Hallmarked Man Notes: The Christmas Charm Bracelet Decoded, Tod Jameson and the Ectopic Pregnancy, and Venetian Blinds

Ed Shardlow shares his 'Nuggets of Silver' about over-looked meanings in Rowling-Galbraith's Hallmarked Man

Nuggets of Silver

* This Charming Man

The first of these three notes about subtexts in Hallmarked Man was prompted by an exchange in the comments on the Hog Pro Substack following my Hallmarked Man Lions post. Byrnsey pointed out that alongside the lions there lie a scattering of lambs – the Golden Fleece, Ramsay Silver, Lambeth, Black Sheep Coffee and various others, including the sheep charm on the silver bracelet Strike gives Robin for Christmas. That led me to thinking about whether the other bracelet charms might be seen as threads within the rest of the book. I found that as well as their significance to Robin and Strike, each charm can be seen reflected in other aspects of the book:

1. The significance of the sheep charm, I think has to do with Robin’s father the sheep reproduction specialist, and the sheep references are therefore symbolic of Robin herself

2. The Land Rover, with its painful demise and contested replacement, is a symbol of death and anticipated rebirth in the background of Hallmarked Man. Also its initials, LR, are a reflection of the RL initials that crop up improbably often – Rena Liddell, Reata Lindvall, “Rita Linda”, Ralph Lawrence… All these RLs are proxies for Robin: R. Ell-acott.

3. The Houses of Parliament also lurk in the background of Hallmarked Man, particularly standing next to Westminster Bridge, where the terrorist attack takes place, and also by association with Branfoot, the politician.

4. Skegness holds memories of mushy peas, fish and chips and intimate good humour between Strike and Robin. There are numerous meals of fish and chips in Strike 8, as well as some significant other fish meals and other fish references, not least the seafood cuisine at the Dorchester when triumphantly interviewing Branfoot. The peas make a return, coming to the rescue twice, first as a bag of frozen peas applied to Strike face post-spade, and secondly mushed up and fed to Strike-the-fish. And the whole way through Hallmarked Man, Strike is trying and failing to replicate a getaway comparable to Skegness in Troubled Blood, so that he can declare his love.

5. The scales, supposedly representing Libra (Robin’s star sign), are another clue to the key to working out how the silver vault murder was committed – the weight of the boxes. It is also the key to figuring out the identity of the hallmarked man – Tyler’s customised Wolves weights. And we get another pointer in the form of Strike enjoying the crooning of Tom WAITS. Scales are also the symbol of justice and so perhaps there’s a suggestion of Robin as Lady Justice, a figure with similar traits to Artemis.

6. A silver and enamel robin – a direct representation of Robin herself, but the materials she is made from are the key here. The silver and the enamel representing two halves or two different natures amalgamated together. The combination of metal and stone and the impact of one on the other crop up several times towards the end of the book. There’s the sound of a metal spoon on a china cup, there are gates and bridges of iron on stone. And these all allude to the two featured pursuits of mining and masonry.

7. The orb – the cross within a box. Light in boxes and hidden revelations are a Hallmarked Man theme, and connect to many of Rowling’s meaningful golden threads.

I’m also more than happy to propose that these seven items form a chiastic ring, in the order they are presented:

· The Sheep and the Orb are connected as symbols of life and fertility, via the Golden Fleece and Robin’s ectopic pregnancy.

· The Land Rover and the Robin: LR and RL. Dying and being reborn.

· The Houses of Parliament and the Scales: politics vs justice, the legislative and the judicial, the balance of power.

· And Skegness with its peas and special memories as the heart of the declaration that Strike makes to Robin. The divine fish reflecting the gold and silver from the Sheep/Orb latch. The meaningful middle.

* Laboured Eggs Position

I’ve also had some realisations about Todd Jameson. His story in Hallmarked Man is a perverse allegory for Robin’s unborn child, lost in her ectopic pregnancy.

Todd is an “egg-shaped” man, who gets caught in the Tube, and bursts out, but is swiftly consigned to die, with his mother also being killed by way of collateral damage. This echoes the ectopic pregnancy, with Robin lucky to escape the same fate as Nancy Jameson, but still haunted by the experience.

That also leads to an interpretation of his name – Todd Jameson – as meaning “Dead son of James” which points to another child whose mother died so that he could live, and who was a son of James – Harry Potter. Which would mean that Rowling has written a character who is a pointer to the beloved boy wizard, but who is himself utterly disgusting and reprehensible. I’m sure she delights in the irony!

At one point in the passage where Todd is confronted on the Tube and makes a swift getaway, Robin is temporarily stuck in the train, another echo of her waylaid egg. There are also references in this part to a GAGGLE of teenage girls, and a CLUTCH of people CRANING to see. Bird terms reinforcing the egg viewpoint.

This is further backed up, and brilliantly so, when looking for parallels in the chiastic counterpart to this chapter. The Tube confrontation is in chapter 54, and its pair on the front side of Hallmarked Man Part 4 is chapter 44. In that chapter, Robin has a problem with her hire car, which is struggling with a STUCK CLUTCH.

* Venetian Blind

There was one other finding I particularly liked when completing the ring charting exercise. I had joined the Hogwarts Professor group effort of charting the rings of each chapter set at Part 5 and shared those findings on the video podcast episodes for Hog Pro paid subscribers following that process. I then subsequently went back and did likewise for Parts 1 through 4, recording my analysis in the comments for those parts.

In looking at chapters 33 & 39 in the course of doing the Part 3 ring, I found that there were many little connections highlighting Robin’s failing skills of perception. In 33 she doesn’t recognise Rokeby’s name at first, and in 39 she initially doesn’t recognise Sarah Shadlock. In 33 she overhears Kim laughing, in 39 she overhears Matthew laughing. She retreats to a toilet in 33, and in 39 she retreats outdoors but RFM assumes she’s gone to the toilet. In 33 she’s looking for the missing Sapphire, and in 39 she recalls finding a misplaced diamond earring.

The theme is Robin missing things, not being in the loop and not having her wits about her, and it just so happens than in chapter 33 Strike is in Denmark St, and takes a look through the VENETIAN BLINDS. A surefire indicator that Robin Venetia Ellacott needs to open her eyes.

Nick Jeffery and John Granger invited Ed Shardlow to discuss these ‘Nuggets of Silver',’ a conversation to be posted tomorrow. Stay tuned!