The Silkworm

30

At Strike’s insistence, they stopped for lunch at the Burger King at Tiverton Services.

“You need to eat something before we go up the road.”

Robin accompanied him inside with barely a word, making no reference even to Manny’s recent, startling assertion. Her cold and slightly martyred air did not entirely surprise Strike, but he was impatient with it. She queued for their burgers, because he could not manage both tray and crutches, and when she had set down the loaded tray at the small Formica table he said, trying to defuse the tension:

“Look, I know you expected me to tell Chard off for treating you like staff.”

“I didn’t,” Robin contradicted him automatically. (Hearing him say it aloud made her feel petulant, childish.)

“Have it your own way,” said Strike with an irritable shrug, taking a large bite of his first burger.

They ate in disgruntled silence for a minute or two, until Robin’s innate honesty reasserted itself.

“All right, I did, a bit,” she said.

Mellowed by greasy food and touched by her admission, Strike said:

“I was getting good stuff out of him, Robin. You don’t start picking arguments with interviewees when they’re in full flow.”

“Sorry for my amateurishness,” she said, stung all over again.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he said. “Who’s calling you—?”

“What were you intending, when you took me on?” she demanded suddenly, letting her unwrapped burger fall back onto the tray.

The latent resentment of weeks had suddenly burst its bounds. She did not care what she heard; she wanted the truth. Was she a typist and a receptionist, or was she something more? Had she stayed with Strike, and helped him climb out of penury, merely to be shunted aside like domestic staff?

“Intending?” repeated Strike, staring at her. “What d’you mean, intend—?”

“I thought you meant me to be—I thought I was going to get some—some training,” said Robin, pink-cheeked and unnaturally bright-eyed. “You’ve mentioned it a couple of times, but then lately you’ve been talking about getting someone else in. I took a pay cut,” she said tremulously. “I turned down better-paid jobs. I thought you meant me to be—”

Her anger, so long suppressed, was bringing her to the verge of tears, but she was determined not to give in to them. The fictional partner whom she had been imagining for Strike would never cry; not that no-nonsense ex-policewoman, tough and unemotional through every crisis…

“I thought you meant me to be—I didn’t think I was just going to answer the phone.”

“You don’t just answer the phone,” said Strike, who had just finished his first burger and was watching her struggle with her anger from beneath his heavy brows. “You’ve been casing murder suspects’ houses with me this week. You just saved both our lives on the motorway.”

But Robin was not to be deflected.

“What were you expecting me to do when you kept me on?”

“I don’t know that I had any particular plan,” Strike said slowly and untruthfully. “I didn’t know you were this serious about the job—looking for training—”

“How could I not be serious?” demanded Robin loudly.

A family of four in the corner of the tiny restaurant was staring at them. Robin paid them no attention. She was suddenly livid. The long cold journey, Strike eating all the food, his surprise that she could drive properly, her relegation to the kitchen with Chard’s servants and now this—

“You give me half—half—what that human resources job would have paid! Why do you think I stayed? I helped you. I helped you solve the Lula Landry—”

“OK,” said Strike, holding up a large, hairy-backed hand. “OK, here it is. But don’t blame me if you don’t like what you’re about to hear.”

She stared at him, flushed, straight-backed on her plastic chair, her food untouched.

“I did take you on thinking I could train you up. I didn’t have any money for courses, but I thought you could learn on the job until I could afford it.”

Refusing to feel mollified until she heard what was coming next, Robin said nothing.

“You’ve got a lot of aptitude for the job,” said Strike, “but you’re getting married to someone who hates you doing it.”

Robin opened her mouth and closed it again. A sensation of having been unexpectedly winded had robbed her of the power of speech.

“You leave on the dot every day—”

“I do not!” said Robin, furious. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I turned down a day off to be here now, driving you all the way to Devon—”

“Because he’s away,” said Strike. “Because he won’t know.”

The feeling of having been winded intensified. How could Strike know that she had lied to Matthew, if not in fact, then by omission?

“Even if that—whether that’s true or not,” she said unsteadily, “it’s up to me what I do with my—it’s not up to Matthew what career I have.”

“I was with Charlotte sixteen years, on and off,” said Strike, picking up his second burger. “Mostly off. She hated my job. It’s what kept breaking us up—one of the things that kept breaking us up,” he corrected himself, scrupulously honest. “She couldn’t understand a vocation. Some people can’t; at best, work’s about status and paychecks for them, it hasn’t got value in itself.”

He began unwrapping the burger while Robin glared at him.

“I need a partner who can share the long hours,” said Strike. “Someone who’s OK with weekend work. I don’t blame Matthew for worrying about you—”

“He doesn’t.”

The words were out of her mouth before Robin could consider them. In her blanket desire to refute everything that Strike was saying she had let an unpalatable truth escape her. The fact was that Matthew had very little imagination. He had not seen Strike covered in blood after the killer of Lula Landry had stabbed him. Even her description of Owen Quine lying trussed and disemboweled seemed to have been blurred for him by the thick miasma of jealousy through which he heard everything connected to Strike. His antipathy for her job owed nothing to protectiveness and she had never admitted as much to herself before.

“It can be dangerous, what I do,” said Strike through another huge bite of burger, as though he had not heard her.

“I’ve been useful to you,” said Robin, her voice thicker than his, though her mouth was empty.

“I know you have. I wouldn’t be where I am now if I hadn’t had you,” said Strike. “Nobody was ever more grateful than me for a temping agency’s mistake. You’ve been incredible, I couldn’t have—don’t bloody cry, that family’s gawping enough already.”

“I don’t give a monkey’s,” said Robin into a handful of paper napkins and Strike laughed.

“If it’s what you want,” he told the top of her red-gold head, “you can go on a surveillance course when I’ve got the money. But if you’re my partner-in-training, there’ll be times that I’m going to have to ask you to do stuff that Matthew might not like. That’s all I’m saying. You’re the one who’s going to have to work it out.”

“And I will,” said Robin, fighting to contain the urge to bawl. “That’s what I want. That’s why I stayed.”

“Then cheer the fuck up and eat your burger.”

Robin found it hard to eat with the huge lump in her throat. She felt shaken but elated. She had not been mistaken: Strike had seen in her what he possessed himself. They were not people who worked merely for the paycheck…

“So, tell me about Daniel Chard,” she said.

He did so while the nosy family of four gathered up their things and left, still throwing covert glances at the couple they could not quite work out (had it been a lovers’ tiff? A family row? How had it been so speedily resolved?).

“Paranoid, bit eccentric, self-obsessed,” concluded Strike five minutes later, “but there might be something in it. Jerry Waldegrave could’ve collaborated with Quine. On the other hand, he might’ve resigned because he’d had enough of Chard, who I don’t think would be an easy bloke to work for.

“D’you want a coffee?”

Robin glanced at her watch. The snow was still falling; she feared delays on the motorway that would prevent her catching the train to Yorkshire, but after their conversation she was determined to demonstrate her commitment to the job, so she agreed to one. In any case, there were things she wished to say to Strike while she was still sitting opposite him. It would not be nearly as satisfying to tell him while in the driver’s seat, where she could not watch his reaction.

“I found out a bit about Chard myself,” she said when she had returned with two cups and an apple pie for Strike.

“Servants’ gossip?”

“No,” said Robin. “They barely said a word to me while I was in the kitchen. They both seemed in foul moods.”

“According to Chard, they don’t like it in Devon. Prefer London. Are they brother and sister?”

“Mother and son, I think,” said Robin. “He called her Mamu.

“Anyway, I asked to go to the bathroom and the staff loo’s just next to an artist’s studio. Daniel Chard knows a lot about anatomy,” said Robin. “There are prints of Leonardo da Vinci’s anatomical drawings all over the walls and an anatomical model in one corner. Creepy—wax. And on the easel,” she said, “was a very detailed drawing of Manny the Manservant. Lying on the ground, in the nude.”

Strike put down his coffee.

“Those are very interesting pieces of information,” he said slowly.

“I thought you’d like them,” said Robin, with a demure smile.

“Shines an interesting side-light on Manny’s assurance that he didn’t push his boss down the stairs.”

“They really didn’t like you being there,” said Robin, “but that might have been my fault. I said you were a private detective, but Nenita—her English isn’t as good as Manny’s—didn’t understand, so I said you were a kind of policeman.”

“Leading them to assume that Chard had invited me over to complain about Manny’s violence towards him.”

“Did Chard mention it?”

“Not a word,” said Strike. “Much more concerned about Waldegrave’s alleged treachery.”

After visits to the bathroom they returned to the cold, where they had to screw up their eyes against oncoming snow as they traversed the car park. A light frosting had already settled over the top of the Toyota.

“You’re going to make it to King’s Cross, right?” said Strike, checking his watch.

“Unless we hit trouble on the motorway,” said Robin, surreptitiously touching the wood trim on the door’s interior.

They had just reached the M4, where there were weather warnings on every sign and where the speed limit had been reduced to sixty, when Strike’s mobile rang.

“Ilsa? What’s going on?”

“Hi, Corm. Well, it could be worse. They haven’t arrested her, but that was some intense questioning.”

Strike turned the mobile onto speakerphone for Robin’s benefit and together they listened, similar frowns of concentration on their faces as the car moved through a vortex of swirling snow, rushing the windscreen.

“They definitely think it’s her,” said Ilsa.

“Based on what?”

“Opportunity,” said Ilsa, “and her manner. She really doesn’t help herself. Very grumpy at being questioned and kept talking about you, which put their backs up. She said you’ll find out who really did it.”

“Bloody hell,” said Strike, exasperated. “And what was in the lockup?”

“Oh yeah, that. It was a burned, bloodstained rag in among a pile of junk.”

“Big effing deal,” said Strike. “Could’ve been there years.”

“Forensics will find out, but I agree, it’s not much to go on seeing as they haven’t even found the guts yet.”

“You know about the guts?”

“Everyone knows about the guts now, Corm. It’s been on the news.”

Strike and Robin exchanged fleeting looks.

“When?”

“Lunchtime. I think the police knew it was about to break and brought her in to see if they could squeeze anything out of her before it all became common knowledge.”

“It’s one of their lot who’s leaked it,” said Strike angrily.

“That’s a big accusation.”

“I had it from the journalist who was paying the copper to talk.”

“Know some interesting people, don’t you?”

“Comes with the territory. Thanks for letting me know, Ilsa.”

“No problem. Try and keep her out of jail, Corm. I quite like her.”

“Who is that?” Robin asked as Ilsa hung up.

“Old school friend from Cornwall; lawyer. She married one of my London mates,” said Strike. “I put Leonora onto her because—shit.”

They had rounded a bend to find a huge tailback ahead of them. Robin applied the brake and they drew up behind a Peugeot.

“Shit,” repeated Strike, with a glance at Robin’s set profile.

“Another accident,” said Robin. “I can see flashing lights.”

Her imagination showed her Matthew’s face if she had to telephone him and say that she was not coming, that she had missed the sleeper. His mother’s funeral…who misses a funeral? She should have been there already, at Matt’s father’s house, helping with arrangements, taking some of the strain. Her weekend bag ought already to have been sitting in her old bedroom at home, her funeral clothes pressed and hanging in her old wardrobe, everything ready for the short walk to the church the following morning. They were burying Mrs. Cunliffe, her future mother-in-law, but she had chosen to drive off into the snow with Strike, and now they were gridlocked, two hundred miles from the church where Matthew’s mother would be laid to rest.

He’ll never forgive me. He’ll never forgive me if I miss the funeral because I did this…

Why did she have to have been presented with such a choice, today of all days? Why did the weather have to be so bad? Robin’s stomach churned with anxiety and the traffic did not move.

Strike said nothing, but turned on the radio. The sound of Take That filled the car, singing about there being progress now, where once there was none. The music grated on Robin’s nerves, but she said nothing.

The line of traffic moved forward a few feet.

Oh, please God, let me get to King’s Cross on time, prayed Robin inside her head.

For three quarters of an hour they crawled through the snow, the afternoon light fading fast around them. What had seemed a vast ocean of time until the departure of the night train was starting to feel to Robin like a rapidly draining pool in which she might shortly be sitting alone, marooned.

Now they could see the crash ahead of them; the police, the lights, a mangled Polo.

“You’ll make it,” said Strike, speaking for the first time since he had turned on the radio as they waited their turn to be waved forwards by the traffic cop. “It’ll be tight, but you’ll make it.”

Robin did not answer. She knew it was all her fault, not his: he had offered her the day off. It was she who had been insistent on coming with him to Devon, she who had lied to Matthew about the availability of train seats today. She ought to have stood all the way from London to Harrogate rather than miss Mrs. Cunliffe’s funeral. Strike had been with Charlotte sixteen years, on and off, and the job had broken them. She did not want to lose Matthew. Why had she done this; why had she offered to drive Strike?

The traffic was dense and slow. By five o’clock they were traveling in thick rush-hour traffic outside Reading and crawled to a halt again. Strike turned up the news when it came on the radio. Robin tried to care what they would say about Quine’s murder, but her heart was in Yorkshire now, as though it had leapfrogged the traffic and all the implacable, snowy miles between her and home.

“Police have confirmed today that murdered author Owen Quine, whose body was discovered six days ago in a house in Barons Court, London, was murdered in the same way as the hero of his last, unpublished book. No arrest has yet been made in the case.

“Detective Inspector Richard Anstis, who is in charge of the investigation, spoke to reporters earlier this afternoon.”

Anstis, Strike noted, sounded stilted and tense. This was not the way he would have chosen to release the information.

“We’re interested in hearing from everyone who had access to the manuscript of Mr. Quine’s last novel—”

“Can you tell us exactly how Mr. Quine was killed, Detective Inspector?” asked an eager male voice.

“We’re waiting for a full forensic report,” said Anstis, and he was cut across by a female reporter.

“Can you confirm that parts of Mr. Quine’s body were removed by the killer?”

“Part of Mr. Quine’s intestines were taken away from the scene,” said Anstis. “We’re pursuing several leads, but we would appeal to the public for any information. This was an appalling crime and we believe the perpetrator to be extremely dangerous.”

“Not again,” said Robin desperately and Strike looked up to see a wall of red lights ahead. “Not another accident…”

Strike slapped off the radio, unwound his window and stuck his head out into the whirling snow.

“No,” he shouted to her. “Someone stuck at the side of the road…in a drift…we’ll be moving again in a minute,” he reassured her.

But it took another forty minutes for them to clear the obstruction. All three lanes were packed and they resumed their journey at little more than a crawl.

“I’m not going to make it,” said Robin, her mouth dry, as they finally reached the edge of London. It was twenty past ten.

“You are,” said Strike. “Turn that bloody thing off,” he said, thumping the sat nav into silence, “and don’t take that exit—”

“But I’ve got to drop you—”

“Forget me, you don’t need to drop me—next left—”

“I can’t go down there, it’s one way!”

“Left!” he bellowed, tugging the wheel.

“Don’t do that, it’s danger—”

“D’you want to miss this bloody funeral? Put your foot down! First right—”

“Where are we?”

“I know what I’m doing,” said Strike, squinting through the snow. “Straight on…my mate Nick’s dad’s a cabbie, he taught me some stuff—right again—ignore the bloody No Entry sign, who’s coming out of there on a night like this? Straight on and left at the lights!”

“I can’t just leave you at King’s Cross!” she said, obeying his instructions blindly. “You can’t drive it, what are you going to do with it?”

“Sod the car, I’ll think of something—up here, take the second right—”

At five to eleven the towers of St. Pancras appeared to Robin like a vision of heaven through the snow.

“Pull over, get out and run,” said Strike. “Call me if you make it. I’ll be here if you don’t.”

“Thank you.”

And she had gone, sprinting over the snow with her weekend bag dangling from her hand. Strike watched her vanish into the darkness, imagined her skidding a little on the slippery floor of the station, not falling, looking wildly around for the platform…She had left the car, on his instructions, at the curb on a double line. If she made the train he was stranded in a hire car he couldn’t drive and which would certainly be towed.

The golden hands on the St. Pancras clock moved inexorably towards eleven o’clock. Strike saw the train doors slamming shut in his mind’s eye, Robin sprinting up the platform, red-gold hair flying…

One minute past. He fixed his eyes on the station entrance and waited.

She did not reappear. Still he waited. Five minutes past. Six minutes past.

His mobile rang.

“Did you make it?”

“By the skin of my teeth…it was just about to leave…Cormoran, thank you, thank you so much…”

“No problem,” he said, looking around at the dark icy ground, the deepening snow. “Have a good journey. I’d better sort myself out. Good luck for tomorrow.”

“Thank you!” she called as he hung up.

He had owed her, Strike thought, reaching for his crutches, but that did not make the prospect of a journey across snowy London on one leg, or a hefty fine for abandoning a hire car in the middle of town, much more appealing.