The Hallmarked Man Real-time Re-read, Chapters 113-115:

The Westminster attack and the associated trauma for both our detectives.

In Chapter 113, Strike and Robin catch up in the office and make some major advancements in the case. It’s Friday, March 17 (St. Patrick’s Day) but there is no mention of it. Too bad Strike didn’t suggest a lunch outing to an Irish pub.

Robin left Martin asleep on the sofa bed in the sitting room the following morning and headed for the office. There was something she wanted to say to Strike face to face, so she forced herself to drive into town, checking her rear-view mirror constantly, and feeling shaky and exposed during the short walk to Denmark Street.

Robin arrives to Pat’s news that Travolta the fish has died, then joins Wardle and Strike in the inner office. Strike fills her in on the confrontation with Plug & Associates the previous night, which resulted in Plug’s arrest and his son being transferred to the custody of his great-uncle but with Dev Shah getting stabbed in the thigh. But, turns out that is only part of Dev’s current issues with the job. He’s been listening to KFC and not only arguing with Strike about the ethics of Decima Mullins’ case, but also speculating Strike has sexually harassed Kim. This is not the week to ask him to fill out an employee satisfaction review. Strike is convinced Shah’s going to jump the S & E ship for Navabi’s, so Wardle offers to set him straight about KFC’s past shenanigans at the Met.

Strike also asks him to pass on the news that they are re-opening the silver vault case, on Strike’s dime. Robin is delighted. Once Wardle leaves for his surveillance job, Robin offers to help fund the case, too, to get the stalkers of their backs. She tells Strike about Martin foiling Wade King’s attempt the previous night.

“Did you call the police about King breaking his bail conditions?” said Strike, exercising maximum control to do as she’d requested, and keep calm.

“Yes,” said Robin, “and I reminded them I’ve still got two other things he foisted on me, but—”

“They weren’t interested.”

“I don’t think it’s lack of interest,” said Robin. “The terrorism threat’s at severe; I can see how a bit of A4 with a gorilla on it isn’t absolutely top priority.”

The terrorism threat, of course, foreshadows the events of the next chapter. And, if you, like me, are wondering what “A4” means, it’s the Met code for crimes involving threats, harassment or verbal abuse. Robin then shares her wish to interview Hussein Mohamed, because her conversation with Martin has made her think there was something unusual or identifying about William Wright’s weights. Strike still insists she stay off the streets but agrees to let one of the subcontractors do that.

After an interruption by Pat and a brief conversation about the late Travolta, Robin shows Strike the text communication she has gotten, where Chloe Griffiths got aggressive over Robin’s questions about the bracelet and her relationship with Tyler. Strike, in turn, first tells her that Rena Liddell had contacted him and they had arranged a meeting at the Engineer, then shares his revelation about the silver shop surveillance video, inspired by Tom Wait’s “A Soldier’s Things.”

This song is well worth a listen, as it is about a yard sale for an old or deceased soldier, selling off his possessions, including a medal for bravery, for a dollar an item. The lyrics connect to the storyline on multiple levels, reminding us of Strike clearing out his uncle’s home, his distaste for all but very few most sentimental “things” (as opposed to the materialism and treasure-hoarding of people like Ramsey, Dino and Tara) and the fact that Strike himself has a medal for bravery.*

They watch the video and Robin sees, as Strike did earlier, that the largest crate that arrived in the first delivery had something heavy in it, even though the giant centerpiece had been replaced by a few small items. This, in combination with the bloody footprint that dried before the body was placed on it, suggests that the killer did not enter the shop for the first time after hours, but was smuggled, Trojan-horse style, into the vault much earlier.

“This doesn’t tell us why,” said Strike, “and it doesn’t tell us who, but it does tell us something important about our killer. That vault was literally the only place where they’ve had a realistic chance of taking William Wright by surprise. Necessity. They had literally no other choice.”

Chapter 114 picks up the next day with Martin’s return to Carmen, before taking us to a historical event, the March 22nd terrorist attack on Westminster Bridge.

Martin returned to Yorkshire after a second night at Robin’s. Carmen had accepted his apology after what seemed to have been a further twenty-four hours of mutual recriminations, delivered by phone.

Martin also tells Robin that Carmen has been having a difficult time, with Dirk not sleeping, bleeding nipples and a painful episiotomy scar, which pretty much eliminates the possibility that she had been snagging her Ex-caliber.

On the morning of the 22nd, Robin is home in her flat, with Midge scoping out Hussein Mohamed’s flat in hopes of questioning him. We are told that her appointment with Dr. Broccoli is in three weeks, which, if that’s an exact measurement, would be April 12th, six days after the book’s close. She has another WhatsApp exchange with Chloe and starts catching her out in inconsistencies, such as claiming Tyler told her he was going to go work in a pub, when she had earlier said he never wanted to leave Ironbridge, She also mentions his fondness for the Wolverhampton Wanderers, aka the Wolves. Murphy calls her in a panic to tell her of the Westminster attack, then, naturally, has to sign off to attend to police business. Robin remembered that Strike was supposed to be in Westminster, tracking their latest civil servant target. She calls him, panicking a bit herself when he fails to answer.

After two calls, he calls her back. He was, indeed, very near the attack, but is fine, having taken shelter in the St. Stephen’s Tavern, and is currently stuck there while the police secure the area. Though she is relieved Strike is safe, Robin’s anxiety is further escalated by the attack.

Then an ugly thought flashed through her head. Would she have been as terrified and stricken if it had been Murphy who’d been in Westminster, Murphy whom she hadn’t been able to contact?

Of course I would, she told herself furiously. Of course.

This reminds me of the scene in Gone With the Wind, where Scarlett is just as worried about Ashley as Melanie is and just as relieved as she that he has made it home alive after the police raid. Rhett Butler has to remind her that she had not thought to ask about her own husband, Mr. Kennedy, who was shot dead.

In Chapter 115, we learn that Strike, too, had trauma re-awakened by the Westminster attack.

As Strike drove towards Camden at seven o’clock that evening, he listened to the car radio.

In St. Stephens, Strike had been dragged back to his Army experiences in more than one way.

Cold sweat had drenched his entire body and he’d limped as fast as he could towards the street, barging past panicking drinkers, as though he was still armed and wearing a bullet-proof vest, and had two whole legs, and it was on him, personally, to save London. A running policeman had bellowed at him to get the fuck back inside, and Strike’s reason had reasserted itself in a wave of shame; he retreated into the pub, a forty-two-year-old have-a-go hero…

As screams and a gunshot were the sounds that triggered this response, I am wondering if it was a response some sort of gun attack that earned Strike his medal for bravery. Strike also had another flashback to the IED explosion.

But for a few seconds, the pub and the screams and the drinkers had blurred into non-existence: he’d been back on the yellow dirt road in Afghanistan, in the vehicle that was about to blow up, because he’d shouted ‘brake’ too late.

As Strike arrives at the Engineer wondering if Rena will have been frightened away by the attack, Galbraith takes us into another vivid description of a place in London that sounds fascinating, but which might not be tops on the list for many visitors. See the Strikefans.com page for some great pictures of the pub, steps, canal and bridges. He learns Rena was at the Engineer an hour or so earlier, but has left. Just as he had automatically rushed from the pub to assist during the terror attack, he now follows his instincts to locate Rena, and shows that he can be a different kind of hero.

When he spotted steps to his left leading down from the street to Regent’s Canal, he descended them with no very clear idea why he was doing it, except that his own natural impulse when close to a body of water was to go and look at it, but also because he was wondering whether Rena might have gone this way.

Emerging onto the canal towpath between two bridges, he spies a single swan, which, for readers at least, evokes the image of Robin, with its “knowing’ eyes.

Then he spotted a dark, huddled mass beneath the bridge that he thought might well be human. A jogger passed Strike, scowling because Strike had forced him to deviate a foot from his self-determined course. He ran past what looked like a pile of rags without glancing at it. This was London: unless people were screaming their distress and belonged to a demographic likely to evoke sympathy, and sometimes not even then, their fellow city-dwellers were too busy to stop and too tired to care.

As he had in the spinal center with Josh Blay, Strike displays a compassionate tenderness that we have more often associated with Robin. It is interesting that his experiences living with Leda are as helpful to him as his police training when it comes to dealing with Rena.

Long exposure to people in the grip of addictions and mental health issues during Strike’s childhood had taught him that unless you enjoyed rapidly escalating conflict and ugly scenes, calm agreement, wherever possible, was the best policy.

Initially, Rena attacks him, brandishing a fake gun, but she subsides when he identifies himself as the detective she had been wanting to meet. At first, she refuses his offer of food, but agrees to walk with him, despite her mistrust of the army. She believes her brother is still alive and that Niall Semple “was off tae make up fur Ben. Find him.” Amusingly, she shows more consideration for Strike’s injury than Ralph Lawrence did.

She got up and hauled up her rucksack, too.

“D’you want me to carry that?” Strike asked as she swung it over her shoulders.

“Naw… ye’ve only go’ one leg, have ye?”

“One and a half,” said Strike.

She eventually agrees to go back to the Engineer with him for some food. Rena tells Strike that her parents died in an earthquake while on vacation in Turkey when she was six, and she went to live with a grandmother while her brother Ben went with an uncle. Although Strike is unable to ascertain how much of her story is real, it is interesting that there was a major earthquake in Turkey in August 1999 (a popular holiday month) that killed over 17,000 people. If Rena was six then, she’d be about 24 now, which is consistent with Strike’s estimate of her age as mid-twenties.

In the pub, Rena shows Strike what Niall gave her “for protection”: a silver necklace with a checkerboard shaped pendant. She says he had promised her “more” which she thought might have been in the heavy briefcase he was carrying. She also mentions her brother telling her of Talaiasi Labalaba, a real-life British-Fijian hero who died in the Battle of Mirbat and who Strike knew of through a statue at SAS headquarters in Hereford. This jogs a memory for Strike of another soldier from that battle.

He’d just remembered why the username “Austin H” had put the word “Fuzz” into his mind, back in the Goring Bar with Robin. He’d seen it on Truth About Freemasons:

Pretty sure Austin ‘Fuzz’ Hussey (also SAS, Battle of Mirbat) was a mason.

This is, of course, a red herring, as the Austin H seen on the Truth About Freemasons and Abused and Accused site referred not to the soldier, but to Tyler Powell’s favorite car. Still, it’s a pretty convincing connection.

Appropriately for March Madness, we are headed into the Final Four posts of this series! On Saturday, the pace picks up as our heroes zero in on the culprit, and find the missing silver!

Having trouble subscribing or commenting? Check out the 100% free Substack version of the Farting Sofa Faculty Lounge.

*Time for me to express, yet again, the hope that that we’ll find out where the medal is, and what it was awarded for, before the series end! Either it was not on display at Ted and Joan’s house, as I had previously guessed, or Strike let Lucy take it with her, suggesting some sort of aversion or discomfort with it. I could see Strike leaving it with relatives when he was with Charlotte, who could well have destroyed it on one of her anti-Army crusades, but you’d think Strike would have it back by now.