The Silkworm (22 page)

‘Oh yeah – there’s that. Did he say why?’

‘He says he’s got a proposition.’

A vivid mental image of a naked, bald man with an erect, suppurating penis flashed in Strike’s mind like a projector slide and was instantly dismissed.

‘I thought he was holed up in Devon because he’d broken his leg.’

‘He is. He wonders whether you’d mind travelling down to see him.’

‘Oh, does he?’

Strike pondered the suggestion, thinking of his workload, the meetings he had during the rest of the week. Finally, he said:

‘I could do it Friday if I put off Burnett. What the hell does he want? I’ll need to hire a car. An automatic,’ he added, his leg throbbing painfully under the table. ‘Could you do that for me?’

‘No problem,’ said Robin. He could hear her scribbling.

‘I’ve got a lot to tell you,’ he said. ‘D’you want to join me for lunch? They’ve got a decent menu. Shouldn’t take you more than twenty minutes if you grab a cab.’

‘Two days running? We can’t keep getting taxis and buying lunch out,’ said Robin, even though she sounded pleased at the idea.

‘That’s OK. Burnett loves spending her ex’s money. I’ll charge it to her account.’

Strike hung up, decided on a steak and ale pie and limped to the bar to order.

When he resumed his seat his eyes drifted absently back to his father in skin-tight leathers, with his hair plastered around his narrow, laughing face.

The Wife knows about me and pretends not to
…
she won’t let him go even if it’s the best thing for everyone
…
 

I know where you’re off to, Owen!
 

Strike’s gaze slid along the row of black-and-white megastars on the wall facing him.

Am I deluded?
he asked John Lennon silently, who looked down at him through round glasses, sardonic, pinch-nosed.

Why did he not believe, even in the face of what he had to admit were suggestive signs to the contrary, that Leonora had murdered her husband? Why did he remain convinced that she had come to his office not as a cover but because she was genuinely angry that Quine had run away like a sulky child? He would have sworn on oath that it had never crossed her mind that her husband might be dead… Lost in thought, he had finished his pint before he knew it.

‘Hi,’ said Robin.

‘That was quick!’ said Strike, surprised to see her.

‘Not really,’ said Robin. ‘Traffic’s quite heavy. Shall I order?’

Male heads turned to look at her as she walked to the bar, but Strike did not notice. He was still thinking about Leonora Quine, thin, plain, greying, hunted.

When Robin returned with another pint for Strike and a tomato juice for herself she showed him the photographs that she had taken on her phone that morning of Daniel Chard’s town residence. It was a white stucco villa complete with balustrade, its gleaming black front door flanked by columns.

‘It’s got an odd little courtyard, sheltered from the street,’ said Robin, showing Strike a picture. Shrubs stood in big-bellied Grecian urns. ‘I suppose Chard could have dumped the guts into one of those,’ she said flippantly. ‘Pulled out the tree and buried them in the earth.’

‘Can’t imagine Chard doing anything so energetic or dirty, but that’s the way to keep thinking,’ said Strike, remembering the publisher’s immaculate suit and flamboyant tie. ‘How about Clem Attlee Court – as full of hiding places as I remember?’

‘Loads of them,’ said Robin, showing him a fresh set of pictures. ‘Communal bins, bushes, all sorts. The only thing is, I just can’t imagine being able to do it unseen, or that somebody wouldn’t notice them fairly quickly. There are people around all the time and everywhere you go you’re being overlooked by about a hundred windows. You might manage it in the middle of the night, but there are cameras too.

‘But I did notice something else. Well… it’s just an idea.’

‘Go on.’

‘There’s a medical centre right in front of the building. Might they not sometimes dispose of—’

‘Human waste!’ said Strike, lowering his pint. ‘Bloody hell, that’s a thought.’

‘Should I get onto it, then?’ asked Robin, trying to conceal the pleasure and pride she felt at Strike’s look of admiration. ‘Try and find out how and when—?’

‘Definitely!’ said Strike. ‘That’s a much better lead than Anstis’s. He thinks,’ he explained, answering her look of enquiry, ‘the guts were dumped in a skip close by Talgarth Road, that the killer just carried them round the corner and chucked them in.’

‘Well, they could have,’ began Robin, but Strike frowned exactly the way Matthew did if ever she mentioned an idea or a belief of Strike’s.

‘This killing was planned to the hilt. We’re not dealing with a murderer who’d just have dumped a holdall full of human guts round the corner from the corpse.’

They sat in silence while Robin reflected wryly that Strike’s dislike of Anstis’s theories might be due to innate competitiveness more than any objective evaluation. Robin knew something about male pride; quite apart from Matthew, she had three brothers.

‘So what were Elizabeth Tassel’s and Jerry Waldegrave’s places like?’

Strike told her about Waldegrave’s wife thinking he had been watching her house.

‘Very shirty about it.’

‘Odd,’ said Robin. ‘If I saw somebody staring at our place I wouldn’t leap to the conclusion that they were – you know –
watching
it.’

‘She’s a drinker like her husband,’ said Strike. ‘I could smell it on her. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Tassel’s place is as good a murderer’s hideout as I’ve ever seen.’

‘What d’you mean?’ asked Robin, half amused, half apprehensive.

‘Very private, barely overlooked.’

‘Well, I still don’t think—’

‘—it’s a woman. You said.’

Strike drank his beer in silence for a minute or two, considering a course of action that he knew would irritate Anstis more than any other. He had no right to interrogate suspects. He had been told to keep out of the way of the police.

Picking up his mobile, he contemplated it for a moment, then called Roper Chard and asked to speak to Jerry Waldegrave.

‘Anstis told you not to get under their feet!’ Robin said, alarmed.

‘Yeah,’ said Strike, the line silent in his ear, ‘advice he’s just repeated, but I haven’t told you half what’s been going on. Tell you in—’

‘Hello?’ said Jerry Waldegrave on the end of the line.

‘Mr Waldegrave,’ said Strike and introduced himself, though he had already given his name to Waldegrave’s assistant. ‘We met briefly yesterday morning, at Mrs Quine’s.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Waldegrave. He sounded politely puzzled.

‘As I think Mrs Quine told you, she’s hired me because she’s worried that the police suspect her.’

‘I’m sure that can’t be true,’ said Waldegrave at once.

‘That they suspect her, or that she killed her husband?’

‘Well – both,’ said Waldegrave.

‘Wives usually come in for close scrutiny when a husband dies,’ said Strike.

‘I’m sure they do, but I can’t… well, I can’t believe any of it, actually,’ said Waldegrave. ‘The whole thing’s incredible and horrible.’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘I was wondering whether we could meet so I could ask you a few questions? I’m happy,’ said the detective, with a glance at Robin, ‘to come to your house – after work – whatever suits.’

Waldegrave did not answer immediately.

‘Naturally I’ll do anything to help Leonora, but what do you imagine I can tell you?’

‘I’m interested in
Bombyx Mori
,’ said Strike. ‘Mr Quine put a lot of unflattering portraits in the book.’

‘Yeah,’ said Waldegrave. ‘He did.’

Strike wondered whether Waldegrave had been interviewed by the police yet; whether he had already been asked to explain the contents of bloody sacks, the symbolism of a drowned dwarf.

‘All right,’ said Waldegrave. ‘I don’t mind meeting you. My diary’s quite full this week. Could you make… let’s see… lunch on Monday?’

‘Great,’ said Strike, reflecting sourly that this would mean him footing the bill, and that he would have preferred to see inside Waldegrave’s house. ‘Where?’

‘I’d rather stick close to the office; I’ve got a full afternoon. Would you mind Simpson’s-in-the-Strand?’

Strike thought it an odd choice but agreed, his eyes on Robin’s. ‘One o’clock? I’ll get my secretary to book it. See you then.’

‘He’s going to meet you?’ said Robin as soon as Strike had hung up.

‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘Fishy.’

She shook her head, half laughing.

‘He didn’t seem particularly keen, from all I could hear. And don’t you think the fact that he’s agreed to meet at all looks like he’s got a clear conscience?’

‘No,’ said Strike. ‘I’ve told you this before; plenty of people hang around the likes of me to gauge how the investigation’s going. They can’t leave well enough alone, they feel compelled to keep explaining themselves.

‘Need a pee… hang on… got more to tell you…’

Robin sipped her tomato juice while Strike hobbled away using the new stick.

Another flurry of snow passed the window, swiftly dispersing. Robin looked up at the black-and-white photographs opposite and recognised, with a slight shock, Jonny Rokeby, Strike’s father. Other than the fact that both were over six feet tall, they did not resemble each other in the slightest; it had taken a DNA test to prove paternity. Strike was listed as one of the rock star’s progeny on Rokeby’s Wikipedia entry. They had met, so Strike had told Robin, twice. After staring for a while at Rokeby’s very tight and revealing leather trousers, Robin forced herself to gaze out of the window again, afraid of Strike catching her staring at his father’s groin.

Their food arrived as Strike returned to the table.

‘The police are searching the whole of Leonora’s house now,’ Strike announced, picking up his knife and fork.

‘Why?’ asked Robin, fork suspended in mid-air.

‘Why d’you think? Looking for bloody clothing. Checking the garden for freshly dug holes full of her husband’s innards. I’ve put her on to a lawyer. They haven’t got enough to arrest her yet, but they’re determined to find something.’

‘You genuinely don’t think she did it?’

‘No, I don’t.’

Strike had cleared his plate before he spoke again.

‘I’d love to talk to Fancourt. I want to know why he joined Roper Chard when Quine was there and he was supposed to hate him. They’d have been bound to meet.’

‘You think Fancourt killed Quine so he wouldn’t have to meet him at office parties?’

‘Good one,’ said Strike wryly.

He drained his pint glass, picked up his mobile yet again, dialled Directory Enquiries and shortly afterwards was put through to the Elizabeth Tassel Literary Agency.

Her assistant, Ralph, answered. When Strike gave his name, the young man sounded both fearful and excited.

‘Oh, I don’t know… I’ll ask. Putting you on hold.’

But he appeared to be less than adept with the telephone system, because after a loud click the line remained open. Strike could hear a distant Ralph informing his boss that Strike was on the telephone and her loud, impatient retort.

‘What the bloody hell does he want now?’

‘He didn’t say.’

Heavy footsteps, the sound of the receiver being snatched off the desk.

‘Hello?’

‘Elizabeth,’ said Strike pleasantly. ‘It’s me, Cormoran Strike.’

‘Yes, Ralph’s just told me. What is it?’

‘I was wondering if we could meet. I’m still working for Leonora Quine. She’s convinced that the police suspect her of her husband’s murder.’

‘And what do you want to talk to me for?
I
can’t tell you whether she did or not.’

Strike could imagine the shocked faces of Ralph and Sally, listening in the smelly old office.

‘I’ve got a few more questions about Quine.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ growled Elizabeth. ‘Well, I suppose I could do lunch tomorrow if it suits. Otherwise I’m busy until—’

‘Tomorrow would be great,’ said Strike. ‘But it doesn’t have to be lunch, I could—?’

‘Lunch suits me.’

‘Great,’ said Strike at once.

‘Pescatori, Charlotte Street,’ she said. ‘Twelve thirty unless you hear differently.’

She rang off.

‘They love their bloody lunches, book people,’ Strike said. ‘Is it too much of a stretch to think they don’t want me at home in case I spot Quine’s guts in the freezer?’

Robin’s smile faded.

‘You know, you could lose a friend over this,’ she said, pulling on her coat. ‘Ringing people up and asking to question them.’

Strike grunted.

‘Don’t you care?’ she asked, as they left the warmth for biting cold, snowflakes burning their faces.

‘I’ve got plenty more friends,’ said Strike, truthfully, without bombast.

‘We should have a beer every lunchtime,’ he added, leaning heavily on his stick as they headed off towards the Tube, their heads bowed against the white blur. ‘Breaks up the working day.’

Robin, who had adjusted her stride to his, smiled. She had enjoyed today more than almost any since she had started work for Strike, but Matthew, still in Yorkshire, helping plan his mother’s funeral, must not know about the second trip to a pub in two days.

An immense carpet of snow was rolling down over Britain. The morning news showed the north-east of England already buried in powdery whiteness, cars stranded like so many hapless sheep, headlamps feebly glinting. London waited its turn beneath an increasingly ominous sky and Strike, glancing at the weather map on his TV as he dressed, wondered whether his drive to Devon the next day would be possible, whether the M5 would even be navigable. Determined though he was to meet the incapacitated Daniel Chard, whose invitation struck him as highly peculiar, he dreaded driving even an automatic with his leg in this condition.

The dogs would still be out on Mucking Marshes. He imagined them as he attached the prosthesis, his knee puffier and more painful than ever; their sensitive, quivering noses probing the freshest patches of landfill under these threatening gunmetal clouds, beneath circling seagulls. They might already have started, given the limited daylight, dragging their handlers through the frozen garbage, searching for Owen Quine’s guts. Strike had worked alongside sniffer dogs. Their wriggling rumps and wagging tails always added an incongruously cheerful note to searches.

He was disconcerted by how painful it was to walk downstairs. Of course, in an ideal world he would have spent the previous day with an ice pack pressed to the end of his stump, his leg elevated, not tramping all over London because he needed to stop himself thinking about Charlotte and her wedding, soon to take place in the restored chapel of the Castle of Croy… not Croy Castle,
because it annoys the fucking family
. Nine days to go…

The telephone rang on Robin’s desk as he unlocked the glass door. Wincing, he hurried to get it. The suspicious lover and boss of Miss Brocklehurst wished to inform Strike that his PA was at home in his bed with a bad cold, so he was not to be charged for surveillance until she was up and about again. Strike had barely replaced the receiver when it rang again. Another client, Caroline Ingles, announced in a voice throbbing with emotion that she and her errant husband had reconciled. Strike was offering insincere congratulations when Robin arrived, pink-faced with cold.

‘It’s getting worse out there,’ she said when he had hung up. ‘Who was that?’

‘Caroline Ingles. She’s made up with Rupert.’

‘
What?
’ said Robin, stunned. ‘After all those lap-dancers?’

‘They’re going to work on their marriage for the sake of the kids.’

Robin made a little snort of disbelief.

‘Snow looks bad up in Yorkshire,’ Strike commented. ‘If you want to take tomorrow off and leave early—?’

‘No,’ said Robin, ‘I’ve booked myself on the Friday-night sleeper, I should be fine. If we’ve lost Ingles, I could call one of the waiting-list clients—?’

‘Not yet,’ said Strike, slumping down on the sofa and unable to stop his hand sliding to his swollen knee as it protested painfully.

‘Is it still sore?’ Robin asked diffidently, pretending she had not seen him wince.

‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘But that’s not why I don’t want to take on another client,’ he added sharply.

‘I know,’ said Robin, who had her back to him, switching on the kettle. ‘You want to concentrate on the Quine case.’

Strike was not sure whether her tone was reproachful.

‘She’ll pay me,’ he said shortly. ‘Quine had life insurance, she made him take it out. So there’s money there now.’

Robin heard his defensiveness and did not like it. Strike was making the assumption that her priority was money. Hadn’t she proved that it was not when she had turned down much better paid jobs to work for him? Hadn’t he noticed the willingness with which she was trying to help him prove that Leonora Quine had not killed her husband?

She set a mug of tea, a glass of water and paracetamol down beside him.

‘Thanks,’ he said, through gritted teeth, irritated by the painkillers even though he intended to take a double dose.

‘I’ll book a taxi to take you to Pescatori at twelve, shall I?’

‘It’s only round the corner,’ he said.

‘You know, there’s pride, and then there’s stupidity,’ said Robin, with one of the first flashes of real temper he had ever seen in her.

‘Fine,’ he said, eyebrows raised. ‘I’ll take a bloody taxi.’

And in truth, he was glad of it three hours later as he limped, leaning heavily on the cheap stick, which was now warping from his weight, to the taxi waiting at the end of Denmark Street. He knew now that he ought not to have put on the prosthesis at all. Getting out of the cab a few minutes later in Charlotte Street was tricky, the taxi driver impatient. Strike reached the noisy warmth of Pescatori with relief.

Elizabeth was not yet there but had booked under her name. Strike was shown to a table for two beside a pebble-set and whitewashed wall. Rustic wooden beams crisscrossed the ceiling; a rowing boat was suspended over the bar. Across the opposite wall were jaunty orange leather booths. From force of habit, Strike ordered a pint, enjoying the light, bright Mediterranean charm of his surroundings, watching the snow drifting past the windows.

The agent arrived not long afterwards. He tried to stand as she approached the table but fell back down again quickly. Elizabeth did not seem to notice.

She looked as though she had lost weight since he had last seen her; the well-cut black suit, the scarlet lipstick and the steel-grey bob did not lend her dash today, but looked like a badly chosen disguise. Her face was yellowish and seemed to sag.

‘How are you?’ he asked.

‘How do you think I am?’ she croaked rudely. ‘What?’ she snapped at a hovering waiter. ‘Oh. Water. Still.’

She picked up her menu with an air of having given away too much and Strike could tell that any expression of pity or concern would be unwelcome.

‘Just soup,’ she told the waiter when he returned for their order.

‘I appreciate you seeing me again,’ Strike said when the waiter had departed.

‘Well, God knows Leonora needs all the help she can get,’ said Elizabeth.

‘Why do you say that?’

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at him.

‘Don’t pretend to be stupid. She told me she insisted on being brought to Scotland Yard to see you, right after she got the news about Owen.’

‘Yeah, she did.’

‘And how did she think that would look? The police probably expected her to collapse in a heap and all sh-she wants to do is see her detective friend.’

She suppressed a cough with difficulty.

‘I don’t think Leonora gives any thought to the impression she makes on other people,’ said Strike.

‘N-no, well, you’re right there. She’s never been the brightest.’

Strike wondered what impression Elizabeth Tassel thought she made on the world; whether she realised how little she was liked. She allowed the cough that she had been trying to suppress free expression and he waited for the loud, seal-like barks to pass before asking:

‘You think she should have faked some grief?’

‘I don’t say it’s fake,’ snapped Elizabeth. ‘I’m sure she is upset in her own limited way. I’m just saying it wouldn’t hurt to play the grieving widow a bit more. It’s what people expect.’

‘I suppose you’ve talked to the police?’

‘Of course. We’ve been through the row in the River Café, over and over the reason I didn’t read the damn book properly. And they wanted to know my movements after I last saw Owen. Specifically, the three days after I saw him.’

She glared interrogatively at Strike, whose expression remained impassive.

‘I take it they think he died within three days of our argument?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ lied Strike. ‘What did you tell them about your movements?’

‘That I went straight home after Owen stormed out on me, got up at six next morning, took a taxi to Paddington and went to stay with Dorcus.’

‘One of your writers, I think you said?’

‘Yes, Dorcus Pengelly, she—’

Elizabeth noticed Strike’s small grin and, for the first time in their acquaintance, her face relaxed into a fleeting smile.

‘It’s her real name, if you can believe it, not a pseudonym. She writes pornography dressed up as historical romance. Owen was very sniffy about her books, but he’d have killed for her sales. They go,’ said Elizabeth, ‘like hot cakes.’

‘When did you get back from Dorcus’s?’

‘Late Monday afternoon. It was supposed to be a nice long weekend, but
nice
,’ said Elizabeth tensely, ‘thanks to
Bombyx Mori
, it was
not
.

‘I live alone,’ she continued. ‘I can’t
prove
I went home, that I didn’t murder Owen as soon as I got back to London. I certainly
felt
like doing it…’

She drank more water and continued:

‘The police were mostly interested in the book. They seem to think it’s given a lot of people a motive.’

It was her first overt attempt to get information out of him.

‘It looked like a lot of people at first,’ said Strike, ‘but if they’ve got the time of death right and Quine died within three days of your row in the River Café, the number of suspects will be fairly limited.’

‘How so?’ asked Elizabeth sharply, and he was reminded of one of his most scathing tutors at Oxford, who used this two-word question like a giant needle to puncture ill-founded theorising.

‘Can’t give you that information, I’m afraid,’ Strike replied pleasantly. ‘Mustn’t prejudice the police case.’

Her pallid skin, across the small table, was large-pored and coarse-grained, the olive-dark eyes watchful.

‘They asked me,’ she said, ‘to whom I had shown the manuscript during the few days I had it before sending it to Jerry and Christian – answer: nobody. And they asked me with whom Owen discusses his manuscripts while he’s writing them. I don’t know why that was,’ she said, her black eyes still fixed on Strike’s. ‘Do they think somebody egged him on?’

‘I don’t know,’ Strike lied again. ‘
Does
he discuss the books he’s working on?’

‘He might have confided bits in Jerry Waldegrave. He barely deigned to tell me his titles.’

‘Really? He never asked your advice? Did you say you’d studied English at Oxford—?’

‘I took a first,’ she said angrily, ‘but that counted for less than nothing with Owen, who incidentally was thrown off his course at Loughborough or some such place, and never got a degree at all. Yes, and Michael once kindly told Owen that I’d been “lamentably derivative” as a writer back when we were students, and Owen never forgot it.’ The memory of the old slight had given a purple tinge to her yellowish skin. ‘Owen shared Michael’s prejudice about women in literature. Neither of them minded women
praising
their work, of c-course—’ She coughed into her napkin and emerged red-faced and angry. ‘Owen was a bigger glutton for praise than any author I’ve ever met, and they are most of them insatiable.’

Their food arrived: tomato and basil soup for Elizabeth and cod and chips for Strike.

‘You told me when we last met,’ said Strike, having swallowed his first large mouthful, ‘that there came a point when you had to choose between Fancourt and Quine. Why
did
you choose Quine?’

She was blowing on a spoonful of soup and seemed to give her answer serious consideration before speaking.

‘I felt – at that time – that he was more sinned against than sinning.’

‘Did this have something to do with the parody somebody wrote of Fancourt’s wife’s novel?’

‘“Somebody” didn’t write it,’ she said quietly. ‘Owen did.’

‘Do you know that for sure?’

‘He showed it to me before he sent it to the magazine. I’m afraid,’ Elizabeth met Strike’s gaze with cold defiance, ‘it made me laugh. It was painfully accurate and very funny. Owen was always a good literary mimic.’

‘But then Fancourt’s wife killed herself.’

‘Which was a tragedy, of course,’ said Elizabeth, without noticeable emotion, ‘although nobody could have reasonably expected it. Frankly, anybody who’s going to kill themselves because of a bad review has no business writing a novel in the first place. But naturally enough, Michael was livid with Owen and I think the more so because Owen got cold feet and denied authorship once he heard about Elspeth’s suicide. It was, perhaps, a surprisingly cowardly attitude for a man who liked to be thought of as fearless and lawless.

‘Michael wanted me to drop Owen as a client. I refused. Michael hasn’t spoken to me since.’

‘Was Quine making more money for you than Fancourt at the time?’ Strike asked.

‘Good God, no,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t to my
pecuniary
advantage to stick with Owen.’

‘Then why—?’

‘I’ve just told you,’ she said impatiently. ‘I believe in freedom of speech, up to and including upsetting people. Anyway, days after Elspeth killed herself, Leonora gave birth to premature twins. Something went badly wrong at the birth; the boy died and Orlando is… I take it you’ve met her by now?’

As he nodded, Strike’s dream of the other night came back to him suddenly: the baby that Charlotte had given birth to, but that she would not let him see…

‘Brain damaged,’ Elizabeth went on. ‘So Owen was going through his own personal tragedy at the time, and unlike Michael, he hadn’t b-brought any of it on h-himself—’

Coughing again, she caught Strike’s look of faint surprise and made an impatient staying gesture with her hand, indicating that she would explain when the fit had passed. Finally, after another sip of water, she croaked:

‘Michael only encouraged Elspeth to write to keep her out of his hair while he worked. They had nothing in common. He married her because he’s terminally touchy about being lower middle class. She was an earl’s daughter who thought marrying Michael would mean non-stop literary parties and sparkling, intellectual chat. She didn’t realise she’d be alone most of the time while Michael worked. She was,’ said Elizabeth with disdain, ‘a woman of few resources.