The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike, #2)(11)

‘His wife?’ he repeated blankly. ‘That mousy woman who looks like Rose West? What’s she hired a private detective for?’

‘Her husband’s disappeared. He’s been gone eleven days.’

‘Quine’s disappeared? But – but then…’

Strike could tell Fisher had been anticipating a very different conversation, one to which he had been eagerly looking forward.

‘But why’s she sent you to me?’

‘She thinks you know where Quine is.’

‘How the hell would I know?’ asked Fisher, and he appeared genuinely bewildered. ‘He’s not a friend of mine.’

‘Mrs Quine says she heard you telling her husband about a writer’s retreat, at a party—’

‘Oh,’ said Fisher, ‘Bigley Hall, yeah. But Owen won’t be there!’ When he laughed, he was transformed into a bespectacled Puck: merriment laced with slyness. ‘They wouldn’t let Owen Quine in if he paid them. Born shit-stirrer. And one of the women who runs the place hates his guts. He wrote a stinking review of her first novel and she’s never forgiven him.’

‘Could you give me the number anyway?’ asked Strike.

‘I’ve got it on here,’ said Fisher, pulling a mobile out of the back pocket of his jeans. ‘I’ll call now…’

And he did so, setting the mobile on the desk between them and switching it on to speakerphone for Strike’s benefit. After a full minute of ringing, a breathless female voice answered: ‘Bigley Hall.’

‘Hi, is that Shannon? It’s Chris Fisher here, from Crossfire.’

‘Oh, hi Chris, how’s it going?’

The door of Fisher’s office opened and the scruffy dark girl from outside came in, wordlessly placed a latte in front of Fisher and departed.

‘I’m phoning, Shan,’ Fisher said, as the door clicked shut, ‘to see if you’ve got Owen Quine staying. He hasn’t turned up there, has he?’

‘Quine?’

Even reduced to a distant and tinny monosyllable, Shannon’s dislike echoed scornfully around the book-lined room.

‘Yeah, have you seen him?’

‘Not for a year or more. Why? He’s not thinking of coming here, is he? He won’t be bloody welcome, I can tell you that.’

‘No worries, Shan, I think his wife’s got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Speak soon.’

Fisher cut off her farewells, keen to return to Strike.

‘See?’ he said. ‘Told you. He couldn’t go to Bigley Hall if he wanted to.’

‘Couldn’t you have told his wife that, when she phoned you up?’

‘Oh, that’s what she kept calling about!’ said Fisher with an air of dawning comprehension. ‘I thought Owen was making her call me.’

‘Why would he make his wife phone you?’

‘Oh, come on,’ said Fisher, with a grin, and when Strike did not grin back, he laughed shortly and said, ‘Because of Bombyx Mori. I thought it’d be typical of Quine to try to get his wife to call me and sound me out.’

‘Bombyx Mori,’ repeated Strike, trying to sound neither interrogative nor puzzled.

‘Yeah, I thought Quine was pestering me to see whether there was still a chance I’d publish it. It’s the sort of thing he’d do, make his wife ring. But if anyone’s going to touch Bombyx Mori now, it won’t be me. We’re a small outfit. We can’t afford court cases.’

Gaining nothing from pretending to know more than he did, Strike changed tack.

‘Bombyx Mori’s Quine’s latest novel?’

‘Yeah,’ said Fisher, taking a sip of his takeaway latte, following his own train of thought. ‘So he’s disappeared, has he? I’d’ve thought he’d want to stick around and watch the fun. I’d’ve thought that was the whole point. Or has he lost his nerve? Doesn’t sound like Owen.’

‘How long have you published Quine?’ asked Strike. Fisher looked at him incredulously.

‘I’ve never published him!’ he said.

‘I thought—’

‘He’s been with Roper Chard for his last three books – or is it four? No, what happened was, I was at a party with Liz Tassel, his agent, a few months ago, and she told me in confidence – she’d had a few – that she didn’t know how much longer Roper Chard were going to put up with him, so I said I’d be happy to have a look at his next one. Quine’s in the so-bad-he’s-good category these days – we could’ve done something offbeat with the marketing. Anyway,’ said Fisher, ‘there was Hobart’s Sin. That was a good book. I figured he might still have something in him.’

‘Did she send you Bombyx Mori?’ asked Strike, feeling his way and inwardly cursing himself for the lack of thoroughness with which he had questioned Leonora Quine the previous day. This was what came of taking on clients when you were three parts dead of exhaustion. Strike was used to coming to interviews knowing more than the interviewee and he felt curiously exposed.

‘Yeah, she biked me over a copy Friday before last,’ said Fisher, his Puckish smirk slyer than ever. ‘Biggest mistake of poor Liz’s life.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she obviously hadn’t read it properly, or not all the way to the end. About two hours after it arrived I got this very panicky message on my phone: “Chris, there’s been a mistake, I’ve sent the wrong manuscript. Please don’t read it, could you just send it straight back, I’ll be at the office to take it.” I’ve never heard Liz Tassel like that in my life. Very scary woman usually. Makes grown men cower.’