The Silkworm

“Did you know he was dead, Mr. Strike?”

For a split second he considered retreat, slamming the door on them, but that meant being trapped and having to face them later.

“No comment,” he said coolly and walked into them, refusing to alter his course by a hair’s breadth, so that they were forced to step out of his path, two asking questions and one running backwards, snapping and snapping. The girl who so often joined Strike for smoking breaks in the doorway of the guitar shop was gaping at the scene through the window.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone he’d been missing for more than a fortnight, Mr. Strike?”

“Why didn’t you notify the police?”

Strike strode in silence, his hands in his pockets and his expression grim. They scurried along beside him, trying to make him talk, a pair of razor-beaked seagulls dive-bombing a fishing trawler.

“Trying to show them up again, Mr. Strike?”

“Get one over on the police?”

“Publicity good for business, Mr. Strike?”

He had boxed in the army. In his imagination he wheeled around and delivered a left hook to the floating rib area, so that the little shit crumpled…

“Taxi!” he shouted.

Flash, flash, flash went the camera as he got into it; thankfully the lights ahead turned green, the taxi moved smoothly away from the curb and they gave up running after a few steps.

Fuckers, Strike thought, glancing over his shoulder as the taxi rounded a corner. Some bastard at the Met must have tipped them off that he had found the body. It would not have been Anstis, who had held back the information from the official statement, but one of the embittered bastards who had not forgiven him for Lula Landry.

“You famous?” asked the cabbie, staring at him in the rearview mirror.

“No,” said Strike shortly. “Drop me at Oxford Circus, will you?”

Disgruntled at such a short fare, the cabbie muttered under his breath.

Strike took out his mobile and texted Robin again.

2 journalists outside door when I left. Say you work for Crowdy.

Then he called Anstis.

“Bob.”

“I’ve just been doorstepped. They know I found the body.”

“How?”

“You’re asking me?”

A pause.

“It was always going to come out, Bob, but I didn’t give it to them.”

“Yeah, I saw the ‘family friend’ line. They’re trying to make out I didn’t tell you lot because I wanted the publicity.”

“Mate, I never—”

“Be good to have that rebutted by an official source, Rich. Mud sticks and I’ve got a livelihood to make here.”

“I’ll get it done,” promised Anstis. “Listen, why don’t you come over for dinner tonight? Forensics have got back with their first thoughts; be good to talk it over.”

“Yeah, great,” said Strike as the taxi approached Oxford Circus. “What time?”

He remained standing on the Tube train, because sitting meant having to get up again and that put more strain on his sore knee. As he was going through Royal Oak he felt his mobile buzz and saw two texts, the first from his sister Lucy.

Many Happy Returns, Stick! Xxx

He had completely forgotten that today was his birthday. He opened the second text.

Hi Cormoran, thanks for warning about journos, just met them, they’re still hanging round the outside door. See you later. Rx

Grateful that the day was temporarily dry, Strike reached the Quine house just before ten. It looked just as dingy and depressing in weak sunlight as it had the last time he had visited, but with a difference: there was a police officer standing in front of it. He was a tall young copper with a pugnacious-looking chin and when he saw Strike walking towards him with the ghost of a limp, his eyebrows contracted.

“Can I ask who you are, sir?”

“Yeah, I expect so,” said Strike, walking past him and ringing the doorbell. Anstis’s dinner invitation notwithstanding, he was not feeling sympathetic to the police just now. “Should be just about within your capabilities.”

The door opened and Strike found himself face to face with a tall, gangling girl with sallow skin, a mop of curly light brown hair, a wide mouth and an ingenuous expression. Her eyes, which were a clear, pale green, were large and set far apart. She was wearing what was either a long sweatshirt or a short dress that ended above bony knees and fluffy pink socks, and she was cradling a large plush orangutan to her flat chest. The toy ape had Velcro attachments on its paws and was hanging around her neck.

“Hullo,” she said. She swayed very gently, side to side, putting weight first on one foot, then on the other.

“Hello,” said Strike. “Are you Orlan—?”

“Can I have your name, please, sir?” asked the young policeman loudly.

“Yeah, all right—if I can ask why you’re standing outside this house,” said Strike with a smile.

“There’s been press interest,” said the young policeman.

“A man came,” said Orlando, “and with a camera and Mum said—”