The Silkworm

“Ilsa, hi. What’s going on?”

“Quite a lot, actually,” she said. She sounded tinny and distant; he could tell that she was in her car.

“Did Leonora Quine call you on Wednesday?”

“Yep, we met that afternoon,” she said. “And I’ve just spoken to her again. She told me she tried to speak to you this morning and couldn’t get you.”

“Yeah, I had an early start, must’ve missed her.”

“I’ve got her permission to tell—”

“What’s happened?”

“They’ve taken her in for questioning. I’m on my way to the station now.”

“Shit,” said Strike. “Shit. What have they got?”

“She told me they found photographs in her and Quine’s bedroom. Apparently he liked being tied up and he liked being photographed once restrained,” said Ilsa with mordant matter-of-factness. “She told me all this as though she was talking about the gardening.”

He could hear faint sounds of heavy traffic back in central London. Here on the motorway the loudest sounds were the swish of the windscreen wipers, the steady purr of the powerful engine and the occasional whoosh of the reckless, overtaking in the swirling snow.

“You’d think she’d have the sense to get rid of the pictures,” said Strike.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that suggestion about destroying evidence,” said Ilsa mock-sternly.

“Those pictures aren’t bloody evidence,” said Strike. “Christ almighty, of course they had a kinky sex life, those two—how else was Leonora going to keep hold of a man like Quine? Anstis’s mind’s too clean, that’s the problem; he thinks everything except the missionary position is evidence of bloody criminal tendencies.”

“What do you know about the investigating officer’s sexual habits?” Ilsa asked, amused.

“He’s the bloke I pulled to the back of the vehicle in Afghanistan,” muttered Strike.

“Oh,” said Ilsa.

“And he’s determined to fit up Leonora. If that’s all they’ve got, dirty photos—”

“It isn’t. Did you know the Quines have got a lockup?”

Strike listened, tense, suddenly worried. Could he have been wrong, completely wrong—?

“Well, did you?” asked Ilsa.

“What’ve they found?” asked Strike, no longer flippant. “Not the guts?”

“What did you just say? It sounded like ‘not the guts’!”

“What’ve they found?” Strike corrected himself.

“I don’t know, but I expect I’ll find out when I get there.”

“She’s not under arrest?”

“Just in for questioning, but they’re sure it’s her, I can tell, and I don’t think she realizes how serious things are getting. When she rang me, all she could talk about was her daughter being left with the neighbor, her daughter being upset—”

“The daughter’s twenty-four and she’s got learning difficulties.”

“Oh,” said Ilsa. “Sad…Listen, I’m nearly there, I’ll have to go.”

“Keep me posted.”

“Don’t expect anything soon. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be a while.”

“Shit,” Strike said again as he hung up.

“What’s happened?”

An enormous tanker had pulled out of the slow lane to overtake a Honda Civic with a Baby On Board sign in its rear window. Strike watched its gargantuan silver bullet of a body swaying at speed on the icy road and noted with unspoken approval that Robin slowed down, leaving more braking room.

“The police have taken Leonora in for questioning.”

Robin gasped.

“They’ve found photos of Quine tied up in their bedroom and something else in a lockup, but Ilsa doesn’t know what—”

It had happened to Strike before. The instantaneous shift from calm to calamity. The slowing of time. Every sense suddenly wire-taut and screaming.

The tanker was jackknifing.

He heard himself bellow “BRAKE!” because that was what he had done last time to try to stave off death—

But Robin slammed her foot on the accelerator. The car roared forward. There was no room to pass. The lorry hit the icy road on its side and spun; the Civic hit it, flipped over and skidded on its roof towards the side of the road; a Golf and a Mercedes had slammed into each other and were locked together, speeding towards the truck of the tanker—

They were hurtling towards the ditch at the side of the road. Robin missed the overturned Civic by an inch. Strike grabbed hold of the door handle as the Land Cruiser hit the rough ground at speed—they were going to plow into the ditch and maybe overturn—the tail end of the tanker was swinging lethally towards them, but they were traveling so fast that she missed that by a whisker—a massive jolt, Strike’s head hit the roof of the car, and they had swerved back onto the icy tarmac on the other side of the pileup, unscathed.

“Holy fucking—”

She was braking at last, in total control, pulling up on the hard shoulder, and her face was as white as the snow spattering the windscreen.

“There was a kid in that Civic.”

And before he could say another word she had gone, slamming the door behind her.