The Hallmarked Man Advent Adventure, Part 7: Ch. 37-41, The Christmas Eve finale and my Christmas card to my readers.

We are at the conclusion of the read-through of the first three parts of The Hallmarked Man.  Seven parts, one for each charm on The Bracelet, which fits with all the important sevens in the books of Rowling/Galbraith.  But, there are a few chapters and a lot of holiday awkwardness to get to before we unwrap the gift. So, if you want an authentic experience, go drink half a bottle of whiskey before continuing. 

Chapter 37's main feature is the blazing row that erupts between Robin and Linda, after Robin overhears her mother and RFM discussing Strike and the Candy issue. 

“… well, if he did, it’s criminal," Murphy was saying.

Robin paused on the stairs. She’d slept until half past nine, which she hadn’t done for months, and had woken to find her boyfriend gone from the bed.

Confronted, Murphy makes a quick getaway with his trusty water bottle to "go for a run." Yeah, right. Robin finally tells her mother off in a way many readers were happy to see, but not in a way that brought any real resolution to their issues. It was very interesting that the argument was interrupted by the return of Annabel and company right after Linda said the unintentionally hurtful "You haven't got children."  I do wonder whether, if they hadn't been interrupted, Robin would have spilled the beans about her pregnancy, like she did to Strike. 

I do have a lot of compassion for Linda; what mother would not worry when her daughter's been raped, stabbed, held at gunpoint, starved in a commune, abused financially by her ex who dragged the divorce out and jumped in front of a moving train?  and that's just what Linda knows about. She is probably (and correctly) concerned that there has been even more trauma of which she has not been told. But, I do think she is re-writing history a bit here. 

"I wouldn’t rather you were still with Matthew," said Linda. "We never liked him. I was glad when you called off the wedding, I never wanted to say it, but I was, we always thought he was wrong for you—”

Linda, honey, if you really believed that, you'd have spent those three days you visited in CoE helping her pack and look for a new place to live, not whispering to Matthew and giving Robin money to put toward a new place to live OR wedding shoes. 

Stephen approaches Robin, apparently eager to dish the dirt on Martin and Carmen, but Robin has spied a picture of Oliver Branfoot in the newspaper that apparently has some significance. I had to look up what a borstal was: prisons/reformatories for young offenders that there known to be pretty brutal and not particularly effective. See here for what a former "Borstal Boy" said about a proposed revival in 2015. Branfoot probably would like to see debtors' prisons make a comeback, too. 

“Mum been filling you in on Martin?" asked Stephen.

"No," said Robin, getting to her feet, coffee in one hand, paper in the other. "Sorry, it’ll have to wait. I’ve got to call Strike.”

Chapter 38: Back in London. Strike, too, is finding it hard to get into the holiday spirit and escaping into his work. 

Though technically on Christmas leave, Strike was sitting at the partners’ desk.

Strike is searching for the woman he believes stuck the cipher note under the door, which means searching porn sites, given Dick DeLion's profession when Robin calls with the information that the man they saw briefly buying the silver bowl on their first visit to Ramsay's silver is a colleague of Oliver Branfoot, leading to the long-shot but largely correct hypothesis that Branfoot could have order the hit on the vault body and be gunning for their agency after his friend told him Strike had visited Ramsay. They are able to have another catch-up on the case; Strike tells her of the second threatening call, his conversation with Sacha Legard and the confirmation that DCI Truman is indeed a freemason. 

We also learn that Robin gave Strike a monthly subscription to Cornish food for Christmas. I find it interesting that she gave him basically a larger version of the gift she got him in The Silkworm, on his first birthday after they met, when they were still reasonably new acquaintances, and his reaction is described exactly the same way; he's "touched." It's a big contrast to the highly personal gift Robin will get from him. 

The chapter closes with the first "Golden Fleece" voicemail from Rena Liddell. 

The message ended, leaving Strike staring at the phone in total bemusement.

Chapter 39 takes us back to Masham:

Robin had the inevitable row with Murphy quietly, in their room, once he’d returned from his run.

A few things of note about the row:  

• First, RFM is at least initially polite enough to argue in a way that does not alert the rest of the family, which is mote than the Flobberworm could do. Between this and the better sex, we can at least undetstand why Robin thinks she has traded up. 
• RFM is described as "flushed and sweaty" which, along with his increasing anger, suggests that may not have been water in the water bottle. 
• Regardless of the state he is in, he puts his finger on the major issue between him and Robin without meaning to. 

“You always keep as quiet about him to me as you do me to him."

"What are you talking about?"

"'I’m on my way to look at another house.'"

"What?"

"That’s what you said to Strike, when we were on the way to see the house in Wood Green. 'I’m on my way to look at another house.'"

"Well, we were on the way to see a h—"

"Yeah. We were."

"I d—’

‘We were,’ said Murphy, no longer keeping his voice down. ‘You and me. “We.””

RFM is at least emotionally intelligent enough to realize Robin is not behaving as if they are a permanent couple. Unfortunately, the call to lunch cuts them off here. It would be interesting to know what would have happened if the conversation had continued. 

Prodigal brother Martin arrives at dessert, sans Carmen. After lunch, Robin hands out with Jenny and plays a rather grisly game with her three-year-old niece. 

Annabel was playing nurse with a rag doll, who’d apparently fallen out of a tree and broken all her bones, and while Robin helped wrap the doll in a lot of toilet roll and gave her medicine out of a plastic cup, Jenny told Robin the history of Martin and Carmen to date, which already included three break-ups and reconciliations. 

The description clearly contributes to the feeling of unease that permeates the entire Masham visit, with the possible exception of the time Robin spends opening her bracelet in the bathroom. Also, I can't help but think of the treehouse Twitter header for book 9 and wonder if there is some foreshadowing here. 

The siblings and RFM decide to head to the local pub for a Christmas Eve drink---  or many drinks, as it turns out. Carmen shows up and Robin finally meets her.  Robin and RFM mutually decide their row is over without addressing the core "I versus We"  issue that RFM had just brought up. 

I must say, reading the next few chapters and the descriptions of Robin getting plastered at the noisy crowded pub and Strike's experience at Lucy's dreadful party make me realize why I'm a chronic introvert and general homebody. I did take pleasure at seeing Matt and Sarah again, neither of whom seem to be looking too well or especially happy. Robin, in contrast, is there with her "Paul Newman look-alike."  I only wish she had been wearing one of Prudence's expensive outfits instead of the tacky sweater Jenny gave her. 

Robin recalls the last three times she drank whiskey with Strike. Notice that, with him, she did not get plastered and felt better after the interaction, as opposed to tonight with RFM.

There's more Christmas music in the pub, and, again, both songs were unfamiliar to me as an American. The first is "Merry Xmas Everyone." a 1973 hit by Slade.

No lyrics turn up in the text, but I can imagine how both Robin and Murphy felt hearing the drunk guys in the corner belting out the chorus:

So here it is, Merry Christmas, everybody's having fun

Look to the future now, it's only just begun. 

Fitting, given the future RFM wants to plan with Robin, and her apathy towards it. The second verse is also reminiscent of Christmas at the crowded Ellacott home, especially wit latecomers Mrtin and Carmen relegated to the sitting room.

Are you waiting for the family to arrive? 

Are you sure you've got the room to spare inside? 

The second is "Not Tonight Santa" by Girls Aloud. 

Robin reflects a bit longer about this one, and not pleasantly. Like other music associated with the time around her rape, it doesn't have pleasant associations. 

“Not Tonight Santa" began to play and, with an unpleasant inner shudder, she remembered the year the song had come out: she’d been twenty-one, and the man sitting in the far corner of this familiar pub, who’d later proved himself duplicitous, intensely materialistic, coercive and unfaithful, had been her one guarantee that men who wanted sex with you weren’t all monsters.

Robin hears a snatch of lyrics when she is approached by the younger women who what to grill her about Strike. 

No stocking this morning, but that don't make me blue.

 If you listen to the rest of that section, you'll find the song is about a woman so in love with her partner that she doesn't need Santa at Christmas. 

There's one thing that I'm wanting, that I can only get from you. 

Unfortunately for Robin, the genuine object of her desire is not RFM, but CBS, and the gift she gets from him is more meaningful than anything else. 

A later line is perhaps even more fitting for Robin, given the known connection of the series to the Eros and Psyche myth. 

It may sound stupid, but I need Cupid, more than all the presents I think I'm due. 

 On a break from the pub, Robin, though completely sloshed, manages to stumble across the name Reata Lindvall while googling "Rita Linda." It is fascinating that Robin keeps making breakthroughs on the case, all of which relate to sexual predators and their female victims.  First Sapphire, then Sophia Medina, then Oliver Branfoot and now Reata Lindvall (and her daughter, Jolanda). Jonathan Wace may be the scum of the earth, but he was correct in giving her the name of Artemis, defender of women. 

Two potential continuity errors are seen in this chapter. 

• We are told here that "Bobbin" is Stephen's childhood nickname for Robin, as "Button" is hers for him. These names seem to indicate affection; Robin called him "Button" when he called to tell her of Annabel's birth, and Annabel calls her "Aunt Bobbin." 
• However, in LW, when Robin became Bobbie Cunliffe, we were not told of the connection of the name to Stephen, but instead told that this was the name Martin called her "when he wanted to annoy her." True, "Bobbin" is not the same as "Bobbie" but they are very close---  close enough that I thought Stephen was calling her Bobbie on my first listen through the audiobook. 
• Robin also tells the Flobberworm that they are staying until December 29th.  They arrived late in the day on the 22nd, and that night, in bed, Robin comforted herself by saying "it's only four days." 
• That would have them leaving on the 26th, or possibly early in the day on the 27th.  The 22nd to the 29th is a full week!

Onto Lucy's party in Chapter 40.  Marguerite may reappear in her silver (we can't escape that, can we?) caftan, but this chapter is the author's pure comedy gold. (See here, here, and below for some of my work on Rowling's talent with this type of writing). 

Personally, apart from the return of Marguerite and the hilarious descriptions of her ("like some large and unpredictable asteroid" and "lurking in the hall below like a basking shark"), my favorite part was Strike being forced to acknowledge a son named "Fingal" and promise to encourage him to persevere in his tae-kwon-doe.  Other than possibly "Lion" or "Whittaker," I can't imagine a name less likely for a child of Strike's than "Fingal." This is also a nice foreshadowing of Strike's literal concerns about being forced to accept paternity of a child he doesn't know or want later in the book. The name, incidentally, means "Fair Stranger."

We also are reminded that suburban middle-class homes can be just as disgusting as a ratty apartment like Flick Purdue's when it comes to bathrooms in over-crowded parties. 

With all the chaos, annoyances and vomit at the party, it is easy to miss the major and minor case developments. KFC reports that Plug is building something with chicken wire, and continues to play footsie with her texts, "accidentally" indicating her willingness to send nudes and attaching a kiss to what should be a routine report, which Strike ignores. Jade Semple no longer wants Strike to make the trip to see her, thinking her husband has run off with another woman, who used his cash card after the body was found. We also learn that Niall Semple has a connection to the name William Wright.  This is another part of the story that strains credibility to me: what are the odds that three of the corpse candidates, including two who conveniently could not be DNA-typed, would have a connection to that specific name?  Strike, of course, is still determined to go, not so much for the sake of the case but for a chance to get Robin alone in a nice lake district hotel.  As we will see, these schemes that put his own needs above both Robin's and the client's will not succeed. 

Everything had gone badly wrong at the Bay Horse.

Onto Chapter 41, and the aftermath of the night in the pub.We've seen Robin tipsy enough to be unsteady on her feet and a bit hung over before, but never have we seen her drink herself sick. We can suspect that RFM did slip at least a couple genuine pints, given his flash of temper at Robin's query that is nearly identical to the Night of the Broken Condom.  Carmen, having slung down enough vodka to be feeling "f*cked up" despite being 7 months pregnant. I am wondering if little Dirk will wind up with a diagnosis of fetal alcohol syndrome as well as his palsy. 

Stephen put his arm around her. Her older brother, who was the land manager of a large estate twenty miles from Masham, was the biggest of the Ellacott brothers, nearly as big as Strike, but this didn’t feel anything like Strike holding her up at the Ritz, on the night when he’d nearly kissed her. Don’t think about that.

My thought on re-reading this is that it is probably a good thing that Stephen holding her does not feel anything like Strike. One incestuous union in this book is enough.  But clearly Robin had felt some unbrotherly love for Strike the two times he had supported her after too much booze (Books 3 and 6). 

There is another near-row with Murphy over his mistaking the butt-dial for a secret texting session with Strike. To his credit, that means he did not read her messages, as the Flobberworm (or frankly, almost any boyfriend who was remotely jealous of another man in his partner's life) would have.  The subsequent exchange is interesting:

“Why did you get so drunk tonight?"

"Because I rowed with Mum," said Robin, her throat constricting, "and then I rowed with you… and everyone’s bloody pregnant."

He raised himself a little on the pillows, incredibly handsome in the half-light. (Who’s the Paul Newman lookalike?)

"Robin, I’m sorry," he said in a low voice. "Come here.”

Some points of interest:

• Murphy had the decency to apologize, but I am wondering if his softening was, perhaps, more because he interpreted  Robin's "everyone's bloody pregnant" as jealousy, and is thinking that she might be coming around to the idea of starting a family with him. 
• Strike gets his share of criticism for his fixation on Charlotte's beauty and the fact that "it helped" him endure her more outrageous behavior, but we see here that Robin's own ego is stroked by her ability to attract conventionally handsome man. I imagine it was a considerable boost to her ego to see Matthew looking heavier and grey, while commenting that her boyfriend looked like Paul Newman.

My main appreciation for the look at both Strike's and Robin's Christmas Eves is the masterful way Galbraith connects to books 2 and 5. The 2-5-8 connection is predicted by both the Double Wedding Band and Three-Ring Circus models. We see the echo of The Silkworm's miserable party at Lucy's, complete with Marguerite again eyeing him hungrily, but also a connection to Christmas in Troubled Blood, with Robin instead of Strike throwing up her guts to the point of exhaustion. There is also a connection to TB's Dinner Party from Hell, with the role of Courtney and the assurance that some women like porn being played by Marguerite, and little Hector throwing up outside of the conveniences of a toilet, as Strike did in the street outside Max's place. 

We can also appreciate Robin's need for hygiene after her prayer to the porcelain goddess (another trait indicating compatibility with Strike) and that she was smart enough to conceal his Christmas gift and not open it in front of RFM.  Thus comes the first truly feel-good, chills-up-your-spine moment in this book: 

A thick silver chain bracelet, from which hung seven charms, lay on a bed of black foam, and Robin recognised the middle charm immediately: it was the masonic orb she’d admired in Ramsay Silver. She stared, transfixed, unaware that her mouth was open. Then she lifted the bracelet out of its box, and amazed as she was, she could follow Strike’s thought process perfectly. He’d gone back for the orb, and someone, maybe Kenneth Ramsay, had tried to sell him more charms – make it a bracelet! – and that had given him the idea, but he hadn’t been content to buy a job lot from Ramsay; instead, he’d painstakingly built this, and it was like Strike, in that it was a bit clunky and inelegant, the charms mis-matched, but there was so much thought in every one of them: private jokes and shared memories, incommunicable to anyone but the two of them.

I bet she didn't guess that the original idea of jewelry came from Shanker (or his father, actually!). But, just as whiskey forced the truth of their attraction out in Troubled Blood, it does here as well. 

She knew how much hard work Cormoran Strike would have put into this, he who found present-giving an onerous chore, who found it inexplicable that anyone would remember what anyone liked, or wore, but he’d remembered all of this, and he wanted her to know he remembered it, and oh God, I love him, thought Robin, and then another voice in her head said sternly,

No, you don’t.

I do, I do…

You’re still drunk.

This is reason to hope that when they finally do acknowledge their love for each other, it will be when both are sober.  Robin immediately texts her thanks, and we get another oxytocin surge as Strike responds in a way very different than he did to KFC. 

I’m glad, he typed, and then, slowly, painstakingly, he added a kiss for every one of hers.

Thus ends the chapter, Part Three and The Hallmarked Man Advent Adventure. I have really enjoyed posting along with our heroes at the same time of year so, following my Christmas break, I will resume the read-through in January, with the hopes of finishing up in April. 

I wish all my readers the same happiness Robin found on that bathroom floor this holiday season. I am grateful to all the connections I have made through this blog and all of you who have read along with me and contributed so much to my understanding of these novels. 

Merry Strikemas, everyone!