The Silkworm

But it was a dull and fruitless afternoon. Strike was running surveillance on a very well-paid PA who was believed by her paranoid boss and lover to be sharing not only sexual favors but also business secrets with a rival. However, Miss Brocklehurst’s claim that she wanted to take an afternoon off to be better waxed, manicured and fake-tanned for her lover’s delectation appeared to be genuine. Strike waited and watched the front of the spa through a rain-speckled window of the Caffè Nero opposite for nearly four hours, earning himself the ire of sundry women with pushchairs seeking a space to gossip. Finally Miss Brocklehurst emerged, Bisto-brown and presumably almost hairless from the neck down, and after following her for a short distance Strike saw her slide into a taxi. By a near miracle given the rain, Strike managed to secure a second cab before she had moved out of view, but the sedate pursuit through the clogged, rainwashed streets ended, as he had expected from the direction of travel, at the suspicious boss’s own flat. Strike, who had taken photographs covertly all the way, paid his cab fare and mentally clocked off.

It was barely four o’clock and the sun was setting, the endless rain becoming chillier. Christmas lights shone from the window of a trattoria as he passed and his thoughts slid to Cornwall, which he felt had intruded itself on his notice three times in quick succession, calling to him, whispering to him.

How long had it been since he had gone home to that beautiful little seaside town where he had spent the calmest parts of his childhood? Four years? Five? He met his aunt and uncle whenever they “came up to London,” as they self-consciously put it, staying at his sister Lucy’s house, enjoying the metropolis. Last time, Strike had taken his uncle to the Emirates to watch a match against Manchester City.

His phone vibrated in his pocket: Robin, following instructions to the letter as usual, had texted him instead of calling.

Mr. Gunfrey is asking for another meeting tomorrow at his office at 10, got more to tell you. Rx

Thanks, Strike texted back.

He never added kisses to texts unless to his sister or aunt.

At the Tube, he deliberated his next moves. The whereabouts of Owen Quine felt like an itch in his brain; he was half irritated, half intrigued that the writer was proving so elusive. He pulled the piece of paper that Elizabeth Tassel had given him out of his wallet. Beneath the name Kathryn Kent was the address of a tower block in Fulham and a mobile number. Printed along the bottom edge were two words: indie author.

Strike’s knowledge of certain patches of London was as detailed as any cabbie’s. While he had never penetrated truly upmarket areas as a child, he had lived in many other addresses around the capital with his late, eternally nomadic mother: usually squats or council accommodation, but occasionally, if her boyfriend of the moment could afford it, in more salubrious surroundings. He recognized Kathryn Kent’s address: Clement Attlee Court comprised old council blocks, many of which had now been sold off into private hands. Ugly square brick towers with balconies on every floor, they sat within a few hundred yards of million-pound houses in Fulham.

There was nobody waiting for him at home and he was full of coffee and pastries after his long afternoon in Caffè Nero. Instead of boarding the Northern line, he took the District line to West Kensington and set out in the dark along North End Road, past curry houses and a number of small shops with boarded windows, folding under the weight of the recession. By the time Strike had reached the tower blocks he sought, night had fallen.

Stafford Cripps House was the block nearest the road, set just behind a low, modern medical center. The optimistic architect of the council flats, perhaps giddy with socialist idealism, had given each one its own small balcony space. Had they imagined the happy inhabitants tending window boxes and leaning over the railings to call cheery greetings to their neighbors? Virtually all of these exterior areas had been used by the occupants for storage: old mattresses, prams, kitchen appliances, what looked like armfuls of dirty clothes sat exposed to the elements, as though cupboards full of junk had been cross-sectioned for public view.

A gaggle of hooded youths smoking beside large plastic recycling bins eyed him speculatively as he passed. He was taller and broader than any of them.

“Big fucker,” he caught one of them saying as he passed out of their sight, ignoring the inevitably out-of-order lift and heading for the concrete stairs.

Kathryn Kent’s flat was on the third floor and was reached via a windswept brick balcony that ran the width of the building. Strike noted that, unlike her neighbors, Kathryn had hung real curtains in the windows, before rapping on the door.