The Hallmarked Man Real-time Re-read: Chapters 89-92: Vodka-soaked gym clothes, crushed cars and two dead bodies.

Chapter 89 takes us back to Robin and Murphy, who make up over the weekend. 

Robin felt as though she’d been away from London for a fortnight, instead of the forty-eight hours that had actually passed. 

She meets RFM at an Italian* place for dinner Saturday night, and spends the night at his flat. On Sunday evening, as Robin is preparing for her Facetime with Wynn Jones, he decides to "do an hour at the gym" and leaves with his bag and infamous water bottle.  He has barely exited when Strike calls. 

There is a bit of a time glitch in this conversation:

Strike, who was lying on his bed in his attic room with his prosthesis off, said,

"Yeah, I’m fine."

In fact, his stomach had been upset all day, which he suspected was the fault of the kebab he’d bought on the way home from the Blind Spot the previous evening, because his hunger had been unassuaged by a few exorbitantly priced chips and three calamari rings.

Strike was, of course, at the Blind Spot on Friday evening, and, since he's talking to Robin on Sunday, this was not "the previous evening." Either this is an authorial error, or Strike drank enough Ardbeg to knock himself out for 24 hours and has lost track of what day it is.  He has three things to talk about: the supposed call from Fleetwood, he's located Todd's mother and Kim has resigned. Though worried about Robin's reaction, her decides to tell the whole truth, omitting only the bit about the nude. 

“And one other thing," said Strike, hoping there wasn’t about to be a row. ‘Kim’s resigned. I’ve just got the email."

"Oh," said Robin again. For the first time in days, her spirits lifted. "Why—? Did something happen, or—?"

"Yeah, something happened," said Strike, who’d decided he needed to be honest about this, even if it led to trouble.

This is another step in his purification process, and he is rewarded when Robin is delighted, not angry, at the news. Even better, Wardle has quit the Met and can start working for the agency on Wednesday. 

Cool car!

After hanging up with Strike, Robin Facetimes Wynn, who has apparently taken "how to be boorish" lessons from Saul Morris. Despite the crude remarks and the laughing crony, Robin manages to learn a few things before she cuts the call in disgust after being asked to flash her boobs. 

• Wynn still insists Tyler is working in a pub, but refuses to say where. 
• He hasn't talked to Tyler since before Christmas. 
• Tyler's nickname was Lugs, which allows Robin to find an old social media account showing the cars Tyler is repairing. 
• The 1965 Austin-Healy Mark III is mentioned here (see photo!)
• Wynn insists the only girl Tyler liked was Chloe, and mentions the bracelet he gave her for her birthday .
• He corrects her on the name of Wesley Road. 

RFM returns, claims to have forgotten his cell phone and heads back out, offering to pick up curry. Robin notices the puddle forming around his gym bag, and discovers the vodka. A quick search of the flat finds a stash of bottles in his wardrobe. 

In a very short Chapter 90, Strike is tailing Plug again, watching the house where the hellhound is kept. There is a very neat throwback to Cuckoo's Calling. 

Strike wasn’t overly sentimental about animals; with the sole exception of a snake he’d once succeeded in catching as a boy, he’d never felt the urge for a pet.

We've heard of this snake before; it was actually one of the first times he expressed desire for Robin, who he had characterized in Vashti as a "serpentine goddess." 

And yet, he was close to feeling about her as he had felt about a grass snake he had succeeded in trapping in Trevaylor Woods when he was eleven, and about which he had had a long, pleading argument with his Auntie Joan. "Please let me keep it... please..." 

While Robin had perused the classic cars Tyler Powell was repairing, Strike is observing cars at the other end of their existences. In retrospect, this is perhaps a hint that Tyler is on the opposite side of the criminals. On the stakeout, he notices a familiar person bringing a van to the Brian Judge scrap yard at a rather odd time of night. After a bit, he recognizes the man as Marco Ricci, Luca's younger** brother. When he hears the van being crushed, he realizes that, in Cockney rhyming slang, "judge" is "Barnaby Rudge" and concludes this is Barnaby's, where criminals dispose of not only vehicles used in crimes, but bodies as well.  He calls Shanker to confirm that his old friend has no implicating evidence in the facility. The answer is no, but I wonder what Strike would have done if it had been yes?  Notice that Shanker, who was facing jail before Christmas, is apparently still a free man.  He must have a good lawyer. 

Chapter 91 is also short, with Robin confronting RFM when he gets home with the curry. While it is of course debatable how sincere his remorse is, I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. Yes, part of the distress is clearly over the fact that he was caught, but he does acknowledge his screw-up and recognize that Robin would be justified in leaving him. 

Murphy’s eyes filled with tears. He dropped the takeaway and sat down in an armchair, face in his hands, and began to sob. There was no question that his tears were genuine: he was making noises that were barely human; strangled, whooping wails, his whole body shaking. 

Robin, who has already packed her bag, leaves, after insisting they withdraw the offer they made on the house. Murphy begs her not to go, but, after "automatically" saying she loves him. she departs.  

Strike journeys to Magdalen*** Court in Harlesden in search of Jim Todd's mother in Chapter 92, and gets more than he bargained for. I must say, I found his interactions with the youths he had to bribe to keep his car safe pretty entertaining. It reminded me both of his interactions with Madeline's son Henry and the encounter with the two youths who lent him their phone to call for help when Robin was attacked in CoE.

If you are curious about their clothing insignia:

• Snoop Dog is an American rapper.
• Wacken Open Air is a heavy metal festival in Wacken, Germany. 
• The Millwall Football Club is based in London and their mascot is a lion, so we can add that to the collection.
• Could this be an inkling of a hint that we should look to football mascots as a clue to the mystery?  As in, Tyler Powell's weights?

Interestingly, the boys report seeing Nancy Jameson with "a fat bloke." When Nancy fails to answer her door, but when Strike sees a light on and some movement in the house, he decides to use his skeleton keys to enter.

“You gonna break in?" said the bearded youth, in interest.

"It’s not breaking in," lied Strike.

‘Can we come?’ said the youth in the Millwall top.

"Worried about Nancy too, are you?" said Strike.

"Yeah," said the second of the South Asian boys, who alone was wearing a coat, and whose acne looked painful. "We’ve been dead worried.”

Strike finds both Jim Todd and his mother murdered. The boys are both freaked out and excited, and Strike has to order them out of the flat and stop them from publicizing the event via phone. He gets the most mature of the lot to call the police, which causes the rest to take flight. I guess they didn't get their money.

Strike takes a quick look inside before the police arrive, and learns that Todd was bashed in the head with a crystal paperweight and stabbed multiple times, while Nancy died of a single stab wound. He also finds another book about poker. The chapter, and Part Seven, close with the arrival of the Metropolitan Police. 

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*There has been a lot of Italian in this book. I wonder if she had more carbonara? 

** Not as young as he is described though;  Marco should be in his mid-fifties, not forty, as it says in the text. 

*** The run-down apartment complex shares its name with Mary Magdalen, the reformed prostitute. Recall that Strike had uncovered the fact that Nancy Jameson used to be "on the game."