Robert Galbraith - The Silkworm

“Among other things. It’s as caustic a substance as you can legally buy and it’s used in a load of industrial processes. Heavy-duty cleaning agent as well. One weird thing about it is, it occurs naturally in humans. In our gastric acid.”

Strike sipped his beer, considering.

“In the book, they pour vitriol on him.”

“Vitriol’s sulphuric acid, and hydrochloric acid derives from it. Seriously corrosive to human tissue—as you saw.”

“Where the hell did the killer get that amount of the stuff?”

“Believe it or not, it looks like it was already in the house.”

“Why the hell—?”

“Still haven’t found anyone who can tell us. There were empty gallon containers on the kitchen floor, and dusty containers of the same description in a cupboard under the stairs, full of the stuff and unopened. They came from an industrial chemicals company in Birmingham. There were marks on the empty ones that looked as though they’d been made by gloved hands.”

“Very interesting,” said Strike, scratching his chin.

“We’re still trying to check when and how they were bought.”

“What about the blunt object that bashed his head in?”

“There’s an old-fashioned doorstop in the studio—solid iron and shaped like one, with a handle: almost certainly that. It fits with the impression in his skull. That’s had hydrochloric acid poured all over it like nearly everything else.”

“How’s time of death looking?”

“Yeah, well, that’s the tricky bit. The entomologist won’t commit himself, says the condition of the corpse throws out all the usual calculations. The fumes from the hydrochloric acid alone would’ve kept insects away for a while, so you can’t date the death from infestation. No self-respecting blowfly wants to lay eggs in acid. We had a maggot or two on bits of the body that weren’t doused in the stuff, but the usual infestation didn’t occur.

“Meanwhile, the heating in the house had been cranked right up, so the body might’ve rotted a bit faster than it would ordinarily have done in this weather. But the hydrochloric acid would’ve tended to mess with normal decomposition. Parts of him are burned to the bone.

“The deciding factor would have been the guts, last meal and so on, but they’d been lifted clean out of the body. Looks like they left with the killer,” said Anstis. “I’ve never heard of that being done before, have you? Pounds of raw intestine taken away.”

“No,” said Strike, “it’s a new one on me.”

“Bottom line: forensics are refusing to commit themselves to a time frame except to say he’s been dead at least ten days. But I had a private word with Underhill, who’s the best of them, and he told me off the record that he thinks Quine’s been dead a good two weeks. He reckons, though, even when they’ve got everything in the evidence’ll still be equivocal enough to give defending counsel a lot to play with.”

“What about pharmacology?” asked Strike, his thoughts circling back to Quine’s bulk, the difficulty of handling a body that big.

“Well, he might’ve been drugged,” agreed Anstis. “We haven’t had blood results back yet and we’re analyzing the contents of the bottles in the kitchen as well. But”—he finished his beer and set down the glass with a flourish—“there’s another way he could’ve made things easy for a killer. Quine liked being tied up—sex games.”

“How d’you know that?”

“The girlfriend,” said Anstis. “Kathryn Kent.”

“You’ve already talked to her, have you?”

“Yep,” said Anstis. “We found a taxi driver who picked up Quine at nine o’clock on the fifth, a couple of streets away from his house, and dropped him in Lillie Road.”

“Right by Stafford Cripps House,” said Strike. “So he went straight from Leonora to the girlfriend?”

“Well, no, he didn’t. Kent was away, staying with her dying sister, and we’ve got corroboration—she spent the night at the hospice. She says she hasn’t seen him for a month, but was surprisingly forthcoming on their sex life.”

“Did you ask for details?”

“I got the impression she thought we knew more than we did. They came pouring out without much prodding.”

“Suggestive,” said Strike. “She told me she’d never read Bombyx Mori —”

“She told us that too.”

“—but her character ties up and assaults the hero in the book. Maybe she wanted it on record that she ties people up for sex, not torture or murder. What about the copy of the manuscript Leonora says he took away with him? All the notes and the old typewriter ribbons? Did you find them?”

“Nope,” said Anstis. “Until we find out whether he stayed somewhere else before he went to Talgarth Road, we’re going to assume the killer took them. The place was empty except for a bit of food and drink in the kitchen and a camping mattress and sleeping bag in one of the bedrooms. It looks like Quine was dossing down there. Hydrochloric acid’s been poured around that room too, all over Quine’s bed.”

“No fingerprints? Footprints? Unexplained hair, mud?”

“Nothing. We’ve still got people working on the place, but the acid’s obliterated everything in its path. Our people are wearing masks just so the fumes don’t rip their throats out.”

“Anyone apart from this taxi driver admitted to seeing Quine since he disappeared?”

“Nobody’s seen him entering Talgarth Road but we’ve got a neighbor at number 183 who swears she saw Quine leave it at one in the morning. Early hours of the sixth. The neighbor was letting herself in after a bonfire-night party.”

“It was dark and she was two doors down, so what she actually saw was…?”

“Silhouette of a tall figure in a cloak, carrying a holdall.”

“A holdall,” repeated Strike.

“Yep,” said Anstis.

“Did the cloaked figure get into a car?”

“No, it walked out of sight, but obviously a car could have been parked round the corner.”

“Anyone else?”

“I’ve got an old geezer in Putney swearing he saw Quine on the eighth. Rang his local police station and described him accurately.”

“What was Quine doing?”

“Buying books in the Bridlington Bookshop, where the bloke works.”

“How convincing a witness is he?”

“Well, he’s old, but he claims he can remember what Quine bought and the physical description’s good. And we’ve got another woman who lives in the flats across the road from the crime scene who reckons she passed Michael Fancourt walking past the house, also on the morning of the eighth. You know, that author with the big head? Famous one?”

“Yeah, I do,” said Strike slowly.

“Witness claims she looked back at him over her shoulder and stared, because she recognized him.”

“He was just walking past?”

“So she claims.”

“Anybody checked that with Fancourt yet?”

“He’s in Germany, but he’s said he’s happy to cooperate with us when he gets back. Agent bending over backwards to be helpful.”

“Any other suspicious activity around Talgarth Road? Camera footage?”

“The only camera’s at the wrong angle for the house, it watches traffic—but I’m saving the best till last. We’ve got a different neighbor—other side, four doors down—who swears he saw a fat woman in a burqa letting herself in on the afternoon of the fourth, carrying a plastic bag from a halal takeaway. He says he noticed because the house had been empty so long. He claims she was there for an hour, then left.”

“He’s sure she was in Quine’s house?”

“So he says.”

“And she had a key?”

“That’s his story.”

“A burqa,” repeated Strike. “Bloody hell.”