The Hallmarked Man полностью

‘It did, yes. He’s been sacked – the delivery man from Gibsons. Ay’d had dealings with him once before. Name of Larry McGee. Careless, not at all the kaynd of person you’d trust with valuable deliveries. Ay’m not surpraysed Gibsons got rid of him.’

‘The silver was meant to arrive at lunchtime, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, but it didn’t get there until a quarter past three, and then McGee refused to carry it down to the vault, just dumped the crates in the middle of the shop, so Ay had to call Todd to come and help Wrayght lift it. Todd does Frayday afternoons at an office on Kingsway that closes at lunchtime, so he was nearby.’

‘And did anyone open the crates, to check the silver?’ asked Robin.

‘Yes, of course, Ay did mayself. Ay’m very careful about security, Ay wasn’t going to let those two handle valuable objects without me present. Ay opened the vault for them, and once they’d carried the crates inside, and were back upstairs, Ay went down, and took off the lids mayself. That’s when Ay opened the big crate and found McGee had delivered our things to Ramsays, so Ay knew the Oriental Centrepiece must be here. Wrayght went to fetch it from may husband.’ For a second, Pamela looked as though she might cry again, but she took a deep breath then said, ‘Afterwards, if you can believe it – after everything that had happened! – Kenneth grumbled that Ay’d bought a few things from the collection for Bullens. Said Ay’d broken a gentlemen’s agreement. Absolute nonsense! Nothing we bought was masonic, just a few nayce bits of general silverware. Ay think Kenneth believes anything A. H. Murdoch touched is his, by divayne rayte!’

‘He’s a personal fan of A. H. Murdoch, then?’ said Robin.

‘Oh, yes. Murdoch wrote books, you know. Kenneth’s got all of them. He belongs to some grotty little lodge in Lewisham – Kenneth, not A. H. Murdoch. May father was a mason, too, that’s whay Bullen & Co had a little saydlayne in masonic goods while he was alayve, but Daddy wasn’t anywhere near as silly about it all as Kenneth.’

‘So, once you’d put the Murdoch silver in the vault, it was a completely normal day?’ asked Robin. ‘You closed at the usual time, and so forth?’

A fractional pause followed, in which Robin was certain Pamela was reminding herself that she was caught on camera.

‘Ay had to leave a little early. Ay had an awful headache,’ said Pamela. ‘Ay’ve had them ever since the laser surgery.’

‘You got a text, didn’t you?’ said Robin casually. ‘Just before you left?’

‘What?’ said Pamela. ‘Oh – yes…’

Tears rose suddenly in Pamela’s eyes again.

‘Ay don’t want to talk about that. It had nothing to do with any of this, the Murdoch silver, or Wrayght. Ay asked Todd to man the shop until Wrayght got back. Everything was quayte safe. And then I went home.’

Leaving untouched the question of how Wright and Todd were supposed to have locked the door, set the alarm or opened the vault to place the centrepiece in it, Robin said,

‘I don’t suppose there’s any possibility of you giving us a clip of your own footage – just from when William Wright came here that Friday, to pick up the centrepiece?’

‘Well… Ay don’t see why not,’ said Pamela, still sniffing, but turning to her keyboard. Coffee and sympathy appeared to have softened her considerably. ‘But you won’t faynd it very helpful, Ay’m afraid. He’s only visible for a few seconds.’

When the segment of footage had been forwarded to her email, Robin said,

‘Would you mind looking at a picture for me?’

She took a copy of Rupert Fleetwood’s photo from her bag and held it out.

‘Our client would like to know whether this could have been William Wright.’

Pamela raised her reading glasses and peered at Rupert in his burgundy waiter’s uniform. Robin could tell she was having difficulty focusing. When Pamela shook her head, her stiffly lacquered hair didn’t move at all.

‘No, definitely not.’

‘You were all agreed William Wright was Jason Knowles, weren’t you?’ said Robin. ‘Everyone who worked at the shop, I mean?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Pamela. ‘Yes, it was definitely Knowles. Well, it made perfect sense. He’d spotted an opportunity. The security at Ramsays…’

‘The cameras look very old,’ said Robin.

‘Old?’ said Pamela, with resurgent scorn. ‘Bullen & Co replaced those models nay on twenty years ago, and the outside one hasn’t worked in all the tayme they’ve owned the shop. Kenneth never got round to fixing it. Thought just the sayt of it would be a deterrent.’

‘Right,’ said Robin. As she returned Fleetwood’s photo to her handbag, she said,

‘Mr Ramsay mentioned a funny email that had been sent from the shop, a week before the robbery. To a man named Calvin “Oz” Osgood? Saying they could help him with a problem?’

‘Yes, Wrayght sent it,’ said Pamela at once. ‘Well, it certainly wasn’t me, and Kenneth didn’t do it. Nayther of us had ever heard of the man.’

‘What about Jim Todd?’ asked Robin.

‘He shouldn’t have had the password to the computer,’ said Pamela. ‘Ay certainly never gave it to him.’