The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike, #2)(55)

‘Can I ask who you are, sir?’

‘Yeah, I expect so,’ said Strike, walking past him and ringing the doorbell. Anstis’s dinner invitation notwithstanding, he was not feeling sympathetic to the police just now. ‘Should be just about within your capabilities.’

The door opened and Strike found himself face to face with a tall, gangling girl with sallow skin, a mop of curly light brown hair, a wide mouth and an ingenuous expression. Her eyes, which were a clear, pale green, were large and set far apart. She was wearing what was either a long sweatshirt or a short dress that ended above bony knees and fluffy pink socks, and she was cradling a large plush orang-utan to her flat chest. The toy ape had Velcro attachments on its paws and was hanging around her neck.

‘Hullo,’ she said. She swayed very gently, side to side, putting weight first on one foot, then on the other.

‘Hello,’ said Strike. ‘Are you Orlan—?’

‘Can I have your name, please, sir?’ asked the young policeman loudly.

‘Yeah, all right – if I can ask why you’re standing outside this house,’ said Strike with a smile.

‘There’s been press interest,’ said the young policeman.

‘A man came,’ said Orlando, ‘and with a camera and Mum said—’

‘Orlando!’ called Leonora from inside the house. ‘What are you doing?’

She came stumping down the hall behind her daughter, gaunt and white-faced in an ancient navy blue dress with its hem hanging down.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it’s you. Come in.’

As he stepped over the threshold, Strike smiled at the policeman, who glared back.

‘What’s your name?’ Orlando asked Strike as the front door closed behind them.

‘Cormoran,’ he said.

‘That’s a funny name.’

‘Yeah, it is,’ said Strike and something made him add, ‘I was named after a giant.’

‘That’s funny,’ said Orlando, swaying.

‘Go in,’ said Leonora curtly, pointing Strike towards the kitchen. ‘I need the loo. Be with you in a mo.’

Strike proceeded down the narrow hallway. The door of the study was closed and, he suspected, still locked.

On reaching the kitchen he discovered to his surprise that he was not the only visitor. Jerry Waldegrave, the editor from Roper Chard, was sitting at the kitchen table, clutching a bunch of flowers in sombre purples and blues, his pale face anxious. A second bunch of flowers, still in its cellophane, protruded from a sink half filled with dirty crockery. Supermarket bags of food sat unpacked on the sides.

‘Hi,’ said Waldegrave, scrambling to his feet and blinking earnestly at Strike through his horn-rimmed glasses. Evidently he did not recognise the detective from their previous meeting on the dark roof garden because he asked, as he held out his hand, ‘Are you family?’

‘Family friend,’ said Strike as they shook hands.

‘Terrible thing,’ said Waldegrave. ‘Had to come and see if I could do anything. She’s been in the bathroom ever since I arrived.’

‘Right,’ said Strike.

Waldegrave resumed his seat. Orlando edged crabwise into the dark kitchen, cuddling her furry orang-utan. A very long minute passed while Orlando, clearly the most at ease, unabashedly stared at both of them.

‘You’ve got nice hair,’ she announced at last to Jerry Waldegrave. ‘It’s like a hairstack.’

‘I suppose it is,’ said Waldegrave and he smiled at her. She edged out again.

Another brief silence followed, during which Waldegrave fidgeted with the flowers, his eyes darting around the kitchen.

‘Can’t believe it,’ he said at last.

They heard the loud flushing of a toilet upstairs, a thumping on the stairs, and Leonora returned with Orlando at her heels.

‘Sorry,’ she said to the two men. ‘I’m a bit upset.’

It was obvious that she was referring to her stomach.

‘Look, Leonora,’ said Jerry Waldegrave in an agony of awkwardness, getting to his feet, ‘I don’t want to intrude when you’ve got your friend here—’

‘Him? He’s not a friend, he’s a detective,’ said Leonora.

‘Sorry?’

Strike remembered that Waldegrave was deaf in one ear.

‘He’s called a name like a giant,’ said Orlando.

‘He’s a detective,’ said Leonora loudly, over her daughter.

‘Oh,’ said Waldegrave, taken aback. ‘I didn’t – why—?’

‘Cos I need one,’ said Leonora shortly. ‘The police think I done it to Owen.’

There was a silence. Waldegrave’s discomfort was palpable.

‘My daddy died,’ Orlando informed the room. Her gaze was direct and eager, seeking a reaction. Strike, who felt that something was required of one of them, said:

‘I know. It’s very sad.’

‘Edna said it was sad,’ replied Orlando, as though she had hoped for something more original, and she slid out of the room again.

‘Sit down,’ Leonora invited the two men. ‘They for me?’ she added, indicating the flowers in Waldegrave’s hand.

‘Yes,’ he said, fumbling a little as he handed them over but remaining on his feet. ‘Look, Leonora, I don’t want to take up any of your time just now, you must be so busy with – with arrangements and—’