The Silkworm

Robin chose a salad at random and then, to spare Strike’s knee, went up to the bar to give their order.

‘But on the other hand,’ Robin continued, sitting back down, ‘copy-catting the last scene of the book could have seemed like a good way of concealing a different motive, couldn’t it?’

She was forcing herself to speak matter-of-factly, as though they were discussing an abstract problem, but Robin had not been able to forget the pictures of Quine’s body: the dark cavern of the gouged-out torso, the burned-out crevices where once had been mouth and eyes. If she thought about what had been done to Quine too much, she knew that she might not be able to eat her lunch, or that she might somehow betray her horror to Strike, who was watching her with a disconcertingly shrewd expression in his dark eyes.

‘It’s all right to admit what happened to him makes you want to puke,’ he said through a mouthful of chocolate.

‘It doesn’t,’ she lied automatically. Then, ‘Well, obviously – I mean, it was horrific—’

‘Yeah, it was.’

If he had been back with his SIB colleagues he would have been making jokes about it by now. Strike could remember many afternoons laden with pitch-black humour: it was the only way to get through certain investigations. Robin, however, was not yet ready for professionally callous self-defence and her attempt at dispassionate discussion of a man whose guts had been torn out proved it.

‘Motive’s a bitch, Robin. Nine times out of ten you only find out why when you’ve found out who. It’s means and opportunity we want. Personally,’ he took a gulp of beer, ‘I think we might be looking for someone with medical knowledge.’

‘Medical—?’

‘Or anatomical. It didn’t look amateur, what they did to Quine. They could’ve hacked him to bits, trying to remove the intestines, but I couldn’t see any false starts: one clean, confident incision.’

‘Yes,’ said Robin, struggling to maintain her objective, clinical manner. ‘That’s true.’

‘Unless we’re dealing with some literary maniac who just got hold of a good textbook,’ mused Strike. ‘Seems a stretch, but you don’t know… If he was tied up and drugged and they had enough nerve, they might’ve been able to treat it like a biology lesson…’

Robin could not restrain herself.

‘I know you always say motive’s for lawyers,’ she said a little desperately (Strike had repeated this maxim many times since she had come to work for him), ‘but humour me for a moment. The killer must have felt that to murder Quine in the same way as the book was worth it for some reason that outweighed the obvious disadvantages—’

‘Which were?’

‘Well,’ said Robin, ‘the logistical difficulties of making it such an – an elaborate killing, and the fact that the pool of suspects would be confined to people who’ve read the book—’

‘Or heard about it in detail,’ said Strike, ‘and you say “confined”, but I’m not sure we’re looking at a small number of people. Christian Fisher made it his business to spread the contents of the book as far and as wide as he could. Roper Chard’s copy of the manuscript was in a safe to which half the company seems to have had access.’

‘But…’ said Robin.

She broke off as a sullen barman came over to dump cutlery and paper napkins on their table.

‘But,’ she resumed when he had sloped away, ‘Quine can’t have been killed that recently, can he? I mean, I’m no expert…’

‘Nor am I,’ said Strike, polishing off the last of the chocolate and contemplating the peanut brittle with less enthusiasm, ‘but I know what you mean. That body looked as though it had been there at least a week.’

‘Plus,’ said Robin, ‘there must have been a time lag between the murderer reading Bombyx Mori and actually killing Quine. There was a lot to organise. They had to get ropes and acid and crockery into an uninhabited house…’

‘And unless they already knew he was planning to go to Talgarth Road, they had to track Quine down,’ said Strike, deciding against the peanut brittle because his steak and chips were approaching, ‘or lure him there.’

The barman set down Strike’s plate and Robin’s bowl of salad, greeted their thanks with an indifferent grunt and retreated.

‘So when you factor in the planning and practicalities, it doesn’t seem possible that the killer can have read the book any later than two or three days after Quine went missing,’ said Strike, loading up his fork. ‘Trouble is, the further back we set the moment when the killer started plotting Quine’s murder, the worse it looks for my client. All Leonora had to do was walk a few steps up her hall; the manuscript was hers for the reading as soon as Quine finished it. Come to think of it, he could’ve told her how he was planning to end it months ago.’

Robin ate her salad without tasting it.

‘And does Leonora Quine seem…’ she began tentatively.

‘Like the kind of woman who’d disembowel her husband? No, but the police fancy her and if you’re looking for motive, she’s lousy with it. He was a crap husband: unreliable, adulterous and he liked depicting her in disgusting ways in his books.’

‘You don’t think she did it, do you?’

‘No,’ Strike said, ‘but we’re going to need a lot more than my opinion to keep her out of jail.’

Robin took their empty glasses back to the bar for refills without asking; Strike felt very fond of her as she set another pint in front of him.

‘We’ve also got to look at the possibility that somebody got the wind up that Quine was going to self-publish over the internet,’ said Strike, shovelling chips into his mouth, ‘a threat he allegedly made to a packed restaurant. That might constitute a motive for killing Quine, under the right conditions.’

‘You mean,’ said Robin slowly, ‘if the killer recognised something in the manuscript that they didn’t want to get a wider audience?’

‘Exactly. The book’s pretty cryptic in parts. What if Quine had found out something serious about somebody and put a veiled reference in the book?’

‘Well, that would make sense,’ said Robin slowly, ‘because I keep thinking, Why kill him? The fact is, nearly all of these people had more effective means of dealing with the problem of a libellous book, didn’t they? They could have told Quine they wouldn’t represent it or publish it, or they could have threatened him with legal action, like this Chard man. His death’s going to make the situation much worse for anyone who’s a character in the book, isn’t it? There’s already much more publicity than there would have been otherwise.’

‘Agreed,’ said Strike. ‘But you’re assuming the killer’s thinking rationally.’

‘This wasn’t a crime of passion,’ retorted Robin. ‘They planned it. They really thought it through. They must have been ready for the consequences.’

‘True again,’ said Strike, eating chips.

‘I’ve been having a bit of a look at Bombyx Mori this morning.’

‘After you got bored with Hobart’s Sin?’

‘Yes… well, it was there in the safe and…’

‘Read the whole thing, the more the merrier,’ said Strike. ‘How far did you get?’

‘I skipped around,’ said Robin. ‘I read the bit about Succuba and the Tick. It’s spiteful, but it doesn’t feel as though there’s anything… well… hidden there. He’s basically accusing both his wife and his agent of being parasites on him, isn’t he?’

Strike nodded.

‘But later on, when you get to Epi – Epi – how do you say it?’

‘Epicoene? The hermaphrodite?’

‘Is that a real person, do you think? What’s with the singing? It doesn’t feel as though it’s really singing he’s talking about, does it?’

‘And why does his girlfriend Harpy live in a cave full of rats? Symbolism, or something else?’

‘And the bloodstained bag over the Cutter’s shoulder,’ said Robin, ‘and the dwarf he tries to drown…’

‘And the brands in the fire at

Vainglorious’s house,’ said Strike, but she looked puzzled. ‘You haven’t got that far? But Jerry Waldegrave explained that to a bunch of us at the Roper Chard party. It’s about Michael Fancourt and his first—’

Strike’s mobile rang. He pulled it out and saw Dominic Culpepper’s name. With a small sigh, he answered.

‘Strike?’

‘Speaking.’

‘What the fuck’s going on?’

Strike did not waste time pretending not to know what Culpepper was talking about.

‘Can’t discuss it, Culpepper. Could prejudice the police case.’

‘Fuck that – we’ve got a copper talking to us already. He says this Quine’s been slaughtered exactly the way a bloke’s killed in his latest book.’

‘Yeah? And how much are you paying the stupid bastard to shoot his mouth off and screw up the case?’

‘Bloody hell, Strike, you get mixed up in a murder like this and you don’t even think of ringing me?’

‘I don’t know what you think our relationship is about, mate,’ said Strike, ‘but as far as I’m concerned, I do jobs for you and you pay me. That’s it.’

‘I put you in touch with Nina so you could get in that publisher’s party.’

‘The least you could do after I handed you a load of extra stuff you’d never asked for on Parker,’ said Strike, spearing stray chips with his free hand. ‘I could’ve withheld that and shopped it all round the tabloids.’

‘If you want paying—’

‘No, I don’t want paying, dickhead,’ said Strike irritably, as Robin turned her attention tactfully to the BBC website on her own phone. ‘I’m not going to help screw up a murder investigation by dragging in the News of the World.’

‘I could get you ten grand if you throw in a personal interview.’

‘Bye, Cul—’

‘Wait! Just tell me which book it is – the one where he describes the murder.’

Strike pretended to hesitate.

‘The Brothers Balls… Balzac,’ he said.

Smirking, he cut the call and reached for the menu to examine the puddings. Hopefully Culpepper would spend a long afternoon wading through tortured syntax and palpated scrotums.

‘Anything new?’ Strike asked as Robin looked up from her phone.

‘Not unless you count the Daily Mail saying that family friends thought Pippa Middleton would make a better marriage than Kate.’

Strike frowned at her.

‘I was just looking at random things while you were on the phone,’ said Robin, a little defensively.

‘No,’ said Strike, ‘not that. I’ve just remembered – Pippa2011.’

‘I don’t—’ said Robin, confused, and still thinking of Pippa Middleton.

‘Pippa2011 – on Kathryn Kent’s blog. She claimed to have heard a bit of Bombyx Mori.’

Robin gasped and set to work on her mobile.

‘It’s here!’ she said, a few minutes later. ‘“What would you say if I told you he’d read it to me”! And that was…’ Robin scrolled upwards, ‘on October the twenty-first. October the twenty-first! She might’ve known the ending before Quine even disappeared.’

‘That’s right,’ said Strike. ‘I’m having apple crumble, want anything?’

When Robin had returned from placing yet another order at the bar, Strike said:

‘Anstis has asked me to dinner tonight. Says he’s got some preliminary stuff in from forensics.’

‘Does he know it’s your birthday?’ asked Robin.

‘Christ, no,’ said Strike, and he sounded so revolted by the idea that Robin laughed.

‘Why would that be bad?’

‘I’ve already had one birthday dinner,’ said Strike darkly. ‘Best present I could get from Anstis would be a time of death. The earlier they set it, the smaller the number of likely suspects: the ones who got their hands on the manuscript early. Unfortunately, that includes Leonora, but you’ve got this mysterious Pippa, Christian Fisher—’

‘Why Fisher?’

‘Means and opportunity, Robin: he had early access, he’s got to go on the list. Then there’s Elizabeth Tassel’s assistant Ralph, Elizabeth Tassel herself and Jerry Waldegrave. Daniel Chard presumably saw it shortly after Waldegrave. Kathryn Kent denies reading it, but I’m taking that with a barrel of salt. And then there’s Michael Fancourt.’

Robin looked up, startled.

‘How can he—?’

Strike’s mobile rang again; it was Nina Lascelles. He hesitated, but the reflection that her cousin might have told her he had just spoken to Strike persuaded him to take the call.

‘Hi,’ he said.

‘Hi, Famous Person,’ she said. He heard an edge, inexpertly covered by breathy high spirits. ‘I’ve been too scared to call you in case you’re being inundated with press calls and groupies and things.’

‘Not so much,’ said Strike. ‘How’re things at Roper Chard?’

‘Insane. Nobody’s doing any work; it’s all we can talk about. Was it really, honestly murder?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘God, I can’t believe it… I don’t suppose you can tell me anything, though?’ she asked, barely suppressing the interrogative note.

‘The police won’t want details getting out at this stage.’

‘It was to do with the book, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘Bombyx Mori.’

‘I couldn’t say.’

‘And Daniel Chard’s broken his leg.’

‘Sorry?’ he said, thrown by the non sequitur.

‘Just so many odd things happening,’ she said. She sounded keyed up, overwrought. ‘Jerry’s all over the place. Daniel rang him up from Devon just now and was yelling at him again – half the office heard because Jerry put him on speakerphone by accident and then couldn’t find the button to turn him off. He can’t leave his weekend house because of his broken leg. Daniel, I mean.’

‘Why was he yelling at Waldegrave?’

‘Security on Bombyx,’ she said. ‘The police have got a full copy of the manuscript from somewhere and Daniel’s not happy about it.

‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I just thought I’d ring and say congrats – I suppose you congratulate a detective when they find a body, or don’t you? Call me when you’re not so busy.’

She rang off before he could say anything else.

‘Nina Lascelles,’ he said as the waiter reappeared with his apple crumble and a coffee for Robin. ‘The girl—’

‘Who stole the manuscript for you,’ said Robin.

‘Your memory would’ve been wasted in HR,’ said Strike, picking up his spoon.

‘Are you serious about Michael Fancourt?’ she asked quietly.

‘Course,’ said Strike. ‘Daniel Chard must’ve told him what Quine had done – he wouldn’t have wanted Fancourt to hear it from anyone else, would he? Fancourt’s a major acquisition for them. No, I think we’ve got to assume that Fancourt knew, early on, what was in—’

Now Robin’s mobile rang.

‘Hi,’ said Matthew.

‘Hi, how are you?’ she asked anxiously.

‘Not great.’

Somewhere in the background, someone turned up the music: ‘First day that I saw you, thought you were beautiful…’

‘Where are you?’ asked Matthew sharply.

‘Oh… in a pub,’ said Robin.

Suddenly the air seemed full of pub noises; clinking glasses, raucous laughter from the bar.

‘It’s Cormoran’s birthday,’ she said anxiously. (After all, Matthew and his colleagues went to the pub on each other’s birthdays…)

‘That’s nice,’ said Matthew, sounding furious. ‘I’ll call you later.’

‘Matt, no – wait—’

Mouth full of apple crumble, Strike watched out of the corner of his eye as she got up and moved away to the bar without explanation, evidently trying to redial Matthew. The accountant was unhappy that his fiancée had gone out to lunch, that she was not sitting shiva for his mother.

Robin redialled and redialled. She got through at last. Strike finished both his crumble and his third pint and realised that he needed the bathroom.

His knee, which had not troubled him much while he ate, drank and talked to Robin, complained violently when he stood. By the time he got back to his seat he was sweating a little with the pain. Judging by the expression on her face, Robin was still trying to placate Matthew. When at last she hung up and rejoined him, he returned a short answer to whether or not he was all right.

‘You know, I could follow the Brocklehurst girl for you,’ she offered again, ‘if your leg’s too—?’

‘No,’ snapped Strike.

He felt sore, angry with himself, irritated by Matthew and suddenly a bit nauseous. He ought not to have eaten the chocolate before having steak, chips, crumble and three pints.

‘I need you to go back to the office and type up Gunfrey’s last invoice. And text me if those bloody journalists are still around, because I’ll go straight from here to Anstis’s, if they are.

‘We really need to be thinking about taking someone else on,’ he added under his breath.

Robin’s expression hardened.

‘I’ll go and get typing, then,’ she said. She snatched up her coat and bag and left. Strike caught a glimpse of her angry expression, but an irrational vexation prevented him from calling her back.

23

For my part, I do not think she hath a soul so black

To act a deed so bloody.

John Webster, The White Devil

An afternoon in the pub with his leg propped up had not much reduced the swelling in Strike’s knee. After buying painkillers and a cheap bottle of red on the way to the Tube, he set out for Greenwich where Anstis lived with his wife Helen, commonly known as Helly. The journey to their house in Ashburnham Grove took him over an hour due to a delay on the Central line; he stood the whole way, keeping his weight on his left leg, regretting anew the hundred pounds he had spent on taxis to and from Lucy’s house.

By the time he got off the Docklands Light Railway spots of rain were again peppering his face. He turned up his collar and limped away into the darkness for what should have been a five-minute walk, but which took him nearly fifteen.