The Silkworm

33

Strike did not hear Robin calling because, unbeknownst to him, his mobile had been knocked onto silent when it had hit the ground fifteen minutes previously. Nor was he aware that his thumb had hit Robin’s number as the phone slipped through his fingers.

He had only just left his building when it happened. The door onto the street had swung shut behind him and he had had two seconds, with his mobile in his hand (waiting for a ring-back from the cab he had reluctantly ordered) when the tall figure in the black coat had come running at him through the darkness. A blur of pale skin beneath a hood and a scarf, her arm outstretched, inexpert but determined, with the knife pointing directly at him in a wavering clutch.

Bracing himself to meet her he had almost slipped again but, slamming his hand to the door, he steadied himself and the mobile fell. Shocked and furious with her, whoever she was, for the damage her pursuit had already done to his knee, he bellowed—she checked for a split second, then came at him once more.

As he swung his stick at the hand in which he had already seen the Stanley knife his knee twisted again. He let out a roar of pain and she leapt back, as though she had stabbed him without knowing it, and then, for the second time, she had panicked and taken flight, sprinting away through the snow leaving a furious and frustrated Strike unable to give chase, and with no choice but to scrabble around in the snow for his phone.

Fuck this leg!

When Robin called him he was sitting in a crawling taxi, sweating with pain. It was small consolation that the tiny triangular blade he had seen glinting in his pursuer’s hand had not pierced him. His knee, to which he had felt obliged to fit the prosthesis before setting out for Nina’s, was excruciating once more and he was burning with rage at his inability to give chase to his mad stalker. He had never hit a woman, never knowingly hurt one, but the sight of the knife coming at him through the dark had rendered such scruples void. To the consternation of the taxi driver, who was watching his large, furious-looking passenger in the rearview mirror, Strike kept twisting in his seat in case he saw her walking along the busy Saturday-night pavements, round-shouldered in her black coat, her knife concealed in her pocket.

The cab was gliding beneath the Christmas lights of Oxford Street, large, fragile parcels of silver wrapped with golden bows, and Strike fought his ruffled temper as they traveled, feeling no pleasure at the thought of his imminent dinner date. Again and again Robin called him, but he could not feel the mobile vibrating because it was deep in his coat pocket, which lay beside him on the seat.

“Hi,” said Nina with a forced smile when she opened the door to her flat half an hour after the agreed time.

“Sorry I’m late,” said Strike, limping over the threshold. “I had an accident leaving the house. My leg.”

He had not brought her anything, he realized, standing there in his overcoat. He should have brought wine or chocolates and he felt her notice it as her big eyes roved over him; she had good manners herself and he felt, suddenly, a little shabby.

“And I’ve forgotten the wine I bought you,” he lied. “This is crap. Chuck me out.”

As she laughed, though unwillingly, Strike felt the phone vibrate in his pocket and automatically pulled it out.

Robin. He could not think why she wanted him on a Saturday.

“Sorry,” he told Nina, “gotta take this—urgent, it’s my assistant—”

Her smile slipped. She turned and walked out of the hall, leaving him there in his coat.

“Robin?”

“Are you all right? What happened?”

“How did you—?”

“I’ve got a voice mail that sounds like a recording of you being attacked!”

“Christ, did I call you? Must’ve been when I dropped the phone. Yeah, that’s exactly what it was—”

Five minutes later, having told Robin what had happened, he hung up his coat and followed his nose to the sitting room, where Nina had laid a table for two. The room was lamplit; she had tidied, put fresh flowers around the place. A strong smell of burnt garlic hung in the air.

“Sorry,” he repeated as she returned carrying a dish. “Wish I had a nine-to-five job sometimes.”

“Help yourself to wine,” she said coolly.

The situation was deeply familiar. How often had he sat opposite a woman who was irritated by his lateness, his divided attention, his casualness? But here, at least, it was being played out in a minor key. If he had been late for dinner with Charlotte and taken a call from another woman as soon as he had arrived he might have expected a face full of wine and flying crockery. That thought made him feel more kindly towards Nina.

“Detectives make shit dates,” he told her as he sat down.

“I wouldn’t say ‘shit,’” she replied, softening. “I don’t suppose it’s the sort of job you can leave behind.”

She was watching him with her huge mouse-like eyes.

“I had a nightmare about you last night,” she said.

“Getting off to a flying start, aren’t we?” said Strike, and she laughed.

“Well, not really about you. We were together looking for Owen Quine’s intestinal tract.”

She took a big swig of wine, gazing at him.

“Did we find it?” Strike asked, trying to keep things light.

“Yes.”

“Where? I’ll take any leads at this point.”

“In Jerry Waldegrave’s bottom desk drawer,” said Nina and he thought he saw her repress a shudder. “It was horrible, actually. Blood and guts when I opened it…and you hit Jerry. It woke me up, it was so real.”

She drank more wine, not touching her food. Strike, who had already taken several hearty mouthfuls (far too much garlic, but he was hungry), felt he was being insufficiently sympathetic. He swallowed hastily and said:

“Sounds creepy.”

“It’s because of what was on the news yesterday,” she said, watching him. “Nobody realized, nobody knew he’d—he’d been killed like that. Like Bombyx Mori. You didn’t tell me,” she said, and a whiff of accusation reached him through the garlic fumes.

“I couldn’t,” said Strike. “It’s up to the police to release that kind of information.”

“It’s on the front page of the Daily Express today. He’d have liked that, Owen. Being a headline. But I wish I hadn’t read it,” she said, with a furtive look at him.

He had met these qualms before. Some people recoiled once they realized what he had seen, or done, or touched. It was as though he carried the smell of death on him. There were always women who were attracted by the soldier, the policeman: they experienced a vicarious thrill, a voluptuous appreciation at the violence a man might have seen or perpetrated. Other women were repelled. Nina, he suspected, had been one of the former, but now that the reality of cruelty, sadism and sickness had been forced on her she was discovering that she might, after all, belong in the second camp.

“It wasn’t fun at work yesterday,” she said. “Not after we heard that. Everyone was…It’s just, if he was killed that way, if the killer copied the book…It limits the possible suspects, doesn’t it? Nobody’s laughing about Bombyx Mori anymore, I can tell you that. It’s like one of Michael Fancourt’s old plots, back when the critics said he was too grisly…And Jerry’s resigned.”

“I heard.”

“I don’t know why,” she said restlessly. “He’s been at Roper Chard ages. He’s not being himself at all. Angry all the time, and he’s usually so lovely. And he’s drinking again. A lot.”

She was still not eating.

“Was he close to Quine?” Strike asked.

“I think he was closer than he thought he was,” said Nina slowly. “They’d worked together quite a long time. Owen drove him mad—Owen drove everyone mad—but Jerry’s really upset, I can tell.”

“I can’t imagine Quine enjoying being edited.”

“I think he was tricky sometimes,” said Nina, “but Jerry won’t hear a word against Owen now. He’s obsessed by his breakdown theory. You heard him at the party, he thinks Owen was mentally ill and Bombyx Mori wasn’t really his fault. And he’s still raging against Elizabeth Tassel for letting the book out. She came in the other day to talk about one of her other authors—”

“Dorcus Pengelly?” Strike asked, and Nina gave a little gasp of laughter.

“You don’t read that crap! Heaving bosoms and shipwrecks?”

“The name stuck in my mind,” said Strike, grinning. “Go on about Waldegrave.”

“He saw Liz coming and slammed his office door as she walked past. You’ve seen it, it’s glass and he nearly broke it. Really unnecessary and obvious, it made everyone jump out of their skins. She looks ghastly,” added Nina. “Liz Tassel. Awful. If she’d been on form, she’d have stormed into Jerry’s office and told him not to be so bloody rude—”

“Would she?”

“Are you crazy? Liz Tassel’s temper is legendary.”

Nina glanced at her watch.

“Michael Fancourt’s being interviewed on the telly this evening; I’m recording it,” she said, refilling both their glasses. She still had not touched her food.

“Wouldn’t mind watching that,” said Strike.

She threw him an oddly calculating look and Strike guessed that she was trying to assess how much his presence was due to a desire to pick her brains, how much designs on her slim, boyish body.

His mobile rang again. For several seconds he weighed the offense he might cause if he answered it, versus the possibility that it might herald something more useful than Nina’s opinions about Jerry Waldegrave.

“Sorry,” he said and pulled it out of his pocket. It was his brother Al.

“Corm!” said the voice over a noisy line. “Great to hear from you, bruv!”

“Hi,” said Strike repressively. “How are you?”

“Great! I’m in New York, only just got your message. What d’you need?”

He knew that Strike would only call if he wanted something, but unlike Nina, Al did not seem to resent the fact.

“Wondering if you fancied dinner this Friday,” said Strike, “but if you’re in New York—”

“I’m coming back Wednesday, that’d be cool. Want me to book somewhere?”

“Yeah,” said Strike. “It’s got to be the River Café.”

“I’ll get on it,” said Al without asking why: perhaps he assumed that Strike merely had a yen for good Italian. “Text you the time, yeah? Look forward to it!”

Strike hung up, the first syllable of an apology already on his lips, but Nina had left for the kitchen. The atmosphere had undoubtedly curdled.