The Silkworm(36)

How d'you know that?'

The girlfriend,' said Anstis. Kathryn Kent.'

You've already talked to her, have you?'

Yep,' said Anstis. We found a taxi driver who picked up Quine at nine o'clock on the fifth, a couple of streets away from his house, and dropped him in Lillie Road.'

Right by Stafford Cripps House,' said Strike. So he went straight from Leonora to the girlfriend?'

Well, no, he didn't. Kent was away, staying with her dying sister, and we've got corroboration  –  she spent the night at the hospice. She says she hasn't seen him for a month, but was surprisingly forthcoming on their sex life.'

Did you ask for details?'

I got the impression she thought we knew more than we did. They came pouring out without much prodding.'

Suggestive,' said Strike. She told me she'd never read Bombyx Mori-'

She told us that too.'

-but her character ties up and assaults the hero in the book. Maybe she wanted it on record that she ties people up for sex, not torture or murder. What about the copy of the manuscript Leonora says he took away with him? All the notes and the old typewriter ribbons? Did you find them?'

Nope,' said Anstis. Until we find out whether he stayed somewhere else before he went to Talgarth Road, we're going to assume the killer took them. The place was empty except for a bit of food and drink in the kitchen and a camping mattress and sleeping bag in one of the bedrooms. It looks like Quine was dossing down there. Hydrochloric acid's been poured around that room too, all over Quine's bed.'

No fingerprints? Footprints? Unexplained hair, mud?'

Nothing. We've still got people working on the place, but the acid's obliterated everything in its path. Our people are wearing masks just so the fumes don't rip their throats out.'

Anyone apart from this taxi driver admitted to seeing Quine since he disappeared?'

Nobody's seen him entering Talgarth Road but we've got a neighbour at number 183 who swears she saw Quine leave it at one in the morning. Early hours of the sixth. The neighbour was letting herself in after a bonfire-night party.'

It was dark and she was two doors down, so what she actually saw was … ?'

Silhouette of a tall figure in a cloak, carrying a holdall.'

A holdall,' repeated Strike.

Yep,' said Anstis.

Did the cloaked figure get into a car?'

No, it walked out of sight, but obviously a car could have been parked round the corner.'

Anyone else?'

I've got an old geezer in Putney swearing he saw Quine on the eighth. Rang his local police station and described him accurately.'

What was Quine doing?'

Buying books in the Bridlington Bookshop, where the bloke works.'

How convincing a witness is he?'

Well, he's old, but he claims he can remember what Quine bought and the physical description's good. And we've got another woman who lives in the flats across the road from the crime scene who reckons she passed Michael Fancourt walking past the house, also on the morning of the eighth. You know, that author with the big head? Famous one?'

Yeah, I do,' said Strike slowly.

Witness claims she looked back at him over her shoulder and stared, because she recognised him.'

He was just walking past?'

So she claims.'

Anybody checked that with Fancourt yet?'

He's in Germany, but he's said he's happy to cooperate with us when he gets back. Agent bending over backwards to be helpful.'

Any other suspicious activity around Talgarth Road? Camera footage?'

The only camera's at the wrong angle for the house, it watches traffic  –  but I'm saving the best till last. We've got a different neighbour  –  other side, four doors down  –  who swears he saw a fat woman in a burqa letting herself in on the afternoon of the fourth, carrying a plastic bag from a halal takeaway. He says he noticed because the house had been empty so long. He claims she was there for an hour, then left.'

He's sure she was in Quine's house?'

So he says.'

And she had a key?'

That's his story.'

A burqa,' repeated Strike. Bloody hell.'

I wouldn't swear his eyesight's great; he's got very thick lenses in his glasses. He told me he didn't know of any Muslims living in the street, so it had caught his attention.'

So we've got two alleged sightings of Quine since he walked out on his wife: early hours of the sixth, and on the eighth, in Putney.'

Yeah,' said Anstis, but I wouldn't pin too much hope on either of them, Bob.'

You think he died the night he left,' said Strike, more statement than question, and Anstis nodded.

Underhill thinks so.'

No sign of the knife?'

Nothing. The only knife in the kitchen was a very blunt, everyday one. Definitely not up to the job.'

Who do we know had a key to the place?'

Your client,' said Anstis, obviously. Quine himself must've had one. Fancourt's got two, he's already told us that by phone. The Quines lent one to his agent when she was organising some repairs for them; she says she gave it back. A next-door neighbour's got a key so he can let himself in if anything goes wrong with the place.'

Didn't he go in once the stink got bad?

One side did put a note through the door complaining about the smell, but the key holder left for two months in New Zealand a fortnight ago. We've spoken to him by phone. Last time he was in the house was in about May, when he took delivery of a couple of packages while some workmen were in and put them in the hall. Mrs Quine's vague about who else might have been lent a key over the years.

She's an odd woman, Mrs Quine,' Anstis went on smoothly, isn't she?'

Haven't thought about it,' lied Strike.

You know the neighbours heard her chasing him, the night he disappeared?'

I didn't know.'

Yeah. She ran out of the house after him, screaming. The neighbours all say'  –  Anstis was watching Strike closely  –  that she yelled "I know where you're off to, Owen!"'

Well, she thought she did know,' Strike said with a shrug. She thought he was going to the writer's retreat Christian Fisher told him about. Bigley Hall.'

She's refusing to move out of the house.'
 
 

 

She's got a mentally handicapped daughter who's never slept anywhere else. Can you imagine Leonora overpowering Quine?'

No,' said Anstis, but we know it turned him on to be tied up, and I doubt they were married for thirty-odd years without her knowing that.'

You think they had a row, then she tracked him down and suggested a bit of bondage?'

Anstis gave the suggestion of a small, token laugh, then said:

It doesn't look great for her, Bob. Angry wife with the key to the house, early access to the manuscript, plenty of motive if she knew about the mistress, especially if there was any question of Quine leaving her and the daughter for Kent. Only her word for it that "I know where you're going" meant this writer's retreat and not the house on Talgarth Road.'

Sounds convincing when you put it like that,' Strike said.

But you don't think so.'

She's my client,' said Strike. I'm being paid to think of alternatives.'

Has she told you where she used to work?' asked Anstis, with the air of a man about to play his trump card. Back in Hay-on-Wye, before they were married?'

Go on,' said Strike, not without a degree of apprehension.

In her uncle's butcher's shop,' said Anstis.

Outside the study door Strike heard Timothy Cormoran Anstis thudding down the stairs again, screaming his head off at some fresh disappointment. For the first time in their unsatisfactory acquaintance, Strike felt a real empathy for the boy.





24




All well bred persons lie  –  Besides, you are a woman; you must never speak what you think …

William Congreve, Love for Love



Strike's dreams that night, fuelled by a day's consumption of Doom Bar, by talk of blood, acid and blowflies, were strange and ugly.

Charlotte was getting married and he, Strike, was running to an eerie Gothic cathedral, running on two whole, functioning legs, because he knew that she had just given birth to his child and he needed to see it, to save it. There she was, in the vast, dark empty space, alone at the altar, struggling into a blood red gown, and somewhere out of sight, perhaps in a cold vestry, lay his baby, naked, helpless and abandoned.

Where is it?' he asked.

You're not seeing it. You didn't want it. Anyway, there's something wrong with it,' she said.

He was afraid of what he would see if he went to find the baby. Her bridegroom was nowhere to be seen but she was ready for the wedding, in a thick scarlet veil.

Leave it, it's horrible,' she said coldly, pushing past him, walking alone away from the altar, back up the aisle towards the distant doorway. You'd only touch it,' she shouted over her shoulder. I don't want you touching it. You'll see it eventually. It'll have to be announced,' she added in a vanishing voice, as she became a sliver of scarlet dancing in the light of the open doors, in the papers … '

He was suddenly awake in the morning gloom, his mouth dry and his knee throbbing ominously in spite of a night's rest.

Winter had slid in the night like a glacier over London. A hard frost had iced the outside of his attic window and the temperature inside his rooms, with their ill-fitting windows and doors and the total lack of insulation under the roof, had plummeted.

Strike got up and reached for a sweater lying on the end of his bed. When he came to fix on his prosthesis, he found that his knee was exceptionally swollen after the journey to and from Greenwich. The shower water took longer than usual to heat up; he cranked up the thermostat, fearing burst pipes and frozen gutters, sub-zero living quarters and an expensive plumber. After drying himself off, he unearthed his old sports bandages from the box on the landing to strap up his knee.