The Silkworm(17)

Strike remembered the image of the beautiful blond young man hanging on Elizabeth Tassel's wall.

How was Chard awful to North?'

I'm a bit vague on the details,' said Nina. But I know he was. I know Owen swore he'd never work for Daniel, but then he ran through nearly every other publisher so he had to pretend he'd been wrong about Daniel and Daniel took him on because he thought it made him look good. That's what everyone says, anyway.'

And has Quine rowed with Jerry Waldegrave, to your knowledge?'

No, which is what's so bizarre. Why attack Jerry? He's lovely! Although from what I've heard, you can't really-'

For the first time, as far as Strike could tell, she considered what she was about to say before proceeding a little more soberly:

Well, you can't really tell what Owen's getting at in the bit about Jerry, and as I say, I haven't read it. But Owen's done over loads of people,' Nina went on. I heard his own wife's in there, and apparently he's been vile about Liz Tassel, who might be a bitch, but everyone knows she's stuck by Owen through thick and thin. Liz'll never be able to place anything with Roper Chard again; everyone's furious at her. I know she was disinvited for tonight on Daniel's orders  –  pretty humiliating. And there's supposed to be a party for Larry Pinkelman, one of her other authors, in a couple of weeks and they can't uninvite her from that  –  Larry's such an old sweetheart, everyone loves him  –  but God knows what reception she'll get if she turns up.

Anyway,' said Nina, shaking back her light brown fringe and changing the subject abruptly, how are you and I supposed to know each other, once we get to the party? Are you my boyfriend, or what?'

Are partners allowed at this thing?'

Yeah, but I haven't told anyone I'm seeing you, so we can't have been going out long. We'll say we got together at a party last weekend, OK?'

Strike heard, with almost identical amounts of disquiet and gratified vanity, the enthusiasm with which she suggested a fictional tryst.

Need a pee before we go,' he said, raising himself heavily from the wooden bench as she drained her third glass.

The stairs down to the bathroom in Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese were vertiginous and the ceiling so low that he smacked his head even while stooping. As he rubbed his temple, swearing under his breath, it seemed to Strike that he had just been given a divine clout over the head, to remind him what was, and what was not, a good idea.





13




It is reported, you possess a book

Wherein you have quoted by intelligence

The names of all notorious offenders,

Lurking about the city.

John Webster, The White Devil



Experience had taught Strike that there was a certain type of woman to whom he was unusually attractive. Their common characteristics were intelligence and the flickering intensity of badly wired lamps. They were often attractive and usually, as his very oldest friend Dave Polworth liked to put it, total fucking flakes'. Precisely what it was about him that attracted the type, Strike had never taken the time to consider, although Polworth, a man of many pithy theories, took the view that such women (nervy, overbred') were subconsciously looking for what he called carthorse blood'.
 
 

 

Strike's ex-fiancée, Charlotte, might have been said to be queen of the species. Beautiful, clever, volatile and damaged, she had returned again and again to Strike in the face of familial opposition and her friends' barely veiled disgust. He had finally put an end to sixteen years of their on-again, off-again relationship in March and she had become engaged almost immediately to the ex-boyfriend from whom Strike, so many years ago in Oxford, had won her. Barring one exceptional night since, Strike's love life had been voluntarily barren. Work had filled virtually every waking hour and he had successfully resisted advances, subtle or overt, from the likes of his glamorous brunette client, soon-to-be divorcées with time to kill and loneliness to assuage.

But there was always the dangerous urge to submit, to brave complications for a night or two of consolation, and now Nina Lascelles was hurrying along beside him in the dark Strand, taking two strides to his one, and informing him of her exact address in St John's Wood so it looks like you've been there'. She barely came up to his shoulder and Strike had never found very small women attractive. Her torrent of chat about Roper Chard was laden with more laughter than was strictly necessary and once or twice she touched his arm to emphasise a point.

Here we are,' she said at last, as they approached a tall modern building with a revolving glass door and the words Roper Chard' picked out in shining orange Perspex across the stonework.

A wide lobby dotted with people in evening dress faced a line of metal sliding doors. Nina pulled an invitation out of her bag and showed it to what looked like hired help in a badly fitting tuxedo, then she and Strike joined twenty others in a large mirrored lift.

This floor's for meetings,' Nina shouted up to him as they debouched into a crowded open-plan area where a band was playing to a sparsely populated dance floor. It's usually partitioned. So  –  who do you want to meet?'

Anyone who knew Quine well and might have an idea where he is.'

That's only Jerry, really … '

They were buffeted by a fresh consignment of guests from the lift behind them and moved into the crowd. Strike thought he felt Nina grab the back of his coat, like a child, but he did not reciprocate by taking her hand or in any way reinforce the impression that they were boyfriend and girlfriend. Once or twice he heard her greet people in passing. They eventually won through to the far wall, where tables manned by white-coated waiters groaned with party food and it was possible to make conversation without shouting. Strike took a couple of dainty crab cakes and ate them, deploring their minuscule size, while Nina looked around.

Can't see Jerry anywhere, but he's probably up on the roof, smoking. Shall we try up there? Oooh, look there  –  Daniel Chard, mingling with the herd!'

Which one?'

The bald one.'

A respectful little distance had been left around the head of the company, like the flattened circle of corn that surrounds a rising helicopter, as he talked to a curvaceous young woman in a tight black dress.

Phallus Impudicus; Strike could not repress a grin of amusement, yet Chard's baldness suited him. He was younger and fitter-looking than Strike had expected and handsome in his way, with thick dark eyebrows over deep-set eyes, a hawkish nose and a thin-lipped mouth. His charcoal suit was unexceptional but his tie, which was pale mauve, was much wider than the average and bore drawings of human noses. Strike, whose dress sense had always been conventional, an instinct honed by the sergeants' mess, could not help but be intrigued by this small but forceful statement of non-conformity in a CEO, especially as it was drawing the occasional glance of surprise or amusement.

Where's the drink?' Nina said, standing pointlessly on tiptoe.

Over there,' said Strike, who could see a bar in front of the windows that showed a view of the dark Thames. Stay here, I'll get them. White wine?'

Champers, if Daniel's pushed the boat out.'

He took a route through the crowd so that he could, without ostentation, bring himself in close proximity to Chard, who was letting his companion do all the talking. She had that air of slight desperation of the conversationalist who knows that they are failing. The back of Chard's hand, which was clutching a glass of water, Strike noticed, was covered in shiny red eczema. Strike paused immediately behind Chard, ostensibly to allow a party of young women to pass in the opposite direction.

 …  and it really was awfully funny,' the girl in the black dress was saying nervously.

Yes,' said Chard, who sounded deeply bored, it must have been.'

And was New York wonderful? I mean  –  not wonderful  –  was it useful? Fun?' asked his companion.

Busy,' said Chard and Strike, though he could not see the CEO, thought he actually yawned. Lots of digital talk.'

A portly man in a three-piece suit who appeared drunk already, though it was barely eight thirty, stopped in front of Strike and invited him, with overdone courtesy, to proceed. Strike had no choice but to accept the elaborately mimed invitation and so passed out of range of Daniel Chard's voice.

Thanks,' said Nina a few minutes later, taking her champagne from Strike. Shall we go up to the roof garden, then?'

Great,' said Strike. He had taken champagne too, not because he liked it, but because there had been nothing else there he cared to drink. Who's that woman Daniel Chard's talking to?'

Nina craned to see as she led Strike towards a helical metal staircase.

Joanna Waldegrave, Jerry's daughter. She's just written her first novel. Why? Is that your type?' she asked, with a breathy little laugh.

No,' said Strike.

They climbed the mesh stairs, Strike relying heavily once more on the handrail. The icy night air scoured his lungs as they emerged on to the top of the building. Stretches of velvety lawn, tubs of flowers and young trees, benches dotted everywhere; there was even a floodlit pond where fish darted, flame-like, beneath the black lily pads. Outdoor heaters like giant steel mushrooms had been placed in groups between neat square lawns and people were huddled under them, their backs turned to the synthetic pastoral scene, looking inwards at their fellow smokers, cigarette tips glowing.

The view over the city was spectacular, velvet black and jewelled, the London Eye glowing neon blue, the Oxo Tower with its ruby windows, the Southbank Centre, Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster shining golden away to the right.