The Silkworm

“Yeah,” said Kathryn, nodding vehemently, “that’s it, isn’t it? He wants the publicity.”

No woman who had been with Owen Quine for two years was going to believe that publicity wasn’t an unqualified boon.

“Look, we just wanted to warn you how they’re thinking,” said Robin, “and to ask for your help. But obviously, if you don’t want…”

Robin made to stand.

(“Once you’ve laid it out for her, act like you can take it or leave it. You’re there when she starts chasing you.”)

“I’ve told the police everything I know,” said Kathryn, who appeared disconcerted now that Robin, who was taller than her, had stood up again. “I haven’t got anything else to say.”

“Well, we’re not sure they were asking the right questions,” said Robin, sinking back onto the sofa. “You’re a writer,” she said, turning suddenly off the piste that Strike had prepared for her, her eyes on the laptop in the corner. “You notice things. You understood him and his work better than anyone else.”

The unexpected swerve into flattery caused whatever words of fury Kathryn had been about to fling at Robin (her mouth had been open, ready to deliver them) to die in her throat.

“So?” Kathryn said. Her aggression felt a little fake now. “What d’you want to know?”

“Will you let Strike come and hear what you’ve got to say? He won’t if you don’t want him to,” Robin assured her (an offer unsanctioned by her boss). “He respects your right to refuse.” (Strike had made no such declaration.) “But he’d like to hear it in your own words.”

“I don’t know that I’ve got anything useful to say,” said Kathryn, folding her arms again, but she could not disguise a ring of gratified vanity.

“I know it’s a big ask,” said Robin, “but if you help us get the real killer, Kathryn, you’ll be in the papers for the right reasons.”

The promise of it settled gently over the sitting room—Kathryn interviewed by eager and now admiring journalists, asking about her work, perhaps: Tell me about Melina’s Sacrifice…

Kathryn glanced sideways at Pippa, who said:

“That bastard kidnapped me!”

“You tried to attack him, Pip,” said Kathryn. She turned a little anxiously to Robin. “I never told her to do that. She was—after we saw what he’d written in the book—we were both…and we thought he—your boss—had been hired to fit us up.”

“I understand,” lied Robin, who found the reasoning tortuous and paranoid, but perhaps that was what spending time with Owen Quine did to a person.

“She got carried away and didn’t think,” said Kathryn, with a look of mingled affection and reproof at her protégée. “Pip’s got temper issues.”

“Understandable,” said Robin hypocritically. “May I call Cormoran—Strike, I mean? Ask him to meet us here?”

She had already slipped her mobile out of her pocket and glanced down at it. Strike had texted her:

On balcony. Bloody freezing.

She texted back:

Wait 5.

In fact, she needed only three minutes. Softened by Robin’s earnestness and air of understanding, and by the encouragement of the alarmed Pippa to let Strike in and find out the worst, when he finally knocked Kathryn proceeded to the front door with something close to alacrity.

The room seemed much smaller with his arrival. Next to Kathryn, Strike appeared huge and almost unnecessarily male; when she had swept it clear of Christmas ornaments, he dwarfed the only armchair. Pippa retreated to the end of the sofa and perched on the arm, throwing Strike looks composed of defiance and terror.

“D’you want a drink of something?” Kathryn threw at Strike in his heavy overcoat, with his size fourteen feet planted squarely on her swirly rug.

“Cup of tea would be great,” he said.

She left for the tiny kitchen. Finding herself alone with Strike and Robin, Pippa panicked and scuttled after her.

“You’ve done bloody well,” Strike murmured to Robin, “if they’re offering tea.”

“She’s very proud of being a writer,” Robin breathed back, “which means she could understand him in ways that other people…”

But Pippa had returned with a box of cheap biscuits and Strike and Robin fell silent at once. Pippa resumed her seat at the end of the sofa, casting Strike frightened sidelong glances that had, as when she had cowered in their office, a whiff of theatrical enjoyment about them.

“This is very good of you, Kathryn,” said Strike, when she had set a tray of tea on the table. One of the mugs, Robin saw, read Keep Clam and Proofread.

“We’ll see,” retorted Kent, her arms folded as she glared at him from a height.

“Kath, sit,” coaxed Pippa, and Kathryn sat reluctantly down between Pippa and Robin on the sofa.