The Hallmarked Man Real-time Re-Read., Chapters 101-104; An Eventful Monday.

As is typical during the last 10-15% of a Strike book, the action starts to pick up considerably. Case in point is this Monday, March 7th. We've already had Strike heading out early to avoid Robin, Strike and Robin snapping at each other on the phone and the restoration of Cormoranda to the main fish tank. Before the day is over, Strike will have traveled to Hereford, Yeovil and back to London, spoken to three different people about the case, heard from Fergus Robertson about Culpepper's latest screed and been forced to have his first meeting with Jonny Rokeby in 24 years. Robin, for her part, will watch Plug, drive to interview Faber Whitehead, fight off an attacker in the car and have a lengthy visit to the police station. This is a very full day. 

Chapter 101 finds Strike arriving in Hereford, hoping Robin will send him an angry text so he could apologize. This is an echo of the morning after the Dinner Party from Hell in TB, when Strike broke his habit of waiting for the woman to make the first move after a row (a lesson he learned well with Charlotte) and called Robin to apologize before heading to Cornwall. This is another example of a frustrating interaction, because he really should have learned better with Robin by now. 

Strike deposited his BMW in a multi-storey car park close to the middle of Hereford and set off in search of an early lunch, because breakfast felt a long way behind him.

One prediction based on the Leapfrog effect was that Strike would have a case-related meal in an ultra-masculine restaurant, as he did with Jerry Waldegrave in The Silkworm, Jasper Chiswell in LW and Grant Upcott in TIBH. While he does not go to a former gentlemen's or hunting club, he does eat at the macho-sounding Beefy Boys, dining on the Dirty Boy Burger. And, though he dines alone, he does call Danny de Leon and spend some time browsing Jim Todd's poker book, so some casework gets done. I'm going to count this as close enough to be a 2-4-6-8 connection. 

Interestingly. Strike calls his meal choice a “an angry self-sabotaging impulse” despite his attempt to rescue his namesake fish from a similar hardship caused by its own "greedy gulping." But, his burger cheers him up enough to offer Robin a brief apology by text before setting off to The Golden Fleece (a good Cupid and Psyche name!) where he expects to meet Rena Liddell. Note: Strikefans.com recently added the Golden Fleece to its book locations section:  Check it out here to see the"narrow, cramped and corridor-like interior" and the stairs that lead up to the roof. 

Instead, Strike meets another RL:  putative MI5 agent Ralph Lawrence, who had monitored the social media contact and knew Strike was meeting Rena here. He informs Strike that Rena's been sectioned. Furious at being forced to climb up to the roof on his sore leg and spill his beer, as well as offended by the aviator sunglasses, Strike refuses to let Lawrence intimidate him and declines to cooperate in any way. Convinced that Rena knows something about Niall Semple's disappearance, Strike decides to wait for her release. 

He turned and, doing his absolute best not to hobble, set back off down the steep metal staircase. As he’d rashly committed to driving to the Quicksilver Mail pub in Yeovil, he supposed he should get going.

In Chapter 102, we learn Robin is still losing sleep, both because of nightmares about the UHC and for brooding about Murphy. Her displeasure continues to find a convenient target in Strike. 

Robin was currently too angry at Strike to accept his texted apology. Work was supposed to be the one place in her life where she wasn’t subject to men taking out their bad moods on her and she saw no reason to show a good grace Strike himself rarely displayed.

Murphy, unlike Strike, had called her almost immediately to apologize for after his outburst Saturday. Unfortunately, Murphy's parents apparently don't know about several things they should (his alcoholic relapse and his work troubles) while Robin suspects they have been told things she would rather they no know (her ectopic pregnancy, Ryan's plans to propose). 

They’d come over to London to meet Murphy’s soon-to-be fiancée, and the possible mother of future grandchildren, while in total ignorance of the things their son had done to make Robin afraid of making long-term plans with him.

Even with this somewhat disturbing behavior, Robin remains committed.  It's these type of choices that have a lot of people hoping that Dr. Broccoli is well-versed in the area of "co-dependency." 

She’d accepted Murphy’s apology where she hadn’t accepted Strike’s, because the former had sounded distraught on the phone and she still felt the responsibility of supporting him in sobriety. 

After finishing up her surveillance of Plug at 5:30, Robin drives to Beaconsfield, which seems to be about 25 miles outside of London, to the northwest, to interview Faber Whitehead, who is described as looking like "a beluga whale in glasses." In addition to dad's pale appearance, most of the family has very albedo-sounding names. Not only does the surname contain "white" but "Faber" means "metal craftsman" (appropriate given the focus on ornamental silver, mother Lucinda means "light" and the late Hugo means "bright in mind and spirit" in addition to the "Hg" of his name evoking mercury.  Only the older brother, Harvey "battle worthy" breaks the pattern, although an alternate meaning is "blazing iron," which also connects to the metal refinery imagery. As with the rest of the book, the albedo imagery is juxtaposed against a very nigredo story: the Whitehead family appears more broken than purified through the loss of Hugo. 

Whitehead surprises Robin with his hypothesis that Chloe Griffiths, not Tyler, tampered with the car and caused the accident that killed Hugo and Ann-Marie. He informs Robin of some CCTV footage that might have indicated a female-sized person getting into Tyler's car at the concert car park.  He also denies that his family started the rumor about Tyler causing the crash; indeed, he seems fond of Tyler and blames Chloe for the rumor-mongering.  He also tells an odd story about Chloe becoming hysterical and threatening over Hugo and Ann-Marie teasing her about the bracelet Tyler gave her, calling her "Shrinking Violet" and laughing about her leaving her boyfriend for Tyler. By this time, we should know we've heard too much about this violet bracelet for it not to be a major clue, even if we hadn't looked up the meaning of "Jolanda." 

Robin returns to her Land Rover and texts Chloe, forgetting to look her door. Her memory is jogged by the "Horse and Jockey" pub. 

She’d just opened Google to look at the place when the door beside her was wrenched open. Before she could scream, a hand closed around her throat.

Chapter 103 is brief but action-packed, as Green Jacket (soon to be revealed as Wade King) attacks. The language is very reminiscent of the near-drowning at Chapman Farm, with run-on phrases conveying the sensation of choking. 

He was on top of her, forcing her backwards onto the passenger seat; she felt the handbrake pressing into her back; she couldn’t cry out, because of his hands around her throat; he was crawling on top of her, pinning her down; and she felt her handbag slide into the footwell—

She knows instantly that he wants to drive off with her in the car. We remember what Robin learned from her "brilliant" self-defense instructor, Louise:  Never let yourself be taken to a second location. a commonly quoted statistic is that the odds of survival drop to 10% if an abductor can move you.  Fortunately, Robin is able to grab the pepper spray from her bag and spray the perp in the face several times. 

She drew breath and her lungs burned, too, but no matter: she screamed as loudly as she’d ever screamed in her life, now hanging on to fistfuls of his curly hair.

The ending line also reminds us of the Chapman Farm pool: "It was impossible to breathe, she opened her mouth in a silent scream and sucked in water."  

Meanwhile, Strike is making his way back to London in Chapter 104, with neither of his appointments yield much useful.  

Strike was currently on the M4, heading back towards London. His detour to Yeovil and the Quicksilver Mail had been pointless: nobody at the pub had recognised Tyler Powell’s picture.

A panicked Danny de Leon calls Strike, claiming he did not know how to contact anyone in the media about Branfoot; Strike gives him Fergus Robertson's phone number and tells him to act contrite. We are left wondering why Strike didn't pass on Robertson's contact information earlier.  

Strike stops for a sandwich and coffee at a Heston service center.  To his surprise, Robertson starts calling him repeatedly. Unfortunately, it's not about the de Lion/Branfoot story. Dominic Culpepper has a new source, the super-injunction's been broken, and a massive article about the Strike-Bijou-Humbold love triangle is about to break, which Strike is convinced will be the ruin of the agency.  I must admit, I find this a little hard to understand; the Candy story-- abuse of a sex worker-- seems much more damaging than two people simultaneously sleeping with a consenting woman, and it seems that Humbold, as a married man and "family values crusader" would come off much worse. But Strike likely understands the British tabloid press better than I do. 

And he instantly knows who Culpepper's new source is. Kim F. Cochran. We know Strike is worried because he leaves his sandwich  and coffee behind and returns to his BMW. Strike calls Bijou to make sure she has stuck to their story of never having more than drinks. Remarkably, she has.  

He could see only one possible solution to his dilemma, and nothing but this extremity could have brought him to it. Strike took a lungful of nicotine and called his half-sister Prudence.

We pick up Saturday with the wonderful chapter where Strike--- and the readers--- finally meet Jonny Rokeby. This will also mean six full chapters on a single day of storyline. Is that a record for the series?

Small bragging point:  if you are so inclined, tune in at minute 34:00 on the Strike and Ellacott files listener prediction post episode. 

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