In spite of Strike’s best efforts, Robin could tell he wasn’t finding what she was telling him of gripping import, so she reverted to a more obviously relevant subject.
‘I’m making some headway with Powell’s friend Wynn Jones, by the way. We’ve been texting back and forth.’
‘Really?’ said Strike, fighting another yawn. He was finding the plane’s motion distinctly soporific.
‘Yes. He’s actually been a bit—’ The word that came to Robin’s mind was ‘creepy’, but reflecting that, compared to some of the men involved in this case, Jones’ behaviour was more oafish than sinister, she said, ‘—flirty.’
‘Has he, now?’
‘Yes. He Googled pictures of me going in and out of court,’ said Robin. ‘Anyway, I think I’ve managed to convince him the Whiteheads aren’t our clients. I told him we’re working for a woman and he said “it’s Dilys, isn’t it?” I said I couldn’t confirm that, but he told me Dilys had called him, worried that Tyler was the body in the vault, and he – Jones – told Dilys she was soft in the head.’
‘Might explain why Dilys thinks Jones is rude.’
‘That’s what I thought. Anyway, I’m hoping to get him to FaceTime me and press him on why Powell mentioned silver on the phone to him, because he’s ignored that question twice.
‘But while we’re on Powelclass="underline" I don’t feel great about this, but I really do think I should try and talk to the Whiteheads. Just to find out whether there was any concrete reason for thinking Powell sabotaged his own car, or if it was just a rumour. And there are a couple of other things,’ said Robin. ‘This might be absolutely nothing, but—’
She realised, mid-sentence, that Strike had sunk into a doze, head against the window. As she looked at him, he let out a loud, deep snore. To her left, the Frenchman laughed.
‘’E’s tired, your ’usband.’
‘Yes,’ said Robin, tugging the in-flight magazine out of the pocket in front of her. ‘He works nights.’
Fifty minutes later, as the plane began its bumpy descent, Strike woke with a start.
‘Shit,’ he mumbled. ‘Sorry.’
‘It’s fine,’ said Robin.
‘Was I snoring?’
‘A bit.’
Strike wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, afraid he’d also been drooling.
‘Don’t think I snored as badly as this before my nose got broken,’ he said apologetically.
‘How did that happen?’ said Robin, who’d never asked.
‘Boxing. Uppercut from a Welsh Grenadier. He got lucky.’
‘Of course he did,’ said Robin, amused.
‘He did,’ Strike insisted. ‘I knocked him out the following round. You were telling me more about Lindvall,’ he added.
‘I’d finished,’ said Robin untruthfully. ‘That was it.’
Strike falling asleep while she was talking had temporarily dimmed her enthusiasm for the subject.
Strike yawned, then said,
‘Did you know they found silver on Sark in the nineteenth century?’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. Nineteenth century. They hit a good vein, thought they’d struck it rich, and poured money into the mines, but the vein petered out. Cost a fortune, because they were digging out under the sea and they needed pumps to keep the water out. Then a shaft caved in, drowning ten miners, and that was the end of Sark silver. Ruined the Seigneur.’
‘Who’s the Seigneur?’
‘Feudal ruler of Sark. It’s a weird place,’ said Strike. ‘Last feudal system in Europe, till 2008, when they decided to try democracy instead.’
Robin’s fantasies of warmth and light were dashed by her first sight of Guernsey, where it was chilly and wet. She and Strike took a taxi from the airport to the town of St Peter Port, from which they were to catch the ferry to Sark. The talkative taxi driver made further discussion of the case impossible until they’d left him outside the ferry ticket office, where they were informed that, in addition to their ferry tickets, they should purchase luggage labels, which would ensure their bags were transported to their lodgings by tractor on arrival on Sark.
‘How’re your sea legs?’ Strike asked Robin as they walked towards the harbour, rain peppering their faces as they looked out over the choppy grey sea.
‘They’ve never been tested much,’ Robin admitted.
‘Ah well,’ said Strike. ‘Short trip.’
Only as he began to descend the long, steep, wet, grilled-metal ramp down to the ferry did it occur to Strike that he should have thrown his walking stick into the kit bag he’d packed, necessarily hastily, that morning. He walked slowly, his right knee trembling on every alternate step, holding tight to the handrail, while Robin watched in some trepidation. However, Strike reached the interior of the small ferry without mishap and, not wanting to take any more chances, sat in the first row of cold plastic seats, directly opposite a sign reading: Sark Shipping reserves the right to refuse embarkation and passage to any person who appears to be in a drunken state.
The engines roared into life, and the ferry heaved away from the dock.
‘Eyes on the horizon if you feel ill,’ Strike advised Robin, and she thought immediately of Christmas Eve, her jerky vision, and Murphy’s hunched, angry back.
83
‘And our men – well, they’re Sark, and there’s more’n a bit of the devil in them.’
‘Not too bad,’ said Strike, forty-five minutes later.
‘No,’ said Robin, although in fact she hadn’t found the movement of the old ferry very pleasant and had indeed spent the last twenty minutes staring out at the horizon without talking.
‘Careful on the steps,’ called a young ferryman behind them. ‘They’re slippery.’
Cursing himself anew for forgetting his stick, Strike moved at a snail-like pace up the steep stone steps of the harbour, which were indeed dangerously slimy, even though the rain had now passed off. At last, leg throbbing, he reached the top of the flight to see three tractors, one of which was pulling open-sided passenger trailers that were already almost full of people, and two of which were being loaded with luggage.
‘Squeeze on,’ shouted the ticket collector, beckoning Strike and Robin forwards. ‘Gawn, there’s room!’
Robin found a narrow strip of seat beside a large man in a paint-stained beanie hat, while Strike crammed himself in beside two women who had shopping bags perched in their laps. Robin couldn’t see how the vehicle could possibly hold any more people, but the last two ferry passengers, both male and clearly local, judging by the greetings they threw the tractor drivers, ambled up and, seeing no seat space, simply climbed onto the edge of a trailer, unconcerned, remaining standing while clinging on to the metal poles holding up the roof.
The tractor driver started up the engine, and towed the line of trailers through a short tunnel in the hillside, then up a very steep road, Robin worrying unnecessarily about the standing men, who seemed oblivious to any danger. A couple of minutes later, the tractor arrived at the top of the hill and came to a halt outside a cream-painted pub, the Bel Air, over which both the Sark flag and Union Jack fluttered. All passengers disembarked and set off in different directions on foot, leaving Strike and Robin alone to take stock of their surroundings, while the tractor bearing their green-tagged luggage disappeared from view.