‘I can’t believe this,’ said Richard, passing a hand over his mouth. ‘I can’t fucking believe it.’
Danny, who’d remained on his feet against Strike’s orders, now shouted at his brother,
‘You know why I left!’
Some of the fight seemed to go out of Richard, who hitched up his trousers, looking uncomfortable.
‘Yeah, I know why… and I’m not saying you were wrong to leave, Dan. But why’d you have to do that for a—?’
‘You’re the one who said I’m useless at everything else!’
‘I never said you were useless at everything else, you bloody liar, I said you’d never make a fucking builder!’ shouted Richard. ‘They’re the only choices in London, are they? Dry stone walling or getting your cock out?’
Strike now picked up the fallen kitchen chair and righted it.
‘Sit,’ he told Danny for the second time. Looking defeated, Danny complied.
Richard took a chair, too, and so did Strike, whose right knee was trembling worse than ever.
Addressing Robin from under his thick eyebrows, Richard muttered,
‘Our dad was… hard on Dan. But why d’you have to get involved with all that, though?’ he said miserably, turning to Danny.
‘I dunno,’ said Danny. ‘I needed money – it just happened!’
‘Coke’s what happened, you little prick,’ said Richard.
‘Not a little prick,’ muttered Danny. ‘Or I couldn’t’ve paid for the coke.’
‘Ha bloody ha,’ said Richard. He looked sideways at Strike. ‘So what now?’
‘We tell Branfoot he’s alive,’ said Strike implacably.
‘We can’t!’ said Robin.
‘You want to spend the next couple of years looking over your shoulder for a bloke with a dagger, do you?’ said Strike angrily. ‘It was blunt last time, it might not be, next. Branfoot knows proper criminals, he’s made bloody sure he knows them.’ He now addressed Danny. ‘You either tell the press about Branfoot and make him too scared to make a move on you, or we’ll tell him. There’s no third option here. It’s going to come out.’
The de Leon brothers looked as though they, too, had been hit with spades. Robin picked up the frozen peas from the floor and handed them back to Strike, who said ‘cheers’ and pressed them back against his throbbing jaw. At last, Richard said,
‘He’ll talk to the press, once we’ve prepared Mum.’
‘Oh God,’ said Danny, slumping face down onto the kitchen table.
‘Well, we’ve got to tell her,’ said Richard angrily. ‘It’ll be the biggest story in Sark since the bloody German occupation.’
‘I should’ve killed myself,’ said Danny, his voice muffled.
‘Who’ll that help, you stupid sod, except Branfoot?’
‘He’ll go public,’ said Richard to Strike. ‘Just give us a few days.’
Strike glanced at Robin, who looked pleadingly back at him. With extreme reluctance, he said,
‘It needs to be soon. I want Branfoot off our backs.’
‘All right. We’ll explain to Mum – although how the fuck we’re going to explain this – aw, don’t start!’ he said to the back of his brother’s head, because Danny, who was still face down, had started to sob.
‘Have you still got my card?’ Strike asked Richard.
‘Yeah, at the house.’
‘I want your phone numbers, as well. Branfoot needs exposing quickly. Leave it much longer and it might be one of us who gets bloody murdered.’
Richard gave both mobile numbers and Strike typed them into his phone, while Danny continued to sob. This done, Richard stood up.
‘I’ll see you out.’
Leaving Danny face down on the table, they walked back to the street around the side of the house, Strike in serious pain and leaning heavily on his stick. When they reached the road, Richard said,
‘You don’t wanna judge… see, our dad was a shit to Danny,’ he said uncomfortably. ‘He was… you know. Whatsit. Homophobic. They never got on. That’s why Dan left. That’s why he went off the rails, the silly sod. He run off and done what Dad thought men like him do, see? Rebellion,’ said Richard. ‘That’s what it was.’
‘I understand,’ said Robin.
Strike, whose injury was smarting all the more for contact with the chilly air, said nothing. The side of his face felt as though it had been inflated with a football pump.
‘Silly sod,’ repeated Richard. ‘I didn’t realise… he was always one for tall tales, you know? I thought he was making half of it up. Thought he imagined that the guy was chasing him. This is all… it’s a shock, you know?’
‘Of course,’ said Robin. ‘We really don’t want Danny to come to harm.’
Richard glanced at Strike, who made a non-committal noise, but only to keep Robin happy.
‘All right, well, like I say – give us a few days,’ said Richard. He heaved a deep sigh. ‘Mum thinks Danny’s been working at a Savile Row tailors. He’s been telling her about all the celebrities he’s been measuring up for fucking tuxes.’
86
All that gay courageous cheer,
All that human pathos dear;
Soul-fed eyes with suffering worn,
Pain heroically borne,
Faithful love in depth divine—
Poor Matthias, were they thine?
‘Shall we find somewhere to sit down?’ were Robin’s first words, once Richard de Leon had returned inside Clos de Camille. Though the gash made by the spade had stopped bleeding, the left side of Strike’s swollen face was turning purple as the bruises rose to the surface.
‘I’m fine,’ he said, well aware he must look anything but.
‘Well, I could use a coffee or something, after all that,’ said Robin.
To her relief, because she’d feared they might have to return to the Avenue to find somewhere, an establishment on Rue de la Seigneurie was open for custom, though this necessitated an upstairs climb to the Captain’s Bar, where portholes were painted on the sloping eaves. No longer in a fit state to appreciate nautical décor, Strike slumped into a seat by the window and on being informed by Robin that the place didn’t serve coffee, asked for the beer he really wanted.
‘Alcoholic,’ he added, because in the absence of painkillers he was happy to improvise, and Robin was immediately reminded of Christmas Eve, and Murphy’s sudden rage because she’d questioned him on the alcohol content of his pint.
‘So… that’s it,’ said Robin, when she rejoined Strike at the table with his beer and her own tonic water. ‘De Leon’s out. He was your favourite for Wright, as well.’
‘He was, yeah,’ admitted Strike. ‘I could see a reason for him being polished off in the vault, but I can’t see why the hell Powell or Semple—’
‘Or Rupert—’
‘Or Fleetwood, if we must – had to die there.’
‘Nor can I,’ said Robin. After a moment or two she said, ‘D’you think the dead man was someone else entirely, who was killed for reasons we don’t know?’
‘I think that every other hour,’ said Strike. ‘But if it was someone we’ve never heard of, the police don’t seem to have heard of them either, and it seems bloody odd literally nobody’s come forwards to say it might’ve been that man. But I think it’s safe to conclude that whoever Oz is, he’s not the man Branfoot paid to kill de Leon. Shanker’s been hoodwinked. I’ll have to let him know the supposed killer’s full of it.’