The Silkworm(25)

The door behind him whispered over the dense grey carpet.

Mystic Bob,' said a voice.

Richard Anstis of the Metropolitan Police and the Territorial Army entered the room grinning, his hair wet with rain, carrying a bundle of papers under his arm. One side of his face was heavily scarred, the skin beneath his right eye pulled taut. They had saved his sight at the field hospital in Kabul while Strike had lain unconscious, doctors working to preserve the knee of his severed leg.

Anstis!' said Strike, taking the policeman's proffered hand. What the-?'

Pulled rank, mate, I'm going to handle this one,' said Anstis, dropping into the seat lately vacated by the surly female detective. You're not popular round here, you know. Lucky for you, you've got Uncle Dickie on your side, vouching for you.'

He always said that Strike had saved his life, and perhaps it was true. They had been under fire on a yellow dirt road in Afghanistan. Strike himself was not sure what had made him sense the imminent explosion. The youth running from the roadside ahead with what looked like his younger brother could simply have been fleeing the gunfire. All he knew was that he had yelled at the driver of the Viking to brake, an injunction not followed  –  perhaps not heard  –  that he had reached forward, grabbed Anstis by the back of the shirt and hauled him one-handed into the back of the vehicle. Had Anstis remained where he was he would probably have suffered the fate of young Gary Topley, who had been sitting directly in front of Strike, and of whom they could find only the head and torso to bury.

Need to run through this story one more time, mate,' said Anstis, spreading out in front of him the statement that he must have taken from the female officer.

All right if I drink?' asked Strike wearily.

Under Anstis's amused gaze, Strike retrieved the Arran single malt from the carrier bag and added two fingers to the lukewarm water in his plastic cup.

Right: you were hired by his wife to find the dead man …  we're assuming the body's this writer, this-'

Owen Quine, yeah,' supplied Strike, as Anstis squinted over his colleague's handwriting. His wife hired me six days ago.'

And at that point he'd been missing-?'

Ten days.'

But she hadn't been to the police?'

No. He did this regularly: dropped out of sight without telling anyone where he was, then coming home again. He liked taking off for hotels without his wife.'

Why did she bring you in this time?'

Things are difficult at home. There's a disabled daughter and money's short. He'd been away a bit longer than usual. She thought he'd gone off to a writer's retreat. She didn't know the name of the place, but I checked and he wasn't there.'

Still don't see why she called you rather than us.'

She says she called your lot in once before when he went walkabout and he was angry about it. Apparently he'd been with a girlfriend.'

I'll check that,' said Anstis, making a note. What made you go to that house?'

I found out last night the Quines co-owned it.'

A slight pause.

His wife hadn't mentioned it?'

No,' said Strike. Her story is that he hated the place and never went near it. She gave the impression she'd half forgotten they even owned it-'

Is that likely?' murmured Anstis, scratching his chin. If they're skint?'

It's complicated,' said Strike. The other owner's Michael Fancourt-'

I've heard of him.'

-and she says he won't let them sell. There was bad blood between Fancourt and Quine.' Strike drank his whisky; it warmed throat and stomach. (Quine's stomach, his entire digestive tract, had been cut out. Where the hell was it?) Anyway, I went along at lunchtime and there he was  –  or most of him was.'

The whisky had made him crave a cigarette worse than ever.

The body's a real fucking mess, from what I've heard,' said Anstis.

Wanna see?'

Strike pulled his mobile phone from his pocket, brought up the photographs of the corpse and handed it across the desk.

Holy shit,' said Anstis. After a minute of silent contemplation of the rotting corpse he asked, disgusted, What are those around him …  plates?'

Yep,' said Strike.

That mean anything to you?'

Nothing,' said Strike.

Any idea when he was last seen alive?'

The last time his wife saw him was the night of the fifth. He'd just had dinner with his agent, who'd told him he couldn't publish his latest book because he's libelled Christ knows how many people, including a couple of very litigious men.'

Anstis looked down at the notes left by DI Rawlins.

You didn't tell Bridget that.'

She didn't ask. We didn't strike up much of a rapport.'

How long's this book been in the shops?'

It isn't in the shops,' said Strike, adding more whisky to his beaker. It hasn't been published yet. I told you, he rowed with his agent because she told him he couldn't publish it.'

Have you read it?'

Most of it.'

Did his wife give you a copy?'

No, she says she's never read it.'

She forgot she owned a second house and she doesn't read her own husband's books,' said Anstis without emphasis.

Her story is that she reads them once they've got proper covers on,' said Strike. For what it's worth, I believe her.'

Uh-huh,' said Anstis, who was now scribbling additions to Strike's statement. How did you get a copy of the manuscript?'

I'd prefer not to say.'

Could be a problem,' said Anstis, glancing up.

Not for me,' said Strike.

We might need to come back to that one, Bob.'

Strike shrugged, then asked:

Has his wife been told?'

Should have been by now, yeah.'

Strike had not called Leonora. The news that her husband was dead must be broken in person by somebody with the necessary training. He had done the job himself, many times, but he was out of practice; in any case, his allegiance this afternoon had been to the desecrated remains of Owen Quine, to stand watch over them until he had delivered them safely into the hands of the police.

He had not forgotten what Leonora would be going through while he was interrogated at Scotland Yard. He had imagined her opening the door to the police officer  –  or two of them, perhaps  –  the first thrill of alarm at the sight of the uniform; the hammer blow dealt to the heart by the calm, understanding, sympathetic invitation to retire indoors; the horror of the pronouncement (although they would not tell her, at least at first, about the thick purple ropes binding her husband, or the dark empty cavern that a murderer had made of his chest and belly; they would not say that his face had been burned away by acid or that somebody had laid out plates around him as though he were a giant roast …  Strike remembered the platter of lamb that Lucy had handed around nearly twenty-four hours previously. He was not a squeamish man, but the smooth malt seemed to catch in his throat and he set down his beaker).

How many people know what's in this book, d'you reckon?' asked Anstis slowly.

No idea,' said Strike. Could be a lot by now. Quine's agent, Elizabeth Tassel  –  spelled like it sounds,' he added helpfully, as Anstis scribbled, sent it to Christian Fisher at Crossfire Publishing and he's a man who likes to gossip. Lawyers got involved to try and stop the talk.'
 
 

 

More and more interesting,' muttered Anstis, writing fast. You want anything else to eat, Bob?'

I want a smoke.'

Won't be long,' promised Anstis. Who's he libelled?'

The question is,' said Strike, flexing his sore leg, whether it's libel, or whether he's exposed the truth about people. But the characters I recognised were  –  give us a pen and paper,' he said, because it was quicker to write than to dictate. He said the names aloud as he jotted them down: Michael Fancourt, the writer; Daniel Chard, who's head of Quine's publisher; Kathryn Kent, Quine's girlfriend-'

There's a girlfriend?'

Yeah, they've been together over a year, apparently. I went to see her  –  Stafford Cripps House, part of Clement Attlee Court  –  and she claimed he wasn't at her flat and she hadn't seen him …  Liz Tassel, his agent; Jerry Waldegrave, his editor, and'  –  a fractional hesitation  –  his wife.'

He's put his wife in there as well, has he?'

Yeah,' said Strike, pushing the list over the desk to Anstis. But there are a load of other characters I wouldn't recognise. You've got a wide field if you're looking for someone he put in the book.'

Have you still got the manuscript?'

No.' Strike, expecting the question, lied easily. Let Anstis get a copy of his own, without Nina's fingerprints on it.

Anything else you can think of that might be helpful?' Anstis asked, sitting up straight.

Yeah,' said Strike. I don't think his wife did it.'

Anstis shot Strike a quizzical look not unmixed with warmth. Strike was godfather to the son who had been born to Anstis just two days before both of them had been blown out of the Viking. Strike had met Timothy Cormoran Anstis a handful of times and had not been impressed in his favour.

OK, Bob, sign this for us and I can give you a lift home.'

Strike read through the statement carefully, took pleasure in correcting DI Rawlins's spelling in a few places, and signed.

His mobile rang as he and Anstis walked down the long corridor towards the lifts, Strike's knee protesting painfully.

Cormoran Strike?'

It's me, Leonora,' she said, sounding almost exactly as she usually did, except that her voice was perhaps a little less flat.

Strike gestured to Anstis that he was not ready to enter the lift and drew aside from the policeman, to a dark window beneath which traffic was winding in the endless rain.

Have the police been to see you?' he asked her.