Robert Galbraith - The Silkworm

The seats by the fire were taken. Strike bought himself a pint, picked up a bar menu and headed to the tall table surrounded by bar stools next to the window onto the street. As he sat down he noticed, sandwiched between pictures of Duke Ellington and Robert Plant, his own long-haired father, sweaty post-performance, apparently sharing a joke with the bass player whom he had once, according to Strike’s mother, tried to strangle.

(“Jonny was never good on speed,” Leda had confided to her uncomprehending nine-year-old son.)

His mobile rang again. With his eyes on his father’s picture, he answered.

“Hi,” said Robin. “I’m back at the office. Where are you?”

“The Albion on Hammersmith Road.”

“You’ve had an odd call. I found the message when I got back.”

“Go on.”

“It’s Daniel Chard,” said Robin. “He wants to meet you.”

Frowning, Strike turned his eyes away from his father’s leather jumpsuit to gaze down the pub at the flickering fire. “Daniel Chard wants to meet me? How does Daniel Chard even know I exist?”

“For God’s sake, you found the body! It’s been all over the news.”

“Oh yeah—there’s that. Did he say why?”

“He says he’s got a proposition.”

A vivid mental image of a naked, bald man with an erect, suppurating penis flashed in Strike’s mind like a projector slide and was instantly dismissed.

“I thought he was holed up in Devon because he’d broken his leg.”

“He is. He wonders whether you’d mind traveling down to see him.”

“Oh, does he?”

Strike pondered the suggestion, thinking of his workload, the meetings he had during the rest of the week. Finally, he said:

“I could do it Friday if I put off Burnett. What the hell does he want? I’ll need to hire a car. An automatic,” he added, his leg throbbing painfully under the table. “Could you do that for me?”

“No problem,” said Robin. He could hear her scribbling.

“I’ve got a lot to tell you,” he said. “D’you want to join me for lunch? They’ve got a decent menu. Shouldn’t take you more than twenty minutes if you grab a cab.”

“Two days running? We can’t keep getting taxis and buying lunch out,” said Robin, even though she sounded pleased at the idea.

“That’s OK. Burnett loves spending her ex’s money. I’ll charge it to her account.”

Strike hung up, decided on a steak and ale pie and limped to the bar to order.

When he resumed his seat his eyes drifted absently back to his father in skin-tight leathers, with his hair plastered around his narrow, laughing face.

The Wife knows about me and pretends not to … she won’t let him go even if it’s the best thing for everyone.

I know where you’re off to, Owen!

Strike’s gaze slid along the row of black-and-white megastars on the wall facing him.

Am I deluded? he asked John Lennon silently, who looked down at him through round glasses, sardonic, pinch-nosed.

Why did he not believe, even in the face of what he had to admit were suggestive signs to the contrary, that Leonora had murdered her husband? Why did he remain convinced that she had come to his office not as a cover but because she was genuinely angry that Quine had run away like a sulky child? He would have sworn on oath that it had never crossed her mind that her husband might be dead…Lost in thought, he had finished his pint before he knew it.

“Hi,” said Robin.

“That was quick!” said Strike, surprised to see her.

“Not really,” said Robin. “Traffic’s quite heavy. Shall I order?”

Male heads turned to look at her as she walked to the bar, but Strike did not notice. He was still thinking about Leonora Quine, thin, plain, graying, hunted.

When Robin returned with another pint for Strike and a tomato juice for herself she showed him the photographs that she had taken on her phone that morning of Daniel Chard’s town residence. It was a white stucco villa complete with balustrade, its gleaming black front door flanked by columns.

“It’s got an odd little courtyard, sheltered from the street,” said Robin, showing Strike a picture. Shrubs stood in big-bellied Grecian urns. “I suppose Chard could have dumped the guts into one of those,” she said flippantly. “Pulled out the tree and buried them in the earth.”

“Can’t imagine Chard doing anything so energetic or dirty, but that’s the way to keep thinking,” said Strike, remembering the publisher’s immaculate suit and flamboyant tie. “How about Clem Attlee Court—as full of hiding places as I remember?”

“Loads of them,” said Robin, showing him a fresh set of pictures. “Communal bins, bushes, all sorts. The only thing is, I just can’t imagine being able to do it unseen, or that somebody wouldn’t notice them fairly quickly. There are people around all the time and everywhere you go you’re being overlooked by about a hundred windows. You might manage it in the middle of the night, but there are cameras too.

“But I did notice something else. Well…it’s just an idea.”

“Go on.”

“There’s a medical center right in front of the building. Might they not sometimes dispose of—”

“Human waste!” said Strike, lowering his pint. “Bloody hell, that’s a thought.”

“Should I get onto it, then?” asked Robin, trying to conceal the pleasure and pride she felt at Strike’s look of admiration. “Try and find out how and when—?”

“Definitely!” said Strike. “That’s a much better lead than Anstis’s. He thinks,” he explained, answering her look of inquiry, “the guts were dumped in a skip close by Talgarth Road, that the killer just carried them round the corner and chucked them in.”

“Well, they could have,” began Robin, but Strike frowned exactly the way Matthew did if ever she mentioned an idea or a belief of Strike’s.

“This killing was planned to the hilt. We’re not dealing with a murderer who’d just have dumped a holdall full of human guts round the corner from the corpse.”

They sat in silence while Robin reflected wryly that Strike’s dislike of Anstis’s theories might be due to innate competitiveness more than any objective evaluation. Robin knew something about male pride; quite apart from Matthew, she had three brothers.

“So what were Elizabeth Tassel’s and Jerry Waldegrave’s places like?”

Strike told her about Waldegrave’s wife thinking he had been watching her house.

“Very shirty about it.”

“Odd,” said Robin. “If I saw somebody staring at our place I wouldn’t leap to the conclusion that they were—you know— watching it.”

“She’s a drinker like her husband,” said Strike. “I could smell it on her. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Tassel’s place is as good a murderer’s hideout as I’ve ever seen.”

“What d’you mean?” asked Robin, half amused, half apprehensive.

“Very private, barely overlooked.”

“Well, I still don’t think—”

“—it’s a woman. You said.”

Strike drank his beer in silence for a minute or two, considering a course of action that he knew would irritate Anstis more than any other. He had no right to interrogate suspects. He had been told to keep out of the way of the police.

Picking up his mobile, he contemplated it for a moment, then called Roper Chard and asked to speak to Jerry Waldegrave.

“Anstis told you not to get under their feet!” Robin said, alarmed.

“Yeah,” said Strike, the line silent in his ear, “advice he’s just repeated, but I haven’t told you half what’s been going on. Tell you in—”

“Hello?” said Jerry Waldegrave on the end of the line.