The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike, #2)(14)

On the way back up the road, with bulging carrier bags in both hands, he turned on impulse into a second-hand bookshop that was about to close. The man behind the counter was unsure whether they had a copy of Hobart’s Sin, Owen Quine’s first book and supposedly his best, but after a lot of inconclusive mumbling and an unconvincing perusal of his computer screen, offered Strike a copy of The Balzac Brothers by the same author. Tired, wet and hungry, Strike paid two pounds for the battered hardback and took it home to his attic flat.

Having put away his provisions and cooked himself pasta, Strike stretched out on his bed as night pressed dense, dark and cold at his windows, and opened the missing man’s book.

The style was ornate and florid, the story gothic and surreal. Two brothers by the names of Varicocele and Vas were locked inside a vaulted room while the corpse of their older brother decayed slowly in a corner. In between drunken arguments about literature, loyalty and the French writer Balzac, they attempted to co-author an account of their decomposing brother’s life. Varicocele constantly palpated his aching balls, which seemed to Strike to be a clumsy metaphor for writer’s block; Vas seemed to be doing most of the work.

After fifty pages, and with a murmur of ‘Bollocks is right’, Strike threw the book aside and began the laborious process of turning in.

The deep and blissful stupor of the previous night eluded him. Rain hammered against the window of his attic room and his sleep was disturbed; confused dreams of catastrophe filled the night. Strike woke in the morning with the uneasy aftermath clinging over him like a hangover. The rain was still pounding on his window, and when he turned on his TV he saw that Cornwall had been hit by severe flooding; people were trapped in cars, or evacuated from their homes and now huddled in emergency centres.

Strike snatched up his mobile phone and called the number, familiar to him as his own reflection in the mirror, that all his life had represented security and stability.

‘Hello?’ said his aunt.

‘It’s Cormoran. You all right, Joan? I’ve just seen the news.’

‘We’re all right at the moment, love, it’s up the coast it’s bad,’ she said. ‘It’s wet, mind you, blowing up a storm, but nothing like St Austell. Just been watching it on the news ourselves. How are you, Corm? It’s been ages. Ted and I were just saying last night, we haven’t heard from you, and we were wanting to say, why don’t you come for Christmas as you’re on your own again? What do you think?’

He was unable to dress or to fasten on his prosthesis while holding the mobile. She talked for half an hour, an unstoppable gush of local chat and sudden, darting forays into personal territory he preferred to leave unprobed. At last, after a final blast of interrogation about his love life, his debts and his amputated leg, she let him go.



Strike arrived in the office late, tired and irritable. He was wearing a dark suit and tie. Robin wondered whether he was going to meet the divorcing brunette for lunch after his meeting with Elizabeth Tassel.

‘Heard the news?’

‘Floods in Cornwall?’ Strike asked, switching on the kettle, because his first tea of the day had grown cold while Joan gabbled.

‘William and Kate are engaged,’ said Robin.

‘Who?’

‘Prince William,’ said Robin, amused, ‘and Kate Middleton.’

‘Oh,’ said Strike coldly. ‘Good for them.’

He had been among the ranks of the engaged himself until a few months ago. He did not know how his ex-fiancée’s new engagement was proceeding, nor did he enjoy wondering when it was going to end. (Not as theirs had ended, of course, with her clawing her betrothed’s face and revealing her betrayal, but with the kind of wedding he could never have given her; more like the one William and Kate would no doubt soon enjoy.)

Robin judged it safe to break the moody silence only once Strike had had half a mug of tea.

‘Lucy called just before you came down, to remind you about your birthday dinner on Saturday night, and to ask whether you want to bring anyone.’

Strike’s spirits slipped several more notches. He had forgotten all about the dinner at his sister’s house.

‘Right,’ he said heavily.

‘Is it your birthday on Saturday?’ Robin asked.

‘No,’ said Strike.

‘When is it?’

He sighed. He did not want a cake, a card or presents, but her expression was expectant.

‘Tuesday,’ he said.

‘The twenty-third?’

‘Yeah.’

After a short pause, it occurred to him that he ought to reciprocate.

‘And when’s yours?’ Something in her hesitation unnerved him. ‘Christ, it’s not today, is it?’

She laughed.

‘No, it’s gone. October the ninth. It’s all right, it was a Saturday,’ she said, still smiling at his pained expression. ‘I wasn’t sitting here all day expecting flowers.’

He grinned back. Feeling he ought to make a little extra effort, because he had missed her birthday and never considered finding out when it was, he added:

‘Good thing you and Matthew haven’t set a date yet. At least you won’t clash with the Royal Wedding.’

‘Oh,’ said Robin, blushing, ‘we have set a date.’

‘You have?’