The Hallmarked Man Real-time Re-read, Chapters 110-112: Confronting the Tarantula and welcoming a prodigal brother.

I really love the opening to Chapter 110: 

The large, twisted trees lining the road and the stretches of prime farmland were like a landscape seen in a half-forgotten dream. Strike tried to take consolation from the magnificent indifference of nature to all human concerns, but the strategy was so ineffective it was almost a relief to turn up the side road leading to Heberley, and focus his mind on what needed to be done.

Fresh off the epic showdown with Lord Branfoot and the Kimphomaniac, Strike now travels to back to Yorkshire to confront a much older enemy, the woman who was a major factor in Charlotte's terrible childhood and the reason, as he says, "she was never going to make old bones." 

The encounter with Tara is probably the best upper-class farce we've seen since the original interview with the Chiswell family. Tara is exhibit A for what Strike told Robin at the Ritz about "people behaving better in the squats." I love that, even as she's cursing Strike and threatening to have him dragged away, when he lets Tara know he's spied the nef in her dining room, she immediately feels compelled to offer coffee.

“Fine," said Strike, getting up. "I’ll go to the press, tell them Sacha’s got the stolen ship and, trust me, I’ll enjoy it."

"Don’t you dare – come back here!" shrieked Tara, as Strike made for the door. Before he could reach it, it opened to reveal the frightened-looking housekeeper.

"Get out," Tara shouted at her, "this is priv—!"

The housekeeper checked, holding her tray. Tara made a noise of exasperation.

"Bring the coffee in first," she said. "Then leave." 

Gotta love them Brits.  Somehow, coffee (that she makes Strike pour for himself) is supposed to signal manners even in the midst of the raging and incivility she displays. Like a boxer, Strike expertly parries her verbal jabs as she rages at him, and never lets her divert him from the reason he's there. 

“It’s your bloody fault she killed herself!" shouted Tara....

"So whose fault were the two suicide attempts before I ever met her?" asked Strike.

‘Fuck you!’

‘Eloquent as ever,’ said Strike. ‘Anyway, back to the sideboard.”

“Bastard," said Tara. "And I mean that literally, of course."

"I’d say I’m a fairly good advert for having an unmarried mother, if you and Charlotte are the control," said Strike. "Back to the nef.”

Overall, the tone of this confrontation reminds me a lot of the one with Jonathan Wace, where Strike kept saying "Back to the pig masks." 

Of course, the solution to the silver nef's whereabouts was hinted at way back in Chapter 36, but, like Strike, most readers let the idea pass by unnoticed. 

There was a pause. Strike watched Sacha’s pale face colour.

"You aren’t seriously suggesting…?"

"Not suggesting anything," said Strike dishonestly. He didn’t for a second believe Rupert had stolen the nef on Sacha’s orders, so that it might henceforth grace the sideboard in Heberley House, but he enjoyed hinting that Sacha, so eel-like in his ability to wriggle free of responsibility and culpability, might yet be drawn into the story of the stolen nef and the drug dealer, by police or press. "It was a Fleetwood relic, then, was it?”

There's even a pretty clear hint that Sacha already knows the ship has made its way back to his ancestral home.

“Is Tara in contact with Rupert?" asked Strike, who didn’t doubt the answer was "no", because he could think of little Tara would be less interested in, than an impecunious nephew by a previous marriage.

"No," said Sacha, goaded at last into a display of weak temper, "and I’d advise—"

He stopped short, but Strike, whose sole aim now was to needle the actor as much as he could before Sacha terminated the interview, said, "You’d advise me not to contact your mother?"

"Yes, I would.”

While it is quite true that Rupert didn't repossess the nef at either Tara or Sacha's behest, it seems she were happy to reclaim it at a fraction of its value. Tara admits she gave Rupert 6000 pounds for it, and arranged a job overseas for him at a Clairmont hotel. She justifies her actions by claiming she has witnesses to Dino cheating when he originally won it at backgammon. Because Tish Benton also knew where the nef was, Tara got her a cushy job as a "brand consultant" as well, though the time delay between Rupert's job and Tish's is not explained. 

Strike also probes Tara as to the reason Rupert had for gate-crashing her son's birthday, but shallow Tara can't think of a reason beyond a desire to rub elbows with "the beautiful people." In the process, another incest hint is dropped. 

Charlotte had once wondered whether their mothers had ever met; there was a photograph of Tara with Jonny Rokeby, after some concert or other: had he screwed her, too? ‘Maybe we’re brother and sister,’ Charlotte had said, an idea Strike found repulsive rather than exciting.

As with Jonathan Wace, Strike closes with a great parting shot:

“OK,’"said Strike, getting to his feet. "I won’t trouble you any longer. Mind if I have a slash before I go?"

"Yes," snarled Tara.

"No need to get up,’"said Strike, as though she hadn’t spoken. "I remember where the bog is.”

Chapter 111 is very brief. 

Preferring to leave the environs of Heberley House well behind him before he took a break for something to eat, Strike drove south to the city of York.

Once in this historic walled city (which he will be revisiting--hopefully with Robin-- in Sleep Tight, Evangeline) he makes calls to both Decima and Robin, stating his confidence that Rupert is working at some Clairmont Hotel and that this closes the case. Decima, of course, remains in denial, while Robin is stunned. Strike head to the White Swan pub for some lunch, and gets a call from George Layborn, who tells him Wade King has an alibi for the William Wright murder, and therefore cannot be Oz. As was the case in Troubled Blood, the detectives are forced to close a case with many unanswered questions left. 

He accidentally dislodged his vape from his pocket in replacing his notebook there; it rolled away under an empty neighbouring table, and as Strike bent to pick it up again, he thought again of the tube-like object William Wright had dropped, which Mandy and Daz had thought was a doob tube, and which Wright had claimed had been a blood sample, and he wondered, yet again, what it had really been.

Robin, in particular, is haunted my multiple aspects of the case, just as she continues to be haunted by her recent trauma. Chapter 112 has another great opening, as the first brief five-word sentence is followed by a multi-clause near-run-on, not unlike that which was used to depict Robin's drowning in TRG. 

So the case was closed. The agency had replaced Decima with the top client on the waiting list, and the mutilated body of the man called William Wright continued to lie unidentified, eyeless and handless in an unknown morgue, and Robin wasn’t supposed to care about him, or about dead Sofia Medina or missing Sapphire Neagle, but her mind refused to expel the disconnected facts of the silver vault case, on which it continued to chew uncomfortably, as if on bits of grit.

 You can see how the thoughts and intrusive memories keep tumbling in her head. Her PTSD is getting worse, not better, in part because she knows her attacker is out on bail and knows where she lives.  She is still off the streets, working only in her home or in the Denmark Street office. 

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. The smallest things made her want to cry: spilled orange juice, a lost button.

On Thursday, March 16th, Murphy his detained by a case and can't meet her for dinner. We see further evidence of Robin's worsening mental state: once at her flat, she has to psych herself up even to walk from her parked car to the door of her building, and will only do so with pepper spray in her hand. Unfortunately, her worst fears are realized when a man she recognizes as Wade King runs out of her building, followed by a much bigger man who, unlike King, approaches her car.  She nearly pepper sprays the guy before she recognizes him as her prodigal brother, Martin. As we recall, he texted her on the day she met Murphy's parents to ask if he could visit, and apparently took her clarifying question as an open invitation. Still, he has come in quite handy and Robin is very glad to see him. 

“One of your neighbours let me in. I was sitting on your stairs waiting for you to come home and that fucker showed up and tried to slide this under your door,"  said Martin, holding up the crumpled paper. "I said, 'who the fuck are you?' and he got aggressive so I got aggressive back, and then he ran.” 

The picture King was leaving was, of course, another gorilla. 

Robin decides not to call Ryan, or tell Strike, who calls to tell her that he thinks Plug's revenge stabbing against the man who euthanized his hellhound is proceeding that night, with the unfortunate son in tow. While Martin is making himself at home and Robin is hiding the picture in her drawer with the other evidence, she decides to call Prudence to get a therapist. Prudence recommends and unconventional and sweary therapist (Who has, thanks to the Strike and Ellacott files been christened "Dr. Broccoli"). Speaking of Jungian therapists and the SE Files, there is a brilliant essay on literary alchemy that includes the Jungian perspective up at their blog. 

Robin is very relieved to have taken a step towards getting treatment and, fittingly, she gets an interlude from the intensity of her work to have a nice chat, over wine, with Martin about his domestic issues. Not only is their conversation a nice interlude, it sets up a contrast into what a functional family looks like, in contrast to the Campbell-Longcaster-Legard-Jenson bunch. Martin may be the black sheep of the family, but he is still a loving brother.  Turns out, Carmen kicked him out after he threw a tantrum over an ex-boyfriend of hers stopping by with a baby gift, and not only threw the present out the window but accused the man of fathering baby Dirk. Robin feels sure Martin is over-reacting and that it was a completely innocent visit, pointing out that Carmen's relationship with the guy was over seven years ago and that she is a mere six weeks postpartum. Martin, whose own employment history is sketchy, is very jealous of the man's successful skip hire business, which is called Excalibur and whose logo is on proud display. 

“Fucking widescreen telly and a home gym. He’s put the fucking logo on all his stuff at home! On fucking cushions – he hires out skips for a living and he thinks he’s – who owned Excalibur?"

"King Arthur," said Robin, still fighting a desire to laugh.

"Him, yeah," said Martin, and he downed his second mug of wine. "Flexing his fucking biceps at her. Swords on his T-shirts and his fucking weights. Fucking arsehole.”

There does seem to be either an error or a retconn here, as they discuss Martin's past displays of temper.

But then Robin remembered a very drunk Martin taking a swing at her ex-husband, on their wedding day, and she laughed again.

"Just remembering you nearly thumping Matthew."

"Ah," said Martin, and he grinned properly this time. "He’s a real fucking tosser.”

As I recall, the Flobberworm got a bloody nose out of the incident, meaning Martin didn't just take a swing but connect one and that there was no "nearly" in the thumping.  Robin suggests Martin call Carmen to apologize, then gives him space to process what she has said. But something Martin has said has given her an idea.

“You can put custom designs on weights?"

"If you’re the kind of prick who likes that sort of thing. Why?"

"No reason," said Robin. She returned to the kitchen.

Next time:  an intense segment, with a terrorist attack, Strike's meeting with Rena Liddell and the death of Travolta the fish. 

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