The Hallmarked Man Real-Time Re-read, Chapters 65-67: Cracking the mandala code?

In Chapter 65, Robin and Strike finally converge on the same place physically (Ironbridge) though, as we shall see, they remain far apart emotionally.  This will lead to the harshest test of their relationship certainly since 2014, when they had a two-week fight over Mucky Ricci and Robin nearly smashed the office door. This might even be the worst things have been between them since 2011, when he sacked her.

Strike had used the retractable walking stick he carried with him for emergencies to enter and leave the Travelodge in Penrith, and slathered the end of his stump in its usual moisturising cream before sleeping. Unfortunately, neither measure had ameliorated the pain in his right knee, which remained swollen and continued to resent the slightest amount of weight-bearing or movement.

At least this time they didn't mention anything about Robin buying the stick for him, which is an improvement over books 6 and 8. But, as we'll see, the fact that his leg is still hurting is a bad omen for the reunion with Robin. The detectives are still playing foolish games with each other. For instance: 

Robin might have asked about the fact that her partner was walking with a stick, but as he usually disliked enquiries about his leg, she decided not to. Strike, meanwhile, was perversely wondering why she couldn’t at least ask about his leg. 

Then, of course, when she does express concern, he bites her head off.

“Er – Dilys’s house is up quite a steep road, I’ve just seen the sign. If your leg’s bad—"

"It’s fine," said Strike shortly.

Sod you, then, thought Robin.

 In additionally to being generally depressed and grumpy, Strike is also still on shaky moral ground.  

He ought to have been driving away from the Lake District hotel with Robin at his side, either ecstatic that his declaration of love had been reciprocated and (even better) consummated, or – and in his current glum state of mind, he didn’t doubt that this had been more likely, all along – in extreme mutual embarrassment, because she’d turned him down.

Consummated, eh? This doesn't exactly jive with what you told her at the end, about not wanting her to cheat, and not wanting an affair. What was she supposed to do, dump Ryan via text while you are negotiating a refund on that second hotel room?

Strike also falls a bit further in my regard when he lies to Robin about asking Jade Semple about Reata Lindvall and Oz, and when he seems to be feigning interest in her Tia Thompson interview for the sake of "currying favor" rather than actually appreciating her contributions to the investigation. They finish their coffee and set off for the interview, still emotionally on the odds with each other. 

Meanwhile Robin, who was washing her hands at the sink, looked into the mirror over it and noticed not only how pale and exhausted she looked, but also the large black smudge of mascara under her right eye. Strike could have told her about it, she thought furiously, as she wiped it away.

The journey to see Dilys (Chapter 66) is murder on Strike's leg. 

Robin hadn’t been lying about the steepness of New Road, which made Comrie Road in Crieff look like a gentle incline.

The encounter and interview with Ian Griffiths and Dilys in the next two chapters reads very different once you know the ending of the book. The hostility when they first show up and Griffiths thinks they're journalists changes rapidly when he finds out they are there to talk to Dilys about the possibility that Tyler is the body in the vault. In retrospect, it is obvious that Griffiths felt a need to be friendly to anyone considering this angle, lest hostility arouse suspicion. 

The mandala-adorned throw on the couch also jumped out at me on the re-read. The only other place we have seen a mandala in the series is on the purple cloth covering the ottoman containing Margot's body. While the throw isn't directly covering a body, we now know that Chloe, like Margot is on the premises, encased in cement.  This is yet another link to Troubled Blood.  So, just as we've been trained to look at important picture clues when there is a yapping terrier around (Tigger, Rattenbury, Basil), we should look for corpses buried in concrete whenever we see a mandala-bedecked cloth draped over a piece of furniture. 

I also wonder who the brunette was who posed as Chloe's mother for the picture. Was it just a friend, or someone Griffiths was trafficking?

Griffiths gives them his version of Tyler being driven away by a community who suspected him of tampering with a car and causing a fatal accident, though in his version, he was one of Tyler's few allies. 

“Finally he came to me and said he’d had enough, he just wanted to clear – hang on," said Griffiths suddenly, getting to his feet and peering out of the window on to New Road. "That’s Dilys, she must’ve been up the church. I’ll get her, shall I?”

Chapter 67 heralds the arrival of Dilys, who is addled enough by age, medication or both to allow Griffiths, who is faking the gracious host with his tea and Tunnock's teacakes,* to shape the conversation to suit himself. 

Dilys Powell was a small, saggy-cheeked woman with wispy white hair, who looked frail and ill. She was wearing a thick tartan winter coat and entered the room very slowly, using a walking frame, a large black handbag over one arm.

One of his cleverer moves is to take advantage of Dilys's bathroom break to stop Robin from asking about the non-existent great-niece. 

“There’s a great-niece, isn’t there?" asked Robin. "I spoke to her before Christmas."

"She doesn’t live round here, she’s back at uni," said Ian. "I wouldn’t mention her. Dilys’s cat, that she was supposed to be feeding, died when Dilys was in hospital.”

I still wonder what the three muffled thumps were supposed to be. Surely Griffiths would not have let our heroes in if the trapdoor was open or exposed. Was it Sapphire pounding from downstairs? But the fact that Dilys is insisting she didn't make the noise and Griffiths saying it was Dilys hitting the table should have set off alarms. 

It still seems odd there were no DNA samples in the house where Tyler was staying.  They got hair from the drains in the silver shop.  What kind of 25-year-old cleans the sinks that well before leaving a house?

It also seems to strain credulity that, in addition to having no DNA sample available and no blood relatives, and being the same height and blood type and disappearing at roughly the same time, both Tyler and Niall have distinguishing marks on their backs (which would have been removed by the carved hallmark) and connections to the name William Wright. In addition, one spoke of the Freemasons before disappearing and the other spoke of silver. 

The fact that Tyler's known messages stopped two days before Wright's murder, and that he insisted on changing phones a month later were also big clues. And Galbraith does one of his classic misdirections when the confused Dilys turns out to be absolutely right when she recognizes that the messages from the new phone are not Tyler's. 

With some valuable information gathered, Strike and Robin head out, with the former clearly dreading another walk on his bad knee. 

With a low groan he failed to suppress, Strike succeeded in leaving the sofa.

"Yeah, cheers," he said, trying not to grimace in pain as he held out his hand to Griffiths. "Big help.”

Coming up in the next installment:  the most disastrous debrief our heroes have ever had.  

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*These seem to resemble what Yanks call Mallomars, only with shortbread instead of a graham cracker base.