The Hallmarked Man Real-Time Re-read, Chapters 124-125: From burial to bougainvillea.

"Engraved with the regimen's winged dagger badge"

I must say, I really love Chapter 124, the first in the Epilogue. Eleven days have passed since the way-overblown confrontation with the sliced-off ear and the bottle of whiskey. Not only do we see Strike actually behaving sensibly here, but we get perhaps the best glimpse so far in the series as to what he must have been like as a soldier. 

Eleven days after Ian Griffiths and friends had been taken into custody, and Strike and Sapphire Neagle had been driven by ambulance to the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford, Strike donned his only black suit in his attic flat, and drove, again, to Hereford.

We learn that Strike had correctly deduced that Niall Semple had committed suicide by jumping off the Regents' Park Bridge, with a weighted-down briefcase shackled to his wrist. His widow, Jade, has invited Strike to attend the funeral, and Strike feels he should do this, rather than accompany Robin on her trip to "tidy away the last fragment of the silver vault case." 

Strike and Robin Timelines updated after the re-read of The Hallmarked Man

 

Last January, I did a quick update of the Strike and Robin Pre- and Inter-book Timelines I have maintained for several years. Now that I am nearly done with The Hallmarked Man Real-time re-read, I have again updated both documents. 

The new Strike timeline is available here. 

The new Robin timeline is available here. 

Along with those I have a new timeline of Charlotte Campbell's life pre-Cuckoo's Calling. set up as a blog post.