Robert Galbraith - The Silkworm

“He doesn’t.”

The words were out of her mouth before Robin could consider them. In her blanket desire to refute everything that Strike was saying she had let an unpalatable truth escape her. The fact was that Matthew had very little imagination. He had not seen Strike covered in blood after the killer of Lula Landry had stabbed him. Even her description of Owen Quine lying trussed and disemboweled seemed to have been blurred for him by the thick miasma of jealousy through which he heard everything connected to Strike. His antipathy for her job owed nothing to protectiveness and she had never admitted as much to herself before.

“It can be dangerous, what I do,” said Strike through another huge bite of burger, as though he had not heard her.

“I’ve been useful to you,” said Robin, her voice thicker than his, though her mouth was empty.

“I know you have. I wouldn’t be where I am now if I hadn’t had you,” said Strike. “Nobody was ever more grateful than me for a temping agency’s mistake. You’ve been incredible, I couldn’t have—don’t bloody cry, that family’s gawping enough already.”

“I don’t give a monkey’s,” said Robin into a handful of paper napkins and Strike laughed.

“If it’s what you want,” he told the top of her red-gold head, “you can go on a surveillance course when I’ve got the money. But if you’re my partner-in-training, there’ll be times that I’m going to have to ask you to do stuff that Matthew might not like. That’s all I’m saying. You’re the one who’s going to have to work it out.”

“And I will,” said Robin, fighting to contain the urge to bawl. “That’s what I want. That’s why I stayed.”

“Then cheer the fuck up and eat your burger.”

Robin found it hard to eat with the huge lump in her throat. She felt shaken but elated. She had not been mistaken: Strike had seen in her what he possessed himself. They were not people who worked merely for the paycheck…

“So, tell me about Daniel Chard,” she said.

He did so while the nosy family of four gathered up their things and left, still throwing covert glances at the couple they could not quite work out (had it been a lovers’ tiff? A family row? How had it been so speedily resolved?).

“Paranoid, bit eccentric, self-obsessed,” concluded Strike five minutes later, “but there might be something in it. Jerry Waldegrave could’ve collaborated with Quine. On the other hand, he might’ve resigned because he’d had enough of Chard, who I don’t think would be an easy bloke to work for.

“D’you want a coffee?”

Robin glanced at her watch. The snow was still falling; she feared delays on the motorway that would prevent her catching the train to Yorkshire, but after their conversation she was determined to demonstrate her commitment to the job, so she agreed to one. In any case, there were things she wished to say to Strike while she was still sitting opposite him. It would not be nearly as satisfying to tell him while in the driver’s seat, where she could not watch his reaction.

“I found out a bit about Chard myself,” she said when she had returned with two cups and an apple pie for Strike.

“Servants’ gossip?”

“No,” said Robin. “They barely said a word to me while I was in the kitchen. They both seemed in foul moods.”

“According to Chard, they don’t like it in Devon. Prefer London. Are they brother and sister?”

“Mother and son, I think,” said Robin. “He called her Mamu.

“Anyway, I asked to go to the bathroom and the staff loo’s just next to an artist’s studio. Daniel Chard knows a lot about anatomy,” said Robin. “There are prints of Leonardo da Vinci’s anatomical drawings all over the walls and an anatomical model in one corner. Creepy—wax. And on the easel,” she said, “was a very detailed drawing of Manny the Manservant. Lying on the ground, in the nude.”

Strike put down his coffee.

“Those are very interesting pieces of information,” he said slowly.

“I thought you’d like them,” said Robin, with a demure smile.

“Shines an interesting side-light on Manny’s assurance that he didn’t push his boss down the stairs.”

“They really didn’t like you being there,” said Robin, “but that might have been my fault. I said you were a private detective, but Nenita—her English isn’t as good as Manny’s—didn’t understand, so I said you were a kind of policeman.”

“Leading them to assume that Chard had invited me over to complain about Manny’s violence towards him.”

“Did Chard mention it?”

“Not a word,” said Strike. “Much more concerned about Waldegrave’s alleged treachery.”

After visits to the bathroom they returned to the cold, where they had to screw up their eyes against oncoming snow as they traversed the car park. A light frosting had already settled over the top of the Toyota.

“You’re going to make it to King’s Cross, right?” said Strike, checking his watch.

“Unless we hit trouble on the motorway,” said Robin, surreptitiously touching the wood trim on the door’s interior.

They had just reached the M4, where there were weather warnings on every sign and where the speed limit had been reduced to sixty, when Strike’s mobile rang.

“Ilsa? What’s going on?”

“Hi, Corm. Well, it could be worse. They haven’t arrested her, but that was some intense questioning.”

Strike turned the mobile onto speakerphone for Robin’s benefit and together they listened, similar frowns of concentration on their faces as the car moved through a vortex of swirling snow, rushing the windscreen.

“They definitely think it’s her,” said Ilsa.

“Based on what?”

“Opportunity,” said Ilsa, “and her manner. She really doesn’t help herself. Very grumpy at being questioned and kept talking about you, which put their backs up. She said you’ll find out who really did it.”

“Bloody hell,” said Strike, exasperated. “And what was in the lockup?”

“Oh yeah, that. It was a burned, bloodstained rag in among a pile of junk.”

“Big effing deal,” said Strike. “Could’ve been there years.”

“Forensics will find out, but I agree, it’s not much to go on seeing as they haven’t even found the guts yet.”

“You know about the guts?”

“Everyone knows about the guts now, Corm. It’s been on the news.”

Strike and Robin exchanged fleeting looks.

“When?”

“Lunchtime. I think the police knew it was about to break and brought her in to see if they could squeeze anything out of her before it all became common knowledge.”

“It’s one of their lot who’s leaked it,” said Strike angrily.

“That’s a big accusation.”

“I had it from the journalist who was paying the copper to talk.”

“Know some interesting people, don’t you?”

“Comes with the territory. Thanks for letting me know, Ilsa.”

“No problem. Try and keep her out of jail, Corm. I quite like her.”

“Who is that?” Robin asked as Ilsa hung up.

“Old school friend from Cornwall; lawyer. She married one of my London mates,” said Strike. “I put Leonora onto her because—shit.”

They had rounded a bend to find a huge tailback ahead of them. Robin applied the brake and they drew up behind a Peugeot.

“ Shit, ” repeated Strike, with a glance at Robin’s set profile.

“Another accident,” said Robin. “I can see flashing lights.”

Her imagination showed her Matthew’s face if she had to telephone him and say that she was not coming, that she had missed the sleeper. His mother’s funeral… who misses a funeral ? She should have been there already, at Matt’s father’s house, helping with arrangements, taking some of the strain. Her weekend bag ought already to have been sitting in her old bedroom at home, her funeral clothes pressed and hanging in her old wardrobe, everything ready for the short walk to the church the following morning. They were burying Mrs. Cunliffe, her future mother-in-law, but she had chosen to drive off into the snow with Strike, and now they were gridlocked, two hundred miles from the church where Matthew’s mother would be laid to rest.