The Silkworm

So what was he to do next? If the trail away from the crime was practically non-existent, Strike thought, he must pursue the trail towards the crime. If the aftermath of Quine’s death was unnaturally devoid of clues, it was time to look at his last few days of life.

Strike picked up his mobile and sighed deeply, looking at it. Was there, he asked himself, any other way of getting at the first piece of information he sought? He ran through his extensive list of acquaintances in his head, discarding options as quickly as they occurred. Finally, and without much enthusiasm, he concluded that his original choice was most likely to bring him the goods: his half-brother Alexander.

They shared a famous father, but had never lived under the same roof. Al was nine years younger than Strike and was Jonny Rokeby’s legitimate son, which meant that there was virtually no point of coincidence in their lives. Al had been privately educated in Switzerland and he might be anywhere right now: in Rokeby’s LA residence; on a rapper’s yacht; even a white Australian beach, for Rokeby’s third wife was from Sydney.

And yet of his half-siblings on his father’s side, Al had shown himself more willing than any of the others to forge a relationship with his older brother. Strike remembered Al visiting him in hospital after his leg had been blown off; an awkward encounter, but touching in retrospect.

Al had brought with him to Selly Oak an offer from Rokeby that could have been made by mail: financial help in starting Strike’s detective business. Al had announced the offer with pride, considering it evidence of his father’s altruism. Strike had been sure that it was no such thing. He suspected that Rokeby or his advisers had been nervous about the one-legged, decorated veteran selling his story. The offer of a gift was supposed to stop his mouth.

Strike had turned down his father’s largesse and then been refused by every single bank to which he applied for a loan. He had called Al back with immense reluctance, refusing to take the money as a gift, turning down a proffered meeting with his father but asking whether he could have a loan. This had evidently caused offence. Rokeby’s lawyer had subsequently pursued Strike for his monthly payments with all the zeal of the most rapacious bank.

Had Strike not chosen to keep Robin on his payroll, the loan would already have been cleared. He was determined to repay it before Christmas, determined not to be beholden to Jonny Rokeby, which was why he had taken on a workload that had lately seen him working eight or nine hours, seven days a week. None of this made the prospect of calling his younger brother for a favour any more comfortable. Strike could understand Al’s loyalty to a father whom he clearly loved, but any mention between them of Rokeby was necessarily charged.

Al’s number rang several times and finally went to voicemail. As relieved as he was disappointed, Strike left a brief message asking Al to call him and hung up.

Lighting his third cigarette since breakfast, Strike reverted to his contemplation of the crack in the ceiling. The trail towards the crime… so much depended on when the killer had seen the manuscript, had recognised its potential as a blueprint for murder…

And, once again, he flicked through the suspects as though they were a hand of cards he had been dealt, examining their potentialities.

Elizabeth Tassel, who made no secret of the rage and pain Bombyx Mori had caused her. Kathryn Kent, who claimed not to have read it at all. The still unknown Pippa2011, to whom Quine had read parts of the book back in October. Jerry Waldegrave, who had had the manuscript on the fifth, but might, if Chard was to be believed, have known what was in there way before. Daniel Chard, who claimed that he had not seen it until the seventh, and Michael Fancourt, who had heard about the book from Chard. Yes, there were sundry others, peeking and peering and giggling at the most salacious parts of the book, emailed all over London by Christian Fisher, but Strike found it very hard to work up even the vaguest of cases against Fisher, young Ralph in Tassel’s office, or Nina Lascelles, none of whom were featured in Bombyx Mori nor had really known Quine.

He needed, Strike thought, to get closer, close enough to ruffle the people whose lives had already been mocked and distorted by Owen Quine. With only a little more enthusiasm than he had brought to the task of calling Al, he scrolled through his contact list and called Nina Lascelles.

It was a brief call. She was delighted. Of course he could come over tonight. She’d cook.

Strike could think of no other way to probe for further details of Jerry Waldegrave’s private life or for Michael Fancourt’s reputation as a literary assassin, but he did not look forward to the painful process of reattaching his prosthesis, not to mention the effort it would require to detach himself again, tomorrow morning, from Nina Lascelles’s hopeful clutches. However, he had Arsenal versus Aston Villa to watch before he needed to leave; painkillers, cigarettes, bacon and bread.

Preoccupied with his own comfort, a mixture of football and murder on his mind, it did not occur to Strike to glance down into the snowy street where shoppers, undeterred by the freezing weather, were gliding in and out of the music stores, the instrument makers and the cafés. Had he done so, he might have seen the willowy, hooded figure in the black coat leaning against the wall between numbers six and eight, staring up at his flat. Good though his eyesight was, however, he would have been unlikely to spot the Stanley knife being turned rhythmically between long, fine fingers.

32

Rise my good angel,

Whose holy tunes beat from me that evil spirit

Which jogs mine elbow…

Thomas Dekker, The Noble Spanish Soldier

Even with snow chains on its tyres the old family Land Rover driven by Robin’s mother had had a hard job of it between York station and Masham. The wipers made fan-shaped windows, swiftly obliterated, onto roads familiar to Robin since childhood, now transformed by the worst winter she had seen in many years. The snow was relentless and the journey, which should have taken an hour, lasted nearly three. There had been moments when Robin had thought she might yet miss the funeral. At least she had been able to speak to Matthew on her mobile, explaining that she was close. He had told her that several others were still miles away, that he was afraid his aunt from Cambridge might not make it at all.

At home Robin had dodged the slobbering welcome of their old chocolate Labrador and hurtled upstairs to her room, pulling on the black dress and coat without bothering to iron them, laddering her first pair of tights in her haste, then running back downstairs to the hall where her parents and brothers were waiting for her.

They walked together through the swirling snow beneath black umbrellas, up the gentle hill Robin had climbed every day of her primary school years and across the wide square that was the ancient heart of her tiny home town, their backs to the giant chimney of the local brewery. The Saturday market had been cancelled. Deep channels had been made in the snow by those few brave souls who had crossed the square that morning, footprints converging near the church where Robin could see a crowd of black-coated mourners. The roofs of the pale gold Georgian houses lining the square wore mantels of bright, frozen icing, and still the snow kept coming. A rising sea of white was steadily burying the large square tombstones in the cemetery.

Robin shivered as the family edged towards the doors of St Mary the Virgin, past the remnant of a ninth-century round-shafted cross that had a curiously pagan appearance, and then, at last, she saw Matthew, standing in the porch with his father and sister, pale and heart-stoppingly handsome in his black suit. As Robin watched, trying to catch his eye over the queue, a young woman reached up and embraced him. Robin recognised Sarah Shadlock, Matthew’s old friend from university. Her greeting was a little more lascivious, perhaps, than was appropriate in the circumstances, but Robin’s guilt about having come within ten seconds of missing the overnight train, about not having seen Matthew in nearly a week, made her feel she had no right to resent it.

‘Robin,’ he said urgently when he saw her and he forgot to shake three people’s hands as he held out his arms to her.

As they hugged she felt tears prickle beneath her eyelids. This was real life, after all, Matthew and home…

‘Go and sit at the front,’ he told her and she obeyed, leaving her family at the back of the church to sit in the front pew with Matthew’s brother-in-law, who was dandling his baby daughter on his knee and greeted Robin with a morose nod.

It was a beautiful old church and Robin knew it well from the Christmas, Easter and harvest services she had attended all her life with her primary school and family. Her eyes travelled slowly from familiar object to familiar object. High above her over the chancel arch was a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds (or, at the very least, the school of Joshua Reynolds) and she fixed upon it, trying to compose her mind. A misty, mystical image, the boy-angel contemplating the distant vision of a cross emitting golden rays… Who had really done it, she wondered, Reynolds or some studio acolyte? And then she felt guilty that she was indulging her perennial curiosity instead of feeling sad about Mrs Cunliffe…

She had thought that she would be marrying here in a few weeks’ time. Her wedding dress was hanging ready in the spare room’s wardrobe, but instead, here was Mrs Cunliffe’s coffin coming up the aisle, shining black with silver handles, Owen Quine still in the morgue… no shiny coffin for his disembowelled body yet, rotted and burned…

Don’t think about that, she told herself sternly as Matthew sat down beside her, the length of his leg warm against hers.

The last twenty-four hours had been so packed with incident that it was hard for Robin to believe she was here, at home. She and Strike might have been in hospital, they had come close to slamming head first into that overturned lorry… the driver covered in blood… Mrs Cunliffe was probably unscathed in her silk-lined box… Don’t think about that…

It was as though her eyes were being stripped of a comfortable soft focus. Maybe seeing things like bound and disembowelled bodies did something to you, changed the way you saw the world.

She knelt a little late for prayer, the cross-stitched hassock rough beneath her freezing knees. Poor Mrs Cunliffe… except that Matthew’s mother had never much liked her. Be kind, Robin implored herself, even though it was true. Mrs Cunliffe had not liked the idea of Matthew being tied to the same girlfriend for so long. She had mentioned, within Robin’s hearing, how good it was for young men to play the field, sow their wild oats… The way in which Robin had left university had tainted her, she knew, in Mrs Cunliffe’s eyes.

The statue of Sir Marmaduke Wyvill was facing Robin from mere feet away. As she stood for the hymn he seemed to be staring at her in his Jacobean dress, life-sized and horizontal on his marble shelf, propped up on his elbow to face the congregation. His wife lay beneath him in an identical pose. They were oddly real in their irreverent poses, cushions beneath their elbows to keep their marble bones comfortable, and above them, in the spandrels, allegorical figures of death and mortality. Till death do us part… and her thoughts drifted again: she and Matthew, tied together for ever until they died… no, not tied… don’t think tied… What’s wrong with you? She was exhausted. The train had been overheated and jerky. She had woken on the hour, afraid that it would get stuck in the snow.

Matthew reached for her hand and squeezed her fingers.

The burial took place as quickly as decency allowed, the snow falling thick around them. There was no lingering at the graveside; Robin was not the only one perceptibly shivering.

Everyone went back to the Cunliffes’ big brick house and milled around in the welcome warmth. Mr Cunliffe, who was always a little louder than the occasion warranted, kept filling glasses and greeting people as though it were a party.

‘I’ve missed you,’ Matthew said. ‘It’s been horrible without you.’

‘Me too,’ said Robin. ‘I wish I could have been here.’

Lying again.

‘Auntie Sue’s staying tonight,’ said Matthew. ‘I thought I could maybe come over to your place, be good to get away for a bit. It’s been full on this week…’

‘Great, yes,’ said Robin, squeezing his hand, grateful that she would not have to stay at the Cunliffes’. She found Matthew’s sister hard work and Mr Cunliffe overbearing.

But you could have put up with it for a night, she told herself sternly. It felt like an undeserved escape.

And so they returned to the Ellacotts’ house, a short walk from the square. Matthew liked her family; he was glad to change out of his suit into jeans, to help her mother lay the kitchen table for dinner. Mrs Ellacott, an ample woman with Robin’s red-gold hair tucked up in an untidy bun, treated him with gentle kindness; she was a woman of many interests and enthusiasms, currently doing an Open University degree in English Literature.

‘How’re the studies going, Linda?’ Matthew asked as he lifted the heavy casserole dish out of the oven for her.

‘We’re doing Webster, The Duchess of Malfi: “And I am grown mad with ’t.”’

‘Difficult, is it?’ asked Matthew.

‘That’s a quotation, love. Oh,’ she dropped the serving spoons onto the side with a clatter, ‘that reminds me – I bet I’ve missed it—’

She crossed the kitchen and snatched up a copy of the Radio Times, always present in their house.

‘No, it’s on at nine. There’s an interview with Michael Fancourt I want to watch.’

‘Michael Fancourt?’ said Robin, looking round. ‘Why?’

‘He’s very influenced by all those Revenge Tragedians,’ said her mother. ‘I’m hoping he’ll explain the appeal.’

‘Seen this?’ said Robin’s youngest brother, Jonathan, fresh back from the corner shop with the extra milk requested by his mother. ‘It’s on the front page, Rob. That writer with his guts ripped out—’

‘Jon!’ said Mrs Ellacott sharply.

Robin knew that her mother was not reprimanding her son out of any suspicion that Matthew would not appreciate mention of her job, but because of a more general aversion to discussing sudden death in the aftermath of the burial.

‘What?’ said Jonathan, oblivious to the proprieties, shoving the Daily Express under Robin’s nose.

Quine had made the front page now that the press knew what had been done to him.

HORROR AUTHOR WROTE OWN MURDER.

Horror author, Robin thought, he was hardly that… but it makes a good headline.

‘Is your boss gonna solve it, d’you reckon?’ Jonathan asked her, thumbing through the paper. ‘Show up the Met again?’

She began to read the account over Jonathan’s shoulder, but caught Matthew’s eye and moved away.

A buzzing issued from Robin’s handbag, discarded in a sagging chair in the corner of the flagged kitchen, as they ate their meal of stew and baked potatoes. She ignored it. Only when they had finished eating and Matthew was dutifully helping her mother clear the table did Robin wander to her bag to check her messages. To her great surprise she saw a missed call from Strike. With a surreptitious glance at Matthew, who was busily stacking plates in the dishwasher, she called voicemail while the others chatted.

You have one new message. Received today at seven twenty p.m.

The crackle of an open line, but no speech.

Then a thud. A yell in the distance from Strike:

‘No you don’t, you fucking—’

A bellow of pain.

Silence. The crackle of the open line. Indeterminate crunching, dragging sounds. Loud panting, a scraping noise, the line dead.

Robin stood aghast, the phone pressed against her ear.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked her father, glasses halfway down his nose as he paused on the way to the dresser, knives and forks in his hand.

‘I think – I think my boss has – has had an accident—’

She pressed Strike’s number with shaking fingers. The call went straight to voicemail. Matthew was standing in the middle of the kitchen watching her, his displeasure undisguised.

33

Hard fate when women are compell’d to woo!

>

Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton,

The Honest Whore

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 rear-view 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.