The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike, #2)(100)

‘But I’ve got to drop you—’

‘Forget me, you don’t need to drop me – next left—’

‘I can’t go down there, it’s one way!’

‘Left!’ he bellowed, tugging the wheel.

‘Don’t do that, it’s danger—’

‘D’you want to miss this bloody funeral? Put your foot down! First right—’

‘Where are we?’

‘I know what I’m doing,’ said Strike, squinting through the snow. ‘Straight on… my mate Nick’s dad’s a cabbie, he taught me some stuff – right again – ignore the bloody No Entry sign, who’s coming out of there on a night like this? Straight on and left at the lights!’

‘I can’t just leave you at King’s Cross!’ she said, obeying his instructions blindly. ‘You can’t drive it, what are you going to do with it?’

‘Sod the car, I’ll think of something – up here, take the second right—’

At five to eleven the towers of St Pancras appeared to Robin like a vision of heaven through the snow.

‘Pull over, get out and run,’ said Strike. ‘Call me if you make it. I’ll be here if you don’t.’

‘Thank you.’

And she had gone, sprinting over the snow with her weekend bag dangling from her hand. Strike watched her vanish into the darkness, imagined her skidding a little on the slippery floor of the station, not falling, looking wildly around for the platform… She had left the car, on his instructions, at the kerb on a double line. If she made the train he was stranded in a hire car he couldn’t drive and which would certainly be towed.

The golden hands on the St Pancras clock moved inexorably towards eleven o’clock. Strike saw the train doors slamming shut in his mind’s eye, Robin sprinting up the platform, red-gold hair flying…

One minute past. He fixed his eyes on the station entrance and waited.

She did not reappear. Still he waited. Five minutes past. Six minutes past.

His mobile rang.

‘Did you make it?’

‘By the skin of my teeth… it was just about to leave… Cormoran, thank you, thank you so much…’

‘No problem,’ he said, looking around at the dark icy ground, the deepening snow. ‘Have a good journey. I’d better sort myself out. Good luck for tomorrow.’

‘Thank you!’ she called as he hung up.

He had owed her, Strike thought, reaching for his crutches, but that did not make the prospect of a journey across snowy London on one leg, or a hefty fine for abandoning a hire car in the middle of town, much more appealing.





31





Danger, the spur of all great minds.



George Chapman, The Revenge of Bussy d’Ambois





Daniel Chard would not have liked the tiny rented attic flat in Denmark Street, Strike thought, unless he could have found primitive charm in the lines of the old toaster or desk lamp, but there was much to say for it if you happened to be a man with one leg. His knee was still not ready to accept a prosthesis on Saturday morning, but surfaces were within grabbing reach; distances could be covered in short hops; there was food in the fridge, hot water and cigarettes. Strike felt a genuine fondness for the place today, with the window steamy with condensation and blurry snow visible on the sill beyond.

After breakfast he lay on his bed, smoking, a mug of dark brown tea beside him on the box that served as a bedside table, glowering not with bad temper but concentration.

Six days and nothing.

No sign of the intestines that had vanished from Quine’s body, nor of any forensic evidence that would have pegged the potential killer (for he knew that a rogue hair or print would surely have prevented yesterday’s fruitless interrogation of Leonora). No appeals for further sightings of the concealed figure who had entered the building shortly before Quine had died (did the police think it a figment of the thick-lensed neighbour’s imagination?). No murder weapon, no incriminating footage of unexpected visitors to Talgarth Road, no suspicious ramblers noticing freshly turned earth, no mound of rotting guts revealed, wrapped in a black burqa, no sign of Quine’s holdall containing his notes for Bombyx Mori. Nothing.

Six days. He had caught killers in six hours, though admittedly those had been slapdash crimes of rage and desperation, where fountains of clues had gushed with the blood and the panicking or incompetent culprits had splattered everyone in their vicinity with their lies.

Quine’s killing was different, stranger and more sinister.

As Strike raised his mug to his lips he saw the body again as clearly as though he had viewed the photograph on his mobile. It was a theatre piece, a stage set.

In spite of his strictures to Robin, Strike could not help asking himself: why had it been done? Revenge? Madness? Concealment (of what?)? Forensic evidence obliterated by the hydrochloric acid, time of death obscured, entrance and departure of the crime scene achieved without detection. Planned meticulously. Every detail thought out. Six days and not a single lead… Strike did not believe Anstis’s claim to have several. Of course, his old friend was no longer sharing information, not after the tense warnings to Strike to butt out, to keep away.

Strike brushed ash absently off the front of his old sweater and lit a fresh cigarette from the stub of his old one.