The Hallmarked Man

117

‘I still think,’ said Strike, ‘we’ll be very lucky to interest the Met with what we’ve got right now.’

He was back at the office, sitting at the partners’ desk, the sky jet black outside the window. He and Robin were still on the call he’d taken on the way to his car, two hours previously. Each had shared everything they’d discovered and deduced, and while both believed that, at long last, they’d isolated the puzzle pieces of William Wright from those of other men and assembled them correctly, their conversation had been going round in circles for a while.

‘I’ve been kicking myself,’ said Robin. ‘I should’ve seen…’

‘We’ve been hunting a needle in a fucking haystack,’ said Strike, ‘but I can’t see what our counterargument is if the police say all we’ve got is guesswork, a couple of fake Instagram accounts and an old ad on eBay… bloody good work finding that, though.’

He was looking at the old advert as he spoke, because Robin had sent it to him by email: second-hand weights, sold by a man in Dagenham in May of the previous year. Robin had already contacted the seller, and been told that a man called Will had purchased them for cash; he’d been delighted with them, because he hadn’t imagined such a set existed.

‘I’m nervous about you going it alone again,’ said Robin, refusing to be flattered out of her concerns.

‘I won’t be alone, I’m taking Barclay and Wardle.’

‘Going rogue, then. In the sense of getting arrested for breaking and entering again.’

‘This’ll be different.’

‘How?’

‘If I’m lucky, I’ll get in and out without anyone knowing I was ever there. You’re the one who thinks this might be life and death.’

Robin had indeed said this towards the beginning of the call, but two hours of circular discussion later she was feeling rather less optimistic.

‘That might’ve been wishful thinking. I hate saying this, but Sapphire Neagle might be dead. There’s been no sign of her in months and we know he’s got no qualms about killing people who’ve outlived their usefulness.’

‘Well, if you and Midge are successful at Ramsay Silver tomorrow morning, we’ll have solid evidence at least part of our theory’s right. Did I tell you Ramsays has been closed up ever since they found out Todd was murdered?’

‘No,’ said Robin. ‘Why?’

‘Apparently the assistant walked out, afraid she might be the next employee killed, his wife’s in no fit state to return to work and he’s barely clinging on at his financial services job. He says he’s going to declare bankruptcy.’

‘Oh no,’ said Robin.

‘You’ve always felt sorrier for him than he deserves,’ said Strike. ‘I know about the dead son and the ill wife, but the man’s an idiot.’

‘All right, calm down,’ said Robin, in mild surprise at Strike’s grouchy tone. ‘People make mistakes.’

‘Yeah, and I’ve made plenty, but I’m not sentimental about people who make easily avoidable, repeated fuck-ups and that bloody shop was a fuck-up from the start.’

He heard beeping.

‘Got another call?’

‘Yes, sorry – I’ll have to take this, it’s Ryan. I’ll—’

‘Fine, speak to you tomorrow,’ said Strike curtly, and he rang off.

‘Hi,’ Robin said to her boyfriend.

‘Everything OK with you?’ asked Murphy.

‘Great,’ she answered, because what else could she say?

I think, tomorrow, we might be breaking a case the police got badly wrong, but I haven’t been able to tell you how we got there, because that would involve me telling you a whole load of things I’ve been deliberately concealing from you. Also, my work partner’s about to break into a private house again and I haven’t done anything to stop it.

‘What’s going on with you?’ she asked. ‘How’s the pipe bomb guy?’

‘Confirmed as a kid with interpersonal problems,’ said Murphy. ‘Nothing to do with the Westminster attack.’

‘Good,’ said Robin, though she wasn’t sure why. Bombs were bombs. Perhaps it was a relief to think the youth had turned murderous alone, not as part of an organisation. Her sense of foreboding had been increasing throughout her conversation with Strike; Oz had an unknown number of associates.

‘Anyway,’ said Murphy, ‘I’ve been thinking about my birthday.’

It took Robin a few seconds to recalibrate her brain to everyday life. Of course, Murphy’s birthday was fast approaching: she’d need to buy him a present, in addition to those she still hadn’t purchased for her new nephews.

‘I’ve booked the restaurant at the Ritz,’ said Murphy. ‘I was thinking, we don’t push the boat out often enough. I’m giving you plenty of notice so you can get the night off, all right? Because they’ve got my credit card number.’

‘Oh,’ said Robin blankly. ‘OK. I mean – right, I’ll make sure I’ve got it off.’

Fearing she’d been insufficiently enthusiastic, she added,

‘That’ll be lovely, the Ritz.’

But after Murphy had hung up, Robin sat frozen, staring at the Raoul Dufy print hanging above her mantelpiece. It showed a seascape viewed through two open windows, and it added a trace of yearning to her sudden feeling of panic.

Her boyfriend’s preference when eating out had always been gastropubs. Never, in the whole of their relationship, had he suggested going anywhere as fancy as the Ritz. It wasn’t that he was parsimonious: on the contrary, he was a generous tipper, the first to offer to buy a round, but he’d never shown the slightest inclination for French food, or the kind of restaurant for which you needed to dress up.

Ten miles away, Strike was regretting the tone he’d taken with Robin about Kenneth Ramsay. His strictures on those who did stupid things and were far too easily forgiven by Robin had very little to do with the silver shop owner and everything to do with the lapsed alcoholic whose proposal, he was certain, was approaching fast.

Work usually enabled Strike to forget his personal troubles; he was adept at sectioning off parts of his brain and focusing exclusively on whatever needed to be done, a talent honed in the military. Unfortunately, the tactic wasn’t working particularly well these days, because the person on whom he was trying not to dwell was inextricably linked with the job.

Nevertheless, careful planning and preparation were essential if he was going to get away with what he’d be attempting the following day, so, doing his best to push thoughts of Robin and Murphy aside, Strike resumed making a list of the things that needed to be done or procured before he dealt with what would hopefully be the last part of the silver vault job. Having read through everything he’d written so far, Strike added Handcuffs (multiple?), pondered for a while longer, then wrote the word ‘priest’. This done, he turned out his desk lamp, picked up his notebook and left for his attic.

118

‘There’s a reason why we’re startin’ oot at seven a.m., is there?’ yawned Barclay, arriving at the garage where Strike kept his BMW the following morning. Barclay was holding a McDonald’s bag that smelled of bacon. Wardle, who’d arrived a couple of minutes earlier, was drinking a takeaway coffee.

‘Yeah, you two are going to go ahead and scope out the territory,’ said Strike. ‘My face and car have both been seen there, so I won’t be showing myself till after dark. You can drive us as far as the rental,’ he added, handing the car keys to Wardle. ‘Don’t want my leg seizing up if I have to fight.’

‘We can handle him, if it comes to that,’ said Wardle, walking around the car.

‘Neither of you are going to get involved in physical stuff unless it’s absolutely necessary,’ said Strike. ‘If I get caught, it’ll be a pain in the arse, because the police are already fucked off at me and I’ll be back in the news. But if a bloke who’s only just left the Met is caught breaking and entering, or my subcontractor who’s recently been arrested for climbing on roofs is done for assault, we’ll have far too high a percentage of the workforce whose names and mugs have been in the papers.’

‘Ah get car sick in the back,’ said Barclay gloomily, as Strike got into the front passenger seat.

‘You’ll be fine,’ said Strike, ‘unless they’ve shoved prawns in your Egg McMuffin.’

‘Ye can forget borrowin’ mah knuckledusters, if that’s yer attitude,’ said Barclay, drawing his long legs into the car.

119

‘Hi,’ said Midge, joining Robin at the end of Wild Court at a quarter to nine. The dull grey morning was chilly and Midge was wearing a scarf with her leather jacket, while Robin was regretting that she hadn’t put on a sweater. Both women were carrying large holdalls, and Robin smiled as Midge’s clinked.

‘Great minds,’ she said, adjusting her own on her shoulder.

‘Yeah, I brought most of my tool kit.’

They headed together into the alleyway, past the bins and the rear entrance to the Connaught Rooms.

‘How’re things with you?’ asked Robin, who hadn’t had a proper conversation with Midge in weeks.

‘Not bad. Did a bit of rebound shagging last night.’

‘Good for you,’ said Robin, feigning amusement, though ruptured relationships and hurt feelings were the last thing she wanted to think about right now. I’ve booked the restaurant at the Ritz… I’m giving you plenty of notice… ‘Who’s the lucky woman?’

‘Name’s Ellen. She’s my second to last ex’s ex.’

‘Ah,’ said Robin.

‘Always thought she was hot. She’s got a fookin’ horrible cat, though.’

‘Really?’

‘It’s only got three legs,’ said Midge.

‘You can’t blame it for that,’ said Robin, thinking of Strike.

‘And only one eye.’

‘Still—’

‘And when it’s unhappy, it shits in the bath.’

Robin started to laugh, then spotted Kenneth Ramsay walking fast towards them, his silver hair ruffled, his jacket hanging even more loosely on him than it had the last time Robin had seen him.

‘This is all very – when I got Mr Strike’s phone call—’

‘Please don’t get your hopes up too much,’ said Robin. ‘We don’t know for sure our theory’s right.’

But she could tell, by Ramsay’s agitated air as he fumbled with the shop keys, that he was praying for a miracle.

120

As they drove north, Strike told Barclay and Wardle how he believed William Wright had died, and why. He found it a useful exercise, because their incredulity showed him exactly what he and Robin would need to do if they were to convince the police.

‘If that’s what happened,’ said Wardle, ‘it’s the most convoluted fucking murder I’ve ever heard of and I can’t believe he brought it off.’

‘He didn’t,’ Strike pointed out, ‘or we wouldn’t be coming for him, would we? The thing was too complicated by half. Too many moving parts. Well, that and the fact he couldn’t resist adding a sex crime into the caper. Never mix business with pleasure.’

‘I think you’re going to be lucky pinning the whole thing on that footprint,’ said Wardle.

‘If we’re right, there’ll be a damn sight more physical evidence than a footprint,’ said Strike. ‘Though I admit we haven’t got any of it yet, and don’t know where some of it is.’

They arrived at the car rental in Banbury shortly after nine o’clock. Wardle and Barclay picked up their hired Mitsubishi and continued north, leaving Strike to find somewhere to kill a few hours in the small town. The Old Town Deli and Café provided not only coffee, but an outside table where Strike could consume two flapjacks, vape and read the day’s news off his phone.

Islamic State had now claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack on Westminster Bridge. The driver had been identified as Khalid Masood, a fifty-two-year-old British resident and Muslim convert with a long string of criminal convictions in his past. Strike scrolled down the BBC website in search of distraction. Robin still hadn’t rung him, and if his theory about Ramsay Silver was proven wrong, he might yet have to call Barclay and Wardle and tell them to turn back. It was therefore with less interest than he might have taken a few days previously that he saw Dominic Culpepper’s name. The journalist had been sacked from his paper, and Strike strongly suspected this was because of the baseless Candy story.

His phone rang. He snatched it up without checking who it was, so was momentarily disconcerted to hear Shah’s voice rather than Robin’s.

‘Hi,’ said Shah. ‘I, ah… I’m calling to apologise.’

‘What for?’ said Strike, so preoccupied he couldn’t immediately recall what Shah had to feel sorry about.

‘For saying what I said, about the silver vault case, and for believing Cochran when she said you’d come on to her. Wardle and I have had a chat, and… yeah. I shouldn’t have taken her at face value. And I know you’re pressing on to try and find out who killed those people, out of your own pocket, so I… I’m not proud of what I said to you.’

‘Fuck it, I’ve said plenty of stuff I’m not proud of,’ said Strike. ‘How’s the leg?’

‘Painful,’ said Shah.

‘I’ll bet it is. Don’t worry about money, we can pay you the average monthly fee while you’re off.’

‘That’s bloody decent of you,’ said Shah.

‘Yeah, well, I’d rather keep you at the agency,’ said Strike.

He heard a beeping.

‘Shah, I’ve got to go, that could be Robin.’

He switched calls without waiting for a response.

‘Hi,’ said Midge’s voice. ‘We’re nearly in. Robin thought you might like a blow-by-blow. She’s almost got the back off.’

Robin, who was slightly shorter than Midge, and somewhat thinner, was kneeling inside one of the old cupboards in the Ramsay basement, from which they’d removed all cleaning products. Only her feet were visible as she used Midge’s claw hammer to prise out nails.

‘What does it look like?’ said Strike. ‘Recently tampered with?’

‘There are new nails,’ said Midge, ‘but we still don’t know whether the wall’s intact behind the board.’

Kenneth Ramsay was sitting on the steep wooden steps leading down into the basement space, his head in his hands.

‘Got it,’ came Robin’s muffled voice, and Strike heard scuffling and thuds.

Dishevelled and dusty, Robin manoeuvred herself backwards out of the cupboard, dragging the board that had been at the back of the cupboard with her.

‘Give me your sledgehammer,’ she told Midge. ‘The bricks have been reassembled but they’re loose.’

‘Did she just say the bricks are loose?’ a very tense Strike asked Midge.

‘Yeah,’ said Midge, as she passed Robin the sledgehammer. The latter crawled back into the cupboard, only her feet protruding, and Strike heard more muffled thuds.

‘What’s happening?’

‘She’s trying to break through the wall.’

Robin had battered the bricks as hard as she could in the cramped space and one of them fell through into the empty space beyond. With a definite clang, it hit something metallic.

‘Torch,’ she called to Midge, who provided one.

‘Did she—?’

‘She wanted a torch, I gave her one,’ said Midge.

Coughing in a small cloud of dust, her eyes watering, Robin pushed the sledgehammer back out of the cupboard and turned on the torch, so she could see through the hole left by the fallen brick.

The torch’s beam fell upon a treasure trove of silver, crammed into the dead space behind the wall. She saw the Oriental Centrepiece, ugly and ornate; the silver mauls and set squares; John Skene’s ceremonial dagger and, its silver sails and rigging cast in shadow on the wall behind it, the nef of the Carolina Merchant. In a far corner were what looked like balled-up clothes. The shirt was covered with rusty brown stains.

Robin wriggled backwards out of the cupboard and reached up for the phone in Midge’s hand.

‘It’s there,’ she told Strike. ‘Looks like all of it. Plus Wright’s clothes.’

‘Shoes?’

‘Can’t see any.’

‘Fuck,’ said Strike.

He’d thought it likely, on the balance of probabilities, that the Murdoch silver had never actually left the shop, but hearing that theory confirmed was an immense relief. Then he heard a loud, echoing wail.

‘The hell’s that?’

‘Er – that was Mr Ramsay,’ said Robin.

The shop owner had flung himself onto all fours to squeeze himself into the cupboard and peer through the hole Robin had made. Now he was sobbing hysterically, only his legs and backside visible.

‘Hang on,’ said Robin, as Ramsay’s echoing wails filled the small space, and she climbed the stairs back up to the shop floor. ‘He’s a bit overwrought,’ she said quietly.

‘I’ll bet he is,’ said Strike.

‘I wonder how long it took Todd to make the hole in the wall,’ said Robin. ‘The mortar was old and crumbly, so I don’t think it would have been that hard. The worst bit would have been him cramming himself into the cupboard to do it.’

‘A problem our friend Oz won’t have had, when shoving all the silver in there,’ said Strike.

‘True… where are you at the moment?’ said Robin, now standing in the dark and dusty shop floor.

‘Banbury, waiting to hear from Barclay and Wardle.’

‘You’re waiting till after dark?’

‘There can’t be witnesses this time,’ said Strike. ‘I’m on very thin ice as it is. Listen, I was thinking about Fleetwood on the way up here. Why don’t you – shit, hang on—’ he said, as his phone began to beep, ‘I’ll call you back.’

He hung up and answered the new call.

‘Hi,’ said his Met contact, George Layborn, in a lugubrious voice. ‘You were right.’

‘You’ve found him?’ said Strike, startled. ‘Already?’

‘Yeah.’

‘That was quick.’

‘There’s a general feeling your tips shouldn’t be disregarded, after Knowles. Family’s being notified this morning.’

‘OK, thanks for letting me know.’

‘Anything else you want to share, while we’re at it?’

‘Not yet,’ said Strike.

‘What are you up to?’ said Layborn, with what Strike was forced to admit was justifiable suspicion.

‘You don’t want to know,’ said Strike.

He hung up and called Robin back.

‘Layborn,’ he said, without preamble. ‘They’ve found Semple’s body.’

‘Oh God.’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike, ‘but it’s closure. Easier than never knowing. Listen, could you persuade Ramsay not to mouth off about his silver being found until I’ve taken care of the rest of business? Explain to him that it’s in his best interests – that otherwise it might look like he was trying to drum up publicity, hiding the silver on the premises himself.’

‘OK,’ said Robin. ‘But please be careful.’

‘I think that’s what’s called “rich”, coming from the woman who once jumped in front of a moving train,’ said Strike. ‘All right, I’ll be careful. That’s Barclay,’ he added, as his phone began to beep again. ‘I’ll keep you posted.’

He hung up on her a second time and accepted Barclay’s call.

‘We’re here,’ said the Glaswegian, ‘but he’s just left, wi’ a van full of other guys. Wardle’s followed ’em. Ah’m still watchin’ the house.’

‘OK,’ said Strike, ‘I’m moving closer.’

He paid for his flapjacks and coffee, visited the café’s bathroom, returned to his car, and set off in the direction of Ironbridge.

121

Night had fallen by the time Strike decided it was safe for him to re-enter the small town that had seemed so quaintly beautiful by daylight. It had an entirely different aspect now, or perhaps it was what Strike knew about one of its inhabitants that had endowed the broad, black Severn and the gigantic arched bridge with menace. Between the river and the bridge to his left, and the houses that seemed to tumble down the steep hill on his right, he experienced some of the primitive mistrust of ravines and chasms, a sense of being hemmed in and trapped. He thought of the seemingly bottomless al-Hota gorge, the dead who’d been thrown there, and the tales told of what lay in the depths.

The lights of the Swan Taphouse, where he and Robin had argued, twinkled cheerfully up ahead. He took the hairpin bend right into New Road, which they’d climbed on foot, passing the blue plaque commemorating Billy Wright, and a lit window in Dilys’s muddy orange cottage, before parking a few doors down from Tyler Powell’s old family home.

As he got out of the BMW, a tall figure emerged from the darkness.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Strike.

‘Just heard from Wardle; they’re still in the pub in Horsehay,’ said Barclay. ‘Fifteen-minute drive from here. Unless there’s someone in there who’s happy wit’oot any lights, the house is empty.’

‘How many others did he leave with?’

‘There were two up front but probably more in the back o’ the van.’

‘Tried the doorbell?’

‘Aye. Naebody answered.’

‘Right,’ said Strike, checking his coat pockets for his skeleton keys, handcuffs and the heavy fisherman’s priest, ‘I’m going in. If you see any sign of him or the van returning, call me.’

‘An’ if Ah hear ye yellin’ “help”?’

‘Ignore me, obviously.’

Strike set off up the street. The night was crisply cold, the moon a waning crescent hanging sickle-like over the trees on the opposite bank of the Severn. No lights shone inside the Powells’ old house, though the For Sale sign had disappeared: presumably Ivor had at last received an offer that satisfied his greedy expectations.

Strike turned right, and headed down the path leading to Ian Griffiths’ back door. Pulling out his skeleton keys he set to work, hoping there wasn’t going to be a chain or bolt across the inside.

After a couple of minutes, the lock cooperated and the door opened, with a faint creak. Strike stepped over the threshold into the pitch-black hall and closed the door quietly behind him.

A musky, dirty smell that had been absent the last time he’d been here filled his nostrils, although possibly the joss sticks, of which he could still detect a faint trace, had masked it previously. Moving cautiously and quietly, he entered the sitting room and pulled the curtains across the window before switching on his phone’s torch. The beam fell almost at once on the small model of the Manneken Pis. He looked slowly around the room by torchlight. As before, tacky souvenirs were in evidence everywhere. The light’s beam illuminated the poster of Jesus smoking a joint, and caused the Thai elephant to glint before travelling to the plentiful photographs of Chloe, demonstrating what a good father Ian Griffiths was, how proud of his daughter, now travelling abroad with her handsome boyfriend. And there was the picture of the pretty woman wearing a red beaded necklace, arms around the young Chloe. Strike wondered whether she was still alive. For Griffiths, that ruby necklace seemed to be the equivalent of Daesh’s orange execution jumpsuits.

Just as Strike was about to leave the room, he heard the distant ringing of a mobile.

Instantly turning off his torch, he stood stock still, listening.

A clunk overhead that made the light fitting quiver. Someone was in the room directly above him.

He moved stealthily to flatten himself against the wall beside the door into the sitting room, as a male voice became gradually clearer.

‘’S me, Jonesy. ’Oo else would it be? You jus’ called me, you tit – you pissed?’

Someone was coming downstairs, somebody large and heavy, by the sound of them. The hall light went on. Strike slid his phone into the left pocket of his overcoat and extracted Ted’s fisherman’s priest from the other.

‘Yeah, go on… hahaha… no, I was having a kip… wha’?… shitfaced last night, ’s’why… yeah, obviously… babysitting, aren’ I? All right, yeah, I’ll get ’er ready… hahaha… cheers.’

Strike heard footsteps, a faint rustle, followed by a thump. It sounded a lot like the noise Griffiths had claimed had been made by Dilys when she’d left the room, banging into a hall table.

‘You need ta wash,’ he heard the man say. ‘Mickey wants a go, they’re coming back.’

‘I can’t reach the stuff,’ said a girl’s pitiful voice. ‘He tied me up again.’

‘I’ll wan’ something if you make me come down there,’ said the man. ‘Blow job, or you can stay mucky.’

Strike moved as quietly as possible out into the hall, the priest in his fist. Nobody was visible. He rounded a second corner.

Directly ahead, to the left of the stairs and with his back to the detective, stood a man the same size as Strike himself, with a fat neck and short dark hair. He appeared to be preparing to go down through an open trapdoor, beside which lay a bunched-up rug.

Wynn Jones either heard or sensed Strike. He turned his head, but too late: the fisherman’s priest had already begun its descent.

122

The blow fell upon Jones’ skull with a loud crack and he fell forwards, smacking his forehead on the opposite edge of the rectangular hole in the floor and falling clumsily through it, hitting first a short ladder then, with a resounding thud, the basement floor. Strike moved forwards to see Jones’ sizeable body sprawled, unmoving, on concrete. Well aware there was a strong possibility he’d just killed a man, he stepped onto the ladder and, hampered by the heaviness of his overcoat, climbed with some difficulty down into an underground space that smelled much more strongly of the musky smell he’d already detected, now with faecal and urinous overtones.

‘Who are you?’ said a girl’s terrified voice.

She was sitting against the far wall. As Strike’s eyes acclimatised to the pitch darkness, he saw a skull-like face and sunken eyes. The pallor of her skin shone, moonlike, in the darkness, and he could see on a cursory glance that she was wearing very little. He pulled off his coat and approached her, stooping so his head didn’t hit the very low ceiling, then dropped the coat over her.

‘I’m here to help you. Are you tied up?’

‘Yeah,’ she said, her voice shrill and panicky. ‘Who are you?’

‘A detective.’

The basement room looked as though it had been dug out by the owner himself. The concrete floor was uneven and lumpy. There was a toilet in the corner. A low pipe ran around the bottom of the wall. Two enormous dildos lay on a small wicker table. There was also a washing-up bowl of soapy water with a sponge floating in it.

He bent down to examine the girl’s arm, which was both tied and chained to the pipe that ran around the bottom of the cavern wall; it certainly wouldn’t be quick work to free her.

‘You’re Sapphire?’ he asked.

‘How did you know?’

‘We’ve been looking for you. I’ll get you free,’ he promised her, ‘I just need to check whether that fucker’s dead.’

Still stooping, Strike returned to Jones and felt for a pulse in his neck. He found one, but wasn’t prepared to bet Jones hadn’t broken his neck in the fall. Notwithstanding his receding hairline, the porky Jones looked absurdly young, unconscious.

Strike was certain his phone, which was still in the pocket of the coat covering Sapphire, wouldn’t have reception underground.

‘I’m just going to get my mobile and go back upst—’

‘No – let me go, first! Let me go!’ Sapphire cried, her voice rising to a wail.

‘I need to call some people who can help free you.’

‘Let me go! LET ME GO!’

‘Shut up!’

Strike had heard something above: the unmistakeable sound of the back door opening, followed by a rumble of men’s voices.

‘Oh God, no, no, no, get out, he’ll kill me—’

Strike gestured furiously at the girl to be quiet as he crept back towards the opening in the ceiling, rapidly calculating odds. He didn’t doubt Wardle or Barclay had tried to warn him that Griffiths and friends were on their way home, and it wasn’t their fault he was currently in a concrete chamber underground without phone reception, but that didn’t alter the undoubtedly perilous position he and the girl were now in. His glib response to Barclay’s ‘an’ if Ah hear ye yellin’ “help”?’ was no longer so funny; possibly his colleagues were waiting for a sign or a shout that he required assistance, but as making any noise right now would expose his presence to what sounded like four or five men, one of whom he knew to be a serial killer, Strike chose instead to move into the shadows behind the ladder.

Loud music began to play from the sitting room: Steely Dan.

Any moment now, somebody – possibly the ‘Mickey’ mentioned by Jones, who ‘wanted a go’ – was going to turn the corner in the hall and see the open trapdoor and the unconscious Jones. The men’s loud conversation mingled with the music.

‘Get out of ’ere,’ whimpered Sapphire. ‘’E’ll think it’s my fault—’

‘Be quiet!’

‘’E’s killed people!’ Sapphire whispered.

‘I know, be quiet!’

He needed Wardle and Barclay; if they could at least make the men above believe they were police, he might have a chance—

‘The fuck?’ said a male voice, directly overhead, and a shadow appeared on Jones’ motionless body. ‘Jonesy?’

A small, trainered foot on the topmost rung of the ladder. Strike reached through the gap, grabbed the ankle and pulled.

Ian Griffiths fell with a yell Strike hoped would be masked by the music playing upstairs, landing on and then rolling off the unconscious Jones.

Strike barrelled into Griffiths before the latter could stand, slamming him down onto the concrete floor, large right hand over Griffiths’ mouth, the other groping for Griffiths’ wrist, but too late—

Strike felt a burning pain as a blade slashed the side of his head; he was lucky his face hadn’t been ripped, but his ear had been sliced—

Blood now gushing from his head wound, Strike succeeded in grabbing the wrist of Griffiths’ knife-holding hand, then slammed it down on the rough concrete floor, too, until he heard the blade fall out of Griffiths’ grasp, while Griffiths tried to shout out as loud as he could with Strike’s other hand clamped over his mouth. Strike banged Griffiths’ head repeatedly on the floor, trying to dissuade him from struggling—

The music playing from the sitting room stopped. Strike heard a pounding on the back door. Then came a shout he recognised as Wardle’s.

‘Open up, police!’

Strike heard running feet above; a shadow slid over Strike and Griffiths and the trapdoor closed, kicked shut by somebody who didn’t seem to have looked below. The three men and the girl were now sealed up together in darkness and Strike heard the rug being slid back over the hatch to hide it.

A loud groan echoed through the cramped space: Jones was coming round. Strike, who guessed Jones was at least twenty years younger than him, didn’t fancy his chances against him, given Jones’ bulk, a sliced ear that was already making him feel nauseous, a second man to keep at bay, and a knife lying somewhere in the dark.

‘The fuck?’ came Jones’ groggy voice. ‘Fuck ’appened?’

Strike was still fighting to keep the struggling Griffiths pinned to the ground, hand over his mouth. He couldn’t hear properly out of his left ear, because it was full of blood.

‘Fuck ’appened?’ repeated Jones, and Strike heard movement; far from being glad Jones hadn’t broken his neck, he now wished he had. Griffiths was trying to speak through Strike’s hand and producing only a strangled hum.

‘’Oo’s there?’ said Jones, sounding fearful. ‘’S’goin’ on?’

Though deadened by the trapdoor and rug, shouting and banging now became audible above. As Barclay and Wardle were outnumbered by more than two to one, Strike doubted he could count on immediate assistance. Taking his hand off Griffiths’ mouth, because it didn’t much matter if the fucker yelled now, he aimed a punch at the place he knew Griffiths’ face to be and heard his yelp of pain. Blood continued to rain down from the knife wound to Strike’s ear.

‘Wha’s going on?’ repeated Jones, and Strike felt a large hand grope for his shoulder, which was covered in blood. ‘The fuck are you?’

‘STRIKE?’ came Wardle’s voice.

‘DOWN HERE,’ bellowed Strike.

‘Wha?’ said the unseen Jones, and Strike heard him stagger to his feet then his cry of pain as his head smacked into the low ceiling.

The trapdoor opened and Strike saw Wardle looking down at him.

‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ he said in alarm, and Strike realised his left shoulder was drenched in shining scarlet.

‘Need assistance,’ panted Strike, still sitting on Griffiths.

‘Barclay!’ yelled Wardle, before dropping into the space without using the ladder.

Had Barclay not slid into the cellar then, Strike doubted things would have gone well for Wardle, because young Jones, though still groggy, appeared to have realised the strangers didn’t have his good at heart. His attempt to rush the ex-policeman was frustrated by the Scot, who, seizing the ladder off its legs, swung it round, narrowly missing Strike’s head, and knocked Jones sideways, upending the table on which the dildos were sitting.

‘Knife, somewhere,’ panted Strike, pinning the struggling Griffiths to the floor.

‘Got it,’ said Wardle, snatching it up from the floor before going to assist Barclay, who was attempting to cuff Jones’ hands behind his back.

‘What’s happening up there?’ asked Strike.

‘Three of ’em legged it soon as we got through the door,’ panted Wardle. ‘We’ve got the slowest two cuffed, but I don’t know if any of them’s—’

‘This is the main man,’ said Strike, still fighting to subdue Griffiths.

‘Did ye know yer ear’s hangin’ off?’ Barclay asked Strike.

‘You’ve got a daughter, right?’

‘Yeah,’ said Barclay, looking understandably perplexed by the non sequitur.

Strike, who had a confused idea that the father of a daughter was the next best thing, in the absence of a woman, nodded towards Sapphire.

‘She’s tied to that bloody pipe. Can you get her loose?’

‘Nae bother,’ said Barclay, straightening up as far as was possible, Jones now safely handcuffed and lying on his front. ‘Ye’re all right, hen,’ he told Sapphire, advancing on her. ‘We’ll have ye oot o’ here in no time.’

‘Help me get these cunts upstairs,’ Strike panted to Wardle, as Griffiths continued to struggle.

123

Griffiths stopped resisting once Wardle had got the handcuffs on him. Strike was pleased to see he’d broken Griffiths’ nose, which was spread across his face and bleeding profusely, although nowhere near as copiously as the wound to Strike’s left ear, which was causing him excruciating pain. He could feel a weird coldness, as though flesh that had never been exposed to fresh air was meeting it for the first time, and this contrasted unpleasantly with the continuing flow of warm blood.

‘You need a hospital,’ Wardle told Strike, as they manoeuvred Griffiths up the ladder Barclay had replaced at the hatch. ‘Fast.’

‘Later,’ said Strike.

He wasn’t in such agony that he failed to noticed Griffiths’ pigeon-toed walk as they dragged him alone, a peculiarity Strike had attributed to Griffiths’ trip over his guitar the first time they’d come face to face. This small, extra confirmation of his theory was enough to make Strike determined to see the thing through himself, because he was worried that Ian Griffiths might yet get away with the murder of Tyler Powell. ‘Not proven’ was the verdict he feared. Even if the killings of Sofia Medina, Jim Todd and Todd’s mother could be pinned on Griffiths, even if the man was rightly sentenced to multiple life sentences, that wouldn’t be enough for Strike. He wanted justice, even vengeance, for Tyler Powell: a young man who’d suffered an inordinate amount of bad luck while living, and who most certainly hadn’t deserved the fate he’d met at Griffiths’ hands. The ingenious, complicated and outlandish nature of his murder might yet prevent a jury believing it could have happened as Strike was certain it had, but Powell had become real to him lately: a little lost, as Robin had said, but brave, resourceful and determined, not the fool people might have thought him; a young man who, Strike believed, had been ‘proper good’, and whose biggest mistake had been to believe that a man who held out a helping hand was doing so out of kindness.

The sitting room was in disarray. A keyboard had been upended and the poster of the pot-smoking Jesus had been knocked askew. Strike kicked aside the Rastafarian teddy bear lying face down on the carpet. It was a room tailor-made for a man who liked drawing in teenagers and young women, a room that spoke disingenuously of an offbeat charmer who remained young at heart. Strike despised it.

Two men were sitting on the floor, cuffed back to back. One was a scrawny youth whose mouth was hanging open, revealing very bad teeth. The other was a middle-aged man with a heavy beard, who was sobbing.

‘Get the other one up here,’ Strike told Wardle, as he shoved Griffiths down onto the mandala-covered sofa. ‘If he gives you any trouble, Barclay’ll help.’

‘Strike—’

‘Get fucking Jones, I want him here for the interrogation!’

‘You could fuck up the whole prosecution,’ said Wardle in a low voice. ‘We’ve got to call the police now so they can see what we saw, and you need a hosp—’

‘He could still fucking weasel his way out of the silver vault,’ said Strike. ‘You said it yourself: the footprint’s not enough. Get fucking Jones!’

With clear reluctance, Wardle left the room.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ Strike growled at the sobbing bearded man, who subsided into whimpers.

In addition to being angry at Wardle for having intimated Strike might be endangering their case in front of the captives, Strike was having difficulty hearing, because his left ear was full of blood; he inserted his index finger into it to clear it, which was so painful he nearly threw up. From what he’d just felt, he suspected Barclay hadn’t been joking when he’d said it was hanging off.

Griffiths was sitting silently on the sofa, his nose still swelling and breathing through his mouth. Strike didn’t doubt the man had come to believe himself untouchable, which was why he’d permitted himself so many risks, to gamble for such high stakes, to play with naked flames, and Strike suspected Griffiths hadn’t quite lost faith in his own invincibility, even now, with his nose so discoloured and swollen it was looking increasingly like a beetroot, and drenched in the blood of the man he’d just slashed.

Wardle reappeared with a truculent-looking though still faintly dazed Jones, with his huge red forehead, double chin and mismatched eyes. Wardle forced Jones down onto the floor and cuffed him to the two already sitting there. A large lump was burgeoning on Jones’ forehead, where he’d headbutted the edge of the hole in the floor before falling into the basement.

‘Pretty sure he’s still concussed,’ said Wardle.

‘Skull thick as his, he’ll be fine,’ said Strike.

‘You need—’

‘Can you get me something for this fucking ear?’ asked Strike, keen to get rid of the ex-policeman. Wardle grudgingly left the room again.

Strike dragged the chair in which Dilys had sat months previously into the middle of the room, and dropped into it, which was a relief; his head spun slightly less, sitting. Distant clanging and Barclay’s voice reached the room.

‘Right,’ Strike said to Griffiths. ‘Where’s your daughter, Chloe?’

‘You haven’t got the right to ask us questions,’ said Griffiths in a nasal voice. ‘You’ve broken the law, you broke in, you’ve assaulted us—’

‘That’s not how I remember it,’ said Strike. ‘I knocked on your door, you opened it, some of your friends scarpered, you tried to stab me in the face, which led me to suspect you had a guilty conscience, a theory confirmed when I lifted the trapdoor in your hall. That’s how my friends will remember it, too. You don’t want to take Wardle too seriously. He’s only just left the police. Still got old-fashioned ideas about procedure and not using extreme violence on suspects. Where’s Chloe?’

After a brief pause, Griffiths said,

‘Interrailing with her boyfriend.’

‘Is she fuck, that Instagram account of hers is as fake as your Oz one. You’ve just pasted her and some random guy in front of landmarks.’

Agony though Strike was in, he took satisfaction in the whitening of Griffiths’ face.

‘I’ve done nothing. I’ve done nothing,’ whimpered the bearded man on the floor.

‘Shut up,’ Strike told him. ‘You—’ He pointed at the youth with the bad teeth. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Darren Pratt,’ the youth whispered.

‘And him?’ said Strike.

‘Wynn Jones.’

‘And him?’ he asked, pointing at the bearded man.

‘Mickey Edwar—’

‘Don’t tell him!’ squealed Edwards.

‘If you’re Mickey, you were definitely about to do something, you cunt,’ said Strike, ‘and I’d bet both my bollocks you’ve done it before.’

‘Please… please… I’m married, I’ve got kids…’

‘Then they’d probably do best to move well away from Ironbridge and change their surnames,’ said Strike. ‘They’re not going to have a lot of fun in the playground once I’m done with you. Any of you know where Chloe is?’ he asked the three men on the floor.

‘Interrailin’,’ said Jones in a low voice. ‘Griff just fuckin’ told you.’

‘You don’t have to answer his fucking questions!’ said Griffiths.

‘They do if they want to keep their teeth,’ said Strike, and addressing Pratt again, he said,

‘Tyler gave Chloe a bracelet for her birthday, right?’

Pratt glanced at Griffiths and kept silent.

‘Scared the shit out of you, that bracelet, didn’t it?’ Strike said to Griffiths. ‘And we both know why Chloe went berserk in the pub when people wouldn’t stop banging on about it, don’t we? Purple. Violets. We’ll be coming back to that.’

Wardle re-entered the room holding what looked like a clean bedsheet, which he held out to Strike. The latter took it and pressed it to the left side of his head, which was only marginally less agonising than sticking his finger in his ear had been.

‘Well,’ said Strike, addressing the four handcuffed men with the sheet pressed to his head wound and wishing he felt less sick, ‘you’re all going to be done for the rape of the girl in the basement: that’s a given. The real question is how complicit you are in the other things your friendly neighbourhood pimp has been up to. Were you aware you’ve been palling around with a killer, as well as a sex trafficker?’

‘She ain’t trafficked!’ snarled Jones, peering malevolently up at Strike. ‘She’s up for it!’

‘Is that right?’

‘She’s a runaway,’ said Griffiths. ‘I gave her a place to stay. So she likes sex, so what?’

‘Why’s she chained to a fucking pipe?’

‘Fifty Shades,’ said Griffiths. ‘They like it that way, young girls these days. Ask her. She’ll tell you.’

‘I thought she was consenting!’ sobbed Edwards.

‘Ever stick it in Chloe, Mickey?’ Strike asked. ‘Before she got moved out and Sapphire was moved in?’

‘Never,’ squealed Edwards.

‘Wardle,’ said Strike, ‘get Barclay to pass you up my skeleton keys out of my coat pocket and go and check the house opposite, see whether there’s another girl tied up in there.’

‘You need—’

‘Just go and check the bloody house.’

Wardle left. Strike turned back to the men on the floor.

‘I’m about to do you three a favour.’

He didn’t believe they knew everything; on the contrary, he suspected Griffiths had told them as little as he could get away with. The one who’d known most about Griffiths had undoubtedly been Todd, which was why Todd had had to die. Nevertheless, Strike was certain Griffiths had used these men, too, drawing them carefully into his sordid, secret, hidden life. Men like Griffiths were good at spotting the willing rapist in others; they knew how to bind associates and cats paws to them, compromising them, making them complicit. That would have been how Griffiths, or his deputy Todd, had used grubby-minded, greedy Larry McGee. A big, empty crate from Gibsons, a couple of swapped labels, McGee lured by the promise, not only of money, but also of sex. Perhaps he’d even been permitted to feel Medina up around the corner, while she was distracting him from what was really going on at the rear of his delivery truck.

But Strike, too, was a good assessor of men; Strike, too, knew how to use people. He judged the sobbing Edwards to be worthless; he knew the type: I deny everything, I’m innocent! They’d say it even if blood was dripping from their hands, convinced they could touch hard law-enforcing hearts with carefully feigned pathos. However, the very wiliness of Jones’ stare told Strike a strong self-protective instinct lay within. The skinny youth with bad teeth looked terrified, but even he might be turned to good account. Strike thought it safe to assume both gullibility and malleability in a man so inept he was wearing his hoodie inside out.

‘I’ve done nothing,’ whispered Edwards again. ‘Nothing! I don’t understand…’

‘I’ll help you fucking understand, don’t worry about that,’ said Strike. ‘You two were mates of Tyler’s, right?’ he said to Pratt and Jones.

‘Yeah,’ said Jones aggressively. ‘So?’

‘Let’s talk about that highly convenient car crash.’

‘Lugs never done nothing to that car!’ said Pratt at once.

‘I know that, shit-for-brains,’ said Strike. ‘It was convenient for your mate Griff, not Tyler.’

‘Stop answering his fucking questions!’ said Griffiths, and, clearly feeling it was best to take his defence into his own hands rather than rely on the others, he said, ‘How was it convenient for me? I’m the one who stuck up for Tyler when everyone fucking turned—’

‘Don’t give me that bollocks. Tyler knew you were at the bottom of those rumours. Posted about you on Abused and Accused, didn’t he? “My girlfriend’s father’s spreading rumours about me.” He was wise to your fucking Oz gambit, as well. Chloe must’ve told him. He tried to tell the real Osgood who you were. It’s partly down to the bloke you think wouldn’t’ve set the world alight with his brains that you’re fucked.’

To Strike’s great satisfaction, the remaining colour now drained out of Griffiths’ face.

This next part of the interview, Strike knew, was key. What he really needed was one of the men to turn, whether deliberately or accidentally, on Griffiths, because it was here, in a tangle of mistaken loyalties and unprovable connections, that justice for Tyler Powell might yet slip beyond his grasp.

‘Did you know,’ said Strike, addressing Jones and Pratt while Edwards continued to quietly sob, ‘that Tyler posted on Abused and Accused, asking for advice?’

‘He’s trying to trap you,’ said the dry-mouthed Griffiths.

‘I’m doing them a favour,’ Strike repeated. ‘I’m showing them you’ve tried to implicate them in murder.’

‘Fuckin’ murder,’ sneered Jones. ‘’Oo’s murdered?’

‘Your friend Tyler,’ said Strike.

‘’E’s workin’ in a pub!’

‘Proof?’ said Strike.

‘In touch wiv ’im, ’i’n I?’

‘Spoken to him? Not just texts?’

‘Yeah!’

‘Be very fucking careful what you claim here,’ said Strike. ‘Because if it was only texts – and all this is checkable – it’ll go better for you in court. Easy to miss an impersonation by text, not so easy when hearing a voice. Think carefully, now. You keep lying about speaking to Tyler post June last year, you’ll be wishing all they’ve got on you’s rape. You’ll be an accessory to murder, colluding with Griffiths to pretend Tyler’s still alive. Didn’t you think it was strange, Tyler asking you from his new number to call his grandmother and pose as him?’

‘That was jus’ a joke—’ began Jones.

‘SHUT THE FUCK UP!’ bellowed Griffiths. ‘He’s fucking trapping you, can’t—?’

‘I’m not trapping you,’ said Strike, still talking to Jones. ‘If you believed you were being asked favours by an old mate, having a bit of fun with a daft old lady, that’s a whole different ball game to covering up a killing.’

Strike thought he understood the category of youthful male friendship to which Powell, Pratt and Jones had belonged. Shared schooldays, banter, drink, but no deeper understanding whatsoever, and never any confidences. It didn’t surprise him that all had hidden gigantic secrets from each other; he’d had friendships like those himself. And in any case, Powell would have known that, had he told these two idiots the truth about Griffiths’ hidden home life, he’d risk more than his own life.

There was movement in the doorway behind Strike. He turned his head gingerly, because of the extreme pain in the ear to which he was pressing the bedsheet, and saw Barclay.

‘Only ever seen one other gadgie piss himself,’ said Barclay, surveying the men on the rug with an air of academic interest. Sure enough, whether because he’d drunk too much in the Horsehay pub, or had felt so much panic at the trend of the conversation he couldn’t help himself, Mickey Edwards had just lost control of his bladder. A large wet stain was spreading on the rug and Jones was now sitting in the man’s urine.

‘Fuck’s sake, Mick!’ he roared.

‘Strike,’ said Barclay, now looking at the detective’s injury, ‘your fucking ear—’

‘What’s happening with the girl?’

‘Need pliers. When’s the ambulance—?’

‘When I call it. Go see if you can find whisky or brandy – fucking anything strong. Bring the bottle.’

Barclay disappeared again.

‘You’ve been played,’ Strike told Jones, who was now sitting in a puddle of piss, ‘and what you decide to do now could make a difference of ten years to your jail sentence. Your friend Tyler’s dead and he was lured to his death through the Abused and Accused website. I think one of you two recommended that site to him, because he sure as fuck wouldn’t have taken advice from this cunt,’ he said, indicating Griffiths. ‘So, which way round did it go? Did one of you mention Abused and Accused to Tyler, and then tell Griffiths he was posting there? Or did Griffiths recommend it to you, as a place Tyler could go for adv—’

‘Yea—’ began Pratt, but Griffiths suddenly shouted,

‘Shut it!’

‘You was helping him,’ said Pratt, evidently in the belief he was assisting Griffiths, and Strike would have grinned but for the fact that grinning would require muscles connected to his bleeding ear.

‘Did Griffiths tell you not to tell Tyler the recommendation came from him?’

‘Y—’

‘Shut it, for fuck’s sake!’ howled Griffiths.

‘You’re a smart man, Darren,’ said Strike, and Pratt gaped at him, doubtless because he’d never been told he was clever in his life. ‘Keep telling the truth, and it’ll go far better for you with the police, I promise you that.

‘So,’ said Strike to Griffiths, ‘Tyler posts under the name of his favourite car, Austin “H” for Healey, and he says “my girlfriend’s father’s spreading rumours about me”, because he fucking knew you were behind it all, didn’t he? He might even have suspected you caused the crash. A midget-sized person was caught on camera skulking around the car in Birmingham. Nobody ever seems to have asked themselves whether the intended target of the crash wasn’t Tyler himself, seeing as it was his car and he was supposed to be going to the concert.’

‘You can’t—’

‘You’re right,’ said Strike, ‘I can’t prove it, but it doesn’t matter. Whether or not you tampered with the car, you turned the crash to good account afterwards, didn’t you? You wanted to drive Tyler out of Ironbridge, get him well away from Chloe, and corner him somewhere an undersized little cunt like you might have a chance of getting rid of him. Did Todd ever tell you why he used “Kojak” to draw Tyler in, by the way?’

‘I don’t know who Todd is,’ said sweaty-faced Griffiths.

‘How many short, fat sex offenders have you murdered lately? Kojak. King-Jack. Starting hand at poker. Like you calling yourself Skunk, to chat up Sofia Medina.’

Griffiths’ face was becoming increasingly grey.

‘I don’t—’

‘Skunk Baxter. Guitarist for Steely Dan.’

‘These are just fucking—’

‘Usernames, yeah,’ said Strike, ‘and I admit, on their own, they’re not much, but I’ve got a feeling your hard drive’s going to tell a different story.’

Barclay reappeared, holding pliers in one hand and a bottle of Teacher’s whisky in the other. He handed the latter to Strike.

‘How’re you getting on?’ asked Strike.

‘Nearly there,’ said Barclay.

‘Great. Do me another favour before you go,’ said Strike, letting the bloodstained sheet fall so he could unscrew the bottle of Teacher’s, ‘and search both of them for phones. Not the one who pissed himself,’ he added. ‘The other two.’

Through his undamaged ear, Strike heard the back door open and close. Shortly afterwards, Wardle reappeared in the room.

‘There are no girls tied up opposite.’

‘Didn’t think there would be,’ Strike admitted. He swigged some whisky. It didn’t noticeably ease his pain, but it helped a little, nonetheless.

‘The hell are you drinking for?’ said Wardle.

‘What are you, my fucking wife? Cheers,’ Strike added, as Barclay handed him two mobiles, then left, pliers in hand. ‘Don’t fucking loom over me,’ Strike told Wardle tetchily. ‘Take a seat, if you’re staying.’

Wardle sat down beside Griffiths on the sofa, looking thoroughly disapproving.

‘You look like you’re about to pass out,’ he told Strike.

‘I’m fine,’ said Strike, taking a second, larger swig of whisky. ‘Anyway,’ he continued to Jones and Pratt, ‘Tyler had an EpiPen, right? Because of his peanut allergy?’

‘Yeah,’ said Pratt cautiously.

‘He dropped it in front of witnesses,’ Strike told Griffiths. ‘Lied, tried to cover it up, but they’ll know exactly what it was once they see one.’

Even though he was able to hear out of only one ear, Strike distinctly detected the sound of a distant siren.

‘You called the police?’ he demanded of Wardle.

‘No,’ said Wardle, and, looking confused, he got up again and left the room.

Afraid Wardle was lying, and even more afraid that he wouldn’t be able to finish what he’d started, Strike said to Griffiths:

‘This whole plan was predicated on you being a fucking pygmy, wasn’t it?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Griffiths.

‘You didn’t stand a chance in hell of taking on Powell face to face, so you and Todd cooked up a weaselly little plan, didn’t you? You and him did good business back in the nineties, right? Moving girls between brothels and private houses? Gettin’ to rape and abuse with impunity whenever you fancied it? But you managed to slither off before the ring got busted in Belgium, didn’t you?’

‘I’ve never been to Belgium,’ said Griffiths. ‘Ever.’

‘The internet,’ said Strike, ‘tells a different story.’

But when he put his hand in his trouser pocket for his phone, he remembered that it was still in the coat now covering Sapphire in the basement. He picked up one of the phones in his lap instead, which Barclay had taken from Pratt and Jones.

‘Whose is this and what’s the code? Don’t make me fucking get up,’ Strike warned them, ‘because I won’t be sitting down again until I’ve knocked you fucking senseless. Code. Now.’

‘Sixty-nine sixty-nine,’ mumbled Wynn Jones.

‘Of course it fucking is,’ muttered Strike, opening the phone and Googling the picture he needed while his ear throbbed so badly he wondered whether he was going to puke. ‘There,’ he said at last, holding out the phone and picture to show Griffiths. ‘That’s you on stage in Belgium, playing your poxy guitar in a cellar club. My partner found this. Funnily enough, your mate Wade King – seen here playing bass – has been trying to scare off the right person all along. Robin’s the one who really broke this case.’

‘That’s not me,’ whispered Griffiths, ‘and I don’t know the man on the b—’

‘It is you,’ said Strike. ‘My partner’s done a bit of research, and your poxy pan-European band did a bit of travelling around on the continent in the nineties, didn’t it?’

Wardle now reappeared in the room.

‘There’s something going on, down by the bridge. Police and ambulance are there, I can see the lights from the front windows.’

‘Too busy for us, then,’ said Strike.

‘They fucking won’t be,’ said Wardle with determination. He left the room yet again, and Strike heard the back door slam.

‘He’s like a Mountie,’ he told Griffiths. ‘Always gets his man.’

While Strike was unfamiliar with fainting, he had a dim idea that this swimming sensation might be something a person felt right before they did so, so he didn’t turn his head when he heard more movement behind him.

‘Got her free,’ announced Barclay, moving into Strike’s line of vision, pliers still in hand. ‘She’s in the kitchen, eatin’. Needs it,’ he said, with a menacing look at Griffiths. ‘Any o’ these need roughin’ up? Ah’m in the mood.’

‘Possibly,’ said Strike. ‘We’re still in the information-gathering stage.’

‘Great,’ said Barclay, slapping the pliers into his palm. ‘Where’ve we got tae?’

‘To the way Tyler was lured to Ramsay Silver,’ said Strike, turning back to Griffiths. ‘Todd advises Tyler to pick a new name and disguise himself, even pretend to be left-handed, to hide from his girlfriend’s dangerous, murdering father, and to get a job nobody would expect him to do, so he can earn enough to keep him and his girlfriend when she runs away, too – but in reality to make it as hard as possible for him to be identified after his death.’

‘I don’t know anything about any of this!’ whimpered the bearded man on the floor.

‘Which one’s he?’ Barclay asked Strike.

‘Mickey Edwards.’

Barclay took two strides across the room and kicked Edwards so hard in the side of the head the man was knocked over onto his side, dragging Jones and Pratt with him.

‘She’s fuckin’ told me about you,’ said Barclay, standing over the heap of gasping, spluttering men.

‘You can’t do this,’ shouted a wild-eyed Griffiths from the sofa.

‘Yeah, don’t do it,’ Strike told Barclay, taking another swig of whisky, ‘in front of Wardle.’

‘Where’s he gone?’

‘There’s something happening at the bridge, he’s gone to investigate. Anyway,’ Strike said, his head still swimming as he turned back to Griffiths, ‘you could persuade Tyler to play a part at work, but you couldn’t police him at home, could you? Where did you dump his Wolverhampton Wanderers weights? And his hands, his eyes, his dick and his ears? Petts Wood?’

Griffiths looked greyer than ever, but he said,

‘I don’t know what you’re—’

‘Petts Wood, where you and Medina drove after you’d visited Wright’s room in the early hours of the morning,’ said Strike. ‘If Powell’s ears, or his dick, or his weights, turn up there, that’ll be a sizeable bit of evidence. That’s more’n a footprint.’

Strike heard himself slurring, but didn’t think it could be the whisky; he hadn’t had enough. Possibly it was blood loss? His light-headedness was intensifying. He took another large swig of Teacher’s.

‘You enjoyed mutilating that body, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘Masonic misdirection, yeah, but you fucking enjoyed it. Tyler Powell saw you. He knew what you were. He wanted to get Chloe to safety, so you carved him into pieces. But it was all too ’laborate. Yeah, Ramsays had shit security, an’ a vault with no camera… Medina upstairs, keepin’ Pamela busy… Todd lets you out and you hide – where? Bog? Cupboard? Stay hid till Todd coughs to tell you the coast’s clear. ’N then you sneak up behind Tyler, and you slam him over the back of the head with a fucking maul and keep beating it till you’ve smashed his skull in.’

Strike heard the back door open. Wardle returned to the now crowded room.

‘One of your mates has just thrown himself off the iron bridge,’ he informed the handcuffed men. ‘Didn’t want to take the rap.’

Strike tried to say ‘that’s a coincidence’, but the words wouldn’t come. In any case, nobody in the room would have understood. Edwards burst into tears again.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ snarled Barclay, ‘or Ah’ll fuckin’ make ye.’

‘Someone’s coming up here,’ said Wardle to Strike. ‘Police. I’ve told them we’ve found a kidnapped girl. They’ll be here any minute. We need to get the cuffs off this lot.’

‘Fair ’nough,’ said Strike. He tried to stand, but fell backwards into the seat.

‘Stay where ye are, fer fuck’s sake,’ said Barclay. ‘Ah’m callin’ an ambulance.’

Possibly combining heavy blood loss and neat whisky hadn’t been the very best idea, Strike was prepared to concede that now, but he had to keep talking, because he wanted the man to know he knew. While Wardle was busy uncuffing the men on the floor, Strike said,

‘You killed him, and stepped in the blood round his head. And you didn’t notice – too panicky. You needed to get upstairs, with your fake fucking beard, in your suit and glasses, with y’bloodstained trainers in a Ramsays bag, but wearing his shoes, to pretend to be William Wright, and fake him leaving the shop, and head into Covent Garden station.

‘An’ you tripped,’ said Strike, ‘because your tiny fuckin’ feet couldn’t fill his size nines.’

‘Strike, stop fucking talking,’ said Wardle’s impatient voice. ‘Let it go.’

‘You wen’ back t’the shop to mutilate the body. Couldn’ turn on the light… so you didn’ notice that footprint… it had dried… didn’t smudge… proves killing happened well before the mut’lation… but Todd wouldn’ help ’less it looked like the murder h’pened at night…’cause he was done for Belgium, an’ you got away scot-free… an’ don’t you fuckin’ tell me you never been to Belgium…’

Strike brandished Jones’ mobile at Griffiths.

‘That picture… your f’kin gig… see th’blonde in the picture? Thass Reata Lindvall, who died two months later… her daughter dis’ppeared… useful prop, little girl… f’r a man who wants to ’tract young women… an’ she grew up an’ she was useful, too, wasn’ she? In d’ffrent way… “Jolanda” means “violet” or “purple”… Chloe told ’im her real name… when they take ’part your computer… find a Google search on name Jolanda…’

‘Where is she? Wha’ve you done with ’er?’

‘He told me she’s under the concrete floor,’ whispered a childish voice.

Still wearing Strike’s overcoat, Sapphire stood, ghost-white, in the doorway.

Griffiths made to run for it, but he’d gone barely three paces when Barclay brought him down with a loud and satisfying bang.

‘Hard evidence,’ said Strike, opening the contacts on Jones’ phone. ‘Here we go…’

The number was stored under ‘LUGS NEW’. Strike pressed it.

Somewhere in another room, they heard the ringtone: Steely Dan’s ‘Do It Again’.

‘There y’are,’ Strike told Jones. ‘You’ve been played. He murdered your mate.’

Strike foolishly assumed standing up might make him feel better. The last thing he saw before his eyes rolled backward in his head and he passed out, was Jesus, smoking a joint.