The Silkworm (44 page)

By the light of the old-fashioned street lamp the cartoonish murals covering the front of the Chelsea Arts Club were strangely eerie. Circus freaks had been painted on the rainbow-stippled walls of a long low line of ordinarily white houses knocked into one: a four-legged blonde girl, an elephant eating its keeper, an etiolated contortionist in prison stripes whose head appeared to be disappearing up his own anus. The club stood in a leafy, sleepy and genteel street, quiet with the snow that had returned with a vengeance, falling fast and mounting over roofs and pavements as though the brief respite in the arctic winter had never been. All through Thursday the blizzard had grown thicker and now, viewed through a rippling lamp-lit curtain of icy flakes, the old club in its fresh pastel colours appeared strangely insubstantial, pasteboard scenery, a
trompe l’œil
marquee.

Strike was standing in a shadowy alley off Old Church Street, watching as one by one they arrived for their small party. He saw the aged Pinkelman helped from his taxi by a stone-faced Jerry Waldegrave, while Daniel Chard stood in a fur hat on his crutches, nodding and smiling an awkward welcome. Elizabeth Tassel drew up alone in a cab, fumbling for her fare and shivering in the cold. Lastly, in a car with a driver, came Michael Fancourt. He took his time getting out of the car, straightening his coat before proceeding up the steps to the front door.

The detective, on whose dense curly hair the snow was falling thickly, pulled out his mobile and rang his half-brother.

‘Hey,’ said Al, who sounded excited. ‘They’re all in the dining room.’

‘How many?’

‘’Bout a dozen of them.’

‘Coming in now.’

Strike limped across the street with the aid of his stick. They let him in at once when he gave his name and explained that he was here as Duncan Gilfedder’s guest.

Al and Gilfedder, a celebrity photographer whom Strike was meeting for the first time, stood a short way inside the entrance. Gilfedder seemed confused as to who Strike was, or why he, a member of this eccentric and charming club, had been asked by his acquaintance Al to invite a guest whom he did not know.

‘My brother,’ said Al, introducing them. He sounded proud.

‘Oh,’ said Gilfedder blankly. He wore the same type of glasses as Christian Fisher and his lank hair was cut in a straggly shoulder-length bob. ‘I thought your brother was younger.’

‘That’s Eddie,’ said Al. ‘This is Cormoran. Ex-army. He’s a detective now.’

‘Oh,’ said Gilfedder, looking even more bemused.

‘Thanks for this,’ Strike said, addressing both men equally. ‘Get you another drink?’

The club was so noisy and packed it was hard to see much of it except glimpses of squashy sofas and a crackling log fire. The walls of the low-ceilinged bar were liberally covered in prints, paintings and photographs; it had the feeling of a country house, cosy and a little scruffy. As the tallest man in the room, Strike could see over the crowd’s heads towards the windows at the rear of the club. Beyond lay a large garden lit by exterior lights so that it was illuminated in patches. A thick, pristine layer of snow, pure and smooth as royal icing, lay over verdant shrubbery and the stone sculptures lurking in the undergrowth.

Strike reached the bar and ordered wine for his companions, glancing as he did so into the dining room.

Those eating filled several long wooden tables. There was the Roper Chard party, with a pair of French windows beside them, the garden icy white and ghostly behind the glass. A dozen people, some of whom Strike did not recognise, had gathered to honour the ninety-year-old Pinkelman, who was sitting at the head of the table. Whoever had been in charge of the
placement
, Strike saw, had sat Elizabeth Tassel and Michael Fancourt well apart. Fancourt was talking loudly into Pinkelman’s ear, Chard opposite him. Elizabeth Tassel was sitting next to Jerry Waldegrave. Neither was speaking to the other.

Strike passed glasses of wine to Al and Gilfedder, then returned to the bar to fetch a whisky for himself, deliberately maintaining a clear view of the Roper Chard party.

‘Why,’ said a voice, clear as a bell but somewhere below him, ‘are
you
here?’

Nina Lascelles was standing at his elbow in the same strappy black dress she had worn to his birthday dinner. No trace of her former giggly flirtatiousness remained. She looked accusatory.

‘Hi,’ said Strike, surprised. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here.’

‘Nor I you,’ she said.

He had not returned any of her calls for over a week, not since the night he had slept with her to rid himself of thoughts of Charlotte on her wedding day.

‘So you know Pinkelman,’ said Strike, trying for small talk in the face of what he could tell was animosity.

‘I’m taking over some of Jerry’s authors now he’s leaving. Pinks is one of them.’

‘Congratulations,’ said Strike. Still, she did not smile. ‘Waldegrave still came to the party, though?’

‘Pinks is fond of Jerry. Why,’ she repeated, ‘are
you
here?’

‘Doing what I was hired to do,’ said Strike. ‘Trying to find out who killed Owen Quine.’

She rolled her eyes, clearly feeling that he was pushing his persistence past a joke.

‘How did you get in here? It’s members only.’

‘I’ve got a contact,’ said Strike.

‘You didn’t think of using me again, then?’ she asked.

He did not much like the reflection of himself he saw in her large mouse-like eyes. There was no denying that he had used her repeatedly. It had become cheap, shameful, and she deserved better.

‘I thought that might be getting old,’ said Strike.

‘Yeah,’ said Nina. ‘You thought right.’

She turned from him and walked back to the table, filling the last vacant seat, between two employees whom he did not know.

Strike was in Jerry Waldegrave’s direct line of vision. Waldegrave caught sight of him and Strike saw the editor’s eyes widen behind his horn-rimmed glasses. Alerted by Waldegrave’s transfixed stare, Chard twisted in his seat and he, too, clearly recognised Strike.

‘How’s it going?’ asked Al excitedly at Strike’s elbow.

‘Great,’ said Strike. ‘Where’s that Gilsomething gone?’

‘Downed his drink and left. Doesn’t know what the hell we’re up to,’ said Al.

Al did not know why they were here either. Strike had told him nothing except that he needed entry to the Chelsea Arts Club tonight and that he might need a lift. Al’s bright red Alfa Romeo Spider sat parked a little down the road. It had been agony on Strike’s knee to get in and out of the low-slung vehicle.

As he had intended, half the Roper Chard table now seemed acutely aware of his presence. Strike was positioned so that he could see them reflected clearly in the dark French windows. Two Elizabeth Tassels were glaring at him over their menus, two Ninas were determinedly ignoring him and two shiny-pated Chards summoned a waiter each and muttered in their ears.

‘Is that the bald bloke we saw in the River Café?’ asked Al.

‘Yeah,’ said Strike, grinning as the solid waiter separated from his reflected wraith and made his way towards them. ‘I think we’re about to be asked whether we’ve got the right to be in here.’

‘Very sorry, sir,’ began the waiter in a mutter as he reached Strike, ‘but could I ask—?’

‘Al Rokeby – my brother and I are here with Duncan Gilfedder,’ said Al pleasantly before Strike could respond. Al’s tone expressed surprise that they had been challenged at all. He was a charming and privileged young man who was welcome everywhere, whose credentials were impeccable and whose casual roping of Strike into the family pen conferred upon him that same sense of easy entitlement. Jonny Rokeby’s eyes looked out of Al’s narrow face. The waiter muttered hasty apologies and retreated.

‘Are you just trying to put the wind up them?’ asked Al, staring over at the publisher’s table.

‘Can’t hurt,’ said Strike with a smile, sipping his whisky as he watched Daniel Chard deliver what was clearly a stilted speech in Pinkelman’s honour. A card and present were brought out from under the table. For every look and smile they gave the old writer, there was a nervous glance towards the large, dark man staring at them from the bar. Michael Fancourt alone had not looked around. Either he remained in ignorance of the detective’s presence, or was untroubled by it.

When starters had been put in front of them all, Jerry Waldegrave got to his feet and moved out from the table towards the bar. Nina and Elizabeth’s eyes followed him. On Waldegrave’s way to the bathroom he merely nodded at Strike, but on the way back, he paused.

‘Surprised to see you here.’

‘Yeah?’ said Strike.

‘Yeah,’ said Waldegrave. ‘You’re, er… making people feel uncomfortable.’

‘Nothing I can do about that,’ said Strike.

‘You could try not staring us out.’

‘This is my brother, Al,’ said Strike, ignoring the request.

Al beamed and held out a hand, which Waldegrave shook, seeming nonplussed.

‘You’re annoying Daniel,’ Waldegrave told Strike, looking directly into the detective’s eyes.

‘That’s a shame,’ said Strike.

The editor rumpled his untidy hair.

‘Well, if that’s your attitude.’

‘Surprised you care how Daniel Chard feels.’

‘I don’t particularly,’ said Waldegrave, ‘but he can make life unpleasant for other people when he’s in a bad mood. I’d like tonight to go well for Pinkelman. I can’t understand why you’re here.’

‘Wanted to make a delivery,’ said Strike.

He pulled a blank white envelope out from an inside pocket.

‘What is this?’

‘It’s for you,’ said Strike.

Waldegrave took it, looking utterly confused.

‘Something you should think about,’ said Strike, moving closer to the bemused editor in the noisy bar. ‘Fancourt had mumps, you know, before his wife died.’

‘What?’ said Waldegrave, bewildered.

‘Never had kids. Pretty sure he’s infertile. Thought you might be interested.’

Waldegrave stared at him, opened his mouth, found nothing to say, then walked away, still clutching the white envelope.

‘What was that?’ Al asked Strike, agog.

‘Plan A,’ said Strike. ‘We’ll see.’

Waldegrave sat back down at the Roper Chard table. Mirrored in the black window beside him, he opened the envelope Strike had given him. Puzzled, he pulled out a second envelope. There was a scribbled name on this one.

The editor looked up at Strike, who raised his eyebrows.

Jerry Waldegrave hesitated, then turned to Elizabeth Tassel and passed her the envelope. She read what was written on it, frowning. Her eyes flew to Strike’s. He smiled and toasted her with his glass.

She seemed uncertain as to what to do for a moment; then she nudged the girl beside her and passed the envelope on.

It travelled up the table and across it, into the hands of Michael Fancourt.

‘There we are,’ said Strike. ‘Al, I’m going into the garden for a fag. Stay here and keep your phone on.’

‘They don’t allow mobiles—’

But Al caught sight of Strike’s expression and amended hastily:

‘Will do.’

The garden was deserted and bitterly cold. Strike sank up to his ankles in snow, unable to feel the cold seeping through his right trouser leg. All the smokers who would ordinarily have congregated on the smooth lawns had chosen the street instead. He ploughed a solitary trench through the frozen whiteness, surrounded by silent beauty, coming to a halt beside a small round pond that had become a disc of thick grey ice. A plump bronze cupid sat in the middle on an oversized clam shell. It wore a wig of snow and pointed its bow and arrow, not anywhere that it might hit a human being, but straight up at the dark heavens.

Strike lit a cigarette and turned back to look at the blazing windows of the club. The diners and waiters looked like paper cutouts moving against a lit screen.

If Strike knew his man, he would come. Wasn’t this an irresistible situation to a writer, to the compulsive spinner of experience into words, to a lover of the macabre and the strange?

And sure enough, after a few minutes Strike heard a door open, a snatch of conversation and music hastily muffled, then the sound of deadened footsteps.

‘Mr Strike?’

Fancourt’s head looked particularly large in the darkness.

‘Would it not be easier to go on to the street?’

‘I’d rather do this in the garden,’ said Strike.

‘I see.’

Fancourt sounded vaguely amused, as though he intended, at least in the short term, to humour Strike. The detective suspected that it appealed to the writer’s sense of theatre that he should be the one summoned from the table of anxious people to talk to the man who was making them all so nervous.

‘What’s this about?’ asked Fancourt.

‘Value your opinion,’ said Strike. ‘Question of critical analysis of
Bombyx
Mori
.’

‘Again?’ said Fancourt.

His good humour was cooling with his feet. He pulled his coat more closely around him and said, the snow falling thick and fast:

‘I’ve said everything I want to say about that book.’

‘One of the first things I was told about
Bombyx Mori
,’ said Strike, ‘was that it was reminiscent of your early work. Gore and arcane symbolism, I think were the words used.’

‘So?’ said Fancourt, hands in his pockets.

‘So, the more I’ve talked to people who knew Quine, the clearer it’s become that the book that everyone’s read bears only a vague resemblance to the one he claimed to be writing.’

Fancourt’s breath rose in a cloud before him, obscuring the little that Strike could see of his heavy features.

‘I’ve even met a girl who says she heard part of the book that doesn’t appear in the final manuscript.’

‘Writers cut,’ said Fancourt, shuffling his feet, his shoulders hunched up around his ears. ‘Owen would have done well to cut a great deal more. Several novels, in fact.’

‘There are also all the duplications from his earlier work,’ said Strike. ‘Two hermaphrodites. Two bloody bags. All that gratuitous sex.’

‘He was a man of limited imagination, Mr Strike.’

‘He left behind a scribbled note with what looks like a bunch of possible character names on it. One of those names appears on a used typewriter cassette that came out of his study before the police sealed it off, but it’s nowhere in the finished manuscript.’

‘So he changed his mind,’ said Fancourt irritably.

‘It’s an everyday name, not symbolic or archetypal like the names in the finished manuscript,’ said Strike.

His eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness, Strike saw a look of faint curiosity on Fancourt’s heavy-featured face.

‘A restaurant full of people witnessed what I think is going to turn out to be Quine’s last meal and his final public performance,’ Strike went on. ‘A credible witness says that Quine shouted for the whole restaurant to hear that one of the reasons Tassel was too cowardly to represent the book was “Fancourt’s limp dick”.’

He doubted that he and Fancourt were clearly visible to the jittery people at the publisher’s table. Their figures would blend with the trees and statuary, but the determined or desperate might still be able to make out their location by the tiny luminous eye of Strike’s glowing cigarette: a marksman’s bead.

‘Thing is, there’s nothing in
Bombyx Mori
about your dick,’ continued Strike. ‘There’s nothing in there about Quine’s mistress and his young transgendered friend being “beautiful lost souls”, which is how he told them he was going to describe them. And you don’t pour acid on silkworms; you boil them to get their cocoons.’

‘
So?
’ repeated Fancourt.

‘So I’ve been forced to the conclusion,’ said Strike, ‘that the
Bombyx Mori
everyone’s read is a different book to the
Bombyx Mori
Owen Quine wrote.’

Fancourt stopped shuffling his feet. Momentarily frozen, he appeared to give Strike’s words serious consideration.

‘I – no,’ he said, almost, it seemed, to himself. ‘Quine wrote that book. It’s his style.’

‘It’s funny you should say that, because everyone else who had a decent ear for Quine’s particular style seems to detect a foreign voice in the book. Daniel Chard thought it was Waldegrave. Waldegrave thought it was Elizabeth Tassel. And Christian Fisher heard
you
.’

Fancourt shrugged with his usual easy arrogance.

‘Quine was trying to imitate a better writer.’

‘Don’t you think the way he treats his living models is strangely uneven?’

Fancourt, accepting the cigarette Strike offered him and a light, now listened in silence and with interest.

‘He says his wife and agent were parasites on him,’ Strike said. ‘Unpleasant, but the sort of accusation anyone could throw at the people who might be said to live off his earnings. He implies his mistress isn’t fond of animals and throws in something that could either be a veiled reference to her producing crap books or a pretty sick allusion to breast cancer. His transgendered friend gets off with a jibe about vocal exercises – and that’s after she claimed she showed him the life story she was writing and shared all her deepest secrets. He accuses Chard of effectively killing Joe North, and makes a crass suggestion of what Chard really wanted to do to him. And there’s the accusation that you were responsible for your first wife’s death.

‘All of which is either in the public domain, public gossip or an easy accusation to sling.’

‘Which isn’t to say it wasn’t hurtful,’ said Fancourt quietly.

‘Agreed,’ said Strike. ‘It gave plenty of people reason to be pissed off at him. But the only real revelation in the book is the insinuation that you fathered Joanna Waldegrave.’

‘I told you – as good as told you – last time we met,’ said Fancourt, sounding tense, ‘that that accusation is not only false but impossible. I am infertile, as Quine—’

‘—as Quine should have known,’ agreed Strike, ‘because you and he were still ostensibly on good terms when you had mumps and he’d already made a jibe about it in
The Balzac Brothers
. And that makes the accusation contained in the Cutter even stranger, doesn’t it? As though it was written by someone who didn’t know that you were infertile. Didn’t any of this occur to you when you read the book?’

The snow fell thickly on the two men’s hair, on their shoulders.

‘I didn’t think Owen cared whether any of it was true or not,’ said Fancourt slowly, exhaling smoke. ‘Mud sticks. He was just flinging a lot around. I thought he was looking to cause as much trouble as possible.’

‘D’you think that’s why he sent you an early copy of the manuscript?’ When Fancourt did not respond, Strike went on: ‘It’s easily checkable, you know. Courier – postal service – there’ll be a record. You might as well tell me.’

A lengthy pause.

‘All right,’ said Fancourt, at last.

‘When did you get it?’

‘The morning of the sixth.’

‘What did you do with it?’

‘Burned it,’ said Fancourt shortly, exactly like Kathryn Kent. ‘I could see what he was doing: trying to provoke a public row, maximise publicity. The last resort of a failure – I was not going to humour him.’

Another snatch of the interior revelry reached them as the door to the garden opened and closed again. Uncertain footsteps, winding through the snow, and then a large shadow looming out of the darkness.

‘What,’ croaked Elizabeth Tassel, who was wrapped in a heavy coat with a fur collar, ‘is going on out here?’

The moment he heard her voice Fancourt made to move back inside. Strike wondered when was the last time they had come face to face in anything less than a crowd of hundreds.

‘Wait a minute, will you?’ Strike asked the writer.

Fancourt hesitated. Tassel addressed Strike in her deep, croaky voice.

‘Pinks is missing Michael.’

‘Something you’d know all about,’ said Strike.

The snow whispered down upon leaves and onto the frozen pond where the cupid sat, pointing his arrow skywards.

‘You thought Elizabeth’s writing “lamentably derivative”, isn’t that right?’ Strike asked Fancourt. ‘You both studied Jacobean revenge tragedies, which accounts for the similarities in your styles. But you’re a very good imitator of other people’s writing, I think,’ Strike told Tassel.

He had known that she would come if he took Fancourt away, known that she would be frightened of what he was telling the writer out in the dark. She stood perfectly still as snow landed in her fur collar, on her iron-grey hair. Strike could just make out the contours of her face by the faint light of the club’s distant windows. The intensity and emptiness of her gaze were remarkable. She had the dead, blank eyes of a shark.

‘You took off Elspeth Fancourt’s style to perfection, for instance.’

Fancourt’s mouth fell quietly open. For a few seconds the only sound other than the whispering snow was the barely audible whistle emanating from Elizabeth Tassel’s lungs.

‘I thought from the start that Quine must’ve had some hold on you,’ said Strike. ‘You never seemed like the kind of woman who’d let herself be turned into a private bank and skivvy, who’d choose to keep Quine and let Fancourt go. All that bull about freedom of expression…
you
wrote the parody of Elspeth Fancourt’s book that made her kill herself. All these years, there’s only been your word for it that Owen showed you the piece he’d written. It was the other way round.’

There was silence except for the rustle of snow on snow and that faint, eerie sound emanating from Elizabeth Tassel’s chest. Fancourt was looking from the agent to the detective, open-mouthed.

‘The police suspected that Quine was blackmailing you,’ Strike said, ‘but you fobbed them off with a touching story about lending him money for Orlando. You’ve been paying Owen off for more than a quarter of a century, haven’t you?’

He was trying to goad her into speech, but she said nothing, continuing to stare at him out of the dark empty eyes like holes in her plain, pale face.

‘How did you describe yourself to me when we had lunch?’ Strike asked her. ‘“The very definition of a blameless spinster”? Found an outlet for your frustrations, though, didn’t you, Elizabeth?’

The mad, blank eyes swivelled suddenly towards Fancourt, who had shifted where he stood.

‘Did it feel good, raping and killing your way through everyone you knew, Elizabeth? One big explosion of malice and obscenity, revenging yourself on everyone, painting yourself as the unacclaimed genius, taking sideswipes at everyone with a more successful love life, a more satisfying—’

A soft voice spoke in the darkness, and for a second Strike did not know where it was coming from. It was strange, unfamiliar, high-pitched and sickly: the voice a madwoman might imagine to express innocence, kindliness.

‘No, Mr Strike,’ she whispered, like a mother telling a sleepy child not to sit up, not to struggle. ‘You poor silly man. You poor thing.’

She forced a laugh that left her chest heaving, her lungs whistling.

‘He was badly hurt in Afghanistan,’ she said to Fancourt in that eerie, crooning voice. ‘I think he’s shell-shocked. Brain damaged, just like little Orlando. He needs help, poor Mr Strike.’

Her lungs whistled as she breathed faster.

‘Should’ve bought a mask, Elizabeth, shouldn’t you?’ Strike asked.

He thought he saw the eyes darken and enlarge, her pupils dilating with the adrenalin coursing through her. The large, mannish hands had curled into claws.

‘Thought you had it all worked out, didn’t you? Ropes, disguise, protective clothing to protect yourself against the acid – but you didn’t realise you’d get tissue damage just from inhaling the fumes.’

The cold air was exacerbating her breathlessness. In her panic, she sounded sexually excited.

‘I think,’ said Strike, with calculated cruelty, ‘it’s driven you literally mad, Elizabeth, hasn’t it? Better hope the jury buys that anyway, eh? What a waste of a life. Your business down the toilet, no man, no children… Tell me, was there ever an abortive coupling between the two of you?’ asked Strike bluntly, watching their profiles. ‘This “limp dick” business… sounds to me like Quine might’ve fictionalised it in the real
Bombyx Mori
.’

With their backs to the light he could not see their expressions, but their body language had given him his answer: the instantaneous swing away from each other to face him had expressed the ghost of a united front.

‘When was this?’ Strike asked, watching the dark outline that was Elizabeth. ‘After Elspeth died? But then you moved on to Fenella Waldegrave, eh, Michael? No trouble keeping it up there, I take it?’

Elizabeth emitted a small gasp. It was as though he had hit her.

‘For Christ’s sake,’ growled Fancourt. He was angry with Strike now. Strike ignored the implicit reproach. He was still working on Elizabeth, goading her, while her whistling lungs struggled for oxygen in the falling snow.