The Silkworm

The lights over the bar danced in her big eyes. She looked, Strike thought, like an alert and excited mouse.

‘Hitler?’ he repeated, faintly amused.

‘He rants like Hitler when he’s upset – we’ve found that out this week. Nobody’s ever heard Daniel speak above a mumble before this. Shouting and screaming at Jerry; we could hear him through the walls.’

‘Have you read the book?’

She hesitated, a naughty grin playing around her mouth.

‘Not officially,’ she said at last.

‘But unofficially…’

‘I might have had a sneaky peek,’ she said.

‘Isn’t it under lock and key?’

‘Well, yeah, it’s in Jerry’s safe.’

A sly sideways glance invited Strike to join her in gentle mockery of the innocent editor.

‘The trouble is, he’s told everyone the combination because he keeps forgetting it and that means he can ask us to remind him. Jerry’s the sweetest, straightest man in the world and I don’t think it would have occurred to him that we’d have a read if we weren’t supposed to.’

‘When did you look at it?’

‘The Monday after he got it. Rumours were really picking up by then, because Christian Fisher had rung about fifty people over the weekend and read bits of the book over the phone. I’ve heard he scanned it and started emailing parts around, as well.’

‘This would have been before lawyers started getting involved?’

‘Yeah. They called us all together and gave us this ridiculous speech about what would happen if we talked about the book. It was just nonsense, trying to tell us the company’s reputation would suffer if the CEO’s ridiculed – we’re about to go public, or that’s the rumour – and ultimately our jobs would be imperilled. I don’t know how the lawyer kept a straight face saying it. My dad’s a QC,’ she went on airily, ‘and he says Chard’ll have a hard time going after any of us when so many people outside the company know.’

‘Is he a good CEO, Chard?’ asked Strike.

‘I suppose so,’ she said restlessly, ‘but he’s quite mysterious and dignified so… well, it’s just funny, what Quine wrote about him.’

‘Which was…?’

‘Well, in the book Chard’s called Phallus Impudicus and—’

Strike choked on his pint. Nina giggled.

‘He’s called “Impudent Cock”?’ Strike asked, laughing, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. Nina laughed; a surprisingly dirty cackle for one who looked like an eager schoolgirl.

‘You did Latin? I gave it up, I hated it – but we all know what “phallus” is, right? I had to look it up and Phallus impudicus is actually the proper name for a toadstool called stinkhorn. Apparently they smell vile and… well,’ she giggled some more, ‘they look like rotting knobs. Classic Owen: dirty names and everyone with their bits out.’

‘And what does Phallus Impudicus get up to?’

‘Well, he walks like Daniel, talks like Daniel, looks like Daniel and he enjoys a spot of necrophilia with a handsome writer he’s murdered. It’s really gory and disgusting. Jerry always said Owen thinks the day wasted if he hasn’t made his readers gag at least twice. Poor Jerry,’ she added quietly.

‘Why “poor Jerry”?’ asked Strike.

‘He’s in the book as well.’

‘And what kind of phallus is he?’

Nina giggled again.

‘I couldn’t tell you, I didn’t read the bit about Jerry. I just flicked through to find Daniel because everyone said it was so gross and funny. Jerry was only out of his office half an hour, so I didn’t have much time – but we all know he’s in there, because Daniel hauled Jerry in, made him meet the lawyers and add his name to all the stupid emails telling us the sky will fall in if we talk about Bombyx Mori. I suppose it makes Daniel feel better that Owen’s attacked Jerry too. He knows everyone loves Jerry, so I expect he thinks we’ll all keep our mouths shut to protect him.

‘God knows why Quine’s gone for Jerry, though,’ Nina added, her smile fading a little. ‘Because Jerry hasn’t got an enemy in the world. Owen is a bastard, really,’ she added as a quiet afterthought, staring down at her empty wine glass.

‘Want another drink?’ Strike asked.

He returned to the bar. There was a stuffed grey parrot in a glass case on the wall opposite. It was the only bit of genuine whimsy he could see and he was prepared, in his mood of tolerance for this authentic bit of old London, to do it the courtesy of assuming that it had once squawked and chattered within these walls and had not been bought as a mangy accessory.

‘You know Quine’s gone missing?’ Strike asked, once back beside Nina.

‘Yeah, I heard a rumour. I’m not surprised, the fuss he’s caused.’

‘D’you know Quine?’

‘Not really. He comes into the office sometimes and tries to flirt, you know, with his stupid cloak draped round him, showing off, always trying to shock. I think he’s a bit pathetic, and I’ve always hated his books. Jerry persuaded me to read Hobart’s Sin and I thought it was dreadful.’

‘D’you know if anyone’s heard from Quine lately?’

‘Not that I know of,’ said Nina.

‘And no one knows why he wrote a book that was bound to get him sued?’

‘Everyone assumes he’s had a major row with Daniel. He rows with everyone in the end; he’s been with God knows how many publishers over the years.

‘I heard Daniel only publishes Owen because he thinks it makes it look as though Owen’s forgiven him for being awful to Joe North. Owen and Daniel don’t really like each other, that’s common knowledge.’

Strike remembered the image of the beautiful blond young man hanging on Elizabeth Tassel’s wall.

‘How was Chard awful to North?’

‘I’m a bit vague on the details,’ said Nina. ‘But I know he was. I know Owen swore he’d never work for Daniel, but then he ran through nearly every other publisher so he had to pretend he’d been wrong about Daniel and Daniel took him on because he thought it made him look good. That’s what everyone says, anyway.’

‘And has Quine rowed with Jerry Waldegrave, to your knowledge?’

‘No, which is what’s so bizarre. Why attack Jerry? He’s lovely! Although from what I’ve heard, you can’t really—’

For the first time, as far as Strike could tell, she considered what she was about to say before proceeding a little more soberly:

‘Well, you can’t really tell what Owen’s getting at in the bit about Jerry, and as I say, I haven’t read it. But Owen’s done over loads of people,’ Nina went on. ‘I heard his own wife’s in there, and apparently he’s been vile about Liz Tassel, who might be a bitch, but everyone knows she’s stuck by Owen through thick and thin. Liz’ll never be able to place anything with Roper Chard again; everyone’s furious at her. I know she was disinvited for tonight on Daniel’s orders – pretty humiliating. And there’s supposed to be a party for Larry Pinkelman, one of her other authors, in a couple of weeks and they can’t uninvite her from that – Larry’s such an old sweetheart, everyone loves him – but God knows what reception she’ll get if she turns up.

‘Anyway,’ said Nina, shaking back her light brown fringe and changing the subject abruptly, ‘how are you and I supposed to know each other, once we get to the party? Are you my boyfriend, or what?’

‘Are partners allowed at this thing?’

‘Yeah, but I haven’t told anyone I’m seeing you, so we can’t have been going out long. We’ll say we got together at a party last weekend, OK?’

Strike heard, with almost identical amounts of disquiet and gratified vanity, the enthusiasm with which she suggested a fictional tryst.

‘Need a pee before we go,’ he said, raising himself heavily from the wooden bench as she drained her third glass.

The stairs down to the bathroom in Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese were vertiginous and the ceiling so low that he smacked his head even while stoopin

g. As he rubbed his temple, swearing under his breath, it seemed to Strike that he had just been given a divine clout over the head, to remind him what was, and what was not, a good idea.

13

It is reported, you possess a book

Wherein you have quoted by intelligence

The names of all notorious offenders,

Lurking about the city.

John Webster, The White Devil

Experience had taught Strike that there was a certain type of woman to whom he was unusually attractive. Their common characteristics were intelligence and the flickering intensity of badly wired lamps. They were often attractive and usually, as his very oldest friend Dave Polworth liked to put it, ‘total fucking flakes’. Precisely what it was about him that attracted the type, Strike had never taken the time to consider, although Polworth, a man of many pithy theories, took the view that such women (‘nervy, overbred’) were subconsciously looking for what he called ‘carthorse blood’.

Strike’s ex-fiancée, Charlotte, might have been said to be queen of the species. Beautiful, clever, volatile and damaged, she had returned again and again to Strike in the face of familial opposition and her friends’ barely veiled disgust. He had finally put an end to sixteen years of their on-again, off-again relationship in March and she had become engaged almost immediately to the ex-boyfriend from whom Strike, so many years ago in Oxford, had won her. Barring one exceptional night since, Strike’s love life had been voluntarily barren. Work had filled virtually every waking hour and he had successfully resisted advances, subtle or overt, from the likes of his glamorous brunette client, soon-to-be divorcées with time to kill and loneliness to assuage.

But there was always the dangerous urge to submit, to brave complications for a night or two of consolation, and now Nina Lascelles was hurrying along beside him in the dark Strand, taking two strides to his one, and informing him of her exact address in St John’s Wood ‘so it looks like you’ve been there’. She barely came up to his shoulder and Strike had never found very small women attractive. Her torrent of chat about Roper Chard was laden with more laughter than was strictly necessary and once or twice she touched his arm to emphasise a point.

‘Here we are,’ she said at last, as they approached a tall modern building with a revolving glass door and the words ‘Roper Chard’ picked out in shining orange Perspex across the stonework.

A wide lobby dotted with people in evening dress faced a line of metal sliding doors. Nina pulled an invitation out of her bag and showed it to what looked like hired help in a badly fitting tuxedo, then she and Strike joined twenty others in a large mirrored lift.

‘This floor’s for meetings,’ Nina shouted up to him as they debouched into a crowded open-plan area where a band was playing to a sparsely populated dance floor. ‘It’s usually partitioned. So – who do you want to meet?’

‘Anyone who knew Quine well and might have an idea where he is.’

‘That’s only Jerry, really…’

They were buffeted by a fresh consignment of guests from the lift behind them and moved into the crowd. Strike thought he felt Nina grab the back of his coat, like a child, but he did not reciprocate by taking her hand or in any way reinforce the impression that they were boyfriend and girlfriend. Once or twice he heard her greet people in passing. They eventually won through to the far wall, where tables manned by white-coated waiters groaned with party food and it was possible to make conversation without shouting. Strike took a couple of dainty crab cakes and ate them, deploring their minuscule size, while Nina looked around.

‘Can’t see Jerry anywhere, but he’s probably up on the roof, smoking. Shall we try up there? Oooh, look there – Daniel Chard, mingling with the herd!’

‘Which one?’

‘The bald one.’

A respectful little distance had been left around the head of the company, like the flattened circle of corn that surrounds a rising helicopter, as he talked to a curvaceous young woman in a tight black dress.

Phallus Impudicus; Strike could not repress a grin of amusement, yet Chard’s baldness suited him. He was younger and fitter-looking than Strike had expected and handsome in his way, with thick dark eyebrows over deep-set eyes, a hawkish nose and a thin-lipped mouth. His charcoal suit was unexceptional but his tie, which was pale mauve, was much wider than the average and bore drawings of human noses. Strike, whose dress sense had always been conventional, an instinct honed by the sergeants’ mess, could not help but be intrigued by this small but forceful statement of non-conformity in a CEO, especially as it was drawing the occasional glance of surprise or amusement.

‘Where’s the drink?’ Nina said, standing pointlessly on tiptoe.

‘Over there,’ said Strike, who could see a bar in front of the windows that showed a view of the dark Thames. ‘Stay here, I’ll get them. White wine?’

‘Champers, if Daniel’s pushed the boat out.’

He took a route through the crowd so that he could, without ostentation, bring himself in close proximity to Chard, who was letting his companion do all the talking. She had that air of slight desperation of the conversationalist who knows that they are failing. The back of Chard’s hand, which was clutching a glass of water, Strike noticed, was covered in shiny red eczema. Strike paused immediately behind Chard, ostensibly to allow a party of young women to pass in the opposite direction.

‘… and it really was awfully funny,’ the girl in the black dress was saying nervously.

‘Yes,’ said Chard, who sounded deeply bored, ‘it must have been.’

‘And was New York wonderful? I mean – not wonderful – was it useful? Fun?’ asked his companion.

‘Busy,’ said Chard and Strike, though he could not see the CEO, thought he actually yawned. ‘Lots of digital talk.’

A portly man in a three-piece suit who appeared drunk already, though it was barely eight thirty, stopped in front of Strike and invited him, with overdone courtesy, to proceed. Strike had no choice but to accept the elaborately mimed invitation and so passed out of range of Daniel Chard’s voice.

‘Thanks,’ said Nina a few minutes later, taking her champagne from Strike. ‘Shall we go up to the roof garden, then?’

‘Great,’ said Strike. He had taken champagne too, not because he liked it, but because there had been nothing else there he cared to drink. ‘Who’s that woman Daniel Chard’s talking to?’

Nina craned to see as she led Strike towards a helical metal staircase.

‘Joanna Waldegrave, Jerry’s daughter. She’s just written her first novel. Why? Is that your type?’ she asked, with a breathy little laugh.

‘No,’ said Strike.

They climbed the mesh stairs, Strike relying heavily once more on the handrail. The icy night air scoured his lungs as they emerged on to the top of the building. Stretches of velvety lawn, tubs of flowers and young trees, benches dotted everywhere; there was even a floodlit pond where fish darted, flame-like, beneath the black lily pads. Outdoor heaters like giant steel mushrooms had been placed in groups between neat square lawns and people were huddled under them, their backs turned to the synthetic pastoral scene, looking inwards at their fellow smokers, cigarette tips glowing.

The view over the city was spectacular, velvet black and jewelled, the London Eye glowing neon blue, the Oxo Tower with its ruby windows, the Southbank Centre, Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster shining golden away to the right.

‘Come on,’ said Nina, and she boldly took Strike’s hand and led him towards an all-female trio, whose breath rose in gusts of white mist even when they were not exhaling smoke.

‘Hi guys,’ said Nina. ‘Anyone seen Jerry?’

‘He’s pissed,’ said a redhead baldly.

‘Oh no,’ said Nina. ‘And he was doing so well!’

A lanky blonde glanced over her shoulder and murmured:

‘He was half off his face in Arbutus last week.’

‘It’s Bombyx Mori,’ said an irritable-looking girl w

ith short dark hair. ‘And the anniversary weekend in Paris didn’t come off. Fenella had another tantrum, I think. When is he going to leave her?’

‘Is she here?’ asked the blonde avidly.

‘Somewhere,’ said the dark girl. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce us, Nina?’

There was a flurry of introduction that left Strike none the wiser as to which of the girls was Miranda, Sarah or Emma, before the four women plunged again into a dissection of the unhappiness and drunkenness of Jerry Waldegrave.

‘He should have ditched Fenella years ago,’ said the dark girl. ‘Vile woman.’

‘Shh!’ hissed Nina and all four of them became unnaturally still as a man nearly as tall as Strike ambled up to them. His round, doughy face was partly concealed by large horn-rimmed glasses and a tangle of brown hair. A brimming glass of red wine was threatening to spill over his hand.

‘Guilty silence,’ he noted with an amiable smile. His speech had a sonorous over-deliberation that to Strike declared a practised drunk. ‘Three guesses what you’re talking about: Bombyx – Mori – Quine. Hi,’ he added, looking at Strike and stretching out a hand: their eyes were on a level. ‘We haven’t met, have we?’

‘Jerry – Cormoran, Cormoran – Jerry,’ said Nina at once. ‘My date,’ she added, an aside directed more at the three women beside her than at the tall editor.

‘Cameron, was it?’ asked Waldegrave, cupping a hand around his ear.

‘Close enough,’ said Strike.

‘Sorry,’ said Waldegrave. ‘Deaf on one side. And have you ladies been gossiping in front of the tall dark stranger,’ he said, with rather ponderous humour, ‘in spite of Mr Chard’s very clear instructions that nobody outside the company should be made privy to our guilty secret?’

‘You won’t tell on us, will you, Jerry?’ asked the dark girl.