The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike, #2)(143)

‘He’s an interesting man, Dan Chard,’ said Fancourt, with a palpable effort at reversing out of a cul-de-sac into which he had driven himself. ‘I thought Owen’s treatment of him in Bombyx Mori was the biggest missed opportunity of all – though future scholars are hardly going to look to Bombyx Mori for subtlety of characterisation, are they?’ he added with a short laugh.

‘How would you have written Daniel Chard?’ Strike asked and Fancourt seemed surprised by the question. After a moment’s consideration he said: ‘Dan’s the most unfulfilled man I’ve ever met. He works in a field where he’s competent but unhappy. He craves the bodies of young men but can bring himself to do no more than draw them. He’s full of inhibitions and self-disgust, which explains his unwise and hysterical response to Owen’s caricature of him. Dan was dominated by a monstrous socialite mother who wanted her pathologically shy son to take over the family business. I think,’ said Fancourt, ‘I’d have been able to make something interesting of all that.’

‘Why did Chard turn down North’s book?’ Strike asked.

Fancourt made the chewing motion again, then said:

‘I like Daniel Chard, you know.’

‘I had the impression that there had been a grudge at some point,’ said Strike.

‘What gave you that idea?’

‘You said that you “certainly didn’t expect to find yourself” back at Roper Chard when you spoke at their anniversary party.’

‘You were there?’ said Fancourt sharply and when Strike nodded he said: ‘Why?’

‘I was looking for Quine,’ said Strike. ‘His wife had hired me to find him.’

‘But, as we now know, she knew exactly where he was.’

‘No,’ said Strike, ‘I don’t think she did.’

‘You genuinely believe that?’ asked Fancourt, his large head tilted to one side.

‘Yeah, I do,’ said Strike.

Fancourt raised his eyebrows, considering Strike intently as though he were a curiosity in a cabinet.

‘So you didn’t hold it against Chard that he turned down North’s book?’ Strike asked, returning to the main point.

After a brief pause Fancourt said:

‘Well, yes, I did hold it against him. Exactly why Dan changed his mind about publishing it only Dan could tell you, but I think it was because there was a smattering of press around Joe’s condition, drumming up middle-England disgust about the unrepentant book he was about to publish, and Dan, who had not realised that Joe now had full-blown Aids, panicked. He didn’t want to be associated with bathhouses and Aids, so he told Joe he didn’t want the book after all. It was an act of great cowardice and Owen and I—’

Another pause. How long had it been since Fancourt had bracketed himself and Quine together in amity?

‘Owen and I believed that it killed Joe. He could hardly hold a pen, he was virtually blind, but he was trying desperately to finish the book before he died. We felt that was all that was keeping him alive. Then Chard’s letter arrived cancelling their contract; Joe stopped work and within forty-eight hours he was dead.’

‘There are similarities,’ said Strike, ‘with what happened to your first wife.’

‘They weren’t the same thing at all,’ said Fancourt flatly.

‘Why not?’

‘Joe’s was an infinitely better book.’

Yet another pause, this time much longer.

‘That’s considering the matter,’ said Fancourt, ‘from a purely literary perspective. Naturally, there are other ways of looking at it.’

He finished his glass of wine and raised a hand to indicate to the barman that he wanted another. The actor beside them, who had barely drawn breath, was still talking.

‘… said, “Screw authenticity, what d’you want me to do, saw my own bloody arm off?”’

‘It must have been a very difficult time for you,’ said Strike.

‘Yes,’ said Fancourt waspishly. ‘Yes, I think we can call it “difficult”.’

‘You lost a good friend and a wife within – what – months of each other?’

‘A few months, yes.’

‘You were writing all through that time?’

‘Yes,’ said Fancourt, with an angry, condescending laugh, ‘I was writing all through that time. It’s my profession. Would anyone ask you whether you were still in the army while you were having private difficulties?’

‘I doubt it,’ said Strike, without rancour. ‘What were you writing?’

‘It was never published. I abandoned the book I was working on so that I could finish Joe’s.’

The waiter set a second glass in front of Fancourt and departed.

‘Did North’s book need much doing to it?’

‘Hardly anything,’ said Fancourt. ‘He was a brilliant writer. I tidied up a few rough bits and polished the ending. He’d left notes about how he wanted it done. Then I took it to Jerry Waldegrave, who was with Roper.’

Strike remembered what Chard had said about Fancourt’s over-closeness to Waldegrave’s wife and proceeded with some caution.

‘Had you worked with Waldegrave before?’

‘I’ve never worked with him on my own stuff, but I knew of him by reputation as a gifted editor and I knew that he’d liked Joe. We collaborated on Towards the Mark.’