The Silkworm

A sheaf of crumpled pictures came out, on an assortment of different sized and colored papers. Neither Strike nor Robin turned them over at first, but made admiring comments as Orlando spread them out across the table, Robin asking questions about the bright starfish and the dancing angels that Orlando had drawn in crayon and felt tip. Basking in their appreciation, Orlando dug deeper into her pajama case for her working materials. Up came a used typewriter cartridge, oblong and gray, with a thin strip tape carrying the reversed words it had printed. Strike resisted the urge to palm it immediately as it disappeared beneath a tin of colored pencils and a box of mints, but kept his eye on it as Orlando laid out a picture of a butterfly through which could be seen traces of untidy adult writing on the back.

Encouraged by Robin, Orlando now brought out more: a sheet of stickers, a postcard of the Mendip Hills, a round fridge magnet that read Careful! You may end up in my novel! Last of all she showed them three images on better-quality paper: two proof book illustrations and a mocked-up book cover.

“My daddy gave me them from his work,” Orlando said. “Dannulchar touched me when I wanted it,” she said, pointing at a brightly colored picture that Strike recognized: Kyla the Kangaroo Who Loved to Bounce. Orlando had added a hat and handbag to Kyla and colored in the line drawing of a princess talking to a frog with neon felt tips.

Delighted to see Orlando so chatty, Edna made more coffee. Conscious of the time, but aware of the need not to provoke a row and a protective grab of all her treasures, Robin and Strike chatted as they picked up and examined each of the pieces of paper on the table. Whenever she thought something might be helpful, Robin slid it sideways to Strike.

There was a list of scribbled names on the back of the butterfly picture:

Sam Breville. Eddie Boyne? Edward Baskinville? Stephen Brook?

The postcard of the Mendip Hills had been sent in July and carried a brief message:

Weather great, hotel disappointing, hope the book’s going well! V xx

Other than that, there was no trace of handwriting. A few of Orlando’s pictures were familiar to Strike from his last visit. One had been drawn on the reverse of a child’s restaurant menu, another on the Quines’ gas bill.

“Well, we’d better head off,” said Strike, draining his coffee cup with a decent show of regret. Almost absentmindedly he continued to hold the cover image for Dorcus Pengelly’s Upon the Wicked Rocks. A bedraggled woman lay supine on the stony sands of a steep cliff-enclosed cove, with the shadow of a man falling across her midriff. Orlando had drawn thickly lined black fish in the seething blue water. The used typewriter cassette lay beneath the image, nudged there by Strike.

“I don’t want you to go,” Orlando told Robin, suddenly tense and tearful.

“It’s been lovely, hasn’t it?” said Robin. “I’m sure we’ll see each other again. You’ll keep your flamingo mirror, won’t you, and I’ve got my robin picture—”

But Orlando had begun to wail and stamp. She did not want another good-bye. Under cover of the escalating furor Strike wrapped the typewriter cassette smoothly in the cover illustration for Upon the Wicked Rocks and slid it into his pocket, unmarked by his fingerprints.

They reached the street five minutes later, Robin a little shaken because Orlando had wailed and tried to grab her as she headed down the hall. Edna had had to physically restrain Orlando from following them.

“Poor girl,” said Robin under her breath, so that the staring PC could not hear them. “Oh God, that was dreadful.”

“Useful, though,” said Strike.

“You got that typewriter ribbon?”

“Yep,” said Strike, glancing over his shoulder to check that the PC was out of sight before taking out the cassette, still wrapped in Dorcus’s cover, and tipping it into a plastic evidence bag. “And a bit more than that.”

“You did?” said Robin, surprised.

“Possible lead,” said Strike, “might be nothing.”

He glanced again at his watch and sped up, wincing as his knee throbbed in protest.

“I’m going to have to get a move on if I’m not going to be late for Fancourt.”

As they sat on the crowded Tube train carrying them back to central London twenty minutes later, Strike said:

“You’re clear about what you’re doing this afternoon?”

“Completely clear,” said Robin, but with a note of reservation.

“I know it’s not a fun job—”

“That’s not what’s bothering me.”

“And like I say, it shouldn’t be dangerous,” he said, preparing to stand as they approached Tottenham Court Road. “But…”

Something made him reconsider, a slight frown between his heavy eyebrows.

“Your hair,” he said.

“What’s wrong with it?” said Robin, raising her hand self-consciously.

“It’s memorable,” said Strike. “Haven’t got a hat, have you?”