Page 364 of The Hallmarked Man
Pamela descended alone to the vault.
Pamela returned to the shop floor, holding items she then placed in a bag.
Wright left, carrying the bag.
Pamela received her text.
Pamela told Todd to stay.
Pamela received a call. She pointed Todd towards the door. He left the shop.
Wright and Todd returned, staggering under the weight of another large crate.
They carried it down to the vault.
Todd came back upstairs and handed Pamela her bag.
Pamela left.
Todd had his coughing fit.
Forty-four minutes passed.
Wright re-emerged from the basement.
He and Todd argued.
Todd left.
Strike pressed pause. Tom Waits continued to sing:
And everything’s a dollar in this box…
‘D’you see it?’ said Strike.
‘Nothing I haven’t seen every other time I’ve watched it,’ said Robin.
‘OK,’ said Strike, rewinding, and yet again he played the piece of footage in which Todd and Wright carried the largest crate of the original delivery towards the vault. Todd was moving very slowly, crabwise, and looked in risk of dropping it.
‘Are they acting, would you say?’ said Strike. ‘Pretending it’s a lot heavier than it is?’
‘No,’ said Robin. ‘It looks genuinely heavy.’
‘But the Oriental Centrepiece isn’t inside, is it? Because it’s gone to Bullen & Co. Now…’
Strike fast forwarded again and pressed play. Pamela came back upstairs from the vault, holding small items in her arms which she placed into a bag and handed to Wright, who left.
‘Pamela took off the lid of the big crate downstairs, right?’ Strike said to Robin. ‘And instead of the centrepiece, she saw the small items she’d bought for her own business.’
‘Right,’ said Robin.
‘Which she – a woman in her late fifties, with dodgy knees – managed to carry upstairs. So…?’
‘Why was the crate so heavy, going downstairs,’ said Robin, aghast. ‘Why didn’t I see that?’
‘Same reason I didn’t. Same reason Pamela didn’t twig, or Wright himself. Same reason people still fall for the three-cup scam,’ said Strike. ‘And then I started thinking about that footprint in the blood round the head, and the buggered blind, and that warped door behind the desk. Light would’ve been visible through the window if the killer had turned it on in the basement…
‘This doesn’t tell us why,’ said Strike, ‘and it doesn’t tell us who, but it does tell us something important about our killer. That vault was literally the only place where they’ve had a realistic chance of taking William Wright by surprise. Necessity. They had literally no other choice.’
