The Silkworm

It occurred to Strike as he traveled, standing, the one Tube stop to Elizabeth Tassel’s office (he was never fully relaxed on these short journeys, but braced to take the strain on his false leg, wary of falls), that Robin had not reproached him for taking on the Quine case. Not, of course, that it was her place to reproach her employer, but she had turned down a much higher salary to throw her lot in with his and it would not have been unreasonable for her to expect that once the debts were paid, a raise might be the least he could do for her. She was unusual in her lack of criticism, or critical silence; the only female in Strike’s life who seemed to have no desire to improve or correct him. Women, in his experience, often expected you to understand that it was a measure of how much they loved you that they tried their damnedest to change you.

So she was marrying in seven weeks’ time. Seven weeks left until she became Mrs. Matthew…but if he had ever known her fiancé’s surname, he could not recall it.

As he waited for the lift at Goodge Street, Strike experienced a sudden, crazy urge to call his divorcing brunet client—who had made it quite clear that she would welcome such a development—with a view to screwing her tonight in what he imagined would be her deep, soft, heavily perfumed bed in Knightsbridge. But the idea occurred only to be instantly dismissed. Such a move would be insanity; worse than taking on a missing-person case for which he was unlikely ever to see payment…

And why was he wasting time on Owen Quine? he asked himself, head bowed against the biting rain. Curiosity, he answered inwardly after a few moments’ thought, and perhaps something more elusive. As he headed down Store Street, squinting through the downpour and concentrating on maintaining his footing on the slippery pavements, he reflected that his palate was in danger of becoming jaded by the endless variations on cupidity and vengefulness that his wealthy clients kept bringing him. It had been a long time since he had investigated a missing-person case. There would be satisfaction in restoring the runaway Quine to his family.

Elizabeth Tassel’s literary agency lay in a mostly residential mews of dark brick, a surprisingly quiet cul-de-sac off busy Gower Street. Strike pressed a doorbell beside a discreet brass plaque. A light thumping sound ensued and a pale young man in an open-necked shirt opened the door at the foot of red-carpeted stairs.

“Are you the private detective?” he asked with what seemed to be a mixture of trepidation and excitement. Strike followed him, dripping all over the threadbare carpet, up the stairs to a mahogany door and into a large office space that had once, perhaps, been a separate hall and sitting room.

Aged elegance was slowly disintegrating into shabbiness. The windows were misty with condensation and the air heavy with old cigarette smoke. A plethora of overstocked wooden bookcases lined the walls and the dingy wallpaper was almost obscured by framed literary caricatures and cartoons. Two heavy desks sat facing each other across a scuffed rug, but neither was occupied.

“Can I take your coat?” the young man asked, and a thin and frightened-looking girl jumped up from behind one of the desks. She was holding a stained sponge in one hand.

“I can’t get it out, Ralph!” she whispered frantically to the young man with Strike.

“Bloody thing,” Ralph muttered irritably. “Elizabeth’s decrepit old dog’s puked under Sally’s desk,” he confided, sotto voce, as he took Strike’s sodden Crombie and hung it on a Victorian coat-stand just inside the door. “I’ll let her know you’re here. Just keep scrubbing,” he advised his colleague as he crossed to a second mahogany door and opened it a crack.

“That’s Mr. Strike, Liz.”

There was a loud bark, followed immediately by a deep, rattling human cough that could have plausibly issued from the lungs of an old coal miner.

“Grab him,” said a hoarse voice.

The door to the agent’s office opened, revealing Ralph, who was holding tight to the collar of an aged but evidently still feisty Doberman pinscher, and a tall, thick-set woman of around sixty, with large, uncompromisingly plain features. The geometrically perfect steel-gray bob, a black suit of severe cut and a slash of crimson lipstick gave her a certain dash. She emanated that aura of grandeur that replaces sexual allure in the successful older woman.

“You’d better take him out, Ralph,” said the agent, her olive-dark eyes on Strike. The rain was still pelting against the windows. “And don’t forget the poo bags, he’s a bit soft today.

“Come in, Mr. Strike.”

Looking disgusted, her assistant dragged the big dog, with its head like a living Anubis, out of her office; as Strike and the Doberman passed each other, it growled energetically.