The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike, #2)(148)

The longer he hung around, refusing to let go, the closer he circled, the more targeted his questioning, the greater the chance that the killer might wake up to the threat he posed. Strike had confidence in his own ability to detect and repel attack, but he could not contemplate with equanimity the solutions that might occur to a diseased mind that had shown itself fond of Byzantine cruelty.

The days of Polworth’s leave came and went without tangible results.

‘Don’t give up now, Diddy,’ he told Strike over the phone. Characteristically, the fruitlessness of his endeavours seemed to have stimulated rather than discouraged Polworth. ‘I’m going to pull a sickie Monday. I’ll have another bash.’

‘I can’t ask you to do that,’ muttered Strike, frustrated. ‘The drive—’

‘I’m offering, you ungrateful peg-legged bastard.’

‘Penny’ll kill you. What about her Christmas shopping?’

‘What about my chance to show up the Met?’ said Polworth, who disliked the capital and its inhabitants on long-held principle.

‘You’re a mate, Chum,’ said Strike.

When he had hung up, he saw Robin’s grin.

‘What’s funny?’

‘“Chum”,’ she said. It sounded so public school, so unlike Strike.

‘It’s not what you think,’ said Strike. He was halfway through the story of Dave Polworth and the shark when his mobile rang again: an unknown number. He picked up.

‘Is that Cameron – er – Strike?’

‘Speaking.’

‘It’s Jude Graham ’ere. Kath Kent’s neighbour. She’s back,’ said the female voice happily.

‘That’s good news,’ said Strike, with a thumbs-up to Robin.

‘Yeah, she got back this morning. Got a friend staying with ’er. I asked ’er where she’d been, but she wouldn’t say,’ said the neighbour.

Strike remembered that Jude Graham thought him a journalist.

‘Is the friend male or female?’

‘Female,’ she answered regretfully. ‘Tall skinny dark girl, she’s always hanging around Kath.’

‘That’s very helpful, Ms Graham,’ said Strike. ‘I’ll – er – put something through your door later for your trouble.’

‘Great,’ said the neighbour happily. ‘Cheers.’

She rang off.

‘Kath Kent’s back at home,’ Strike told Robin. ‘Sounds like she’s got Pippa Midgley staying with her.’

‘Oh,’ said Robin, trying not to smile. ‘I, er, suppose you’re regretting you put her in a headlock now?’

Strike grinned ruefully.

‘They’re not going to talk to me,’ he said.

‘No,’ Robin agreed. ‘I don’t think they will.’

‘Suits them fine, Leonora in the clink.’

‘If you told them your whole theory, they might cooperate,’ suggested Robin.

Strike stroked his chin, looking at Robin without seeing her.

‘I can’t,’ he said finally. ‘If it leaks out that I’m sniffing up that tree, I’ll be lucky not to get a knife in the back one dark night.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Robin,’ said Strike, mildly exasperated, ‘Quine was tied up and disembowelled.’

He sat down on the arm of the sofa, which squeaked less than the cushions but groaned under his weight, and said:

‘Pippa Midgley liked you.’

‘I’ll do it,’ said Robin at once.

‘Not alone,’ he said, ‘but maybe you could get me in? How about this evening?’

‘Of course!’ she said, elated.

Hadn’t she and Matthew established new rules? This was the first time she had tested him, but she went to the telephone with confidence. His reaction when she told him that she did not know when she would be home that night could not have been called enthusiastic, but he accepted the news without demur.

So, at seven o’clock that evening, having discussed at length the tactics that they were about to employ, Strike and Robin proceeded separately through the icy night, ten minutes apart with Robin in the lead, to Stafford Cripps House.

A gang of youths stood again in the concrete forecourt of the block and they did not permit Robin to pass with the wary respect they had accorded Strike two weeks previously. One of them danced backwards ahead of her as she approached the inner stairs, inviting her to party, telling her she was beautiful, laughing derisively at her silence, while his mates jeered behind her in the darkness, discussing her rear view. As they entered the concrete stairwell her taunter’s jeers echoed strangely. She thought he might be seventeen at most.

‘I need to go upstairs,’ she said firmly as he slouched across the stairwell for his mates’ amusement, but sweat had prickled on her scalp. He’s a kid, she told herself. And Strike’s right behind you. The thought gave her courage. ‘Get out of the way, please,’ she said.

He hesitated, dropped a sneering comment about her figure, and moved. She half expected him to grab her as she passed but he loped back to his mates, all of them calling filthy names after her as she climbed the stairs and emerged with relief, without being followed, on to the balcony leading to Kath Kent’s flat.