The Silkworm

46

Grateful for the effect of cheap brandy and to Robin’s particular combination of clearheadedness and warmth, Strike parted from her with many thanks half an hour later. Robin traveled home to Matthew in a glow of gratification and excitement, looking more kindly on Strike’s theory as to the killer of Owen Quine than she had done before. This was partly because nothing that Kathryn Kent had said had contradicted it, but mainly because she felt particularly warm towards her boss after the shared interrogation.

Strike returned to his attic rooms in a less elevated frame of mind. He had drunk nothing but tea and believed more strongly than ever in his theory, but all the proof he could offer was a single typewriter cassette: it would not be enough to overturn the police case against Leonora.

There were hard frosts overnight on Saturday and Sunday, but during the daytime glimmers of sunshine pierced the cloud blanket. Rain turned some of the accumulated snow in the gutters to sliding slush. Strike brooded alone between his rooms and his office, ignoring a call from Nina Lascelles and turning down an invitation to dinner at Nick and Ilsa’s, pleading paperwork but actually preferring solitude without pressure to discuss the Quine case.

He knew that he was acting as though he were held to a professional standard that had ceased to apply when he had left the Special Investigation Branch. Though legally free to gossip to whomever he pleased about his suspicions, he continued to treat them as confidential. This was partly longstanding habit, but mainly because (much as others might jeer) he took extremely seriously the possibility that the killer might hear what he was thinking and doing. In Strike’s opinion, the safest way of ensuring that secret information did not leak was not to tell anybody about it.

On Monday he was visited again by the boss and boyfriend of the faithless Miss Brocklehurst, whose masochism now extended to a wish to know whether she had, as he strongly suspected, a third lover hidden away somewhere. Strike listened with half his mind on the activities of Dave Polworth, who was starting to feel like his last hope. Robin’s endeavors remained fruitless, in spite of the hours she was spending pursuing the evidence he had asked her to find.

At half past six that evening, as he sat in his flat watching the forecast, which predicted a return of arctic weather by the end of the week, his phone rang.

“Guess what, Diddy?” said Polworth down a crackling line.

“You’re kidding me,” said Strike, his chest suddenly tight with anticipation.

“Got the lot, mate.”

“Holy shit,” breathed Strike.

It had been his own theory, but he felt as astonished as if Polworth had done it all unaided.

“Bagged up here, waiting for you.”

“I’ll send someone for it first thing tomorrow—”

“And I’m gonna go home and have a nice hot bath,” said Polworth.

“Chum, you’re a bloody—”

“I know I am. We’ll talk about my credit later. I’m fucking freezing, Diddy, I’m going home.”

Strike called Robin with the news. Her elation matched his own.

“Right, tomorrow!” she said, full of determination. “Tomorrow I’m going to get it, I’m going to make sure—”

“Don’t go getting careless,” Strike talked over her. “It’s not a competition.”

He barely slept that night.

Robin made no appearance at the office until one in the afternoon, but the instant he heard the glass door bang and heard her calling him, he knew.

“You haven’t—?”

“Yes,” she said breathlessly.

She thought he was going to hug her, which would be crossing a line he had never even approached before, but the lunge she had thought might be meant for her was really for the mobile on his desk.

“I’m calling Anstis. We’ve done it, Robin.”

“Cormoran, I think—” Robin started to say, but he did not hear her. He had hurried back into his office and closed the door behind him.

Robin lowered herself into her computer chair, feeling uneasy. Strike’s muffled voice rose and fell beyond the door. She got up restlessly to visit the bathroom, where she washed her hands and stared into the cracked and spotted mirror over the sink, observing the inconveniently bright gold of her hair. Returning to the office, she sat down, could not settle to anything, noticed that she had not switched on her tiny tinsel Christmas tree, did so, and waited, absentmindedly biting her thumbnail, something she had not done for years.

Twenty minutes later, his jaw set and his expression ugly, Strike emerged from the office.

“Stupid fucking dickhead!” were his first words.

“No!” gasped Robin.

“He’s having none of it,” said Strike, too wound up to sit, but limping up and down the enclosed space. “He’s had that bloody rag in the lockup analyzed and it’s got Quine’s blood on it—big effing deal, could’ve cut himself months ago. He’s so in love with his own effing theory—”

“Did you say to him, if he just gets a warrant—?”

“DICKHEAD!” roared Strike, punching the metal filing cabinet so that it reverberated and Robin jumped.

“But he can’t deny—once forensics are done—”

“That’s the bleeding point, Robin!” he said, rounding on her. “Unless he searches before he gets forensics done, there might be nothing there to find!”

“But did you tell him about the typewriter?”

“If the simple fact that it’s there doesn’t hit the prick between the eyes—”

She ventured no more suggestions but watched him walk up and down, brow furrowed, too intimidated to tell him, now, what was worrying her.

“Fuck it,” growled Strike on his sixth walk back to her desk. “Shock and awe. No choice. Al,” he muttered, pulling out his mobile again, “and Nick.”

“Who’s Nick?” asked Robin, desperately trying to keep up.

“He’s married to Leonora’s lawyer,” said Strike, punching buttons on his phone. “Old mate…he’s a gastroenterologist…”

He retreated again to his office and slammed the door.

For want of anything else to do, Robin filled the kettle, her heart hammering, and made them both tea. The mugs cooled, untouched, while she waited.

When Strike emerged fifteen minutes later, he seemed calmer.

“All right,” he said, seizing his tea and taking a gulp. “I’ve got a plan and I’m going to need you. Are you up for it?”

“Of course!” said Robin.

He gave her a concise outline of what he wanted to do. It was ambitious and would require a healthy dose of luck.

“Well?” Strike asked her finally.

“No problem,” said Robin.

“We might not need you.”

“No,” said Robin.

“On the other hand, you could be key.”

“Yes,” said Robin.

“Sure that’s all right?” Strike asked, watching her closely.

“No problem at all,” said Robin. “I want to do it, I really do—it’s just,” she hesitated, “I think he—”

“What?” said Strike sharply.

“I think I’d better have a practice,” said Robin.

“Oh,” said Strike, eyeing her. “Yeah, fair enough. Got until Thursday, I think. I’ll check the date now…”

He disappeared for the third time into his inner office. Robin returned to her computer chair.

She desperately wanted to play her part in the capture of Owen Quine’s killer, but what she had been about to say, before Strike’s sharp response panicked her out of it, was: “I think he might have seen me.”