The Silkworm

But Strike had not broken off because of her protest, or because of any sense of repugnance. Something had flickered deep in his subconscious as he spoke. Somebody had told him…someone had said…but the memory was gone in a flash of tantalizing silver, like a minnow vanishing in pondweed.

“A poisoned skeleton,” Strike muttered, trying to capture the elusive memory, but it was gone.

“And I finished Hobart’s Sin last night as well,” said Robin, overtaking a dawdling Prius.

“You’re a sucker for punishment,” said Strike, reaching for a sixth biscuit. “I didn’t think you were enjoying it.”

“I wasn’t, and it didn’t improve. It’s all about—”

“A hermaphrodite who’s pregnant and gets an abortion because a kid would interfere with his literary ambitions,” said Strike.

“You’ve read it!”

“No, Elizabeth Tassel told me.”

“There’s a bloody sack in it,” said Robin.

Strike looked sideways at her pale profile, serious as she watched the road ahead, her eyes flicking to the rearview mirror.

“What’s inside?”

“The aborted baby,” said Robin. “It’s horrible.”

Strike digested this information as they passed the turning to Maidenhead.

“Strange,” he said at last.

“Grotesque,” said Robin.

“No, it’s strange,” insisted Strike. “Quine was repeating himself. That’s the second thing from Hobart’s Sin he put in Bombyx Mori. Two hermaphrodites, two bloody sacks. Why?”

“Well,” said Robin, “they aren’t exactly the same. In Bombyx Mori the bloody sack doesn’t belong to the hermaphrodite and it hasn’t got an aborted baby in it…maybe he’d reached the end of his invention,” she said. “Maybe Bombyx Mori was like a—a final bonfire of all his ideas.”

“The funeral pyre for his career is what it was.”

Strike sat deep in thought while the scenery beyond the window became steadily more rural. Breaks in the trees showed wide fields of snow, white upon white beneath a pearly gray sky, and still the snow came thick and fast at the car.

“You know,” Strike said at last, “I think there are two alternatives here. Either Quine genuinely was having a breakdown, had lost touch with what he was doing and believed Bombyx Mori was a masterpiece—or he meant to cause as much trouble as possible, and the duplications are there for a reason.”

“What reason?”

“It’s a key,” said Strike. “By cross-referencing his other books, he was helping people understand what he was getting at in Bombyx Mori. He was trying to tell without being had up for libel.”

Robin did not take her eyes off the snowy motorway, but inclined her face towards him, frowning.

“You think it was all totally deliberate? You think he wanted to cause all this trouble?”

“When you stop and think about it,” said Strike, “it’s not a bad business plan for an egotistical, thick-skinned man who’s hardly selling any books. Kick off as much trouble as you can, get the book gossiped about all over London, threats of legal action, loads of people upset, veiled revelations about a famous writer…and then disappear where the writs can’t find you and, before anyone can stop you, put it out as an ebook.”

“But he was furious when Elizabeth Tassel told him she wouldn’t publish it.”

“Was he?” said Strike thoughtfully, “Or was he faking? Did he keep badgering her to read it because he was getting ready to stage a nice big public row? He sounds like a massive exhibitionist. Perhaps it was all part of his promotional plan. He didn’t think Roper Chard got his books enough publicity—I had that from Leonora.”

“So you think he’d already planned to storm out of the restaurant when he met Elizabeth Tassel?”

“Could be,” said Strike.

“And to go to Talgarth Road?”

“Maybe.”

The sun had risen fully now, so that the frosted treetops sparkled.

“And he got what he wanted, didn’t he?” said Strike, squinting as a thousand specks of ice glittered over the windscreen. “Couldn’t have arranged better publicity for his book if he’d tried. Just a pity he didn’t live to see himself on the BBC news.

“Oh, bollocks,” he added under his breath.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’ve finished all the biscuits…sorry,” said Strike, contrite.

“That’s all right,” Robin said, amused. “I had breakfast.”

“I didn’t,” Strike confided.

His antipathy to discussing his leg had been dissolved by warm coffee, by their discussion and by her practical thoughts for his comfort.

“Couldn’t get the bloody prosthesis on. My knee’s swollen to hell: I’m going to have to see someone. Took me ages to get sorted.”

She had guessed as much, but appreciated the confidence.

They passed a golf course, its flags protruding from acres of soft whiteness, and water-filled gravel pits now sheets of burnished pewter in the winter light. As they approached Swindon Strike’s phone rang. Checking the number (he half expected a repeat call from Nina Lascelles) he saw that it was Ilsa, his old schoolfriend. He also saw, with misgivings, that he had missed a call from Leonora Quine at six thirty, when he must have been struggling down Charing Cross Road on his crutches.