The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike, #2)(25)

‘Mysterious,’ said Strike. ‘Tightened security… women’s prison? Psychiatric hospital? Or are we talking industrial secrets?’

‘And look at this, on the thirteenth of November.’

Robin scrolled right down to the most recent post on the blog, which was the only entry after that in which Kathryn claimed to have been fatally stabbed.



My beloved sister has lost her long battle with breast cancer three days ago. Thank you all for your good wishes and support.





Two comments had been added below this, which Robin opened.

Pippa2011 had written:



So sorry to hear this Kath. Sending you all the love in the world xxx.





Kathryn had replied:



Thanks Pippa your a real friend xxxx





Kathryn’s advance thanks for multiple messages of support sat very sadly above the short exchange.

‘Why?’ asked Strike heavily.

‘Why what?’ said Robin, looking up at him.

‘Why do people do this?’

‘Blog, you mean? I don’t know… didn’t someone once say the unexamined life isn’t worth living?’

‘Yeah, Plato,’ said Strike, ‘but this isn’t examining a life, it’s exhibiting it.’

‘Oh God!’ said Robin, slopping tea down herself as she gave a guilty start. ‘I forgot, there’s something else! Christian Fisher called just as I was walking out the door last night. He wants to know if you’re interested in writing a book.’

‘He what?’

‘A book,’ said Robin, fighting the urge to laugh at the expression of disgust on Strike’s face. ‘About your life. Your experiences in the army and solving the Lula Landry—’

‘Call him back,’ Strike said, ‘and tell him no, I’m not interested in writing a book.’

He drained his mug and headed for the peg where an ancient leather jacket now hung beside his black overcoat.

‘You haven’t forgotten tonight?’ Robin said, with the knot that had temporarily dissolved tight in her stomach again.

‘Tonight?’

‘Drinks,’ she said desperately. ‘Me. Matthew. The King’s Arms.’

‘No, haven’t forgotten,’ he said, wondering why she looked so tense and miserable. ‘’Spect I’ll be out all afternoon, so I’ll see you there. Eight, was it?’

‘Six thirty,’ said Robin, tenser than ever.

‘Six thirty. Right. I’ll be there… Venetia.’

She did a double-take.

‘How did you know—?’

‘It’s on the invitation,’ said Strike. ‘Unusual. Where did that come from?’

‘I was – well, I was conceived there, apparently,’ she said, pink in the face. ‘In Venice. What’s your middle name?’ she asked over his laughter, half amused, half cross. ‘C. B. Strike – what’s the B?’

‘Got to get going,’ said Strike. ‘See you at eight.’

‘Six thirty!’ she bellowed at the closing door.



Strike’s destination that afternoon was a shop that sold electronic accessories in Crouch End. Stolen mobile phones and laptops were unlocked in a back room, the personal information therein extracted, and the purged devices and the information were then sold separately to those who could use them.

The owner of this thriving business was causing Mr Gunfrey, Strike’s client, considerable inconvenience. Mr Gunfrey, who was every bit as crooked as the man whom Strike had tracked to his business headquarters, but on a larger and more flamboyant scale, had made a mistake in treading on the wrong toes. It was Strike’s view that Gunfrey needed to clear out while he was ahead. He knew of what this adversary was capable; they had an acquaintance in common.

The target greeted Strike in an upstairs office that smelled as bad as Elizabeth Tassel’s, while two shell-suited youths lolled around in the background picking their nails. Strike, who was impersonating a thug for hire recommended by their mutual acquaintance, listened as his would-be employer confided that he was intending to target Mr Gunfrey’s teenage son, about whose movements he was frighteningly well informed. He went so far as to offer Strike the job: five hundred pounds to cut the boy. (‘I don’t want no murder, jussa message to his father, you get me?’)

It was gone six before Strike managed to extricate himself from the premises. His first call, once he had made sure he had not been followed, was to Mr Gunfrey himself, whose appalled silence told Strike that he had at last realised what he was up against.

Strike then phoned Robin.

‘Going to be late, sorry,’ he said.

‘Where are you?’ she asked, sounding strained. He could hear the sounds of the pub behind her: conversation and laughter.

‘Crouch End.’

‘Oh God,’ he heard her say under her breath. ‘It’ll take you ages—’

‘I’ll get a cab,’ he assured her. ‘Be as quick as I can.’

Why, Strike wondered, as he sat in the taxi rumbling along Upper Street, had Matthew chosen a pub in Waterloo? To make sure that Strike had to travel a long way? Payback for Strike having chosen pubs convenient to him on their previous attempts to meet? Strike hoped the King’s Arms served food. He was suddenly very hungry.