The Silkworm

Strike choked on his pint. Nina giggled.

“He’s called ‘Impudent Cock’?” Strike asked, laughing, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. Nina laughed; a surprisingly dirty cackle for one who looked like an eager schoolgirl.

“You did Latin? I gave it up, I hated it—but we all know what ‘phallus’ is, right? I had to look it up and Phallus impudicus is actually the proper name for a toadstool called stinkhorn. Apparently they smell vile and…well,” she giggled some more, “they look like rotting knobs. Classic Owen: dirty names and everyone with their bits out.”

“And what does Phallus Impudicus get up to?”

“Well, he walks like Daniel, talks like Daniel, looks like Daniel and he enjoys a spot of necrophilia with a handsome writer he’s murdered. It’s really gory and disgusting. Jerry always said Owen thinks the day wasted if he hasn’t made his readers gag at least twice. Poor Jerry,” she added quietly.

“Why ‘poor Jerry’?” asked Strike.

“He’s in the book as well.”

“And what kind of phallus is he?”

Nina giggled again.

“I couldn’t tell you, I didn’t read the bit about Jerry. I just flicked through to find Daniel because everyone said it was so gross and funny. Jerry was only out of his office half an hour, so I didn’t have much time—but we all know he’s in there, because Daniel hauled Jerry in, made him meet the lawyers and add his name to all the stupid emails telling us the sky will fall in if we talk about Bombyx Mori. I suppose it makes Daniel feel better that Owen’s attacked Jerry too. He knows everyone loves Jerry, so I expect he thinks we’ll all keep our mouths shut to protect him.

“God knows why Quine’s gone for Jerry, though,” Nina added, her smile fading a little. “Because Jerry hasn’t got an enemy in the world. Owen is a bastard, really,” she added as a quiet afterthought, staring down at her empty wineglass.

“Want another drink?” Strike asked.

He returned to the bar. There was a stuffed gray parrot in a glass case on the wall opposite. It was the only bit of genuine whimsy he could see and he was prepared, in his mood of tolerance for this authentic bit of old London, to do it the courtesy of assuming that it had once squawked and chattered within these walls and had not been bought as a mangy accessory.

“You know Quine’s gone missing?” Strike asked, once back beside Nina.

“Yeah, I heard a rumor. I’m not surprised, the fuss he’s caused.”

“D’you know Quine?”

“Not really. He comes into the office sometimes and tries to flirt, you know, with his stupid cloak draped round him, showing off, always trying to shock. I think he’s a bit pathetic, and I’ve always hated his books. Jerry persuaded me to read Hobart’s Sin and I thought it was dreadful.”

“D’you know if anyone’s heard from Quine lately?”

“Not that I know of,” said Nina.

“And no one knows why he wrote a book that was bound to get him sued?”

“Everyone assumes he’s had a major row with Daniel. He rows with everyone in the end; he’s been with God knows how many publishers over the years.

“I heard Daniel only publishes Owen because he thinks it makes it look as though Owen’s forgiven him for being awful to Joe North. Owen and Daniel don’t really like each other, that’s common knowledge.”

Strike remembered the image of the beautiful blond young man hanging on Elizabeth Tassel’s wall.

“How was Chard awful to North?”

“I’m a bit vague on the details,” said Nina. “But I know he was. I know Owen swore he’d never work for Daniel, but then he ran through nearly every other publisher so he had to pretend he’d been wrong about Daniel and Daniel took him on because he thought it made him look good. That’s what everyone says, anyway.”

“And has Quine rowed with Jerry Waldegrave, to your knowledge?”

“No, which is what’s so bizarre. Why attack Jerry? He’s lovely! Although from what I’ve heard, you can’t really—”

For the first time, as far as Strike could tell, she considered what she was about to say before proceeding a little more soberly:

“Well, you can’t really tell what Owen’s getting at in the bit about Jerry, and as I say, I haven’t read it. But Owen’s done over loads of people,” Nina went on. “I heard his own wife’s in there, and apparently he’s been vile about Liz Tassel, who might be a bitch, but everyone knows she’s stuck by Owen through thick and thin. Liz’ll never be able to place anything with Roper Chard again; everyone’s furious at her. I know she was disinvited for tonight on Daniel’s orders—pretty humiliating. And there’s supposed to be a party for Larry Pinkelman, one of her other authors, in a couple of weeks and they can’t uninvite her from that—Larry’s such an old sweetheart, everyone loves him—but God knows what reception she’ll get if she turns up.

“Anyway,” said Nina, shaking back her light brown fringe and changing the subject abruptly, “how are you and I supposed to know each other, once we get to the party? Are you my boyfriend, or what?”

“Are partners allowed at this thing?”