The Silkworm

“The Balzac Brothers was about the house in Talgarth Road, was it?” asked Strike, who had not gleaned that impression during the fifty pages he had read.

“It was set there. Really it’s about our relationship, the three of us,” said Fancourt. “Joe dead in the corner and Owen and I trying to follow in his footsteps, make sense of his death. It was set in the studio where I think—from what I’ve read—you found Quine’s body?”

Strike said nothing, but continued to take notes.

“The critic Harvey Bird called The Balzac Brothers ‘wincingly, jaw-droppingly, sphincter-clenchingly awful.’”

“I just remember a lot of fiddling with balls,” said Strike and Fancourt gave a sudden, unforced girlish titter.

“You’ve read it, have you? Oh yes, Owen was obsessed with his balls.”

The actor beside them had paused for breath at last. Fancourt’s words rang in the temporary silence. Strike grinned as the actor and his two dining companions stared at Fancourt, who treated them to his sour smile. The three men began talking hurriedly again.

“He had a real idée fixe,” said Fancourt, turning back to Strike. “Picasso-esque, you know, his testicles the source of his creative power. He was obsessed in both his life and his work with machismo, virility, fertility. Some might say it was an odd fixation for a man who liked to be tied up and dominated, but I see it as a natural consequence…the yin and yang of Quine’s sexual persona. You’ll have noticed the names he gave us in the book?”

“Vas and Varicocele,” said Strike and he noted again that slight surprise in Fancourt that a man who looked like Strike read books, or paid attention to their contents.

“Vas—Quine—the duct that carries sperm from balls to penis—the healthy, potent, creative force. Varicocele—a painful enlargement of a vein in the testicle, sometimes leading to infertility. A typically crass Quine-esque allusion to the fact that I contracted mumps shortly after Joe died and in fact was too unwell to go to the funeral, but also to the fact that—as you’ve pointed out—I was writing under difficult circumstances around that time.”

“You were still friends at this point?” Strike clarified.

“When he started the book we were still—in theory—friends,” said Fancourt, with a grim smile. “But writers are a savage breed, Mr. Strike. If you want lifelong friendship and selfless camaraderie, join the army and learn to kill. If you want a lifetime of temporary alliances with peers who will glory in your every failure, write novels.”

Strike smiled. Fancourt said with detached pleasure:

“The Balzac Brothers received some of the worst reviews I’ve ever read.”

“Did you review it?”

“No,” said Fancourt.

“You were married to your first wife at this point?” Strike asked.

“That’s right,” said Fancourt. The flicker of his expression was like the shiver of an animal’s flank when a fly touches it.

“I’m just trying to get the chronology right—you lost her shortly after North died?”

“Euphemisms for death are so interesting, aren’t they?” said Fancourt lightly. “I didn’t ‘lose’ her. On the contrary, I tripped over her in the dark, dead in our kitchen with her head in the oven.”

“I’m sorry,” said Strike formally.

“Yes, well…”

Fancourt called for another drink. Strike could tell that a delicate point had been reached, where a flow of information might either be tapped, or run forever dry.

“Did you ever talk to Quine about the parody that caused your wife’s suicide?”

“I’ve already told you, I never talked to him again about anything after Ellie died,” said Fancourt calmly. “So, no.”

“You were sure he wrote it, though?”

“Without question. Like a lot of writers without much to say, Quine was actually a good literary mimic. I remember him spoofing some of Joe’s stuff and it was quite funny. He wasn’t going to jeer publicly at Joe, of course, it did him too much good hanging around with the pair of us.”

“Did anyone admit to seeing the parody before publication?”

“Nobody said as much to me, but it would have been surprising if they had, wouldn’t it, given what it caused? Liz Tassel denied to my face that Owen had shown it to her, but I heard on the grapevine that she’d read it prepublication. I’m sure she encouraged him to publish. Liz was insanely jealous of Ellie.”

There was a pause, then Fancourt said with an assumption of lightness:

“Hard to remember these days that there was a time when you had to wait for the ink and paper reviews to see your work excoriated. With the invention of the internet, any subliterate cretin can be Michiko Kakutani.”

“Quine always denied writing it, didn’t he?” Strike asked.