The Hallmarked Man полностью

‘There’s a place up there we can sit for a bit,’ said Kim, pointing up the long marble-floored lobby. ‘And I’ve recced the bathroom the women at the event will be using, so I’ll make sure I’m in and out of it regularly, in case she lets anything slip during girl talk. God, I could use a drink. I’ve had a very weird couple of hours.’

‘Yeah?’ said Strike, as they reached the seating area. ‘Why’s that?’

‘First of all, get this – I got a call from Farah Navabi.’

Strike was immediately interested. Farah Navabi was an extremely good-looking, though not particularly competent, detective who’d been employed by his sometime nemesis Mitch Patterson.

‘What did she want?’

‘To hire me. She’s starting her own agency.’

‘The fuck’s she going to manage that? She planted the effing bug for Patterson. She’s going to be doing time right along with him.’

‘She’s confident she won’t,’ said Kim. ‘You don’t know Farah like I do. That woman could wriggle her way out of anything. God, I could use a drink.’

‘So what did you say?’ asked Strike.

‘Told her to get stuffed, obviously. I’m happy where I am and – oh, here she comes,’ Kim added in an undertone.

Strike glanced around. Mrs A was walking towards the ballroom doors, the same fake-fur coat she’d been wearing in Mount Street hanging open to reveal a floor-length sequinned purple gown. She was accompanied by a blonde wearing a corseted gold dress so tight Strike wasn’t sure how her internal organs could still be in their rightful places.

‘I’ll go and see if anything interesting’s being said at the coat check,’ said Kim, getting up to follow the women.

‘I’ll be in the bar,’ said Strike, getting to his feet: Mrs A ought not to see him sitting there alone. They weren’t going to be able to follow her into the gala dinner, of course, but Strike knew from similar jobs that once food had been consumed, and as long as you were appropriately attired and carried yourself with the right degree of casual entitlement, these events were very easy to gatecrash.

After years of tailing the well-heeled, Strike was familiar with the layout of most of London’s five-star hotels, so turned left at the end of the lobby. The Dorchester’s bar was decorated in gold and green with Art Deco touches, and was bestrewn with more Christmas foliage and fairy lights. He was informed by the man at the door, who emphasised Strike’s good fortune, that they could squeeze him in at the bar itself. Having ordered a double whisky, Strike had just pulled out his phone to kill time, when it rang in his hand.

‘Strike.’

‘Yeah,’ said a female voice so loud that Strike winced and held the phone away from his ear, ‘i’s Jade Semple.’ Her Estuary accent was so strong she pronounced her surname ‘Sempaw’. ‘Niall’s wife. You’ve wrote to me, on Facebook.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Strike, ‘thanks for getting—’

‘’Ow do I know you’re ’oo you say you are?’

She was throwing her voice as though speaking to him from the bottom of a well, and Strike was reminded of Bijou Watkins, who’d been similarly loud.

‘We can switch to FaceTime if you’d like. I could screenshot my driving licence?’

He heard a male voice speak in the background, and knew he was on speakerphone.

‘Not hard to fake a driving licence,’ the man said.

‘Or we could meet face to face?’ said Strike.

The phone now seemed to change hands, because the man spoke next at full volume.

‘Who’s hired ye?’

‘I can’t disclose that, I’m afr—’

‘Newspaper,’ said the man confidently. ‘Told you, babe.’

The line went dead.

Strike immediately saved Jade Semple’s mobile number, which she’d incautiously failed to hide.

‘Nothing interesting at the coat check,’ said a voice in Strike’s ear. ‘Oh good, we’re drinking. Vodka tonic, please,’ Kim told the barman. ‘They’re all sitting down for dinner,’ she informed Strike.

Kim’s drink arrived at the same time as the man beside Strike got up off his bar stool, and she got onto it instead.

‘Whoops,’ she said, with yet another laugh, as her dress snagged on her heel, tugging it down at the back, leaving Strike with good reason to suppose she wasn’t wearing anything at all underneath it. She downed several gulps of her drink before saying,

‘God, I needed that… anyway, get this. Right after Navabi called me, I had my ex turn up at my front door. I was wearing this,’ she said, gesturing down at the dress, ‘so obviously he thought I was off meeting someone new… nice big row, obviously. He’s such a fool. We split up,’ she went on, although Strike hadn’t asked, ‘because he got made redundant and that became his entire personality, being jobless. I’m not even kidding! “Hi, I’m Ray, I don’t work.”’

She laughed again. Strike didn’t think she was drunk, but there was a slightly frenetic air about her that recalled Kenneth Ramsay, jabbering desperately in an effort to sell what wasn’t wanted. Strike had no desire whatsoever to hear about Kim’s private life, but protracted silence might provoke questions about his mood he didn’t want, so he asked,

‘What did he do?’