‘Why’re you warning me off, if it wasn’t Knowles? Lynden doesn’t want me digging into it?’
‘Bunsen,’ said Shanker, lowering his voice and leaning forwards, ‘Lynden finks it’s funny the pigs fink that was Jason. Why would Lynden put ’im in a fuckin’ safe in a fuckin’ silver shop? Thass way more fuckin’ trouble than ’e fuckin’ deserved.’
‘That thought occurred to me,’ said Strike.
‘Ain’t got shit for brains then, ’ave ya?’ said Shanker.
‘So where’s Knowles now?’
‘Gawn to Barnaby’s,’ said Shanker, with a dark smile.
‘The hell’s “Barnaby’s”?’
‘For me to know,’ repeated Shanker.
‘If it wasn’t Knowles, why’m I getting this warning? Because Lynden Knowles doesn’t want me proving it wasn’t his nephew?’
‘Lynden wouldn’ give a shit eiver way,’ said Shanker, with a shrug. ‘Even if they found what’s left of Jason, they couldn’t pin it on ’im. Thass the ’ole point of Barnaby’s.’
‘Then why—?’
‘’Cause the bloke in the vault’ – Shanker dropped his voice again – ‘was an ’it.’
‘A hit?’
‘Yeah,’ said Shanker, ‘an’ you don’t wanna start fuckin’ wiv the geezer ’oo put out the ’it, awright?’
‘You know who ordered it?’
‘Know enough,’ said Shanker.
‘Who is he?’
‘Don’ know ’im person’ly,’ said Shanker.
‘You know the bloke who carried it out?’
‘We go back a long way, Bunsen, but you keep your side of the street an’ I’ll keep mine, know what I’m sayin’?’
When Strike merely looked at him, Shanker said,
‘Don’ know ’im well. People in common.’
‘And?’
‘’E’s gone to ground. Smart, for ’im.’
‘He’s not usually smart?’
‘’E’s a nutter. Moufy. Still, slick job,’ said Shanker, with professional appreciation. ‘Earned a packet for it, I ’ear.’
‘But he talked, or you wouldn’t know he’d done it.’
‘Well, yeah, ’e’s moufy. Like I said.’
‘So why was the guy in the vault killed?’
Shanker drained his glass, then said,
‘I ’eard he fort ’e could make a fast buck an’ didn’t fuckin’ realise what ’e was up against.’
‘Double cross?’ said Strike. ‘Blackmail?’
‘Ain’t stupid, are ya, Bunsen?’ said Shanker, with a gleam of appreciation.
‘Want another drink?’
‘Yeah, go on,’ said Shanker.
Strike bought two more pints. There were gold baubles strung along the top of the bar. He’d been so absorbed in his conversation he hadn’t noticed the Christmas music playing in the background.
‘How did you know I’m investigating?’ Strike asked, after sitting down again.
‘You was seen,’ said Shanker. ‘Seen where you shouldn’t ’ave been. An’ word got back, an’ the big shot what ordered the ’it ’ain’t ’appy you’re stickin’ your fuckin’ bugle in. S’all I know.’
‘Listen,’ said Strike, ‘if there’s a second Lynden Knowles after me, I need to know. This isn’t just about me, this is Robin and the rest of the agency. What exactly am I looking at here?’
‘Work it aht,’ said Shanker. ‘Where it ’appened.’
They looked at each other. When Shanker neither blinked nor laughed, Strike said,
‘You have to be kidding me. You think I’m going to be done in by the Freemasons?’
‘You know your problem, Bunsen?’ said Shanker, scowling. ‘You’re fuckin’ naive. You fink because some geezer’s got money an’ wears a fuckin’ suit, an’ ’e’s never been done for nuffin’—’
‘I don’t think that, but—’
‘You fink a man ’oo’s got a lot to lose, an’ pays to get rid of some geezer ’oo’s got the goods on ’im, an’ gets away wiv it, is ’appy when ’e ’ears you’re nosin’ around? You gotta name now, Bunsen,’ said Shanker, not without a certain admiration.
‘All right, you’ve told me this much, tell me who this big-shot Freemason is.’
‘Can’t. Toldja. I don’ know ’is name.’
‘You’re not just assuming he was a mason from where the body was found?’
‘No,’ said Shanker, now growing impatient, ‘I’m tellin’ ya, ’e’s a fuckin’ mason. The guy ’oo done the ’it, ’e said so. The bigshot’s a mason, ’e’s got money to burn, ’e’s got people to do ’is shit for ’im.’
Shanker sipped his pint, while Strike recalled Mandy’s words, back in St George’s Avenue: ‘’E said “someone” might come round lookin’ for ’im, but then ’e said, “or ’e might send someone.”’
‘You don’t know the mason’s name?’ asked Strike.
‘I’ve fuckin’ toldja, no.’
‘D’you know who the victim was?’
‘No, I jus’ know ’e ’ad somefing on the mason, so ’e got rubbed aht.’
‘The hitman doesn’t ever go by “Oz”, does he?’ said Strike, taking a shot in the dark.
‘What – like the fuckin’ wizard?’
‘Yeah,’ said Strike.
‘Not that I ever ’eard.’
Shanker’s gaze swivelled right, towards the door.
‘Time’s up, Bunsen.’
Strike looked around. A large man even more comprehensively tattooed than Shanker had just entered the pub.
‘That’s all you’ve got?’ said Strike.
‘’S’all I’ve got,’ said Shanker, already raising a hand to alert the tattooed man in the doorway to his presence.
‘All right,’ said Strike, getting to his feet. ‘Thanks for the warning.’
He finished his pint at the bar, then left the Falcon without looking back at Shanker or his business associate.
To his knowledge, Shanker had never intentionally misled him, preferring a straightforward ‘keep the fuck out of it’ if Strike’s questions struck too close to home. Strike therefore had to take seriously the possibility that he and Robin had indeed stumbled unknowingly on to a crime that had lain undetected until they arrived on the scene to complicate matters.
Strike turned his coat collar up against the cold, then stood for a few moments, vaping and mulling over what his next move should be. One particular thing his old friend had just said gave rise to an idea. Slipping his vape pen back into his coat pocket, Strike set off again, not for Denmark Street, but for Wild Court.
22
But chiefly the great and troublesome question of ‘Who?’
Strike phoned Robin at home that evening to inform her that Rupert Fleetwood had somehow scraped together two thousand pounds to buy off the drug dealer with a grudge against his housemate, and to relay Shanker’s warning about the body in the silver vault. Murphy was there for dinner, and Robin’s flat was far too small for him not to be able to hear everything she was saying unless she locked herself in the bathroom. As pretending to want a shower immediately after her work partner had called her might give her boyfriend well-justified grounds for suspicion, her responses to Strike were deliberately concise and gave no hint of what they were talking about.
Fortunately for Robin, whose mind was racing post-call, Murphy asked no questions. He was very obviously low and tired, slumped on the sofa watching the news. Tuesday’s Mail had run its double-page interview with the mother of the boys who’d been shot in the gang shooting, and this had been followed by stories in other papers, today. For the first time, Robin, along with the rest of the newspaper-reading public, had learned that the bereaved mother’s estranged boyfriend had been arrested initially, and this, it was alleged, had wasted valuable hours and days in which the true perpetrators had been able to cover their tracks.