The Silkworm

“I—I could buy one,” said Robin, feeling oddly flustered.

“Charge it to petty cash,” he told her. “Can’t hurt to be careful.”

43

Hoy-day, what a sweep of vanity comes this way!

William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens

Strike walked up crowded Oxford Street, past snatches of canned carols and seasonal pop songs, and turned left into the quieter, narrower Dean Street. There were no shops here, just block-like buildings packed together with their different faces, white, red and dun, opening into offices, bars, pubs or bistro-type restaurants. Strike paused to allow boxes of wine to pass from delivery van to catering entrance: Christmas was a more subtle affair here in Soho, where the arts world, the advertisers and publishers congregated, and nowhere more so than at the Groucho Club.

A gray building, almost nondescript, with its black-framed windows and small topiaries sitting behind plain, convex balustrades. Its cachet lay not in its exterior but in the fact that relatively few were allowed within the members-only club for the creative arts. Strike limped over the threshold and found himself in a small hall area, where a girl behind a counter said pleasantly:

“Can I help you?”

“I’m here to meet Michael Fancourt.”

“Oh yes—you’re Mr. Strick?”

“That’s me,” said Strike.

He was directed through a long barroom with leather seats packed with lunchtime drinkers and up the stairs. As he climbed Strike reflected, not for the first time, that his Special Investigation Branch training had not envisaged him conducting interviews without official sanction or authority, on a suspect’s own territory, where his interviewee had the right to terminate the encounter without reason or apology. The SIB required its officers to organize their questioning in a template of people, places, things…Strike never lost sight of the effective, rigorous methodology, but these days it was essential to disguise the fact that he was filing facts in mental boxes. Different techniques were required when interviewing those who thought they were doing you a favor.

He saw his quarry immediately he stepped into a second wooden-floored bar, where sofas in primary colors were set along the wall beneath paintings by modern artists. Fancourt was sitting slantwise on a bright red couch, one arm along its back, a leg a little raised in an exaggerated pose of ease. A Damien Hirst spot painting hung right behind his overlarge head, like a neon halo.

The writer had a thick thatch of graying dark hair, his features were heavy and the lines beside his generous mouth deep. He smiled as Strike approached. It was not, perhaps, the smile he would have given someone he considered an equal (impossible not to think in those terms, given the studied affectation of ease, the habitually sour expression), but a gesture to one whom he wished to be gracious.

“Mr. Strike.”

Perhaps he considered standing up to shake hands, but Strike’s height and bulk often dissuaded smaller men from leaving their seats. They shook hands across the small wooden table. Unwillingly, but left with no choice unless he wanted to sit on the sofa with Fancourt—a far too cozy situation, particularly with the author’s arm lying along the back of it—Strike sat down on a solid round pouffe that was unsuited both to his size and his sore knee.

Beside them was a shaven-headed ex-soap star who had recently played a soldier in a BBC drama. He was talking loudly about himself to two other men. Fancourt and Strike ordered drinks, but declined menus. Strike was relieved that Fancourt was not hungry. He could not afford to buy anyone else lunch.

“How long’ve you been a member of this place?” he asked Fancourt, when the waiter had left.

“Since it opened. I was an early investor,” said Fancourt. “Only club I’ve ever needed. I stay overnight here if I need to. There are rooms upstairs.”

Fancourt fixed Strike with a consciously intense stare.

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. The hero of my next novel is a veteran of the so-called war on terror and its military corollaries. I’d like to pick your brains once we’ve got Owen Quine out of the way.”