The Silkworm

22

Forgetting that getting up was the difficult part when his knee was sore, Strike dropped into a corner seat on the Tube train and rang Robin.

“Hi,” he said, “have those journalists gone?”

“No, they’re still hanging round outside. You’re on the news, did you know?”

“I saw the BBC website. I rang Anstis and asked him to help play down the stuff about me. Has he?”

He heard her fingers tapping on the keyboard.

“Yeah, he’s quoted: ‘DI Richard Anstis has confirmed rumors that the body was found by private investigator Cormoran Strike, who made news earlier this year when he—’”

“Never mind that bit.”

“‘Mr. Strike was employed by the family to find Mr. Quine, who often went away without informing anyone of his whereabouts. Mr. Strike is not under suspicion and police are satisfied with his account of the discovery of the body.’”

“Good old Dickie,” said Strike. “This morning they were implying I conceal bodies to drum up business. Surprised the press are this interested in a dead fifty-eight-year-old has-been. It’s not as though they know how grisly the killing was yet.”

“It isn’t Quine who’s got them interested,” Robin told him. “It’s you.”

The thought gave Strike no pleasure. He did not want his face in the papers or on the television. The photographs of him that had appeared in the wake of the Lula Landry case had been small (room had been required for pictures of the stunning model, preferably partially clothed); his dark, surly features did not reproduce well in smudgy newsprint and he had managed to avoid a full-face picture as he entered court to give evidence against Landry’s killer. They had dredged up old photographs of him in uniform, but these had been years old, when he had been several stone lighter. Nobody had recognized him on appearance alone since his brief burst of fame and he had no wish to further endanger his anonymity.

“I don’t want to run into a bunch of hacks. Not,” he added wryly, as his knee throbbed, “that I could run if you paid me. Could you meet me—”

His favorite local was the Tottenham, but he did not want to expose it to the possibility of future press incursions.

“—in the Cambridge in about forty minutes?”

“No problem,” she said.

Only after he had hung up did it occur to Strike, first, that he ought to have asked after the bereaved Matthew, and second, that he ought to have asked her to bring his crutches.

The nineteenth-century pub stood on Cambridge Circus. Strike found Robin upstairs on a leather banquette among brass chandeliers and gilt-framed mirrors.

“Are you all right?” she asked in concern as he limped towards her.

“Forgot I didn’t tell you,” he said, lowering himself gingerly into the chair opposite her with a groan. “I knackered my knee again on Sunday, trying to catch a woman who was following me.”

“What woman?”

“She tailed me from Quine’s house to the Tube station, where I fell over like a tit and she took off. She matches the description of a woman Leonora says has been hanging around since Quine disappeared. I could really use a drink.”

“I’ll get it,” said Robin, “as it’s your birthday. And I got you a present.”

She lifted onto the table a small basket covered in cellophane, adorned with ribbon and containing Cornish food and drink: beer, cider, sweets and mustard. He felt ridiculously touched.

“You didn’t have to do that…”

But she was already out of earshot, at the bar. When she returned, carrying a glass of wine and a pint of London Pride, he said, “Thanks very much.”

“You’re welcome. So do you think this strange woman’s been watching Leonora’s house?”

Strike took a long, welcome pull on his pint.

“And possibly putting dog shit through her front door, yeah,” said Strike. “I can’t see what she had to gain from following me, though, unless she thought I was going to lead her to Quine.”

He winced as he raised the damaged leg onto a stool under the table.

“I’m supposed to be doing surveillance on Brocklehurst and Burnett’s husband this week. Great bloody time to knacker my leg.”

“I could follow them for you.”

The excited offer was out of Robin’s mouth before she knew it, but Strike gave no evidence of having heard her.

“How’s Matthew doing?”

“Not great,” said Robin. She could not decide whether Strike had registered her suggestion or not. “He’s gone home to be with his dad and sister.”

“Masham, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” She hesitated, then said: “We’re going to have to postpone the wedding.”

“Sorry.”

She shrugged.

“We couldn’t do it so soon…it’s been a horrible shock for the family.”

“Did you get on well with Matthew’s mother?” Strike asked.

“Yes, of course. She was…”

But in fact, Mrs. Cunliffe had always been difficult; a hypochondriac, or so Robin had thought. She had been feeling guilty about that in the last twenty-four hours.

“…lovely,” said Robin. “So how’s poor Mrs. Quine doing?”

Strike described his visit to Leonora, including the brief appearance of Jerry Waldegrave and his impressions of Orlando.

“What exactly’s wrong with her?” Robin asked.

“Learning difficulties they call it, don’t they?”

He paused, remembering Orlando’s ingenuous smile, her cuddly orangutan.

“She said something strange while I was there and it seemed to be news to her mother. She told us she went into work with her father once, and that the head of Quine’s publisher touched her. Name of Daniel Chard.”

He saw reflected in Robin’s face the unacknowledged fear that the words had conjured back in the dingy kitchen.

“How, touched her?”

“She wasn’t specific. She said, ‘He touched me’ and ‘I don’t like being touched.’ And that he gave her a paintbrush after he’d done it. It might not be that,” said Strike in response to Robin’s loaded silence, her tense expression. “He might’ve accidentally knocked into her and given her something to placate her. She kept going off on one while I was there, shrieking because she didn’t get what she wanted or her mum had a go at her.”

Hungry, he tore open the cellophane on Robin’s gift, pulled out a chocolate bar and unwrapped it while Robin sat in thoughtful silence.

“Thing is,” said Strike, breaking the silence, “Quine implied in Bombyx Mori that Chard’s gay. I think that’s what he’s saying, anyway.”

“Hmm,” said Robin, unimpressed. “And do you believe everything Quine wrote in that book?”

“Well, judging by the fact that he set lawyers on Quine, it upset Chard,” said Strike, breaking off a large chunk of chocolate and putting it in his mouth. “Mind you,” he continued thickly, “the Chard in Bombyx Mori’s a murderer, possibly a rapist and his knob’s falling off, so the gay stuff might not have been what got his goat.”

“It’s a constant theme in Quine’s work, sexual duality,” said Robin and Strike stared at her, chewing, his brows raised. “I nipped into Foyles on the way to work and bought a copy of Hobart’s Sin,” she explained. “It’s all about a hermaphrodite.”

Strike swallowed.

“He must’ve had a thing about them; there’s one in Bombyx Mori too,” he said, examining the cardboard covering of his chocolate bar. “This was made in Mullion. That’s down the coast from where I grew up…How’s Hobart’s Sin—any good?”

“I wouldn’t be fussed about reading past the first few pages if its author hadn’t just been murdered,” admitted Robin.

“Probably do wonders for his sales, getting bumped off.”

“My point is,” Robin pressed on doggedly, “that you can’t necessarily trust Quine when it comes to other people’s sex lives, because his characters all seem to sleep with anyone and anything. I looked him up on Wikipedia. One of the key features of his books is how characters keep swapping their gender or sexual orientation.”

“Bombyx Mori’s like that,” grunted Strike, helping himself to more chocolate. “This is good, want a bit?”

“I’m supposed to be on a diet,” said Robin sadly. “For the wedding.”

Strike did not think she needed to lose any weight at all, but said nothing as she took a piece.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Robin diffidently, “about the killer.”

“Always keen to hear from the psychologist. Go on.”

“I’m not a psychologist,” she half laughed.

She had dropped out of her psychology degree. Strike had never pressed her for an explanation, nor had she ever volunteered one. It was something they had in common, dropping out of university. He had left when his mother had died of a mysterious overdose and, perhaps because of this, he had always assumed that something traumatic had made Robin leave too.

“I’ve just been wondering why they tied his murder so obviously to the book. On the surface it looks like a deliberate act of revenge and malice, to show the world that Quine got what he deserved for writing it.”

“Looks like that,” agreed Strike, who was still hungry; he reached over to a neighboring table and plucked a menu off it. “I’m going to have steak and chips, want something?”

Robin chose a salad at random and then, to spare Strike’s knee, went up to the bar to give their order.

“But on the other hand,” Robin continued, sitting back down, “copycatting the last scene of the book could have seemed like a good way of concealing a different motive, couldn’t it?”

She was forcing herself to speak matter-of-factly, as though they were discussing an abstract problem, but Robin had not been able to forget the pictures of Quine’s body: the dark cavern of the gouged-out torso, the burned-out crevices where once had been mouth and eyes. If she thought about what had been done to Quine too much, she knew that she might not be able to eat her lunch, or that she might somehow betray her horror to Strike, who was watching her with a disconcertingly shrewd expression in his dark eyes.

“It’s all right to admit what happened to him makes you want to puke,” he said through a mouthful of chocolate.

“It doesn’t,” she lied automatically. Then, “Well, obviously—I mean, it was horrific—”

“Yeah, it was.”

If he had been back with his SIB colleagues he would have been making jokes about it by now. Strike could remember many afternoons laden with pitch-black humor: it was the only way to get through certain investigations. Robin, however, was not yet ready for professionally callous self-defense and her attempt at dispassionate discussion of a man whose guts had been torn out proved it.

“Motive’s a bitch, Robin. Nine times out of ten you only find out why when you’ve found out who. It’s means and opportunity we want. Personally,” he took a gulp of beer, “I think we might be looking for someone with medical knowledge.”

“Medical—?”

“Or anatomical. It didn’t look amateur, what they did to Quine. They could’ve hacked him to bits, trying to remove the intestines, but I couldn’t see any false starts: one clean, confident incision.”

“Yes,” said Robin, struggling to maintain her objective, clinical manner. “That’s true.”

“Unless we’re dealing with some literary maniac who just got hold of a good textbook,” mused Strike. “Seems a stretch, but you don’t know…If he was tied up and drugged and they had enough nerve, they might’ve been able to treat it like a biology lesson…”

Robin could not restrain herself.

“I know you always say motive’s for lawyers,” she said a little desperately (Strike had repeated this maxim many times since she had come to work for him), “but humor me for a moment. The killer must have felt that to murder Quine in the same way as the book was worth it for some reason that outweighed the obvious disadvantages—”

“Which were?”

“Well,” said Robin, “the logistical difficulties of making it such an—an elaborate killing, and the fact that the pool of suspects would be confined to people who’ve read the book—”

“Or heard about it in detail,” said Strike, “and you say ‘confined,’ but I’m not sure we’re looking at a small number of people. Christian Fisher made it his business to spread the contents of the book as far and as wide as he could. Roper Chard’s copy of the manuscript was in a safe to which half the company seems to have had access.”

“But…” said Robin.

She broke off as a sullen barman came over to dump cutlery and paper napkins on their table.

“But,” she resumed when he had sloped away, “Quine can’t have been killed that recently, can he? I mean, I’m no expert…”

“Nor am I,” said Strike, polishing off the last of the chocolate and contemplating the peanut brittle with less enthusiasm, “but I know what you mean. That body looked as though it had been there at least a week.”

“Plus,” said Robin, “there must have been a time lag between the murderer reading Bombyx Mori and actually killing Quine. There was a lot to organize. They had to get ropes and acid and crockery into an uninhabited house…”

“And unless they already knew he was planning to go to Talgarth Road, they had to track Quine down,” said Strike, deciding against the peanut brittle because his steak and chips were approaching, “or lure him there.”

The barman set down Strike’s plate and Robin’s bowl of salad, greeted their thanks with an indifferent grunt and retreated.

“So when you factor in the planning and practicalities, it doesn’t seem possible that the killer can have read the book any later than two or three days after Quine went missing,” said Strike, loading up his fork. “Trouble is, the further back we set the moment when the killer started plotting Quine’s murder, the worse it looks for my client. All Leonora had to do was walk a few steps up her hall; the manuscript was hers for the reading as soon as Quine finished it. Come to think of it, he could’ve told her how he was planning to end it months ago.”

Robin ate her salad without tasting it.

“And does Leonora Quine seem…” she began tentatively.

“Like the kind of woman who’d disembowel her husband? No, but the police fancy her and if you’re looking for motive, she’s lousy with it. He was a crap husband: unreliable, adulterous and he liked depicting her in disgusting ways in his books.”

“You don’t think she did it, do you?”

“No,” Strike said, “but we’re going to need a lot more than my opinion to keep her out of jail.”

Robin took their empty glasses back to the bar for refills without asking; Strike felt very fond of her as she set another pint in front of him.

“We’ve also got to look at the possibility that somebody got the wind up that Quine was going to self-publish over the internet,” said Strike, shoveling chips into his mouth, “a threat he allegedly made to a packed restaurant. That might constitute a motive for killing Quine, under the right conditions.”

“You mean,” said Robin slowly, “if the killer recognized something in the manuscript that they didn’t want to get a wider audience?”

“Exactly. The book’s pretty cryptic in parts. What if Quine had found out something serious about somebody and put a veiled reference in the book?”

“Well, that would make sense,” said Robin slowly, “because I keep thinking, Why kill him? The fact is, nearly all of these people had more effective means of dealing with the problem of a libelous book, didn’t they? They could have told Quine they wouldn’t represent it or publish it, or they could have threatened him with legal action, like this Chard man. His death’s going to make the situation much worse for anyone who’s a character in the book, isn’t it? There’s already much more publicity than there would have been otherwise.”

“Agreed,” said Strike. “But you’re assuming the killer’s thinking rationally.”

“This wasn’t a crime of passion,” retorted Robin. “They planned it. They really thought it through. They must have been ready for the consequences.”

“True again,” said Strike, eating chips.

“I’ve been having a bit of a look at Bombyx Mori this morning.”

“After you got bored with Hobart’s Sin?”

“Yes…well, it was there in the safe and…”

“Read the whole thing, the more the merrier,” said Strike. “How far did you get?”

“I skipped around,” said Robin. “I read the bit about Succuba and the Tick. It’s spiteful, but it doesn’t feel as though there’s anything…well…hidden there. He’s basically accusing both his wife and his agent of being parasites on him, isn’t he?”

Strike nodded.

“But later on, when you get to Epi—Epi—how do you say it?”

“Epicoene? The hermaphrodite?”

“Is that a real person, do you think? What’s with the singing? It doesn’t feel as though it’s really singing he’s talking about, does it?”

“And why does his girlfriend Harpy live in a cave full of rats? Symbolism, or something else?”

“And the bloodstained bag over the Cutter’s shoulder,” said Robin, “and the dwarf he tries to drown…”

“And the brands in the fire at Vainglorious’s house,” said Strike, but she looked puzzled. “You haven’t got that far? But Jerry Waldegrave explained that to a bunch of us at the Roper Chard party. It’s about Michael Fancourt and his first—”

Strike’s mobile rang. He pulled it out and saw Dominic Culpepper’s name. With a small sigh, he answered.

“Strike?”

“Speaking.”

“What the fuck’s going on?”

Strike did not waste time pretending not to know what Culpepper was talking about.

“Can’t discuss it, Culpepper. Could prejudice the police case.”

“Fuck that—we’ve got a copper talking to us already. He says this Quine’s been slaughtered exactly the way a bloke’s killed in his latest book.”

“Yeah? And how much are you paying the stupid bastard to shoot his mouth off and screw up the case?”

“Bloody hell, Strike, you get mixed up in a murder like this and you don’t even think of ringing me?”

“I don’t know what you think our relationship is about, mate,” said Strike, “but as far as I’m concerned, I do jobs for you and you pay me. That’s it.”

“I put you in touch with Nina so you could get in that publisher’s party.”

“The least you could do after I handed you a load of extra stuff you’d never asked for on Parker,” said Strike, spearing stray chips with his free hand. “I could’ve withheld that and shopped it all round the tabloids.”

“If you want paying—”

“No, I don’t want paying, dickhead,” said Strike irritably, as Robin turned her attention tactfully to the BBC website on her own phone. “I’m not going to help screw up a murder investigation by dragging in the News of the World.”

“I could get you ten grand if you throw in a personal interview.”

“Bye, Cul—”

“Wait! Just tell me which book it is—the one where he describes the murder.”

Strike pretended to hesitate.

“The Brothers Balls…Balzac,” he said.

Smirking, he cut the call and reached for the menu to examine the puddings. Hopefully Culpepper would spend a long afternoon wading through tortured syntax and palpated scrotums.

“Anything new?” Strike asked as Robin looked up from her phone.

“Not unless you count the Daily Mail saying that family friends thought Pippa Middleton would make a better marriage than Kate.”

Strike frowned at her.

“I was just looking at random things while you were on the phone,” said Robin, a little defensively.

“No,” said Strike, “not that. I’ve just remembered—Pippa2011.”

“I don’t—” said Robin, confused, and still thinking of Pippa Middleton.

“Pippa2011—on Kathryn Kent’s blog. She claimed to have heard a bit of Bombyx Mori.”

Robin gasped and set to work on her mobile.

“It’s here!” she said, a few minutes later. “‘What would you say if I told you he’d read it to me’! And that was…” Robin scrolled upwards, “on October the twenty-first. October the twenty-first! She might’ve known the ending before Quine even disappeared.”

“That’s right,” said Strike. “I’m having apple crumble, want anything?”

When Robin had returned from placing yet another order at the bar, Strike said:

“Anstis has asked me to dinner tonight. Says he’s got some preliminary stuff in from forensics.”

“Does he know it’s your birthday?” asked Robin.

“Christ, no,” said Strike, and he sounded so revolted by the idea that Robin laughed.

“Why would that be bad?”

“I’ve already had one birthday dinner,” said Strike darkly. “Best present I could get from Anstis would be a time of death. The earlier they set it, the smaller the number of likely suspects: the ones who got their hands on the manuscript early. Unfortunately, that includes Leonora, but you’ve got this mysterious Pippa, Christian Fisher—”

“Why Fisher?”

“Means and opportunity, Robin: he had early access, he’s got to go on the list. Then there’s Elizabeth Tassel’s assistant Ralph, Elizabeth Tassel herself and Jerry Waldegrave. Daniel Chard presumably saw it shortly after Waldegrave. Kathryn Kent denies reading it, but I’m taking that with a barrel of salt. And then there’s Michael Fancourt.”

Robin looked up, startled.

“How can he—?”

Strike’s mobile rang again; it was Nina Lascelles. He hesitated, but the reflection that her cousin might have told her he had just spoken to Strike persuaded him to take the call.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi, Famous Person,” she said. He heard an edge, inexpertly covered by breathy high spirits. “I’ve been too scared to call you in case you’re being inundated with press calls and groupies and things.”

“Not so much,” said Strike. “How’re things at Roper Chard?”

“Insane. Nobody’s doing any work; it’s all we can talk about. Was it really, honestly murder?”

“Looks like it.”

“God, I can’t believe it…I don’t suppose you can tell me anything, though?” she asked, barely suppressing the interrogative note.

“The police won’t want details getting out at this stage.”

“It was to do with the book, wasn’t it?” she said. “Bombyx Mori.”

“I couldn’t say.”

“And Daniel Chard’s broken his leg.”

“Sorry?” he said, thrown by the non sequitur.

“Just so many odd things happening,” she said. She sounded keyed up, overwrought. “Jerry’s all over the place. Daniel rang him up from Devon just now and was yelling at him again—half the office heard because Jerry put him on speakerphone by accident and then couldn’t find the button to turn him off. He can’t leave his weekend house because of his broken leg. Daniel, I mean.”

“Why was he yelling at Waldegrave?”

“Security on Bombyx,” she said. “The police have got a full copy of the manuscript from somewhere and Daniel’s not happy about it.

“Anyway,” she said, “I just thought I’d ring and say congrats—I suppose you congratulate a detective when they find a body, or don’t you? Call me when you’re not so busy.”

She rang off before he could say anything else.

“Nina Lascelles,” he said as the waiter reappeared with his apple crumble and a coffee for Robin. “The girl—”

“Who stole the manuscript for you,” said Robin.

“Your memory would’ve been wasted in HR,” said Strike, picking up his spoon.

“Are you serious about Michael Fancourt?” she asked quietly.

“Course,” said Strike. “Daniel Chard must’ve told him what Quine had done—he wouldn’t have wanted Fancourt to hear it from anyone else, would he? Fancourt’s a major acquisition for them. No, I think we’ve got to assume that Fancourt knew, early on, what was in—”

Now Robin’s mobile rang.

“Hi,” said Matthew.

“Hi, how are you?” she asked anxiously.

“Not great.”

Somewhere in the background, someone turned up the music: “First day that I saw you, thought you were beautiful…”

“Where are you?” asked Matthew sharply.

“Oh…in a pub,” said Robin.

Suddenly the air seemed full of pub noises; clinking glasses, raucous laughter from the bar.

“It’s Cormoran’s birthday,” she said anxiously. (After all, Matthew and his colleagues went to the pub on each other’s birthdays…)

“That’s nice,” said Matthew, sounding furious. “I’ll call you later.”

“Matt, no—wait—”

Mouth full of apple crumble, Strike watched out of the corner of his eye as she got up and moved away to the bar without explanation, evidently trying to redial Matthew. The accountant was unhappy that his fiancée had gone out to lunch, that she was not sitting shiva for his mother.

Robin redialed and redialed. She got through at last. Strike finished both his crumble and his third pint and realized that he needed the bathroom.

His knee, which had not troubled him much while he ate, drank and talked to Robin, complained violently when he stood. By the time he got back to his seat he was sweating a little with the pain. Judging by the expression on her face, Robin was still trying to placate Matthew. When at last she hung up and rejoined him, he returned a short answer to whether or not he was all right.

“You know, I could follow the Brocklehurst girl for you,” she offered again, “if your leg’s too—?”

“No,” snapped Strike.

He felt sore, angry with himself, irritated by Matthew and suddenly a bit nauseous. He ought not to have eaten the chocolate before having steak, chips, crumble and three pints.

“I need you to go back to the office and type up Gunfrey’s last invoice. And text me if those bloody journalists are still around, because I’ll go straight from here to Anstis’s, if they are.

“We really need to be thinking about taking someone else on,” he added under his breath.

Robin’s expression hardened.

“I’ll go and get typing, then,” she said. She snatched up her coat and bag and left. Strike caught a glimpse of her angry expression, but an irrational vexation prevented him from calling her back.