The Silkworm

‘Well, whose fucking fault’s that?’ shouted Waldegrave.

He staggered to his feet, ramming his unfortunate neighbour yet again, but this time there was no remonstrance from her companion. The restaurant had fallen silent. Waldegrave was weaving his way out of it, a bottle and a third to the bad, swearing into his mobile, and Strike, stranded at the table, was amused to find in himself some of the disapproval felt in the mess for the man who cannot hold his drink.

‘Bill, please,’ said Strike to the nearest gaping waiter. He was disappointed that he had not gotten to sample the spotted dick, which he had noted on the bill of fare, but he must catch Waldegrave if he could.

While the diners muttered and watched him out of the corners of their eyes, Strike paid, pulled himself up from the table and, leaning on his stick, followed in Waldegrave’s ungainly footsteps. From the outraged expression of the maître d’ and the sound of Waldegrave still yelling just outside the door, Strike suspected that Waldegrave had taken some persuasion to leave the premises.

He found the editor propped up against the cold wall to the left of the doors. Snow was falling thickly all around them; the pavements were crunchy with it, passers-by muffled to the ears. The backdrop of solid grandeur removed, Waldegrave no longer looked like a vaguely scruffy academic. Drunk, grubby and crumpled, swearing into a phone disguised by his large hand, he might have been a mentally ill down-and-out.

‘… not my fucking fault, you stupid bitch! Did I write the fucking thing? Did I?… you’d better fucking talk to her then, hadn’t you?… If you don’t, I will… Don’t you threaten me, you ugly fucking slut… if you’d kept your legs closed… you fucking heard me—’

Waldegrave saw Strike. He stood gaping for a few seconds then cut the call. The mobile slipped through his fumbling fingers and landed on the snowy pavement.

‘Bollocks,’ said Jerry Waldegrave.

The wolf had turned back into the sheep. He groped with bare fingers for the phone in the slush around his feet and his glasses fell off. Strike picked them up for him.

‘Thanks. Thanks. Sorry about that. Sorry…’

Strike saw tears on Waldegrave’s puffy cheeks as the editor rammed his glasses back on. Stuffing the cracked phone into his pocket, he turned an expression of despair upon the detective.

‘’S ruined my fucking life,’ he said. ‘That book. ’N I thought Owen… one thing he held sacred. Father daughter. One thing…’

With another dismissive gesture, Waldegrave turned and walked away, weaving badly, thoroughly drunk. He had had, the detective guessed, at least a bottle before they met. There was no point following him.

Watching Waldegrave disappear into the swirling snow, past the Christmas shoppers scrambling, laden, along the slushy pavements, Strike remembered a hand closing ungently on an upper arm, a stern man’s voice, an angrier young woman’s. ‘Mummy’s made a beeline, why don’t you grab her?’

Turning up his coat collar Strike thought he knew, now, what the meaning was: of a dwarf in a bloody bag, of the horns under the Cutter’s cap and, cruellest of all, the attempted drowning.

37

… when I am provok’d to fury, I cannot incorporate with patience and reason.

William Congreve, The Double-Dealer

Strike set out for his office beneath a sky of dirty silver, his feet moving with difficulty through the rapidly accumulating snow, which was still falling fast. Though he had touched nothing but water, he felt a little drunk on good rich food, which gave him the false sense of well-being that Waldegrave had probably passed some time mid-morning, drinking in his office. The walk between Simpson’s-in-the-Strand and his draughty little office on Denmark Street would take a fit and unimpaired adult perhaps a quarter of an hour. Strike’s knee remained sore and overworked, but he had just spent more than his entire week’s food budget on a single meal. Lighting a cigarette, he limped away through the knife-sharp cold, head bowed against the snow, wondering what Robin had found out at the Bridlington Bookshop.

As he walked past the fluted columns of the Lyceum Theatre, Strike pondered the fact that Daniel Chard was convinced that Jerry Waldegrave had helped Quine write his book, whereas Waldegrave thought that Elizabeth Tassel had played upon his sense of grievance until it had erupted into print. Were these, he wondered, simple cases of displaced anger? Having been baulked of the true culprit by Quine’s gruesome death, were Chard and Waldegrave seeking living scapegoats on whom to vent their frustrated fury? Or were they right to detect, in Bombyx Mori, a foreign influence?

The scarlet façade of the Coach and Horses in Wellington Street constituted a powerful temptation as he approached it, the stick doing heavy duty now, and his knee complaining: warmth, beer and a comfortable chair… but a third lunchtime visit to the pub in a week… not a habit he ought to develop… Jerry Waldegrave was an object lesson in where such behaviour might lead…

He could not resist an envious glance through the window as he passed, towards lights gleaming on brass beer pumps and convivial men with slacker consciences than his own—

He saw her out of the corner of his eye. Tall and stooping in her black coat, hands in her pockets, scurrying along the slushy pavements behind him: his stalker and would-be attacker of Saturday night.

Strike’s pace did not falter, nor did he turn to look at her. He was not playing games this time; there would be no stopping to test her amateurish stalking style, no letting her know that he had spotted her. On he walked without looking over his shoulder, and only a man or woman similarly expert in counter-surveillance would have noticed his casual glances into helpfully positioned windows and reflective brass door plates; only they could have spotted the hyper-alertness disguised as inattentiveness.

Most killers were slapdash amateurs; that was how they were caught. To persist after their encounter on Saturday night argued high-calibre recklessness and it was on this that Strike was counting as he continued up Wellington Street, outwardly oblivious to the woman following him with a knife in her pocket. As he crossed Russell Street she had dodged out of sight, faking entrance to the Marquess of Anglesey, but soon reappeared, dodging in and out of the square pillars of an office block and lurking in a doorway to allow him to pull ahead.

Strike could barely feel his knee now. He had become six foot three of highly concentrated potential. This time she had no advantage; she would not be taking him by surprise. If she had a plan at all, he guessed that it was to profit from any available opportunity. It was up to him to present her with an opportunity she dare not let pass, and to make sure she did not succeed.

Past the Royal Opera House with its classical portico, its columns and statues; in Endell Street she entered an old red telephone box, gathering her nerve, no doubt, double-checking that he was not aware of her. Strike walked on, his pace unchanging, his eyes on the street ahead. She took confidence and emerged again onto the crowded pavement, following him through harried passers-by with carrier bags swinging from their hands, drawing closer to him as the street narrowed, flitting in and out of doorways.

As he drew nearer to the office he made his decision, turning left off Denmark Street into Flitcroft Street, which led to Denmark Place, where a dark passage, plastered with flyers for bands, led back to his office.

Would she dare?

As he entered the alleyway, his footsteps echoing a little off the dank walls, he slowed imperceptibly. Then he heard her coming – running at him.

Wheeling around on his sound left leg he flung out his walking stick – there was a shriek of pain as her arm met it – the Stanley knife was knocked out of her hand, hit the stone wall, rebounded and narrowly missed Strike’s eye – he had her now in a ferocious grip that made her scream.

He was afraid that some hero would come to her aid, but no one appeared, and now speed was essential – she was stronger than he had expected and struggling ferociously, trying to kick him in the balls and claw his face. With a further economical twist of his body he had he

r in a headlock, her feet skidding and scrambling on the damp alley floor.

As she writhed in his arms, trying to bite him, he stooped to pick up the knife, pulling her down with him so that she almost lost her footing, then, abandoning the walking stick, which he could not carry while managing her, he dragged her out onto Denmark Street.

He was fast, and she so winded by the struggle that she had no breath to yell. The short cold street was empty of shoppers and no passers-by on Charing Cross Road noticed anything amiss as he forced her the short distance to the black street door.

‘Need in, Robin! Quickly!’ he shouted on the intercom, slamming his way through the outer door as soon as Robin had buzzed it open. Up the metal steps he dragged her, his right knee now protesting violently, and she started shrieking, the screams echoing around the stairwell. Strike saw movement behind the glass door of the dour and eccentric graphic designer who worked in the office beneath his.

‘Just messing around!’ he bellowed at the door, heaving his pursuer upstairs.

‘Cormoran? What’s – oh my God!’ said Robin, staring down from the landing. ‘You can’t – what are you playing at? Let her go!’

‘She’s just – tried – to bloody – knife me again,’ panted Strike, and with a gigantic final effort he forced his pursuer over the threshold. ‘Lock the door!’ he shouted at Robin, who had hurried in behind them and obeyed.

Strike threw the woman onto the mock-leather sofa. The hood fell back to reveal a long pale face with large brown eyes and thick dark wavy hair that fell to her shoulders. Her fingers terminated in pointed crimson nails. She looked barely twenty.

‘You bastard! You bastard!’

She tried to get up, but Strike was standing over her looking murderous, so she thought better of it, slumping back onto the sofa and massaging her white neck, which bore dark pink scratch marks where he had seized her.

‘Want to tell me why you’re trying to knife me?’ Strike asked.

‘Fuck you!’

‘That’s original,’ said Strike. ‘Robin, call the police—’

‘Noooo!’ howled the woman in black like a baying dog. ‘He hurt me,’ she gasped to Robin, tugging down her top with abandoned wretchedness to reveal the marks on the strong white neck. ‘He dragged me, he pulled me—’

Robin looked to Strike, her hand on the receiver.

‘Why have you been following me?’ Strike said, panting as he stood over her, his tone threatening.

She cowered into the squeaking cushions yet Robin, whose fingers had not left the phone, detected a note of relish in the woman’s fear, a whisper of voluptuousness in the way she twisted away from him.

‘Last chance,’ growled Strike. ‘Why—?’

‘What’s happening up there?’ came a querulous enquiry from the landing below.

Robin’s eyes met Strike’s. She hurried to the door, unlocked it and slid out onto the landing while Strike stood guard over his captive, his jaw set and one fist clenched. He saw the idea of screaming for help pass behind the big dark eyes, purple-shadowed like pansies, and fade away. Shaking, she began to cry, but her teeth were bared and he thought there was more rage than misery in her tears.

‘All OK, Mr Crowdy,’ Robin called. ‘Just messing around. Sorry we were so loud.’

Robin returned to the office and locked the door behind her again. The woman was rigid on the sofa, tears tumbling down her face, her talon-like nails gripping the edge of the seat.

‘Fuck this,’ Strike said. ‘You don’t want to talk – I’m calling the police.’

Apparently she believed him. He had taken barely two steps towards the phone when she sobbed:

‘I wanted to stop you.’

‘Stop me doing what?’ said Strike.

‘Like you don’t know!’

‘Don’t play fucking games with me!’ Strike shouted, bending towards her with two large fists clenched. He could feel his damaged knee only too acutely now. It was her fault he had taken the fall that had damaged the ligaments all over again.

‘Cormoran,’ said Robin firmly, sliding between them and forcing him to take a pace backwards. ‘Listen,’ she told the girl. ‘Listen to me. Tell him why you’re doing this and maybe he won’t call—’

‘You’ve gotta be fucking joking,’ said Strike. ‘Twice she’s tried to stab—’

‘—maybe he won’t call the police,’ said Robin loudly, undeterred.

The woman jumped up and tried to make a break for it towards the door.

‘No you don’t,’ said Strike, hobbling fast around Robin, catching his assailant round the waist and throwing her none too gently back onto the sofa. ‘Who are you?’

‘You’ve hurt me now!’ she shouted. ‘You’ve really hurt me – my ribs – I’ll get you for assault, you bastard—’

‘I’ll call you Pippa, then, shall I?’ said Strike.

A shuddering gasp and a malevolent stare.

‘You – you – fuck—’

‘Yeah, yeah, fuck me,’ said Strike irritably. ‘Your name.’

Her chest was heaving under the heavy overcoat.

‘How will you know if I’m telling the truth, even if I tell you?’ she panted, with a further show of defiance.

‘I’ll keep you here till I’ve checked,’ said Strike.

‘Kidnap!’ she shouted, her voice as rough and loud as a docker’s.

‘Citizen’s arrest,’ said Strike. ‘You tried to fucking knife me. Now, for the last bloody time—’

‘Pippa Midgley,’ she spat.

‘Finally. Have you got ID?’

With another mutinous obscenity she slid a hand into her pocket and drew out a bus pass, which she threw to him.

‘This says Phillip Midgley.’

‘No shit.’

Watching the implication hit Strike, Robin felt a sudden urge, in spite of the tension in the room, to laugh.

‘Epicoene,’ said Pippa Midgley furiously. ‘Didn’t you get it? Too subtle for you, dickhead?’

Strike looked up at her. The Adam’s apple on her scratched, marked throat was still prominent. She had buried her hands in her pockets again.

‘I’ll be Pippa on all my documents next year,’ she said.

‘Pippa,’ Strike repeated. ‘You’re the author of “I’ll turn the handle on the fucking rack for you”, are you?’

‘Oh,’ said Robin, on a long drawn-out sigh of comprehension.

‘Oooooh, you’re so clever, Mr Butch,’ said Pippa in spiteful imitation.

‘D’you know Kathryn Kent personally, or are you just cyber-friends?’

‘Why? Is knowing Kath Kent a crime now?’

‘How did you know Owen Quine?’

‘I don’t want to talk about that bastard,’ she said, her chest heaving. ‘What he’s done to me… what he’s done… pretending… he lied… lying fucking bastard…’

Fresh tears splattered down her cheeks and she dissolved into hysterics. Her scarlet-tipped hands clawed at her hair, her feet drummed on the floor, she rocked backwards and forwards, wailing. Strike watched her with distaste and after thirty seconds said:

‘Will you shut the fuck—’

But Robin quelled him with a glance, tore a handful of tissues out of the box on her desk and pushed them into Pippa’s hand.

‘T-t-ta—’

‘Would you like a tea or coffee, Pippa?’ asked Robin kindly.

‘Co… fee… pl…’

‘She’s just tried to bloody knife me, Robin!’

‘Well, she didn’t manage it, did she?’ commented Robin, busy with the kettle.

‘Ineptitude,’ said Strike incredulously, ‘is no fucking defence under the law!’

He rounded on Pippa again, who had followed this exchange with her mouth agape.

‘Why have you been following me? What are you trying to stop me doing? And I’m warning you – just because Robin here’s buying the sob stuff—’

‘You’re working for her!’ yelled Pippa. ‘That twi

sted bitch, his widow! She’s got his money now, hasn’t she – we know what you’ve been hired to do, we’re not fucking stupid!’

‘Who’s “we”?’ demanded Strike, but Pippa’s dark eyes slid again towards the door. ‘I swear to God,’ said Strike, whose much-tried knee was now throbbing in a way that made him want to grind his teeth, ‘if you go for that door one more fucking time I’m calling the police and I’ll testify and be glad to watch you go down for attempted murder. And it won’t be fun for you inside, Pippa,’ he added. ‘Not pre-op.’

‘Cormoran!’ said Robin sharply.

‘Stating facts,’ said Strike.

Pippa had shrunk back onto the sofa and was staring at Strike in unfeigned terror.

‘Coffee,’ said Robin firmly, emerging from behind the desk and pressing the mug into one of the long-taloned hands. ‘Just tell him what all this is about, for God’s sake, Pippa. Tell him.’

Unstable and aggressive though Pippa seemed, Robin could not help pitying the girl, who appeared to have given almost no thought to the possible consequences of lunging at a private detective with a blade. Robin could only assume that she possessed in extreme form the trait that afflicted her own younger brother Martin, who was notorious in their family for the lack of foresight and love of danger that had resulted in more trips to casualty than the rest of his siblings combined.

‘We know she hired you to frame us,’ croaked Pippa.

‘Who,’ growled Strike, ‘is “she” and who is “us”?’

‘Leonora Quine!’ said Pippa. ‘We know what she’s like and we know what she’s capable of! She hates us, me and Kath, she’d do anything to get us. She murdered Owen and she’s trying to pin it on us! You can look like that all you want!’ she shouted at Strike, whose heavy eyebrows had risen halfway to his thick hairline. ‘She’s a crazy bitch, she’s jealous as hell – she couldn’t stand him seeing us and now she’s got you poking around trying to get stuff to use against us!’