The Silkworm

“Fancourt’s been badmouthing them both for years.” Waldegrave scratched his chest absentmindedly through his creased shirt and drank more wine. “Owen, because of that parody of his dead wife’s novel; Liz, because she stuck by Owen—mind you, nobody’s ever blamed Fancourt for leaving Liz Tassel. The woman’s a bitch. Down to about two clients now. Twisted. Probably spends her evenings working out how much she lost: fifteen percent of Fancourt’s royalties is big money. Booker dinners, film premieres…instead she gets Quine interviewing himself with a biro and burnt sausages in Dorcus Pengelly’s back garden.”

“How do you know there were burnt sausages?” asked Strike.

“Dorcus told me,” said Waldegrave, who had already finished his first glass of wine and was pouring a second. “She wanted to know why Liz wasn’t at the firm’s anniversary party. When I told her about Bombyx Mori, Dorcus assured me Liz was a lovely woman. Lovely. Couldn’t have known what was in Owen’s book. Never have hurt anyone’s feelings—wouldn’t hurt a bloody fly—ha!”

“You disagree?”

“Bloody right I disagree. I’ve met people who got their start in Liz Tassel’s office. They talk like kidnap victims who’ve been ransomed. Bully. Scary temper.”

“You think she put Quine up to writing the book?”

“Well, not directly,” said Waldegrave. “But you take a deluded writer who was convinced he wasn’t a bestseller because people were jealous of him or not doing their jobs right and lock him in with Liz, who’s always angry, bitter as sin, banging on about Fancourt doing them both down, and is it a surprise he gets wound up to fever pitch?

“She couldn’t even be bothered to read his book properly. If he hadn’t died, I’d say she got what she deserved. Silly mad bastard didn’t just do over Fancourt, did he? Went after her as well, ha ha! Went after bloody Daniel, went after me, went after ev’ryone. Ev’ryone.”

In the manner of other alcoholics Strike had known, Jerry Waldegrave had crossed the line into drunkenness with two glasses of wine. His movements were suddenly clumsier, his manner more flamboyant.

“D’you think Elizabeth Tassel egged Quine on to attack Fancourt?”

“Not a doubt of it,” said Waldegrave. “Not a doubt.”

“But when I met her, Elizabeth Tassel said that what Quine wrote about Fancourt was a lie,” Strike told Waldegrave.

“Eh?” said Waldegrave again, cupping his ear.

“She told me,” said Strike loudly, “that what Quine writes in Bombyx Mori about Fancourt is false. That Fancourt didn’t write the parody that made his wife kill herself—that Quine wrote it.”

“I’m not talking about that,” said Waldegrave, shaking his head as though Strike were being obtuse. “I don’t mean—forget it. Forget it.”

He was more than halfway down the bottle already; the alcohol had induced a degree of confidence. Strike held back, knowing that to push would only induce the granite stubbornness of the drunk. Better to let him drift where he wanted to go, keeping one light hand on the tiller.

“Owen liked me,” Waldegrave told Strike. “Oh yeah. I knew how to handle him. Stoke that man’s vanity and you could get him to do anything you wanted. Half an hour’s praise before you asked him to change anything in a manuscript. ’Nother half hour’s praise before you asked him to make another change. Only way.

“He didn’t really wanna hurt me. Wasn’t thinking straight, silly bastard. Wanted to get back on the telly. Thought ev’ryone was against him. Didn’t realize he was playing with fire. Mentally ill.”

Waldegrave slumped in his seat and the back of his head collided with that of a large overdressed woman sitting behind him. “Sorry! Sorry!”

While she glared over her shoulder he pulled in his chair, causing the cutlery to rattle on the tablecloth.

“So what,” Strike asked, “was the Cutter all about?”

“Huh?” said Waldegrave.

This time, Strike felt sure that the cupped ear was a pose.

“The Cutter—”

“Cutter: editor—obvious,” said Waldegrave.

“And the bloody sack and the dwarf you try and drown?”

“Symbolic,” said Waldegrave, with an airy wave of the hand that nearly upset his wineglass. “Some idea of his I stifled, some bit of lovingly crafted prose I wanted to kill off. Hurt his feelings.”

Strike, who had heard a thousand rehearsed answers, found the response too pat, too fluent, too fast.

“Just that?”

“Well,” said Waldegrave, with a gasp of a laugh, “I’ve never drowned a dwarf, if that’s what you’re implying.”