The Silkworm

He cleared and washed the mugs, then took out the necklace he had recovered, locked up the manuscript of Bombyx Mori in the safe instead, refilled the kettle and checked his emails.

They’ll postpone the wedding.

He did not want to feel glad about it. Pulling out his mobile, he called Anstis, who answered almost at once.

“Bob?”

“Anstis, I don’t know whether you’ve already got this, but there’s something you should know. Quine’s last novel describes his murder.”

“Say that again?”

Strike explained. It was clear from the brief silence after he had finished speaking that Anstis had not yet had the information.

“Bob, I need a copy of that manuscript. If I send someone over—?”

“Give me three quarters of an hour,” said Strike.

He was still photocopying when his brunet client arrived.

“Where’s your secretary?” were her first words, turning to him with a coquettish show of surprise, as though she was sure he had arranged for them to be alone.

“Off sick. Diarrhea and vomiting,” said Strike repressively. “Shall we go through?”

20

Is Conscience a comrade for an old Soldier?

Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, The False One

Late that evening Strike sat alone at his desk while the traffic rumbled through the rain outside, eating Singapore noodles with one hand and scribbling a list for himself with the other. The rest of the day’s work over, he was free to turn his attention fully to the murder of Owen Quine and in his spiky, hard-to-read handwriting was jotting down those things that must be done next. Beside some of them he had jotted the letter A for Anstis, and if it had crossed Strike’s mind that it might be considered arrogant or deluded of a private detective with no authority in the investigation to imagine he had the power to delegate tasks to the police officer in charge of the case, the thought did not trouble him.

Having worked with Anstis in Afghanistan, Strike did not have a particularly high opinion of the police officer’s abilities. He thought Anstis competent but unimaginative, an efficient recognizer of patterns, a reliable pursuer of the obvious. Strike did not despise these traits—the obvious was usually the answer and the methodical ticking of boxes the way to prove it—but this murder was elaborate, strange, sadistic and grotesque, literary in inspiration and ruthless in execution. Was Anstis capable of comprehending the mind that had nurtured a plan of murder in the fetid soil of Quine’s own imagination?

Strike’s mobile rang, piercing in the silence. Only when he had put it to his ear and heard Leonora Quine did he realize that he had been hoping it would be Robin.

“How are you?” he asked.

“I’ve had the police here,” she said, cutting through the social niceties. “They’ve been all through Owen’s study. I didn’t wanna, but Edna said I should let ’em. Can’t we be left in peace after what just happened?”

“They’ve got grounds for a search,” said Strike. “There might be something in Owen’s study that’ll give them a lead on his killer.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” said Strike patiently, “but I think Edna’s right. It was best to let them in.”

There was a silence.

“Are you still there?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, “and now they’ve left it locked up so I can’t get in it. And they wanna come back. I don’t like them being here. Orlando don’t like it. One of ’em,” she sounded outraged, “asked if I wanted to move out of the house for a bit. I said, ‘No, I bloody don’t.’ Orlando’s never stayed anywhere else, she couldn’t deal with it. I’m not going anywhere.”

“The police haven’t said they want to question you, have they?”

“No,” she said. “Only asked if they can go in the study.”

“Good. If they want to ask you questions—”

“I should get a lawyer, yeah. That’s what Edna said.”

“Would it be all right if I come and see you tomorrow morning?” he asked.

“Yeah.” She sounded glad. “Come round ten, I need to go shopping first thing. Couldn’t get out all day. I didn’t wanna leave them in the house without me here.”

Strike hung up, reflecting again that Leonora’s manner was unlikely to be standing her in good stead with the police. Would Anstis see, as Strike did, that Leonora’s slight obtuseness, her failure to produce what others felt was appropriate behavior, her stubborn refusal to look at what she did not wish to look at—arguably the very qualities that had enabled her to endure the ordeal of living with Quine—would have made it impossible for her to kill him? Or would her oddities, her refusal to show normal grief reactions because of an innate though perhaps unwise honesty, cause the suspicion already lying in Anstis’s mundane mind to swell, obliterating other possibilities?