The Silkworm

As Strike began to apologize for coming to the wrong house, the ginger-haired officer shouted something incomprehensible from the pavement outside 179. When nobody responded, he climbed over the plastic tape blocking entrance to the property and began to jog towards them.

“That man,” he shouted absurdly, pointing at Strike, “is not a policeman!”

“He didn’t say he was,” replied the spectacled man in meek surprise.

“Well, I think we’re done here,” Strike told Robin.

“Aren’t you worried,” Robin asked him as they walked back towards the Tube station, a little amused but mostly eager to leave the scene, “what your friend Anstis is going to say about you skulking around the crime scene like this?”

“Doubt he’ll be happy,” Strike said, looking around for CCTV cameras, “but keeping Anstis happy isn’t in my job description.”

“It was decent of him to share the forensic stuff with you,” Robin said.

“He did that to try and warn me off the case. He thinks everything points to Leonora. Trouble is, at the moment, everything does.”

The road was packed with traffic, which was watched by a single camera as far as Strike could see, but there were many side roads leading off it down which a person wearing Owen Quine’s Tyrolean cloak, or a burqa, might slide out of sight without anyone being the wiser as to their identity.

Strike bought two takeaway coffees in the Metro Café that stood in the station building, then they passed back through the pea-green ticket hall and set off for West Brompton.

“What you’ve got to remember,” said Strike as they stood at Earl’s Court waiting to change trains, Robin noticing how Strike kept all his weight on his good leg, “is that Quine disappeared on the fifth. Bonfire night.”

“God, of course!” said Robin.

“Flashes and bangs,” said Strike, gulping coffee fast so as to empty his cup before they had to get on; he did not trust himself to balance coffee and himself on the wet, icy floors. “Rockets going off in every direction, drawing everyone’s attention. No big surprise that nobody saw a figure in a cloak entering the building that night.”

“You mean Quine?”

“Not necessarily.”

Robin pondered this for a while.

“Do you think the man in the bookshop’s lying about Quine going in there on the eighth?”

“I don’t know,” said Strike. “Too early to say, isn’t it?”

But that, he realized, was what he believed. The sudden activity around a deserted house on the fourth and fifth was strongly suggestive.

“Funny, the things people notice,” said Robin as they climbed the red-and-green stairs at West Brompton, Strike now grimacing every time he put down his right leg. “Memory’s an odd thing, isn’t—”

Strike’s knee suddenly felt red hot and he slumped against the railings along the bridge over the tracks. A suited man behind him swore impatiently at finding a sudden, sizable impediment in his path and Robin walked on a few paces, still talking, before realizing that Strike was no longer beside her. She hurried back to find him pale, sweating and obliging commuters to take a detour around him as he stood slumped against the railings.

“Felt something go,” he said through gritted teeth, “in my knee. Shit…shit!”

“We’ll get a taxi.”

“Never get one in this weather.”

“Then let’s get back on the train and go back to the office.”

“No, I want—”

He had never felt his dearth of resources more keenly than at this moment, standing on the iron lattice bridge beneath the arched glass ceiling where snow was settling. In the old days there had always been a car for him to drive. He could have summoned witnesses to him. He had been Special Investigation Branch, in charge, in control.

“If you want to do this, we need a taxi,” Robin said firmly. “It’s a long walk up Lillie Road from here. Haven’t—”

She hesitated. They never mentioned Strike’s disability except obliquely.

“Haven’t you got a stick or something?”

“Wish I had,” he said through numb lips. What was the point in pretending? He was dreading having to walk even to the end of the bridge.

“We can get one,” said Robin. “Chemists sometimes sell them. We’ll find one.”

And then, after another momentary hesitation, she said:

“Lean on me.”

“I’m too heavy.”

“To balance. Use me like a stick. Do it,” she said firmly.

He put his arm around her shoulders and they made their way slowly over the bridge and paused beside the exit. The snow had temporarily passed, but the cold was, if anything, worse than it had been.

“Why aren’t there seats anywhere?” asked Robin, glaring around.

“Welcome to my world,” said Strike, who had withdrawn his arm from around her shoulders the instant they had stopped.

“What d’you think’s happened?” Robin asked, looking down at his right leg.

“I dunno. It was all puffed up this morning. I probably shouldn’t have put the prosthesis on, but I hate using crutches.”

“Well, you can’t go traipsing up Lillie Road in the snow like this. We’ll get a cab and you can go back to the office—”

“No. I want to do something,” he said angrily. “Anstis is convinced it’s Leonora. It isn’t.”