The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike, #2)(52)

‘Did you never hear about the Australian woman who skinned her lover, decapitated him, cooked his head and buttocks and tried to serve him up to his kids?’

‘You’re not serious.’

‘I’m totally serious. Look it up on the net. When women turn, they really turn,’ said Strike.

‘He was a big man…’

‘If it was a woman he trusted? A woman he met for sex?’

‘Who do we know for sure has read it?’

‘Christian Fisher, Elizabeth Tassel’s assistant Ralph, Tassel herself, Jerry Waldegrave, Daniel Chard – they’re all characters, except Ralph and Fisher. Nina Lascelles—’

‘Who are Waldegrave and Chard? Who’s Nina Lascelles?’

‘Quine’s editor, the head of his publisher and the girl who helped me nick this,’ said Strike, giving the manuscript a slap.

Robin’s mobile rang for the third time.

‘Sorry,’ she said impatiently, and picked it up. ‘Yes?’

‘Robin.’

Matthew’s voice sounded strangely congested. He never cried and he had never before shown himself particularly overcome by remorse at an argument.

‘Yes?’ she said, a little less sharply.

‘Mum’s had another stroke. She’s – she’s—’

An elevator drop in the pit of her stomach.

‘Matt?’

He was crying.

‘Matt?’ she repeated urgently.

‘’S dead,’ he said, like a little boy.

‘I’m coming,’ said Robin. ‘Where are you? I’ll come now.’

Strike was watching her face. He saw tidings of death there and hoped it was nobody she loved, neither of her parents, none of her brothers…

‘All right,’ she was saying, already on her feet. ‘Stay there. I’m coming.

‘It’s Matt’s mother,’ she told Strike. ‘She’s died.’

It felt utterly unreal. She could not believe it.

‘They were only talking on the phone last night,’ she said. Remembering Matt’s rolling eyes and the muffled voice she had just heard, she was overwhelmed with tenderness and sympathy. ‘I’m so sorry but—’

‘Go,’ said Strike. ‘Tell him I’m sorry, will you?’

‘Yes,’ said Robin, trying to fasten her handbag, her fingers grown clumsy in her agitation. She had known Mrs Cunliffe since primary school. She slung her raincoat over her arm. The glass door flashed and closed behind her.

Strike’s eyes remained fixed for a few seconds on the place where Robin had vanished. Then he looked down at his watch. It was barely nine o’clock. The brunette divorcée whose emeralds lay in his safe was due at the office in just over half an hour.

He cleared and washed the mugs, then took out the necklace he had recovered, locked up the manuscript of Bombyx Mori in the safe instead, refilled the kettle and checked his emails.

They’ll postpone the wedding.

He did not want to feel glad about it. Pulling out his mobile, he called Anstis, who answered almost at once.

‘Bob?’

‘Anstis, I don’t know whether you’ve already got this, but there’s something you should know. Quine’s last novel describes his murder.’

‘Say that again?’

Strike explained. It was clear from the brief silence after he had finished speaking that Anstis had not yet had the information.

‘Bob, I need a copy of that manuscript. If I send someone over—?’

‘Give me three quarters of an hour,’ said Strike.

He was still photocopying when his brunette client arrived.

‘Where’s your secretary?’ were her first words, turning to him with a coquettish show of surprise, as though she was sure he had arranged for them to be alone.

‘Off sick. Diarrhoea and vomiting,’ said Strike repressively. ‘Shall we go through?’





20





Is Conscience a comrade for an old Soldier?



Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, The False One





Late that evening Strike sat alone at his desk while the traffic rumbled through the rain outside, eating Singapore noodles with one hand and scribbling a list for himself with the other. The rest of the day’s work over, he was free to turn his attention fully to the murder of Owen Quine and in his spiky, hard-to-read handwriting was jotting down those things that must be done next. Beside some of them he had jotted the letter A for Anstis, and if it had crossed Strike’s mind that it might be considered arrogant or deluded of a private detective with no authority in the investigation to imagine he had the power to delegate tasks to the police officer in charge of the case, the thought did not trouble him.

Having worked with Anstis in Afghanistan, Strike did not have a particularly high opinion of the police officer’s abilities. He thought Anstis competent but unimaginative, an efficient recogniser of patterns, a reliable pursuer of the obvious. Strike did not despise these traits – the obvious was usually the answer and the methodical ticking of boxes the way to prove it – but this murder was elaborate, strange, sadistic and grotesque, literary in inspiration and ruthless in execution. Was Anstis capable of comprehending the mind that had nurtured a plan of murder in the fetid soil of Quine’s own imagination?