The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike, #2)(57)

‘Auntie Liz went in there,’ said Orlando.

‘When?’ asked Leonora, glaring at her daughter with two mugs in her hands.

‘When she came and you were in the loo,’ said Orlando. ‘She walked into Daddy’s study. I seen her.’

‘She don’t have no right to go in there,’ said Leonora. ‘Was she poking around?’

‘No,’ said Orlando. ‘She just walked in and then she walked out and she saw me an’ she was crying.’

‘Yeah,’ said Leonora with a satisfied air. ‘She was tearful with me an’ all. Another one feeling guilty.’

‘When did she come over?’ Strike asked Leonora.

‘First thing Monday,’ said Leonora. ‘Wanted to see if she could help. Help! She’s done enough.’

Strike’s tea was so weak and milky it looked as though it had never known a teabag; his preference was for a brew the colour of creosote. As he took a polite, token sip, he remembered Elizabeth Tassel’s avowed wish that Quine had died when her Dobermann bit him.

‘I like her lipstick,’ announced Orlando.

‘You like everyone’s everything today,’ said Leonora vaguely, sitting back down with her own mug of weak tea. ‘I asked her why she done it, why she told Owen he couldn’t publish his book, and upset him like that.’

‘And what did she say?’ asked Strike.

‘That he’s gone and put a load of real people in it,’ said Leonora. ‘I dunno why they’re so upset about that. He always does it.’ She sipped her tea. ‘He’s put me in loads of ’em.’

Strike thought of Succuba, the ‘well-worn whore’, and found himself despising Owen Quine.

‘I wanted to ask you about Talgarth Road.’

‘I don’t know why he went there,’ she said immediately. ‘He hated it. He wanted to sell it for years but that Fancourt wouldn’t.’

‘Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that.’

Orlando had slid onto the chair beside him, one bare leg twisted underneath her as she added vibrantly coloured fins to a picture of a large fish with a pack of crayons she appeared to have pulled from thin air.

‘How come Michael Fancourt’s been able to block the sale all these years?’

‘It’s something to do with how it was left to ’em by that bloke Joe. Something about how it was to be used. I dunno. You’d have to ask Liz, she knows all about it.’

‘When was the last time Owen was there, do you know?’

‘Years ago,’ she said. ‘I dunno. Years.’

‘I want more paper to draw,’ Orlando announced.

‘I haven’t got any more,’ said Leonora. ‘It’s all in Daddy’s study. Use the back of this.’

She seized a circular from the cluttered work surface and pushed it across the table to Orlando, but her daughter shoved it away and left the kitchen at a languid walk, the orang-utan swinging from her neck. Almost at once they heard her trying to force the door of the study.

‘Orlando, no!’ barked Leonora, jumping up and hurrying into the hall. Strike took advantage of her absence to lean back and pour away most of his milky tea into the sink; it spattered down the bouquet clinging traitorously to the cellophane.

‘No, Dodo. You can’t do that. No. We’re not allowed – we’re not allowed, get off it—’

A high-pitched wail and then a loud thudding proclaimed Orlando’s flight upstairs. Leonora reappeared in the kitchen with a flushed face.

‘I’ll be paying for that all day now,’ she said. ‘She’s unsettled. Don’t like the police here.’

She yawned nervously.

‘Have you slept?’ Strike asked.

‘Not much. Cos I keep thinking, Who? Who’d do it to him? He upsets people, I know that,’ she said distractedly, ‘but that’s just how he is. Temperamental. He gets angry over little things. He’s always been like that, he don’t mean anything by it. Who’d kill him for that?

‘Michael Fancourt must still have a key to the house,’ she went on, twisting her fingers together as she jumped subject. ‘I thought that last night when I couldn’t sleep. I know Michael Fancourt don’t like him, but that’s ages ago. Anyway, Owen never did that thing Michael said he did. He never wrote it. But Michael Fancourt wouldn’t kill Owen.’ She looked up at Strike with clear eyes as innocent as her daughter’s. ‘He’s rich, isn’t he? Famous… he wouldn’t.’

Strike had always marvelled at the strange sanctity conferred upon celebrities by the public, even while the newspapers denigrated, hunted or hounded them. No matter how many famous people were convicted of rape or murder, still the belief persisted, almost pagan in its intensity: not him. It couldn’t be him. He’s famous.

‘And that bloody Chard,’ burst out Leonora, ‘sending Owen threatening letters. Owen never liked him. And then he signs the card and says if there’s anything he can do… where’s that card?’

The card with the picture of violets had vanished from the table.

‘She’s got it,’ said Leonora, flushing angrily. ‘She’s taken it.’ And so loudly that it made Strike jump she bellowed ‘DODO!’ at the ceiling.