The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike, #2)(38)

‘Fuck!’

Two-all: unbelievably Spurs had drawn level. Strike threw the manuscript aside, appalled. Arsenal’s defence was crumbling before his eyes. This should have been a win. They had been set to go top of the league.

‘FUCK!’ Strike bellowed ten minutes later as a header soared past Fabiański.

Spurs had won.

He turned off the TV with several more expletives and checked his watch. There was only half an hour in which to shower and change before picking up Nina Lascelles in St John’s Wood; the round trip to Bromley was going to cost him a fortune. He contemplated the prospect of the final quarter of Quine’s manuscript with distaste, feeling much sympathy for Elizabeth Tassel, who had skimmed the final passages.

He was not even sure why he was reading it, other than curiosity.

Downcast and irritable, he moved off towards the shower, wishing that he could have spent the night at home and feeling, irrationally, that if he had not allowed his attention to be distracted by the obscene, nightmarish world of Bombyx Mori, Arsenal might have won.





15





I tell you ’tis not modish to know relations in town.



William Congreve, The Way of the World





‘So? What did you think of Bombyx Mori?’ Nina asked him as they pulled away from her flat in a taxi he could ill afford. If he had not invited her, Strike would have made the journey to Bromley and back by public transport, time-consuming and inconvenient though that would have been.

‘Product of a diseased mind,’ said Strike.

Nina laughed.

‘But you haven’t read any of Owen’s other books; they’re nearly as bad. I admit this one’s got a serious gag factor. What about Daniel’s suppurating knob?’

‘I haven’t got there yet. Something to look forward to.’

Beneath yesterday evening’s warm woollen coat she was wearing a clinging, strappy black dress, of which Strike had had an excellent view when she had invited him into her St John’s Wood flat while she collected bag and keys. She was also clutching a bottle of wine that she had seized from her kitchen when she saw that he was empty-handed. A clever, pretty girl with nice manners, but her willingness to meet him the very night following their first introduction, and that night a Saturday to boot, hinted at recklessness, or perhaps neediness.

Strike asked himself again what he thought he was playing at as they rolled away from the heart of London towards a realm of owner-occupiers, towards spacious houses crammed with coffee makers and HD televisions, towards everything that he had never owned and which his sister assumed, anxiously, must be his ultimate ambition.

It was like Lucy to throw him a birthday dinner at her own house. She was fundamentally unimaginative and, even though she often seemed more harried there than anywhere else, she rated her home’s attractions highly. It was like her to insist on giving him a dinner he didn’t want, but which she could not understand him not wanting. Birthdays in Lucy’s world were always celebrated, never forgotten: there must be cake and candles and cards and presents; time must be marked, order preserved, traditions upheld.

As the taxi passed through the Blackwall Tunnel, speeding them below the Thames into south London, Strike recognised that the act of bringing Nina with him to the family party was a declaration of non-conformity. In spite of the conventional bottle of wine held on her lap, she was highly strung, happy to take risks and chances. She lived alone and talked books not babies; she was not, in short, Lucy’s kind of woman.

Nearly an hour after he had left Denmark Street, with his wallet fifty pounds lighter, Strike helped Nina out into the dark chill of Lucy’s street and led her down a path beneath the large magnolia tree that dominated the front garden. Before ringing the doorbell Strike said, with some reluctance:

‘I should probably tell you: this is a birthday dinner. For me.’

‘Oh, you should have said! Happy—’

‘It isn’t today,’ said Strike. ‘No big deal.’

And he rang the doorbell.

Strike’s brother-in-law, Greg, let them inside. A lot of arm slapping followed, as well as an exaggerated show of pleasure at the sight of Nina. This emotion was conspicuous by its absence in Lucy, who bustled down the hall holding a spatula like a sword and wearing an apron over her party dress.

‘You didn’t say you were bringing someone!’ she hissed in Strike’s ear as he bent to kiss her cheek. Lucy was short, blonde and round-faced; nobody ever guessed that they were related. She was the result of another of their mother’s liaisons with a well-known musician. Rick was a rhythm guitarist who, unlike Strike’s father, maintained an amicable relationship with his offspring.

‘I thought you asked me to bring a guest,’ Strike muttered to his sister as Greg ushered Nina into the sitting room.

‘I asked whether you were going to,’ said Lucy angrily. ‘Oh God – I’ll have to go and set an extra – and poor Marguerite—’

‘Who’s Marguerite?’ asked Strike, but Lucy was already hurrying off towards the dining room, spatula aloft, leaving her guest of honour alone in the hall. With a sigh, Strike followed Greg and Nina into the sitting room.

‘Surprise!’ said a fair-haired man with a receding hairline, getting up from the sofa at which his bespectacled wife was beaming at Strike.