Robert Galbraith - The Silkworm

The dogs would still be out on Mucking Marshes. He imagined them as he attached the prosthesis, his knee puffier and more painful than ever; their sensitive, quivering noses probing the freshest patches of landfill under these threatening gunmetal clouds, beneath circling seagulls. They might already have started, given the limited daylight, dragging their handlers through the frozen garbage, searching for Owen Quine’s guts. Strike had worked alongside sniffer dogs. Their wriggling rumps and wagging tails always added an incongruously cheerful note to searches.

He was disconcerted by how painful it was to walk downstairs. Of course, in an ideal world he would have spent the previous day with an ice pack pressed to the end of his stump, his leg elevated, not tramping all over London because he needed to stop himself thinking about Charlotte and her wedding, soon to take place in the restored chapel of the Castle of Croy…not Croy Castle, because it annoys the fucking family . Nine days to go…

The telephone rang on Robin’s desk as he unlocked the glass door. Wincing, he hurried to get it. The suspicious lover and boss of Miss Brocklehurst wished to inform Strike that his PA was at home in his bed with a bad cold, so he was not to be charged for surveillance until she was up and about again. Strike had barely replaced the receiver when it rang again. Another client, Caroline Ingles, announced in a voice throbbing with emotion that she and her errant husband had reconciled. Strike was offering insincere congratulations when Robin arrived, pink-faced with cold.

“It’s getting worse out there,” she said when he had hung up. “Who was that?”

“Caroline Ingles. She’s made up with Rupert.”

“ What? ” said Robin, stunned. “After all those lap-dancers?”

“They’re going to work on their marriage for the sake of the kids.”

Robin made a little snort of disbelief.

“Snow looks bad up in Yorkshire,” Strike commented. “If you want to take tomorrow off and leave early—?”

“No,” said Robin, “I’ve booked myself on the Friday-night sleeper, I should be fine. If we’ve lost Ingles, I could call one of the waiting-list clients—?”

“Not yet,” said Strike, slumping down on the sofa and unable to stop his hand sliding to his swollen knee as it protested painfully.

“Is it still sore?” Robin asked diffidently, pretending she had not seen him wince.

“Yeah,” said Strike. “But that’s not why I don’t want to take on another client,” he added sharply.

“I know,” said Robin, who had her back to him, switching on the kettle. “You want to concentrate on the Quine case.”

Strike was not sure whether her tone was reproachful.

“She’ll pay me,” he said shortly. “Quine had life insurance, she made him take it out. So there’s money there now.”

Robin heard his defensiveness and did not like it. Strike was making the assumption that her priority was money. Hadn’t she proved that it was not when she had turned down much better paid jobs to work for him? Hadn’t he noticed the willingness with which she was trying to help him prove that Leonora Quine had not killed her husband?

She set a mug of tea, a glass of water and paracetamol down beside him.

“Thanks,” he said, through gritted teeth, irritated by the painkillers even though he intended to take a double dose.

“I’ll book a taxi to take you to Pescatori at twelve, shall I?”

“It’s only round the corner,” he said.

“You know, there’s pride, and then there’s stupidity,” said Robin, with one of the first flashes of real temper he had ever seen in her.

“Fine,” he said, eyebrows raised. “I’ll take a bloody taxi.”

And in truth, he was glad of it three hours later as he limped, leaning heavily on the cheap stick, which was now warping from his weight, to the taxi waiting at the end of Denmark Street. He knew now that he ought not to have put on the prosthesis at all. Getting out of the cab a few minutes later in Charlotte Street was tricky, the taxi driver impatient. Strike reached the noisy warmth of Pescatori with relief.

Elizabeth was not yet there but had booked under her name. Strike was shown to a table for two beside a pebble-set and whitewashed wall. Rustic wooden beams crisscrossed the ceiling; a rowing boat was suspended over the bar. Across the opposite wall were jaunty orange leather booths. From force of habit, Strike ordered a pint, enjoying the light, bright Mediterranean charm of his surroundings, watching the snow drifting past the windows.

The agent arrived not long afterwards. He tried to stand as she approached the table but fell back down again quickly. Elizabeth did not seem to notice.

She looked as though she had lost weight since he had last seen her; the well-cut black suit, the scarlet lipstick and the steel-gray bob did not lend her dash today, but looked like a badly chosen disguise. Her face was yellowish and seemed to sag.

“How are you?” he asked.

“How do you think I am?” she croaked rudely. “What?” she snapped at a hovering waiter. “Oh. Water. Still.”

She picked up her menu with an air of having given away too much and Strike could tell that any expression of pity or concern would be unwelcome.

“Just soup,” she told the waiter when he returned for their order.

“I appreciate you seeing me again,” Strike said when the waiter had departed.

“Well, God knows Leonora needs all the help she can get,” said Elizabeth.

“Why do you say that?”

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at him.

“Don’t pretend to be stupid. She told me she insisted on being brought to Scotland Yard to see you, right after she got the news about Owen.”

“Yeah, she did.”

“And how did she think that would look? The police probably expected her to collapse in a heap and all sh-she wants to do is see her detective friend.”

She suppressed a cough with difficulty.

“I don’t think Leonora gives any thought to the impression she makes on other people,” said Strike.

“N-no, well, you’re right there. She’s never been the brightest.”

Strike wondered what impression Elizabeth Tassel thought she made on the world; whether she realized how little she was liked. She allowed the cough that she had been trying to suppress free expression and he waited for the loud, seal-like barks to pass before asking:

“You think she should have faked some grief?”

“I don’t say it’s fake,” snapped Elizabeth. “I’m sure she is upset in her own limited way. I’m just saying it wouldn’t hurt to play the grieving widow a bit more. It’s what people expect.”

“I suppose you’ve talked to the police?”

“Of course. We’ve been through the row in the River Café, over and over the reason I didn’t read the damn book properly. And they wanted to know my movements after I last saw Owen. Specifically, the three days after I saw him.”

She glared interrogatively at Strike, whose expression remained impassive.

“I take it they think he died within three days of our argument?”

“I’ve no idea,” lied Strike. “What did you tell them about your movements?”

“That I went straight home after Owen stormed out on me, got up at six next morning, took a taxi to Paddington and went to stay with Dorcus.”

“One of your writers, I think you said?”

“Yes, Dorcus Pengelly, she—”

Elizabeth noticed Strike’s small grin and, for the first time in their acquaintance, her face relaxed into a fleeting smile.

“It’s her real name, if you can believe it, not a pseudonym. She writes pornography dressed up as historical romance. Owen was very sniffy about her books, but he’d have killed for her sales. They go,” said Elizabeth, “like hotcakes.”