The Hallmarked Man полностью

‘On S-Sunday the fifteenth of May,’ said Decima thickly, groping again for the red diary. ‘I c-cooked him dinner. He was r-really worried about Dredge coming for him, and about being unemployed, with the baby coming. So, you see, don’t you?’ said Decima, her eyes imploring. ‘He must have taken the nef to that shop, Ramsay Silver, and they agreed to take it, but they c-couldn’t let him have the money until they’d found a buyer! And then Ramsay Silver had a vacancy, and Rupe t-took it, just to have some money coming in! He’ll have thought, once the nef was sold, he could get Dredge off his back, and stop being William Wright, and come back to me! B-but then Dredge must have tracked him down and k-killed him!’

This was the first time Strike had ever met somebody who wanted an assurance their loved one was dead, rather than alive. This, he supposed, was the most extreme manifestation of a phenomenon with which he was only too familiar: a woman absolutely refusing to accept that her partner wasn’t what she thought him.

‘When did you last hear from Rupert?’

‘On the t-twenty-second of May… we talked on the phone. He was moving out of his house that weekend, so we d-didn’t talk for long… we – we—’

Sobs overcame her once more. Strike drank more of his now cool coffee. At last Decima said,

‘We argued. I wanted Rupe to j-just give the nef back to Daddy, but he refused, which wasn’t like him, he wasn’t usually like that, at all – he just told me it was his and he was keeping it! So you see’ – her voice rose to a wail – ‘it’s my fault, what happened! It’s my fault he went to Ramsay Silver! He thought he had nobody on his side, he was desperate… and then he was k-killed! His phone’s dead, his social media stopped – I went to the police, I was frantic with worry, and they didn’t get back to me for weeks, and in the end they told me R-Rupe’s in New York, which is just ridiculous, he’s not, I know he’s not!’

‘Why do the police think he’s in New York?’

‘They took his aunt’s word for it! She c-claims Rupe rang her on the twenty-fifth of May and told her he’d got a job there, but that’s ridiculous, he doesn’t know anyone in New York, what would he do there?’

‘What’s Rupert’s aunt’s name?’

‘Anjelica Wallner. She’s an awful woman, Rupe hates her! That’s what’s so ridiculous – he wouldn’t tell Anjelica anything!’

‘Have you spoken to Mrs Wallner yourself?’

‘Yes, but she just shouted “he’s in America!” and told me to stop p-pestering her! Rupe… well, he hadn’t told her we were together… she hates my father, or something…’

‘What about Rupert’s other relatives? Friends?’

‘Nobody’s seen him since the twenty-second of May! Sacha won’t even take my calls any more! All he said was, “if Anjelica says he’s in New York, that’s where he is!”

‘Nobody’s taking this seriously! Rupe’s friend Albie says he thinks Rupe went away to “get his head together” but even Albie’s stopped answering my calls now! Sacha won’t talk to me – Valentine’s been so vicious about it all, I came down here to have the baby in peace—

‘I need Lion to know his daddy only went away to try and fix things, and he never meant to leave us for good! I’ve got to prove it! And then I’ll be able to give Rupe a proper f-funeral… and at least we’ll have… a g-grave to visit. I can’t go on like this – I need you to prove it was Rupe in that vault!’ wailed Decima Mullins, her eyes as pink and swollen as a piglet’s, her thief of a boyfriend’s baby hidden beneath her dirty poncho.

3

Too suddenly thou tellest such a loss.

Matthew Arnold

Merope: A Tragedy

Robin Ellacott had lied to her detective partner about having a sore throat and a high fever. In fact, she was currently lying in a hospital bed on a morphine drip, determined that as few people as possible should know why she was there.

The previous afternoon, Robin had been crossing the concourse of Victoria station in pursuit of a surveillance target when she’d suddenly felt as though a red-hot knife had pierced her lower right side. Her knees had buckled and she’d vomited. A pair of middle-aged women had hurried to her assistance and, muttering in panic about burst appendixes, had hailed a station attendant. In a remarkably short period of time, Robin had been gurney-ed out of the station to a waiting ambulance. She had a hazy memory of the paramedics’ faces, of more searing pain, and the bumping of the trolley as she was sped into the hospital, then of the icy ultrasound wand on her belly, and the anaesthetist’s masked face. Her next clear memory was of waking up, being told that she’d suffered an ectopic pregnancy, and that her fallopian tube had burst.