All about Ironbridge, Shropshire in The Hallmarked Man
The small town of Ironbridge was beautiful, which Strike hadn’t expected.
The Hallmarked Man, Robert Galbraith
Robin and Strike’s investigation into the identity of the body found in the vaults of a London silver merchant takes them from the Channel Island of Sark to the Scottish town of Crieff. It also takes them to a small town roughly half-way between those two extremes.
Ironbridge is a picturesque town in Shropshire with a population of around three thousand. Once an important industrial site, it is now a tourist destination, popular with visitors who want to explore the scenery and history of the Severn Gorge, but Robin and Strike are meeting here on a chilly January day to interview Dilys Powell. Dilys’s grandson, Tyler, is missing, and she fears he might be the mysterious body found at Ramsay Silver. As Tyler was adopted, DNA tests can’t rule out the possibility she is right.
Strike told Robin about his interview with Jade Semple, omitting to mention either his crashing hangover or the fact that he’d fallen on his arse in the mud mid-interview…
The Hallmarked Man, Robert Galbraith
The first thing Strike notices when he arrives in the town is the dramatic arching iron bridge spanning the sludge-green River Severn, bordered by thick trees and foliage, and the buildings which seem to tumble down the steep hill on the north bank in the wintry sunlight.
Strike takes no pleasure in the scene; he’d prefer to be pulling up among graffitied tower blocks and broken glass, which would better chime with his mood. He’s driven down that morning from a Travelodge in Penrith after spending the previous day interviewing the wife of a missing paratrooper, and another possible candidate for the mysterious body, in Crieff, Scotland. At one point, he’d hoped these interviews with Dilys Powell and Jade Semple would mean the chance to spend an evening with Robin, away from the distractions of London and her boyfriend the CID officer, Ryan Murphy. Instead, he interviews Jade Semple alone, badly hungover, and manages to aggravate his leg in the process. He slips in a muddy park where Jade walks her yapping dog, Pom Pom, while talking about her missing husband Niall.
She hadn’t, of course, told her boyfriend about being threatened with a masonic dagger.
The Hallmarked Man, Robert Galbraith
Robin arrives in Ironbridge from London at almost the same time as Strike, and in a similarly bad mood. She knows Strike is keeping secrets from her about his recent dealings with lawyer Bijou Watkins, and she’s just endured a bruising encounter with Valentine Longcaster. Among other things, Valentine tells her that Strike’s former fiancée, Charlotte Campbell, used to refer to Robin as ‘PP’, which stood for pit pony. Charlotte, he explains, thought of Robin as Strike’s scruffy Yorkshire helper; a dumb animal dragged along in the dark. After her interview with Valentine, Robin is threatened with a masonic dagger by a man wearing a gorilla mask. The gorilla mask is a particularly cruel touch, chosen to remind Robin of the assault that ended her university career.
Robin also learns her nephew Dirk has been born a month early, and with complications. Her brother Martin has been escorted from the hospital after threatening the doctor.
In spite of her resolution to be natural, she heard the unfriendliness in her voice as she pointed towards the Tontine Hotel, a large Georgian building with pea-green shutters that overlooked the iron bridge.
The Hallmarked Man, Robert Galbraith
Before their interview with Dilys, the partners catch up over coffee at the Tontine Hotel, and though they both have crucial information to share, the catch-up doesn’t improve either of their moods. The iron bridge which gives the town its name though does spark a crucial memory in the gloomy Strike while Robin visits the ladies’.
The Tontine Hotel was built in 1780 to offer accommodation to visitors who wanted to see the iron bridge over the Severn, a new marvel of the industrial age. It was the first major bridge to be made of cast iron, and it crosses the gorge in a single span. Built with elements common in carpentry, like mortice joints and dovetails, it also features decorative rings and curves between the individually cast structural ribs. Attractive, as well as innovative, it was popular with artists and an engraving of the bridge ended up on the wall of US President Thomas Jefferson’s dining room in Monticello. Neither Robin nor Strike are interested in walking across it to admire the views though, instead they head up New Road towards Dilys’s house. Robin cautions Strike it looks steep, but he grumpily insists on climbing it. Soon, he is in agony.
The houses on both sides of the narrow road faced the river below, so that those on the right showed their back view. All were detached and well maintained, some built of brick, others painted and cottagey, with trailing plants around the doors.
The Hallmarked Man, Robert Galbraith
Their slow progress up the hill means that Robin has time to notice a blue plaque on one of the houses. It commemorates Billy Wright, a footballer who captained England and Wolves, who was born there in 1924. He went on to marry Joy, the oldest of the Beverly Sisters, who were singing stars on both sides of the Atlantic. The plaque is a significant sighting for the investigation, given the murdered man in the vault used the name William Wright for the two weeks he worked at Ramsay Silver, but then Strike has just discovered another William Wright who Niall Semple was interested in, a botanist who was born in Crieff.
After the excruciating climb, the detectives find that Dilys isn’t home, but they are invited in for tea by her initially belligerent neighbour, Ian Griffiths. When he believes they are reporters, Robin thinks he might intend to use the guitar he’s carrying as a weapon. Back in his house though, he tells them about the tragic car accident that led to Taylor being shunned in the town. They meet Dilys after she returns from the church where her husband is buried, but the bulk of what they learn comes from Grif, whose daughter, Chloe, he says is off interrailing, but was a friend of Tyler’s before he left town.
Both drank their soft drinks, looking at the Severn rather than at each other.
The Hallmarked Man, Robert Galbraith
The detectives debrief at the Swan Taphouse, an 18th century former malthouse by the river, but after Robin tells Strike about the man threatening her with a masonic dagger, the discussion turns into a fierce argument. Strike says she’s being targeted as the ‘weak link’ at the agency, and lies to her face about Bijou Watkins, while Robin finds herself defending the Met from Strike’s angry references to masonic policemen. Before her chicken nachos have arrived, she’s stormed off to head back to London. Strike tells the waitress he’ll eat them with his own battered haddock.
For all they’ve learned, it’s not a visit Strike has enjoyed, but their investigation will mean he’ll return to Shropshire again, as the mystery of the body and the grim conspiracy behind it is finally uncovered.
