‘Maybe the crocodile or whatever they’re keeping in the shed’s chewed its way out,’ said Strike. ‘I’m going outside so I can hear myself think and we can discuss Shanker.’
‘All right,’ said Robin, ‘but afterwards—’
‘I’ll buy something, yeah,’ said Strike with a sigh.
He forged his way through the crowded stationery department and at last, with relief, reached the pavement and took out his vape pen.
‘So,’ said Strike, while Robin continued to stride along, the pain in her side becoming ever sharper, ‘I called Decima and told her we’re fairly sure Fleetwood shook off Dredge the drug dealer by giving him cash. She’s not having it – or, more accurately, she thinks this proves he sold the nef to Kenneth Ramsay, but thinks Dredge killed him anyway, as a warning to Zacharias Lorimer.
‘I’ve also called Wardle and told him our criminal contact is certain that Jason Knowles’ body went to “Barnaby’s”, whoever or whatever that is, and that Knowles wasn’t the corpse in the Ramsay Silver vault.’
‘Great,’ said Robin, who’d been worrying about having information the police ought to have; hopefully Murphy would never find out where this information had come from, either. ‘You didn’t tell Shanker about the plainclothes—?’
‘Fuck’s sake, of course not!’
‘Sorry,’ said Robin quickly. ‘Sorry, of course you didn’t, I don’t know why I…’
But she did know why she’d said it: she was consumed with paranoia about her boyfriend finding out that she and Strike were meddling in matters that didn’t concern them.
Plug Junior had slowed down to take a call on his mobile, so Robin adjusted her pace accordingly. Her lower right side was now throbbing.
‘I really called about this hit business,’ said Strike, ‘and the fact that whoever allegedly ordered it knows we’re investigating – or knows
‘Where d’you think you were spotted?’
‘It’s got to be Ramsay Silver or St George’s Avenue,’ said Strike.
An ornate clock was set high on an archway to his left, a mechanical Saint George and the dragon above it, a legend in gold beneath it:
Back in Camberwell, Plug’s son was unlocking the allotment gate and Robin, with relief, had taken refuge beside a postbox.
‘This is getting bloody strange and murky,’ said Strike. ‘If we accept the premise that a rich, powerful Freemason wanted a man who was blackmailing him dead – and blackmailing victims do tend to want their blackmailers dead – I can’t see any earthly reason why the hit had to be carried out at Ramsay Silver. In fact, you’d think a murderous Freemason would want to keep the whole thing as far away from a masonic silver shop as possible, and why the
‘And if Wright really was the blackmailer of a wealthy Freemason,’ said Robin, watching Plug Junior hurrying towards the padlocked shed door, ‘why would he go and work for another Freemason?’
‘Well, exactly. The whole thing feels like something dreamed up by a conspiracy theorist. It’s like the plot of a B movie.’
‘But Shanker’s not a conspiracy theorist.’
‘You say that,’ said Strike slowly, ‘but get Shanker on to the subject of what powerful people in the law-abiding world get up to and things get fantastical, fast. You’ll never convince him that people who’ve achieved wealth and power legally aren’t really crooks, and he’s a firm believer in secret associations and hidden influence that people like him can’t access – and I know,’ said Strike, guessing what Robin was about to say, ‘unfair advantages and old boys’ networks exist, of course they do, but what Shanker believes goes way beyond that. If you told him the Prime Minister siphons off half the nation’s taxes and puts them in his own bank account, Shanker would tell you you’re a mug for not thinking he takes three quarters. At bottom, he thinks everyone’s as bent as he is, and world leaders and billionaires just conspire with each other to get away with it.’
‘He can’t think
‘He accepts that freaks of nature like me crop up from time to time, but he’s more credulous than you might think once outside his area of expertise.’
‘So you think Shanker’s got hold of the wrong end of the stick? It’s all rubbish?’
‘He claims to know the actual killer. He says the guy’s been mouthing off, pleased he got away with it. We’ve got to take that seriously. And there was that call to the office, too. It could’ve been a random nutter – but it might not’ve been.’
‘D’you want to drop the case?’ Robin asked, and she was surprised how unhappy she felt at the thought of doing so.
‘No,’ said Strike. ‘I’m getting more and more interested – but it’s not just up to me. That’s why I called.’