The Hallmarked Man: What I think may come next.

I would have to call The Hallmarked Man, in one sense, the most predictable of the Strike series we have seen to date. I say this not because it wasn't a very original storyline with lots of twists and turns, but because, atypically for me, I made several predictions that turned out to be a lot closer to true than I normally get. For example:

• The agency would make an enemy of Dominic Culpepper that would lead to him publishing scandalous stories. 
• Yes, I thought it would be the Strike/Leda/Rokeby angle, not the Strike's sex life angle, but 
• I was correct in that the need to neutralize Culpepper would be the occasion for Strike to meet Rokeby. 
• Strike would find a male body in the victim's secondary residence. This was fulfilled when Todd was found in his mother's apartment, where he had been staying. 
• Carmen and Martin's baby would be born with disabilities, possibly fetal alcohol syndrome
• We got arm paralysis instead, but given Carmen's behavior at Christmas, I wouldn't rule out FAS yet. 

Once the book started, I guessed

• The incest angle, as soon as I put together Decima's and Rupert's somewhat confusing family tree. 
• That Chloe was Jolanda, as soon as I saw the violet bracelet.
• That Ted's inheritance would be used for the agency.
• I initially predicted new office space, but then when the Land Rover died I figured it would go for that. 

So, I've been consulting my creosote-colored tea leaves to  consider what might happen after the explosive ending.  Here is my idea. 

So, at the end of The Hallmarked Man, Robin, who never sought mental health treatment after Chapman Farm, has been subjected to multiple new traumas, from her ectopic pregnancy to stalking by men trying to make her relive the Gorilla Mask attack, to a dog attack on her partner to an actual attempted abduction/strangulation.  She is also torturing herself, knowing that her boyfriend Ryan Murphy is about to propose and not knowing what she wants to do. On top of all that, Strike finally declares his love for her by shouting at her in the staircase, proposing marriage out of the blue and even grabbing her by the shoulders, forcing her to push him away and (for me, at least) evoking the imagery of Matthew when he ripped her green dress. Stunned, confused and agitated, and feeling a lot of anger with both Strike and Murphy, she rushes out of the Denmark Street building, supposedly heading to the Ritz to celebrate Ryan's birthday. I think it's fair to say her mental health is at a breaking point, with both Strike and Murphy's actions contributing to her stress, rather than helping relieve it. 

One reason that, at least on my initial reading, that The Hallmarked Man was my least favorite of the Strike books to date is that Robin's character seems to have deteriorated, to the extent that she is no longer having an honest relationship with either Murphy or Strike. While trauma  is supposed to explain her emotional withdrawal and chronic lying to both men, the explanation rings false because we aren't experiencing the PTSD symptoms with her in the way we did in Lethal White. Look at Chapter 112 of THM:

Unexpected noises, even her phone ringing, startled her; she couldn’t sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time, and kept having flashbacks of the man who’d tried to throttle her in the Land Rover.

Compare this to Chapter 13 of Lethal White. Robin is walking down the corridors of Parliament, thinking about how to get information from Geraint Winn.

Then, with a sudden dreadful lurch of imagination she saw, clearly, Winn's lunge, saw the sweaty face swooping for her, its lipless mouth agape, felt hands gripping her arms, pinning them to her sides, felt the potbelly press itself into her, squashing her backwards into a filing cabinet. 

The endless green of carpet and chairs, the dark wood arches and the square panels seemed to blur and contract as Winn's imagined pass became an attack. She pushed herself through the door ahead as though she could physically force herself past her panic. 

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. 

Notice the difference between being told of Robin's PTSD in the narration, and experiencing the symptoms with her, from her own perspective. While LW has many of these vivid descriptions of Robin's real-time experiences, THM tends to simply tell us what happened, after the fact. It's a similar contrast between going through Joan's illness and death in multiple chapters with Strike in TB, and reading the summary of Ted's death  in just a few paragraphs. The emotional wallop just isn't the same. I think that is a large part of the reason that many readers sympathized with Robin as she saw her marriage to Matthew deteriorate but kept trying to make it work until his adultery was revealed, but lost patience with her in the similar situation with Murphy. 

So, the question for me is, why didn't Galbraith let us experience more of Robin's PTSD symptoms in THM? The answer may lie in the set up for the opening of Book 9. 

Note the lion logo!

I think Robin may not make it to the Ritz because of a mental breakdown of some sort. Perhaps "the big one"-- the panic attack that we never saw her have (or prevent with her CBT exercises) in THM is coming up. Not only is she freaked out by Strike's declaration, she has just experienced him physically grabbing her and trying to pull her into a kiss she did not, at that minute, want from him.  For someone with Robin's history, and coming from the one man who had "never once made her feel physically uncomfortable" an act like that could well push her over the edge. 

So, let's assume for a moment Robin rushes a block or so away from the office (out of sight of the window and in the opposite direction that Pat heading when she left) and then dissolved in a major panic attack or flashback, one far worse than she has ever experienced. She could pass out from hyperventilation or she could, as Charlotte did on the Night of the Black Lace Dress, got disoriented enough that she stumbles into traffic and gets clipped. If she can't communicate for herself, a good Samaritan, or emergency personnel might check her bag and find a business card with her name and the office number. That could have been the phone call that Strike did not pick up. If Robin, or anyone else important to Strike was calling, they would have called his cell phone.

So, I think Robin is going to find herself in the ER again. I don't think they'll determine that she needs to be sectioned, but may be kept overnight for observation. In any case, she will be advised to get immediate psychiatric help and will need to call someone to pick her up. This time, she will decide not to call Murphy, or Strike. With any luck, she'll call Ilsa and tell her the whole story. I think Robin, with Ilsa's blessing, will take some time away from the agency, perhaps going away for some time alone. She still has about a week to go before she can meet with her new therapist. Or, maybe Prudence can pull some strings and get her an earlier appointment.  

Strike will be feeding the fish mashed peas and not aware that all this is happening. Murphy will be waiting for her at the Ritz and will probably have a drink or two when Robin fails to show. When he finally finds out what happened, his concern for her will be counteracted by the anger that she didn't call him (echo to what happened in TRG) and he will jump to the conclusion that she called Strike instead. That will be the beginning of the end for them. Strike, on the other hand, will be sensible enough to back off and give her some time to recover before pushing any more relationship issues on her. Hopefully this will give him time to develop a new plan to "woo at the right time," by being his authentic self, instead of the schemer he was in THM. 

If Robin does make it to the Ritz, I bet it will only be long enough to tell Murphy off for announcing their impending engagement to the entire Metropolitan Police Force. She can then storm out and have her attack on the way home. 

This is my first idea on what might happen if Book 9 picks up where Book 8 leaves off.  Any other ideas? 

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