The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike, #2)(22)

Her walk was lopsided, because the hand not holding the umbrella was carrying two heavy carrier bags, but the impression she gave from this distance, regularly tossing back her thick curls, was not unattractive; her windblown hair was eye-catching and her legs beneath the loose overcoat were slender. Closer and closer she moved, unaware of his scrutiny from three floors up, across the concrete forecourt and out of sight.

Five minutes later she had emerged onto the balcony where Strike stood waiting. As she drew nearer, the straining buttons on the coat betrayed a heavy, apple-shaped torso. She did not notice Strike until she was ten yards away, because her head was bowed, but when she looked up he saw a lined and puffy face much older than he had expected. Coming to an abrupt halt, she gasped.

‘You!’

Strike realised that she was seeing him in silhouette because of the broken lights.

‘You f*cking bastard!’

The bags hit the concrete floor with a tinkle of breaking glass: she was running full tilt at him, hands balled into fists and flailing.

‘You bastard, you bastard, I’ll never forgive you, never, you get away from me!’

Strike was forced to parry several wild punches. He stepped backwards as she screeched, throwing ineffectual blows and trying to break past his ex-boxer’s defences.

‘You wait – Pippa’s going to f*cking kill you – you wait—’

The neighbour’s door opened again: there stood the same woman with a cigarette in her mouth.

‘Oi!’ she said.

Light from the hall flooded onto Strike, revealing him. With a half gasp, half yelp, the red-headed woman staggered backwards, away from him.

‘The f*ck’s going on?’ demanded the neighbour.

‘Case of mistaken identity, I think,’ said Strike pleasantly.

The neighbour slammed her door, plunging the detective and his assailant back into darkness.

‘Who are you?’ she whispered. ‘What do you want?’

‘Are you Kathryn Kent?’

‘What do you want?’

Then, with sudden panic, ‘If it’s what I think it is, I don’t work in that bit!’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Who are you, then?’ she demanded, sounding more frightened than ever.

‘My name’s Cormoran Strike and I’m a private detective.’

He was used to the reactions of people who found him unexpectedly on their doorsteps. Kathryn’s response – stunned silence – was quite typical. She backed away from him and almost fell over her own abandoned carrier bags.

‘Who’s set a private detective on me? It’s her, is it?’ she said ferociously.

‘I’ve been hired to find the writer Owen Quine,’ said Strike. ‘He’s been missing for nearly a fortnight. I know you’re a friend of his—’

‘No, I’m not,’ she said and bent to pick up her bags again; they clinked heavily. ‘You can tell her that from me. She’s welcome to him.’

‘You’re not his friend any more? You don’t know where he is?’

‘I don’t give a shit where he is.’

A cat stalked arrogantly along the edge of the stone balcony.

‘Can I ask when you last—?’

‘No, you can’t,’ she said with an angry gesture; one of the bags in her hand swung and Strike flinched, thinking that the cat, which had drawn level with her, would be knocked off the ledge into space. It hissed and leapt down. She aimed a swift, spiteful kick at it.

‘Damn thing!’ she said. The cat streaked away. ‘Move, please. I want to get into my house.’

He took a few steps back from the door to let her approach it. She could not find her key. After a few uncomfortable seconds of trying to pat her own pockets while carrying the bags she was forced to set them down at her feet.

‘Mr Quine’s been missing since he had a row with his agent about his latest book,’ said Strike, as Kathryn fumbled in her coat. ‘I was wondering whether—’

‘I don’t give a shit about his book. I haven’t read it,’ she added. Her hands were shaking.

‘Mrs Kent—’

‘Ms,’ she said.

‘Ms Kent, Mr Quine’s wife says a woman called at his house looking for him. By the description, it sounded—’

Kathryn Kent had found the key but dropped it. Strike bent to pick it up for her; she snatched it from his grasp.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You didn’t go looking for him at his house last week?’

‘I told you, I don’t know where he is, I don’t know anything,’ she snapped, ramming the key into the lock and turning it.

She caught up the two bags, one of which clinked heavily again. It was, Strike saw, from a local hardware store.

‘That looks heavy.’

‘My ballcock’s gone,’ she told him fiercely.

And she slammed her door in his face.





10





VERDONE: We came to fight.



CLEREMONT: Ye shall fight, Gentlemen,



And fight enough; but a short turn or two…



Francis Beaumont and Philip Massinger,

The Little French Lawyer