking about Strike, not Murphy? She turned on the TV, then turned it off almost at once. She wanted to be able to hear footsteps.

You are a fucking pit pony. Getting dragged along in the dark, like some dumb animal.

You need to leave it. Then you won’t get hurt. Stop.

65

Little is the luck I’ve had,

And oh, ’tis comfort small

To think that many another lad

Has had no luck at all.

A. E. Housman

XXVIII, Last Poems

Strike had used the retractable walking stick he carried with him for emergencies to enter and leave the Travelodge in Penrith, and slathered the end of his stump in its usual moisturising cream before sleeping. Unfortunately, neither measure had ameliorated the pain in his right knee, which remained swollen and continued to resent the slightest amount of weight-bearing or movement.