The Silkworm

His black eye had barely healed when she had announced her engagement to Ross. Three weeks it had taken her, because she knew only one way to respond to pain: to wound the transgressor as deeply as possible, with no thought for the consequences to herself. And he knew in his bones, no matter how arrogant his friends might tell him he was being, that the Tatler pictures, the dismissal of their relationship in the terms that would hurt him most (he could hear her spelling it out for the society mag: “he’s Jonny Rokeby’s son”); the Castle of Fucking Croy…all of it, all of it, was done with a view to hurting him, wanting him to watch and to see, to regret and to pity. She had known what Ross was; she had told Strike about the poorly disguised alcoholism and violence, passed through the blue-blooded network of gossip that had kept her informed through the years. She had laughed about her lucky escape. Laughed.

Self-immolation in a ball gown. Watch me burn, Bluey. The wedding was in ten days’ time and if he had ever been sure of anything in his life, it was that if he called Charlotte right now and said “Run away with me,” even after their filthy scenes, the hateful things she had called him, the lies and the mess and the several tons of baggage under which their relationship had finally splintered, she would say yes. Running away was her life’s blood and he had been her favorite destination, freedom and safety combined; she had said it to him over and over again after fights that would have killed them both if emotional wounds could bleed: “I need you. You’re my everything, you know that. You’re the only place I’ve ever felt safe, Bluey…”

He heard the glass door onto the landing open and close, the familiar sounds of Robin arriving at work, removing her coat, filling the kettle.

Work had always been his salvation. Charlotte had hated the way he could switch, from crazy, violent scenes, from her tears and her pleas and her threats, to immerse himself totally in a case. She had never managed to stop him putting on his uniform, never prevented his return to work, never succeeded in forcing him away from an investigation. She deplored his focus, his allegiance to the army, his ability to shut her out, seeing it as a betrayal, as abandonment.

Now, on this cold winter’s morning, sitting in his office with her picture in the bin beside him, Strike found himself craving orders, a case abroad, an enforced sojourn on another continent. He did not want to trail after unfaithful husbands and girlfriends, or insert himself into the petty disputes of shoddy businessmen. Only one subject had ever matched Charlotte for the fascination it exercised over him: unnatural death.

“Morning,” he said, limping into the outer office, where Robin was making two mugs of tea. “We’ll have to be quick with these. We’re going out.”

“Where?” asked Robin in surprise.

The sleet was sliding wetly down their windows. She could still feel how it had burned her face as she hurried over the slippery pavements, desperate to get inside.

“Got stuff to do on the Quine case.”

It was a lie. The police had all the power; what could he do that they were not doing better? And yet he knew in his gut that Anstis lacked the nose for the strange and the warped that would be needed to find this killer.

“You’ve got Caroline Ingles at ten.”

“Shit. Well, I’ll put her off. Thing is, forensics reckon Quine died very soon after he disappeared.”

He took a mouthful of hot, strong tea. He seemed more purposeful, more energized than she had seen him for a while.

“That puts the spotlight right back on the people who had early access to the manuscript. I want to find out where they all live, and whether they live alone. Then we’re going to recce their houses. Find out how hard it would’ve been to get in and out carrying a bag of guts. Whether they might have places they could bury or burn evidence.”

It was not much, but it was all he could do today, and he was desperate to do something.

“You’re coming,” he added. “You’re always good at this stuff.”

“What, being your Watson?” she said, apparently indifferent. The anger she had carried with her out of the Cambridge the previous day had not quite burned out. “We could find out about their houses online. Look at them on Google Earth.”

“Yeah, good thinking,” rejoined Strike. “Why case locations when you could just look at out-of-date photos?”

Stung, she said:

“I’m more than happy—”

“Good. I’ll cancel Ingles. You get online and find out addresses for Christian Fisher, Elizabeth Tassel, Daniel Chard, Jerry Waldegrave and Michael Fancourt. We’ll nip along to Clem Attlee Court and have another look from the point of view of hiding evidence; from what I saw in the dark there were a lot of bins and bushes…Oh, and call the Bridlington Bookshop in Putney. We can have a word with the old bloke who claims he met Quine there on the eighth.”