The Silkworm

Wads of icy mist were still clinging to the buildings of Exmouth Market when Strike turned into it at ten to nine the following morning. It did not feel like a London street, not with pavement seating outside its many cafés, pastel-painted façades and a basilica-like church, gold, blue and brick: Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer, wreathed in smoky vapor. Chilly fog, shops full of curios, curbside tables and chairs; if he could have added the tang of saltwater and the mournful screech of seagulls he might have thought himself back in Cornwall, where he had spent the most stable parts of his childhood.

A small sign on a nondescript door beside a bakery announced the offices of Crossfire Publishing. Strike buzzed the bell promptly at nine o’clock and was admitted to a steep whitewashed staircase, up which he clambered with some difficulty and with liberal use of the handrail.

He was met on the top landing by a slight, dandyish and bespectacled man of around thirty. He had wavy, shoulder-length hair and wore jeans, a waistcoat and a paisley shirt with a touch of frill around the cuffs.

“Hi there,” he said. “I’m Christian Fisher. Cameron, isn’t it?”

“Cormoran,” Strike corrected him automatically, “but—”

He had been about to say that he answered to Cameron, a stock response to years of the mistake, but Christian Fisher came back at once:

“Cormoran—Cornish giant.”

“That’s right,” said Strike, surprised.

“We published a kids’ book on English folklore last year,” said Fisher, pushing open white double doors and leading Strike into a cluttered, open-plan space with walls plastered in posters and many untidy bookshelves. A scruffy young woman with dark hair looked up curiously at Strike as he walked past.

“Coffee? Tea?” offered Fisher, leading Strike into his own office, a small room off the main area with a pleasant view over the sleepy, foggy street. “I can get Jade to nip out for us.” Strike declined, saying truthfully that he had just had coffee, but wondering, too, why Fisher seemed to be settling in for a longer meeting than Strike felt the circumstances justified. “Just a latte, then, Jade,” Fisher called through the door.

“Have a seat,” Fisher said to Strike, and he began to flit around the bookshelves that lined the walls. “Didn’t he live in St. Michael’s Mount, the giant Cormoran?”

“Yeah,” said Strike. “And Jack’s supposed to have killed him. Of beanstalk fame.”

“It’s here somewhere,” said Fisher, still searching the shelves. “Folk Tales of the British Isles. Have you got kids?”

“No,” said Strike.

“Oh,” said Fisher. “Well, I won’t bother, then.”

And with a grin he took the chair opposite Strike.

“So, am I allowed to ask who’s hired you? Am I allowed to guess?”

“Feel free,” said Strike, who on principle never forbade speculation.

“It’s either Daniel Chard or Michael Fancourt,” said Fisher. “Am I right?”

The lenses on his glasses gave his eyes a concentrated, beady look. Though giving no outward sign, Strike was taken aback. Michael Fancourt was a very famous writer who had recently won a major literary prize. Why exactly would he be interested in the missing Quine?

“Afraid not,” said Strike. “It’s Quine’s wife, Leonora.”

Fisher looked almost comically astonished.

“His wife?” he repeated blankly. “That mousy woman who looks like Rose West? What’s she hired a private detective for?”

“Her husband’s disappeared. He’s been gone eleven days.”

“Quine’s disappeared? But—but then…”

Strike could tell Fisher had been anticipating a very different conversation, one to which he had been eagerly looking forward.

“But why’s she sent you to me?”

“She thinks you know where Quine is.”

“How the hell would I know?” asked Fisher, and he appeared genuinely bewildered. “He’s not a friend of mine.”

“Mrs. Quine says she heard you telling her husband about a writer’s retreat, at a party—”

“Oh,” said Fisher, “Bigley Hall, yeah. But Owen won’t be there!

” When he laughed, he was transformed into a bespectacled Puck: merriment laced with slyness. “They wouldn’t let Owen Quine in if he paid them. Born shit-stirrer. And one of the women who runs the place hates his guts. He wrote a stinking review of her first novel and she’s never forgiven him.”

“Could you give me the number anyway?” asked Strike.

“I’ve got it on here,” said Fisher, pulling a mobile out of the back pocket of his jeans. “I’ll call now…”

And he did so, setting the mobile on the desk between them and switching it on to speakerphone for Strike’s benefit. After a full minute of ringing, a breathless female voice answered:

“Bigley Hall.”

“Hi, is that Shannon? It’s Chris Fisher here, from Crossfire.”

“Oh, hi Chris, how’s it going?”

The door of Fisher’s office opened and the scruffy dark girl from outside came in, wordlessly placed a latte in front of Fisher and departed.

“I’m phoning, Shan,” Fisher said, as the door clicked shut, “to see if you’ve got Owen Quine staying. He hasn’t turned up there, has he?”

“Quine?”