Robert Galbraith - The Silkworm

“No, I want to know whether it’ll look suspicious if she takes me to the party.”

“Oh, right. I think she’s just split up with someone. I dunno. I’ll text you the number. Wait till Sunday,” Culpepper added with barely suppressed glee. “A tsunami of shit’s about to hit Lord Porker.”

“Call Nina for me first, will you?” Strike asked him. “And tell her who I am, so she understands the gig?”

Culpepper agreed to it and rang off. In no particular hurry to return to Matthew, Strike smoked his cigarette down to the butt before moving back inside.

The packed room, he thought, as he made his way across it, bowing his head to avoid hanging pots and street signs, was like Matthew: it tried too hard. The decor included an old-fashioned stove and an ancient till, multiple shopping baskets, old prints and plates: a contrived panoply of junk-shop finds.

Matthew had hoped to have finished his noodles before Strike returned, to underline the length of his absence, but had not quite managed it. Robin was looking miserable and Strike, wondering what had passed between them while he had been gone, felt sorry for her.

“Robin says you’re a rugby player,” he told Matthew, determined to make an effort. “Could’ve played county, is that right?”

They made laborious conversation for another hour: the wheels turned most easily while Matthew was able to talk about himself. Strike noticed Robin’s habit of feeding Matthew lines and cues, each designed to open up an area of conversation in which he could shine.

“How long have you two been together?” he asked.

“Nine years,” said Matthew, with a slight return of his former combative air.

“That long?” said Strike, surprised. “What, were you at university together?”

“School,” said Robin, smiling. “Sixth form.”

“Wasn’t a big school,” said Matthew. “She was the only girl with any brains who was fanciable. No choice.”

Tosser , thought Strike.

Their way home lay together as far as Waterloo station; they walked through the darkness, continuing to make small talk, then parted at the entrance to the Tube.

“There,” said Robin hopelessly, as she and Matthew walked away towards the escalator. “He’s nice, isn’t he?”

“Punctuality’s shit,” said Matthew, who could find no other charge to lay against Strike that did not sound insane. “He’ll probably arrive forty minutes bloody late and ruin the service.”

But it was tacit consent to Strike’s attendance and, in the absence of genuine enthusiasm, Robin supposed it could have been worse.

Matthew, meanwhile, was brooding in silence on things he would have confessed to nobody. Robin had accurately described her boss’s looks—the pube-like hair, the boxer’s profile—but Matthew had not expected Strike to be so big. He had a couple of inches on Matthew, who enjoyed being the tallest man in his office. What was more, while he would have found it distasteful showboating if Strike had held forth about his experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, or told them how his leg had been blown off, or how he had earned the medal that Robin seemed to find so impressive, his silence on these subjects had been almost more irritating. Strike’s heroism, his action-packed life, his experiences of travel and danger had somehow hovered, spectrally, over the conversation.

Beside him on the train, Robin too sat in silence. She had not enjoyed the evening one bit. Never before had she known Matthew quite like that; or at least, never before had she seen him like that. It was Strike, she thought, puzzling over the matter as the train jolted them. Strike had somehow made her see Matthew through his eyes. She did not know quite how he had done it—all that questioning Matthew about rugby—some people might have thought it was polite, but Robin knew better…or was she just annoyed that he had been late, and blaming him for things that he had not intended?

And so the engaged couple sped home, united in unexpressed irritation with the man now snoring loudly as he rattled away from them on the Northern line.

Let me know

Wherefore I should be thus neglected.

John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Is that Cormoran Strike?” asked a girlish upper-middle-class voice at twenty to nine the following morning.

“It is,” said Strike.

“It’s Nina. Nina Lascelles. Dominic gave me your number.”

“Oh yeah,” said Strike, who was standing bare-chested in front of the shaving mirror he usually kept beside the kitchen sink, the shower room being both dark and cramped. Wiping shaving foam from around his mouth with his forearm, he said:

“Did he tell you what it was about, Nina?”

“Yeah, you want to infiltrate Roper Chard’s anniversary party.”

“‘Infiltrate’ is a bit strong.”

“But it sounds much more exciting if we say ‘infiltrate.’”

“Fair enough,” he said, amused. “I take it you’re up for this?”

“Oooh, yes, fun. Am I allowed to guess why you want to come and spy on everyone?”

“Again, ‘spy’ isn’t really—”

“Stop spoiling things. Am I allowed a guess?”

“Go on then,” said Strike, taking a sip from his mug of tea, his eyes on the window. It was foggy again; the brief spell of sunshine extinguished.

“ Bombyx Mori ,” said Nina. “Am I right? I am, aren’t I? Say I’m right.”

“You’re right,” said Strike and she gave a squeal of pleasure.

“I’m not even supposed to be talking about it. There’s been a lockdown, emails round the company, lawyers storming in and out of Daniel’s office. Where shall we meet? We should hook up somewhere first and turn up together, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, definitely,” said Strike. “Where’s good for you?”

Even as he took a pen from the coat hanging behind the door he thought longingly of an evening at home, a good long sleep, an interlude of peace and rest before an early start on Saturday morning, tailing his brunet client’s faithless husband.

“D’you know Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese?” asked Nina. “On Fleet Street? Nobody from work’ll be in there, and it’s walking distance to the office. I know it’s corny but I love it.”

They agreed to meet at seven thirty. As Strike returned to his shaving, he asked himself how likely it was that he would meet anyone who knew Quine’s whereabouts at his publisher’s party. The trouble is , Strike mentally chided the reflection in the circular mirror as the pair of them strafed stubble from their chins, you keep acting like you’re still SIB. The nation’s not paying you to be thorough anymore, mate.

But he knew no other way; it was part of a short but inflexible personal code of ethics that he had carried with him all his adult life: do the job and do it well.

Strike was intending to spend most of the day in the office, which under normal circumstances he enjoyed. He and Robin shared the paperwork; she was an intelligent and often helpful sounding board and as fascinated now with the mechanics of an investigation as she had been when she had joined him. Today, however, he headed downstairs with something bordering on reluctance and, sure enough, his seasoned antennae detected in her greeting a self-conscious edge that he feared would shortly break through into “What did you think of Matthew?”

This, Strike reflected, retiring to the inner office and shutting the door on the pretext of making phone calls, was exactly why it was a bad idea to meet your only member of staff outside working hours.

Hunger forced him to emerge a few hours later. Robin had bought sandwiches as usual, but she had not knocked on the door to let him know that they were there. This, too, seemed to point to feelings of awkwardness after the previous evening. To postpone the moment when it must be mentioned, and in the hope that if he kept off the subject long enough she might never bring it up (although he had never known the tactic to work on a woman before), Strike told her truthfully that he had just got off the phone with Mr. Gunfrey.