The Silkworm

32

Even with snow chains on its tires the old family Land Rover driven by Robin’s mother had had a hard job of it between York station and Masham. The wipers made fan-shaped windows, swiftly obliterated, onto roads familiar to Robin since childhood, now transformed by the worst winter she had seen in many years. The snow was relentless and the journey, which should have taken an hour, lasted nearly three. There had been moments when Robin had thought she might yet miss the funeral. At least she had been able to speak to Matthew on her mobile, explaining that she was close. He had told her that several others were still miles away, that he was afraid his aunt from Cambridge might not make it at all.

At home Robin had dodged the slobbering welcome of their old chocolate Labrador and hurtled upstairs to her room, pulling on the black dress and coat without bothering to iron them, laddering her first pair of tights in her haste, then running back downstairs to the hall where her parents and brothers were waiting for her.

They walked together through the swirling snow beneath black umbrellas, up the gentle hill Robin had climbed every day of her primary school years and across the wide square that was the ancient heart of her tiny hometown, their backs to the giant chimney of the local brewery. The Saturday market had been canceled. Deep channels had been made in the snow by those few brave souls who had crossed the square that morning, footprints converging near the church where Robin could see a crowd of black-coated mourners. The roofs of the pale gold Georgian houses lining the square wore mantels of bright, frozen icing, and still the snow kept coming. A rising sea of white was steadily burying the large square tombstones in the cemetery.

Robin shivered as the family edged towards the doors of St. Mary the Virgin, past the remnant of a ninth-century round-shafted cross that had a curiously pagan appearance, and then, at last, she saw Matthew, standing in the porch with his father and sister, pale and heart-stoppingly handsome in his black suit. As Robin watched, trying to catch his eye over the queue, a young woman reached up and embraced him. Robin recognized Sarah Shadlock, Matthew’s old friend from university. Her greeting was a little more lascivious, perhaps, than was appropriate in the circumstances, but Robin’s guilt about having come within ten seconds of missing the overnight train, about not having seen Matthew in nearly a week, made her feel she had no right to resent it.

“Robin,” he said urgently when he saw her and he forgot to shake three people’s hands as he held out his arms to her. As they hugged she felt tears prickle beneath her eyelids. This was real life, after all, Matthew and home…

“Go and sit at the front,” he told her and she obeyed, leaving her family at the back of the church to sit in the front pew with Matthew’s brother-in-law, who was dandling his baby daughter on his knee and greeted Robin with a morose nod.

It was a beautiful old church and Robin knew it well from the Christmas, Easter and harvest services she had attended all her life with her primary school and family. Her eyes traveled slowly from familiar object to familiar object. High above her over the chancel arch was a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds (or, at the very least, the school of Joshua Reynolds) and she fixed upon it, trying to compose her mind. A misty, mystical image, the boy-angel contemplating the distant vision of a cross emitting golden rays…Who had really done it, she wondered, Reynolds or some studio acolyte? And then she felt guilty that she was indulging her perennial curiosity instead of feeling sad about Mrs. Cunliffe…

She had thought that she would be marrying here in a few weeks’ time. Her wedding dress was hanging ready in the spare room’s wardrobe, but instead, here was Mrs. Cunliffe’s coffin coming up the aisle, shining black with silver handles, Owen Quine still in the morgue…no shiny coffin for his disemboweled body yet, rotted and burned…

Don’t think about that, she told herself sternly as Matthew sat down beside her, the length of his leg warm against hers.

The last twenty-four hours had been so packed with incident that it was hard for Robin to believe she was here, at home. She and Strike might have been in hospital, they had come close to slamming head first into that overturned lorry…the driver covered in blood…Mrs. Cunliffe was probably unscathed in her silk-lined box…Don’t think about that…

It was as though her eyes were being stripped of a comfortable soft focus. Maybe seeing things like bound and disemboweled bodies did something to you, changed the way you saw the world.

She knelt a little late for prayer, the cross-stitched hassock rough beneath her freezing knees. Poor Mrs. Cunliffe…except that Matthew’s mother had never much liked her. Be kind, Robin implored herself, even though it was true. Mrs. Cunliffe had not liked the idea of Matthew being tied to the same girlfriend for so long. She had mentioned, within Robin’s hearing, how good it was for young men to play the field, sow their wild oats…The way in which Robin had left university had tainted her, she knew, in Mrs. Cunliffe’s eyes.

The statue of Sir Marmaduke Wyvill was facing Robin from mere feet away. As she stood for the hymn he seemed to be staring at her in his Jacobean dress, life-sized and horizontal on his marble shelf, propped up on his elbow to face the congregation. His wife lay beneath him in an identical pose. They were oddly real in their irreverent poses, cushions beneath their elbows to keep their marble bones comfortable, and above them, in the spandrels, allegorical figures of death and mortality. Till death do us part…and her thoughts drifted again: she and Matthew, tied together forever until they died…no, not tied…don’t think tied…What’s wrong with you? She was exhausted. The train had been overheated and jerky. She had woken on the hour, afraid that it would get stuck in the snow.

Matthew reached for her hand and squeezed her fingers.

The burial took place as quickly as decency allowed, the snow falling thick around them. There was no lingering at the graveside; Robin was not the only one perceptibly shivering.

Everyone went back to the Cunliffes’ big brick house and milled around in the welcome warmth. Mr. Cunliffe, who was always a little louder than the occasion warranted, kept filling glasses and greeting people as though it were a party.

“I’ve missed you,” Matthew said. “It’s been horrible without you.”

“Me too,” said Robin. “I wish I could have been here.”

Lying again.

“Auntie Sue’s staying tonight,” said Matthew. “I thought I could maybe come over to your place, be good to get away for a bit. It’s been full on this week…”

“Great, yes,” said Robin, squeezing his hand, grateful that she would not have to stay at the Cunliffes’. She found Matthew’s sister hard work and Mr. Cunliffe overbearing.

But you could have put up with it for a night, she told herself sternly. It felt like an undeserved escape.

And so they returned to the Ellacotts’ house, a short walk from the square. Matthew liked her family; he was glad to change out of his suit into jeans, to help her mother lay the kitchen table for dinner. Mrs. Ellacott, an ample woman with Robin’s red-gold hair tucked up in an untidy bun, treated him with gentle kindness; she was a woman of many interests and enthusiasms, currently doing an Open University degree in English Literature.

“How’re the studies going, Linda?” Matthew asked as he lifted the heavy casserole dish out of the oven for her.

“We’re doing Webster, The Duchess of Malfi: ‘And I am grown mad with ’t.’”

“Difficult, is it?” asked Matthew.

“That’s a quotation, love. Oh,” she dropped the serving spoons onto the side with a clatter, “that reminds me—I bet I’ve missed it—”

She crossed the kitchen and snatched up a copy of the Radio Times, always present in their house.

“No, it’s on at nine. There’s an interview with Michael Fancourt I want to watch.”

“Michael Fancourt?” said Robin, looking round. “Why?”

“He’s very influenced by all those Revenge Tragedians,” said her mother. “I’m hoping he’ll explain the appeal.”

“Seen this?” said Robin’s youngest brother, Jonathan, fresh back from the corner shop with the extra milk requested by his mother. “It’s on the front page, Rob. That writer with his guts ripped out—”

“Jon!” said Mrs. Ellacott sharply.

Robin knew that her mother was not reprimanding her son out of any suspicion that Matthew would not appreciate mention of her job, but because of a more general aversion to discussing sudden death in the aftermath of the burial.

“What?” said Jonathan, oblivious to the proprieties, shoving the Daily Express under Robin’s nose.

Quine had made the front page now that the press knew what had been done to him.

HORROR AUTHOR WROTE OWN MURDER.

Horror author, Robin thought, he was hardly that…but it makes a good headline.

“Is your boss gonna solve it, d’you reckon?” Jonathan asked her, thumbing through the paper. “Show up the Met again?”

She began to read the account over Jonathan’s shoulder, but caught Matthew’s eye and moved away.

A buzzing issued from Robin’s handbag, discarded in a sagging chair in the corner of the flagged kitchen, as they ate their meal of stew and baked potatoes. She ignored it. Only when they had finished eating and Matthew was dutifully helping her mother clear the table did Robin wander to her bag to check her messages. To her great surprise she saw a missed call from Strike. With a surreptitious glance at Matthew, who was busily stacking plates in the dishwasher, she called voice mail while the others chatted.

You have one new message. Received today at seven twenty p.m.

The crackle of an open line, but no speech.

Then a thud. A yell in the distance from Strike:

“No you don’t, you fucking—”

A bellow of pain.

Silence. The crackle of the open line. Indeterminate crunching, dragging sounds. Loud panting, a scraping noise, the line dead.

Robin stood aghast, the phone pressed against her ear.

“What’s the matter?” asked her father, glasses halfway down his nose as he paused on the way to the dresser, knives and forks in his hand.

“I think—I think my boss has—has had an accident—”

She pressed Strike’s number with shaking fingers. The call went straight to voice mail. Matthew was standing in the middle of the kitchen watching her, his displeasure undisguised.