The Hallmarked Man полностью

The fake tan and the peroxided hair were no more. De Leon’s hair was what looked like its natural dark brown, and the perfect teeth for which Lord Oliver Branfoot had paid stood out, very white, against a face that was now naturally weather-beaten as opposed to fake tanned. He was short, strongly built and handsome, and continued to struggle with Strike until the latter shook him and bellowed,

‘FUCKING GIVE IT UP, WE’RE NOT HERE TO KILL YOU!’

‘We were worried you’d been murdered,’ panted the dishevelled and grass-stained Robin, clambering back onto her feet. ‘We thought you were a body—’

‘In a safe,’ said Danny, and immediately looked as though he wished he hadn’t. He’d stopped resisting but seemed both angry and scared. Raising his hands to his ears he said,

‘My earbuds—’

‘Forget your fucking earbuds,’ said Strike, whose jaw was bleeding and rapidly swelling. ‘We want to talk to you.’

Danny looked as though he’d have liked to refuse, but looking up at Strike, some of the fight seemed to go out of him.

‘Fine,’ he muttered. ‘We can go in the house.’

‘What about the owner?’ said Strike.

‘She’s out. She’s gone shopping on Guernsey with my mum.’

‘I’ll get your stick,’ Robin told Strike. ‘I’ll see you in there.’

So Strike stumbled off in the direction of the house, jaw throbbing, knee extremely painful for his run over slippery grass, and still holding on to Danny’s jacket in case he made a break for it, while Robin headed for the end of the lawn where she picked up Strike’s walking stick and found Danny’s earbuds, one of which had been crushed by a man’s foot.

The back door of Clos de Camille led directly into a neat kitchen with pale pink walls, hung with small seascapes that reminded Strike of Ted and Joan’s house in St Mawes. Danny had just sat down at the pine table when Robin entered with Strike’s stick.

‘You need to clean that,’ she said, looking at Strike’s face, where a livid cut had been made by the spade. ‘It’s bleeding and filthy.’

Strike moved to the sink and busied himself with soap and water, while Robin opened the door of the fridge freezer and found a packet of frozen peas. She handed the packet to Strike, who muttered thanks while drying his face with kitchen roll.

Now a fourth person arrived via the back door: Richard de Leon.

‘Oh Christ, what d’you want?’ cried Danny.

‘The fuck’s going on?’ demanded Richard.

‘Your brother just smacked me in the face with a spade,’ said Strike, the bag of frozen peas clutched to his jaw.

‘Why weren’t you answering your fucking phone?’ Richard demanded of his younger brother.

‘I was listening to music, all right?’

‘As we’ve already told you, Mr de Leon,’ said Robin, trying to defuse the situation, because both de Leon brothers looked on the verge of outbursts, possibly of physical violence, ‘we were worried your brother was dead.’

‘Well, he’s not, is he?’ said Richard.

‘Thanks for that,’ said Strike, frozen peas still pressed to his face. ‘We weren’t sure.’

‘Well, why’re you after him, if he’s not—?’

‘This isn’t complicated,’ said Strike, who now lowered himself onto a chair at the kitchen table, his knee excruciatingly painful, and more than willing to vent his own temper on anyone who presented a target. ‘A man was murdered, we got tipped off it was your brother, we look for your brother, he’s alive, it wasn’t him. I’ll draw it for you, if you want.’

‘You’re not helping, all right?’ Danny said resentfully to Richard. ‘Just fuck off out of it!’

‘Will I, fuck?’ asked Richard, and then, rounding on Robin again, who he seemed to feel was most likely to give him a rational response, ‘All right, you know he’s alive – why’re you still here?’

‘Because we’d like to ask him some questions about Oliver Branfoot,’ said Robin.

Richard looked from Robin to Danny and back to Robin again.

‘It’s real?’ he said, now looking more shocked than angry. ‘This Branfoot thing? It’s for real?’

‘I told you it fucking was!’ said Danny.

‘Yeah, but you talk a lot of shit, don’t you?’

‘Why don’t you just f—?’

‘It’s real,’ said Robin.

‘How do we know you’re not working for him?’ said Richard.

‘Is it likely we’d mention his name, if we were?’ snarled Strike. He could tell he was going to have a hugely swollen face when they arrived at the B&B.

‘Danny,’ said Robin, ‘how d’you know Lord Branfoot thinks you were the man in the safe?’

‘I was told,’ said Danny.

‘Who by?’

‘I’m not telling you that, no chance. They’ll be in for it next.’

‘You tell us, fuckwit,’ said Richard, who now dragged a third chair out from the table and sat down.

‘What’s it matter who tipped me off?’

‘Was it another actor in Branfoot’s private films?’ asked Robin.

‘I just told you, I’m not – how d’you even know about any of this?’

‘Your friend Fiona put an anonymous note through our office door,’ said Robin. ‘Her boyfriend told her you were the body in the vault, and she believed him. She’s very worried about you.’