The Hallmarked Man

Book 8: A Cormoran Strike Novel

by Robert Galbraith

Genres: Private Investigators

Synopsis

The gripping eighth installment in the internationally bestselling series, available to pre-order now.

“A superlative piece of crime fiction.” —Sunday Times (UK)
“The work of a master storyteller.” —Daily Telegraph (UK)
“A scrupulous plotter and master of misdirection, Galbraith keeps the pages turning . . . Strike and Ellacott remain one of crime’s most engaging duos.” —Guardian (UK)
“No one can deny [Robert Galbraith, pseudonym of ] J. K. Rowling’s formidable talents as a crime writer.” —Daily Mail (UK)
“Strike is a compelling creation . . . This is terrifically entertaining stuff.” —Irish Times (UK)
 

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 832

Sample

Oh often have I washed and dressed

And what’s to show for all my pain?

Let me lie abed and rest:

Ten thousand times I’ve done my best

And all’s to do again.

A. E. Housman XI, Last Poems

The windscreen wipers had been working their hardest ever since the BMW had entered the county of Kent, their soporific swish and clunk aggravating Cormoran Strike’s exhaustion as he stared out through thick rain, which had turned the deserted road ahead to gleaming jet.

Shortly after he’d boarded the sleeper train from Cornwall to London the previous evening, his detective partner’s boyfriend, who Strike always referred to inside his head as ‘Ryan Fucking Murphy’, had called to say that Robin had come down with a high fever and sore throat and would therefore be unable to accompany Strike on today’s visit to their newest prospective client.

Everything about this call had annoyed Strike, and an awareness that he was being unjust – because this was the first time in six years Robin had taken a sick day, and if she had a temperature of 104 and a swollen throat it was perfectly reasonable for her to ask her boyfriend to call on her behalf – deepened rather than alleviated his grumpiness. He’d been counting on Robin driving him into Kent in her old Land Rover, and the prospect of several hours in her company had been the only point in favour of keeping this appointment. A mixture of professionalism and masochism had stopped him cancelling, so after a quick shower and change of clothes at his attic flat in Denmark Street, he’d set out for the village of Temple Ewell, in Kent.

Having to drive himself wasn’t only depressing, but also physically painful. The hamstring in the leg on which a prosthesis had replaced the calf, ankle and foot was tight and throbbing, because his sojourn in Cornwall had involved a lot of heavy lifting.

Ten days previously, he’d dashed down to Truro because his elderly uncle had suffered his second stroke. Strike’s sister, Lucy, had been helping Ted pack up for his imminent removal to a nursing home in London when, in her words, ‘his face went funny and he couldn’t answer me’. Ted had died twelve hours after Strike had arrived at the hospital, his niece and nephew holding his hands.

Strike and Lucy had then proceeded to their uncle’s home in St Mawes, which had been left to them jointly, to arrange and attend the funeral, and to make decisions about the house’s contents. Predictably, Lucy had been horrified by her brother’s suggestion that they might hire professionals to empty the place once they’d removed those sentimental items the family wanted to keep. She couldn’t bear the idea of strangers touching any of it: the old Tupperware once used for picnics on the beach, their uncle’s threadbare gardening trousers, the jar of spare buttons kept carefully by their late aunt, some of them belonging to dresses long since donated to jumble sales. Feeling guilty that Lucy had had to cope with Ted’s final lapse from consciousness alone, Strike acceded to her wishes, remaining in St Mawes to lug boxes, nearly all of which were labelled ‘Lucy’, out of the house into a rented van, to throw rubbish into a hired skip and take regular breaks in which he administered tea and comfort to his sister, whose eyes had been constantly red from dust and weeping.

Lucy believed the stress of Ted’s removal to a nursing home had brought on his fatal stroke, and Strike had had to force himself not to become impatient with her repeated bursts of self-recrimination, doing his utmost not to match her fractiousness with ill-temper, not to snap, nor to become irritable when explaining that just because he didn’t want to take more of the objects associated with the most stable parts of their childhood, it didn’t mean he wasn’t suffering as much as she was from the loss of the man who’d been his only true father figure. All Strike had taken for himself were Ted’s Royal Military Police red beret, his ancient fishing hat, his old ‘priest’ (a wooden cosh with which to finish off fish still fighting for life), and a handful of faded photos. These items were currently sitting in a shoe box inside the holdall Strike hadn’t yet had time to unpack.

Mile by mile, with no company except the emotional hangover of the past ten days and the aching of his hamstring, the dislike Strike had already taken towards today’s prospective client mounted. Decima Mullins had the kind of accent he associated with the many wealthy, wronged wives who’d come to his detective agency hoping to prove their husbands’ infidelity or criminality in hope of securing a better divorce settlement. On the evidence of their only phone conversation to date, she was melodramatic and entitled. She’d said she couldn’t possibly visit Strike’s office in Denmark Street, for reasons she’d disclose in person, and insisted that she was only prepared to discuss her problem face to face at her house in Kent. All she’d deigned to divulge so far was that she wanted something proven, and as Strike couldn’t imagine any possible investigative scenario that didn’t involve proving something, he wasn’t particularly grateful for the pointer.

In this unpropitious mood he proceeded along Canterbury Road through a landscape of bare trees and sodden fields. At last, windscreen wipers still swishing and clunking, he turned up a narrow, puddled track to the left, following a sign to Delamore Lodge.

… I have lost him, for he does not come,

And I sit stupidly… Oh Heaven, break up

This worse than anguish, this mad apathy,

By any means or any messenger!

Robert Browning Bells and Pomegranates No. 5 A Blot in the ’Scutcheon

The house to which Strike had driven wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Far from being a country manor, Delamore Lodge was a small, run-down dwelling of dark stone that resembled an abandoned chapel, set in a wild garden that looked as though it hadn’t been touched in years. As Strike parked, he noticed that one of the Gothic windows had several cracked panes which had been covered from the inside with what looked like a black bin bag. Some of the roof tiles were missing. Viewed against an ominous November sky and through driving rain, Delamore Lodge was the kind of place local children might easily believe to be inhabited by a witch.

Placing his fake foot carefully, because sodden leaves from a few bare trees had formed a slimy carpet on the uneven path, Strike approached the oak front door and knocked. It opened seconds later.

Strike’s mental image of Decima Mullins as a well-groomed blonde in tailored tweed could hardly have been wider of the mark. He found himself facing a pale, dumpy woman whose long, straggly brown hair had greying roots and which looked as though it hadn’t been cut in a long time. She was wearing black tracksuit bottoms and a thick black woollen poncho. In conjunction with the wild garden and the ramshackle house, her outfit made Strike wonder whether he was looking at an upper-class eccentric who’d turned her back on society to paint bad pictures or throw wonky pots. It was a type he failed to find endearing.

‘Miss Mullins?’

‘Yes. You’re Cormoran?’

‘That’s me,’ said Strike, noticing that she got his first name right. Most people said ‘Cameron’.

‘Could I see some ID?’

Given how unlikely it was that a roving burglar had decided to turn up at her house by daylight in a BMW, at exactly the same time she was expecting a detective she’d summoned into Kent, Strike resented having to stand in the downpour while fumbling in his pocket for his driving licence. Once he’d shown it to her, she moved aside to let him enter a cramped hall, which seemed unusually full of umbrella stands and shoe racks, as though successive owners had added their own without removing the older ones. Strike, who’d endured too much squalor in his childhood, was unsympathetic to untidiness and dirtiness in those capable of tackling them, and his negative impression of this dowdy upper-class woman intensified. Possibly some of his disapproval showed in his expression because Decima said,

‘This used to be my great-aunt’s house. It was tenanted until a few months ago and they didn’t look after the place. I’m going to do it up and sell it.’

There were, however, no signs of redecoration or renovation. The wallpaper in the hall had torn in places and one of the overhead lamps was lacking a bulb.

Strike followed Decima into a poky kitchen, which had an old-fashioned range and worn flagstones that looked as though they’d been there hundreds of years. A wooden table was surrounded by mismatched chairs. Possibly, Strike thought, eyes on a red leather notebook lying on the table, his hostess was an aspiring poet. This, in his view, was a step down even from pottery.

‘Before we start,’ said Decima, turning to look up at Strike, ‘I need you to promise me something.’

‘OK,’ said Strike.

The light from the old-fashioned lamp hanging overhead didn’t flatter her round, rather flat face. If better groomed, she might have attained a mild prettiness, but the overall impression was one of neglectful indifference to her appearance. She’d made no attempt to conceal her purple eyebags or what looked like a nasty case of rosacea on both nose and cheeks.

‘You keep things confidential for clients, don’t you?’

‘There’s a standard contract,’ said Strike, unsure what he was being asked.

‘Yes, I know there’d be a contract, that’s not what I mean. I don’t want anyone to know where I’m living.’

‘I can’t see why I’d need—’

‘I want an assurance you won’t tell anyone where I am.’

‘OK,’ said Strike again. He suspected it might not take much for Decima Mullins to start shouting or (and after the last ten days, he’d find this even less palatable) crying.

‘All right, then,’ she said. ‘D’you want coffee?’

‘That’d be great, thanks.’

‘You can sit down.’

She proceeded to the range, on which a pewter pot was sitting.

The chair creaked under Strike’s weight, the rain drummed on the intact windows, and the black bin bag stuck over the cracked panes with gaffer tape rustled in the wind. Apart from themselves, the house seemed to be deserted. Strike noticed that Decima’s poncho was stained in places, as though she’d been wearing it for days. The back of her hair was also matted in places.

Watching her make heavy work of brewing coffee, opening and closing cupboards as though she kept forgetting where things were, and muttering under her breath, Strike’s opinion of her shifted again. There were three kinds of people he was unusually good at identifying on short acquaintance: liars, addicts and the mentally ill. He had a hunch Decima Mullins might belong in the third category, and while this might excuse her ill-kempt appearance, it made him no keener to take her case.

At last she carried two mugs of coffee and a jug of milk over to the table, then, for no obvious reason, sat down extremely slowly as though she thought she might do herself an injury by hitting the chair too hard.

‘So,’ said Strike, pulling out his notebook and pen, more eager than ever to get this interview over with, ‘you said on the phone you want something proven, one way or another?’

‘Yes, but I need to say something else first.’

‘OK,’ said Strike, for the third time, and he tried to look receptive.

‘I wanted you because I know you’re the best,’ said Decima Mullins, ‘but I was in two minds about hiring you, because we know people in common.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. My brother’s Valentine Longcaster. I know you don’t like each other much.’

This information came as such a surprise that Strike was temporarily lost for words. Valentine, whom he’d met infrequently and always reluctantly over a certain period of his life, was a good-looking, floppy-haired, extravagantly dressed man who worked as a stylist for various arty glossy magazines. He’d also been one of the closest friends of the late Charlotte Campbell, Strike’s sometime fiancée, who’d died by suicide a few months previously.

‘So “Mullins” is…?’

‘My married name, from when I was in my twenties.’

‘Ah,’ said Strike. ‘Right.’

Could she be telling the truth? He couldn’t remember Valentine mentioning a sister, but then, Strike had always paid as little attention as possible to anything Valentine said. If they were indeed brother and sister, Strike had rarely met a pair of siblings who resembled each other less, although in some ways that might add credence to Decima’s story: it would have been perfectly in character for Valentine to hush up this squat, grubby-looking woman, because he was a man who placed a very high premium on looks and stylishness.

‘It’s especially important you don’t tell Valentine where I am, or – or anything else I might ask you to keep private,’ said Decima.

‘OK,’ said Strike, for the fourth time.

‘And you know Sacha Legard, too, don’t you?’

Now starting to feel as though some personal devil had decided to devote its day to kicking him repeatedly in the balls, because Sacha was Charlotte’s half-brother, Strike said,

‘You’re related to him, too, are you?’

‘No,’ said Decima, ‘but he’s involved in… in what I want you to investigate. I never really knew Charlotte Campbell, though. I only met her a couple of times.’

Some might have considered her flat tone insensitive, given Charlotte’s recent death in a blood-filled bathtub, but as Strike was more than happy to dispense with prurient questions or faux sympathy, he said,

‘Right, well, why don’t you explain what it is you want me to do?’

‘I need you to find out who a body was,’ said Decima, eyeing him with a mixture of wariness and defiance.

‘A body,’ repeated Strike.

‘Yes. You probably read about it in the papers. It was the man they found in the vault of a silver shop, in June.’

Five months previously, Strike had been almost entirely focused on a complex case the agency had been investigating, and had had little attention to spare for much else, but he remembered this news story, which had generated a short but intense burst of media coverage.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘If it’s the one I’m thinking of,’ (though God knew why he was saying this, because how many men were found dead in silver vaults, on average, per month, in London?) ‘the police identified him quite quickly.’

‘No, they didn’t,’ said Decima, her tone brooking no contradiction.

‘I thought,’ said Strike, though what he really meant was, ‘as I accurately recall’, ‘he turned out to be a convicted thief?’

‘No,’ said Decima, shaking her head, ‘he wasn’t that thief. Not definitely.’

‘I’m pretty sure that’s what I read,’ said Strike, tugging his phone out of his pocket. He was hopeful, now, he’d be able to get out of here within ten minutes, because she was giving him a cast-iron reason for refusing a case he definitely didn’t want. ‘Yeah, see here?’ said Strike, having typed a few words into Google. ‘“… the dead man, who posed as salesman William Wright during his two weeks’ employment at Ramsay Silver, has now been identified as convicted armed robber Jason Knowles, 28, of Haringey.”’

‘It wasn’t definite,’ insisted Decima. ‘I know a policeman, and he told me so.’

‘Which policeman is this?’ asked Strike, who had prior experience of those who asserted imaginary ties to the police to justify their lunatic theories.

‘Sir Daniel Gayle. He’s a retired commissioner. His daughter works for me. I asked her whether I could talk to Sir Daniel, and he spoke to some people, then told me the police never got DNA confirmation. They never proved it was that Knowles man, not beyond doubt.’

‘What’s your interest in finding out who the man was?’ asked Strike.

‘I just need to know,’ said Decima. Her voice was trembling. ‘I need to. I need to know.’

Strike drank some coffee to give himself thinking time. Odd features of the case of the body in the vault came back to him. The body had been naked and heavily mutilated, which had naturally fanned the flames of press interest before the victim had been revealed as a violent criminal, at which point, public sympathy and interest had dwindled considerably. Knowles, the press reported, had so severely beaten the female cashier at a building society he’d previously robbed that she’d been left with a fractured skull and seizures. In fact, there’d been general agreement that, however nasty his end, Jason Knowles had probably had it coming.

‘Are you worried the man was someone you know?’ Strike asked.

‘Yes. I think . . no,’ said Decima, suddenly passionate, tears appearing in her eyes, ‘I know it was him, and… I need proof, because… I need proof. I just need somebody to prove it.’

‘Who exactly—?’

‘He was someone very close to me, and he matched the body exactly, and it all fits: the silver, and him being m-murdered, and he disappeared at the same time – it was him. I know it was.’

The lonely house, the tearful woman: Strike felt as though he’d been plunged back into the situation he’d left in Cornwall, but with far stranger overtones. Unable to think of anything else to do, he flicked open his notebook.

‘All right, what similarities are there between the body and the man you know?’

‘I’ve written it all down,’ said Decima at once, reaching for the red notebook, and she flicked to the back of what was revealed to be a weekly diary, where Strike saw several densely written pages. ‘My friend was twenty-six – the press said the body was of a man in his mid-twenties to mid-thirties. William Wright was left-handed; so was my friend. The body was blood group A positive – that’s the same. Five feet six or seven – that matches. Wright was interviewed for the job on the nineteenth of May – I didn’t see my friend that day. Wright moved into a rented room on May the twenty-first – that fits, because my friend was moving out of his house that weekend – I wanted him to bring all his things to my place, but he wouldn’t. I didn’t understand where he was putting it all. It must have been this rented room.’

Having tried and failed to think of a more tactful way of posing his next question, Strike said,

‘And why would your friend have changed his name and gone to work in a silver shop?’

‘Because – it’s complicated.’

‘Have you reported him missing?’

‘Yes, of course, but the police aren’t helping, they just took his aunt’s word for it that—’

She broke off, then said in a higher-pitched voice.

‘Look, I know it was him, I know it was, all right?’

Strike, Robin and their subcontractors had a name for the kind of people who’d emailed and phoned their office in increasing numbers as the agency’s profile grew, desperate to tell the detectives that they were being spied on by domestic appliances, that Satanic rings were being run out of Westminster, or that they were in relationships with celebrities who were unaccountably withholding their affections due to malign forces: Gatesheads. The distinguishing characteristics of a Gateshead were an irrational belief, a dislike of common sense questions and an inability to contemplate alternative explanations for their dilemmas. The woman sitting opposite Strike was currently presenting a classic set of symptoms.

‘You said Sir Daniel Gayle’s daughter works for you,’ Strike said, hoping to unravel the problem by tugging on a different thread. ‘What exactly—?’

‘I’ve got a restaurant,’ said Decima. ‘The Happy Carrot, on Sloane Street. She’s my maître d’.’

Strike happened to know the restaurant in question, which, in spite of the name, wasn’t a vegan café but a very well-reviewed and expensive eatery offering organically produced food, to which Strike had recently tailed an unfaithful commercial pilot and his mistress. Unless Decima was lying about being Valentine’s sister she came from money: the Longcasters were a very wealthy family, and Decima and Valentine’s father, whom Strike had never met, but about whom he knew far more than he’d ever wanted to, owned one of the most expensive private members’ clubs in London. Trying yet another tack, he asked,

‘How well did you know the man you think was the body in the vault?’

‘Very well,’ said Decima. ‘I—’

To Strike’s consternation, something now stirred beneath Decima’s poncho, as though her breasts had developed independent motion. Then, making Strike jump, an ear-splitting screech echoed through the kitchen.

‘Oh God!’ said Decima in panic, scrambling to her feet. ‘I hoped he’d sleep—’

She now struggled out of her poncho, which caused her fine hair to stand up in the static, to reveal a very small baby strapped to her in a fleecy sling.

‘You mustn’t tell anyone about him!’ Decima told Strike frantically over the baby’s squalling. ‘You mustn’t tell anyone I’ve got a baby!’

Strike’s disconcerted expression appeared to trigger still more panic in Decima.

‘He’s mine! I can show you the birth certificate! I had him three weeks ago! But nobody knows about him, and you mustn’t tell them!’

Robin had chosen a fine fucking day to get a sore throat, thought Strike, as Decima tried and failed to extricate herself from the harness attaching the screaming baby to her. Finally, and mostly because he wanted the noise to stop, he went to her aid, successfully prising apart a clasp in which part of the poncho had become entangled.

‘Thank you – I think he’s hungry – I’m feeding him myself…’

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Strike at once, more than happy to go and sit in his car if that was what it took not to have to watch.

‘No, I – if you’ll just turn your back—’

He willingly did as he was bidden, turning to stare through the window not covered with a bin bag.

The baby’s screams dwindled; Strike heard the scraping of chair legs and a small whimper of pain from Decima. He tried not to visualise what was happening behind him, and hoped to God she wasn’t one of those women who’d happily bare their breasts in front of strangers. At last, after what felt much longer than a couple of minutes, she said in a shaky voice,

‘It’s all right, you can turn round.’

Decima had pulled the poncho back over herself and the baby was once more hidden from view. As Strike sat down again, Decima said tremulously,

‘Please, you can’t tell anyone I’ve got him! Nobody knows, except the people at the hospital!’

While he’d thought she was living here alone, Strike had been agreeable to keeping her secrets, notwithstanding his suspicion that she wasn’t in perfect mental health. She’d given no indication of suicidality, and she had family; if she wanted to hide out at her miserable inherited house, it wasn’t any of his business. However, Strike didn’t want the burden of being the only person who knew this baby existed, outside the hospital.

‘Haven’t you got a—?’ He struggled to think of someone whose responsibility women who’d just given birth might be. ‘A health visitor, or—?’

‘I don’t need one. You can’t tell anyone about Lion. I need a guarantee—’

Strike, who was fairly sure she’d just told him her son’s name was ‘Lion’, which didn’t strengthen his reliance on her mental health, said,

‘Why don’t you want anyone to know you’ve got a child?’

Decima burst into tears. When it became clear she wasn’t going to stop any time soon, Strike looked around for kitchen roll, saw none, so pushed himself back into a standing position and limped off in search of toilet roll.

The small bathroom off the hall had an old-fashioned chain-operated cistern and a dead spider plant on the windowsill. He took the entire roll off its holder, returned to the kitchen and set it in front of the weeping Decima, who sobbed her thanks and groped one-handed for a few sheets. Strike sat back down in front of his open notebook.

‘This man you think was killed in the vault,’ said Strike. ‘Is he your baby’s father?’

Decima began to sob even more loudly, pressing toilet roll to her eyes. Strike took this as a ‘yes’.

‘He hasn’t left me!’

She’d already told Strike her ‘friend’ was twenty-six, and Strike judged her own age to be nearing forty. Strike’s own mother had married a man seventeen years younger than herself, at whose hands Strike remained convinced (though the jury hadn’t agreed) she’d died. Jeff Whittaker had married Leda Strike for the money he’d believed she had, and had been furious to discover that it was tied up in ways that meant he couldn’t touch it. In consequence, Cormoran Strike wasn’t very well disposed to much younger men who attached themselves to wealthy older women.

‘Everyone says he’s left me!’ sobbed Decima. ‘Valentine – he was vile about me and Rupe, from the start – he actually said to me, “you’d better not get knocked up by him.” He actually said that! And I was already pregnant! He was g-glad when Rupe disappeared! And my f-father said Rupe was only after my money – it isn’t true! When we met, it was instant, like nothing I’ve ever felt before – it was as though I’d always known him, and Rupe f-felt exactly the same, he told me so – we had this incredible connection! It was as though we – we recognised each other, as though we’d known each other—’ don’t say in a previous life ‘—in a previous life!’

‘His name’s Rupert, is it?’ was Strike’s only response, picking up his pen again.

‘Y-yes… Rupert Fleetwood.’ Decima was struggling to pull herself together, and after a few gulps said, ‘Rupert Peter Bernard Christian Fleetwood… he was born on March the eighth, 1990, and he g-grew up in Zurich.’

‘Is he Swiss?’

‘No… his aunt married a Swiss man, and… when Rupe was two… his parents took him there for a v-visit… and his mum and dad went skiing… and there was an avalanche… and they were k-killed… so he was raised there, by his aunt and uncle. But he hated it in Zurich, he had a really unhappy childhood, he just wanted to get back to the UK, and f-finally he got to London, and then Sacha – Sacha’s Rupe’s cousin – suggested he try for a job at my father’s club, because Daddy’s Rupe’s godfather… and so, that’s how we m-met. I w-was splitting my time between Daddy’s club and my own place, because Daddy’s previous chef was fired…’

The news that Rupert was the cousin of Sacha Legard, who was an acclaimed actor and exceptionally good-looking, added weight to Strike’s suspicion that Rupert Fleetwood had been interested in Decima’s money rather than herself. If he resembled Sacha, he could probably have taken his pick of younger, more glamorous women.

‘How long were you and Rupert in a relationship?’

‘A y-year.’

‘Did Fleetwood know you were pregnant?’

‘Yes, and he was delighted, he was so, so happy!’ sobbed Decima. ‘But he was having some problems and – he’s proud, he wanted to fix things himself – but he’d never have left me for good, we were so in love – n-nobody understands!’

‘You mentioned him moving out of his house. You weren’t living together?’

‘Obviously we were going to, eventually, but he had things he needed to s-sort out first – he was trying to protect me!’

‘Protect you from what?’

‘He had someone after him, someone dangerous!’

‘Who was that?’

‘A drug dealer! And my f-father had – had called the police on him…’

‘Why did your father call the police?’

‘Because Rupe had taken – but I still think he had a right to it!’ said Decima shrilly.

‘A right to what?’

‘A… a nef.’

‘A what?’ said Strike, looking up. He’d never heard of such a thing.

‘It’s a big silver table ornament,’ said Decima, sketching an object some two feet square in the air with her free arm, ‘s-seventeenth century… in the shape of a ship… it used to b-belong to Rupe’s parents. D-Daddy and Peter Fleetwood used to play backgammon and bet, and one night they were drunk, Daddy w-went and won this nef from Peter…’

‘So Rupert thought he had a right to it, because it had once been his parents’?’

‘Y – no – look, right after Daddy won it from Peter, Peter and Veronica died! So you’d think he’d’ve g-given the nef back to Rupe, if not when he was a child, then when he needed money so badly! But he d-didn’t – his own godson! How c-could he c-call the police on him?’

Because he’d nicked his bloody silver, was Strike’s unsympathetic thought, but aloud he said,

‘He had a drug dealer after him too?’

‘Yes, but that was all Zac’s fault!’

‘Who’s Zac?’

‘Rupe’s housemate – he got mixed up in drugs, in coke, and there was this proper, real gangster after him, because Zac hadn’t paid what he’d promised, or something, and Zac ran for it, his parents got him a job out in Kenya, and Rupe got stuck with Zac’s rent and security deposit and then this awful dealer was pursuing Rupe for payment of Zac’s debt, threatening him—’

‘D’you know what the drug dealer’s name was?’

‘They called him Dredge, I don’t know his real name. He was literally threatening to kill Rupe unless he got his money, because he thought Rupe was rich, like Zac, but he’s not – there’s hardly anything left in his