Robert Galbraith - The Silkworm

“I thought from the start that Quine must’ve had some hold on you,” said Strike. “You never seemed like the kind of woman who’d let herself be turned into a private bank and skivvy, who’d choose to keep Quine and let Fancourt go. All that bull about freedom of expression… you wrote the parody of Elspeth Fancourt’s book that made her kill herself. All these years, there’s only been your word for it that Owen showed you the piece he’d written. It was the other way round.”

There was silence except for the rustle of snow on snow and that faint, eerie sound emanating from Elizabeth Tassel’s chest. Fancourt was looking from the agent to the detective, open-mouthed.

“The police suspected that Quine was blackmailing you,” Strike said, “but you fobbed them off with a touching story about lending him money for Orlando. You’ve been paying Owen off for more than a quarter of a century, haven’t you?”

He was trying to goad her into speech, but she said nothing, continuing to stare at him out of the dark empty eyes like holes in her plain, pale face.

“How did you describe yourself to me when we had lunch?” Strike asked her. “‘The very definition of a blameless spinster’? Found an outlet for your frustrations, though, didn’t you, Elizabeth?”

The mad, blank eyes swiveled suddenly towards Fancourt, who had shifted where he stood.

“Did it feel good, raping and killing your way through everyone you knew, Elizabeth? One big explosion of malice and obscenity, revenging yourself on everyone, painting yourself as the unacclaimed genius, taking sideswipes at everyone with a more successful love life, a more satisfying—”

A soft voice spoke in the darkness, and for a second Strike did not know where it was coming from. It was strange, unfamiliar, high-pitched and sickly: the voice a madwoman might imagine to express innocence, kindliness.

“No, Mr. Strike,” she whispered, like a mother telling a sleepy child not to sit up, not to struggle. “You poor silly man. You poor thing.”

She forced a laugh that left her chest heaving, her lungs whistling.

“He was badly hurt in Afghanistan,” she said to Fancourt in that eerie, crooning voice. “I think he’s shell-shocked. Brain damaged, just like little Orlando. He needs help, poor Mr. Strike.”

Her lungs whistled as she breathed faster.

“Should’ve bought a mask, Elizabeth, shouldn’t you?” Strike asked.

He thought he saw the eyes darken and enlarge, her pupils dilating with the adrenaline coursing through her. The large, mannish hands had curled into claws.

“Thought you had it all worked out, didn’t you? Ropes, disguise, protective clothing to protect yourself against the acid—but you didn’t realize you’d get tissue damage just from inhaling the fumes.”

The cold air was exacerbating her breathlessness. In her panic, she sounded sexually excited.

“I think,” said Strike, with calculated cruelty, “it’s driven you literally mad, Elizabeth, hasn’t it? Better hope the jury buys that anyway, eh? What a waste of a life. Your business down the toilet, no man, no children…Tell me, was there ever an abortive coupling between the two of you?” asked Strike bluntly, watching their profiles. “This ‘limp dick’ business…sounds to me like Quine might’ve fictionalized it in the real Bombyx Mori .”

With their backs to the light he could not see their expressions, but their body language had given him his answer: the instantaneous swing away from each other to face him had expressed the ghost of a united front.

“When was this?” Strike asked, watching the dark outline that was Elizabeth. “After Elspeth died? But then you moved on to Fenella Waldegrave, eh, Michael? No trouble keeping it up there, I take it?”

Elizabeth emitted a small gasp. It was as though he had hit her.

“For Christ’s sake,” growled Fancourt. He was angry with Strike now. Strike ignored the implicit reproach. He was still working on Elizabeth, goading her, while her whistling lungs struggled for oxygen in the falling snow.

“Must’ve really pissed you off when Quine got carried away and started shouting about the contents of the real Bombyx Mori in the River Café, did it, Elizabeth? After you’d warned him not to breathe a word about the contents?”

“Insane. You’re insane,” she whispered, with a forced smile beneath the shark eyes, her big yellow teeth glinting. “The war didn’t just cripple you—”

“Nice,” said Strike appreciatively. “There’s the bullying bitch everyone’s told me you are—”

“You hobble around London trying to get in the papers,” she panted. “You’re just like poor Owen, just like him…how he loved the papers, didn’t he, Michael?” She turned to appeal to Fancourt. “Didn’t Owen adore publicity? Running off like a little boy playing hide-and-seek…”

“You encouraged Quine to go and hide in Talgarth Road,” said Strike. “That was all your idea.”

“I won’t listen to any more,” she whispered and her lungs were whistling as she gasped the winter air and she raised her voice: “ I’m not listening, Mr. Strike, I’m not listening. Nobody’s listening to you, you poor silly man …”

“You told me Quine was a glutton for praise,” said Strike, raising his voice over the high-pitched chant with which she was trying to drown out his words. “I think he told you his whole prospective plot for Bombyx Mori months ago and I think Michael here was in there in some form—nothing as crude as Vainglorious, but mocked for not getting it up, perhaps? ‘Payback time for both of you,’ eh?”

And as he had expected, she gave a little gasp at that and stopped her frantic chanting.

“You told Quine that Bombyx Mori sounded brilliant, that it would be the best thing he’d ever done, that it was going to be a massive success, but that he ought to keep the contents very, very quiet in case of legal action, and to make a bigger splash when it was unveiled. And all the time you were writing your own version. You had plenty of time on your hands to get it right, didn’t you, Elizabeth? Twenty-six years of empty evenings, you could have written plenty of books by now, with your first from Oxford…but what would you write about? You haven’t exactly lived a full life, have you?”

Naked rage flickered across her face. Her fingers flexed, but she controlled herself. Strike wanted her to crack, wanted her to give in, but the shark’s eyes seemed to be waiting for him to show weakness, for an opening.

“You crafted a novel out of a murder plan. The removal of the guts and the covering of the corpse in acid weren’t symbolic, they were designed to screw forensics—but everyone bought it as literature.

“And you got that stupid, egotistical bastard to collude in planning his own death. You told him you had a great idea for maximizing his publicity and his profits: the pair of you would stage a very public row—you saying the book was too contentious to put out there—and he’d disappear. You’d circulate rumors about the book’s contents and finally, when Quine allowed himself to be found, you’d secure him a big fat deal.”

She was shaking her head, her lungs audibly laboring, but her dead eyes did not leave his face.

“He delivered the book. You delayed a few days, until bonfire night, to make sure you had lots of nice diversionary noise, then you sent out copies of the fake Bombyx to Fisher—the better to get the book talked about—to Waldegrave and to Michael here. You faked your public row, then you followed Quine to Talgarth Road—”

“No,” said Fancourt, apparently unable to help himself.

“Yes,” said Strike, pitiless. “Quine didn’t realize he had anything to fear from Elizabeth—not from his coconspirator in the comeback of the century. I think he’d almost forgotten by then that what he’d been doing to you for years was blackmail, hadn’t he?” he asked Tassel. “He’d just developed the habit of asking you for money and being given it. I doubt you ever even talked about the parody anymore, the thing that ruined your life…