The Silkworm(39)

Mr Strike,' she said sharply.

A male plain-clothes officer with ginger hair who had been standing in the doorway talking to somebody just inside whipped around, caught sight of Strike and descended the slippery steps at speed.

Morning,' said Strike brazenly. Robin was torn between admiration for his cheek and trepidation; she had an innate respect for the law.

What are you doing back here, Mr Strike?' asked the ginger-haired man suavely. His eyes wandered over Robin in a way that she found vaguely offensive. You can't come in.'

Pity,' said Strike. We'll just have to peruse the perimeter, then.'

Ignoring the pair of officers watching his every move, Strike limped past them to number 183 and proceeded through the gates and up the front steps. Robin could think of nothing to do but follow him; she did it self-consciously, aware of the eyes on her back.

What are we doing?' she muttered as they reached the shelter of the brick canopy and were hidden from the staring police. The house seemed empty, but she was a little worried that someone might be about to open the front door.

Gauging whether the woman who lives here could've seen a cloaked figure carrying a holdall leaving 179 at two in the morning,' said Strike. And you know what? I think she could, unless that street lamp's out. OK, let's try the other side.

Parky, isn't it?' Strike said to the frowning constable and her companion as he and Robin walked back past them. Four doors down, Anstis said,' he added quietly to Robin. So that'll be 171 … '

Again, Strike marched up the front steps, Robin walking foolishly after him.

You know, I was wondering whether he could've mistaken the house, but 177's got that red plastic dustbin in front. Burqa would've walked up the steps right behind it, which would've made it easy to tell-'

The front door opened.

Can I help you?' said a well-spoken man in thick-lensed glasses.

As Strike began to apologise for coming to the wrong house, the ginger-haired officer shouted something incomprehensible from the pavement outside 179. When nobody responded, he climbed over the plastic tape blocking entrance to the property and began to jog towards them.

That man,' he shouted absurdly, pointing at Strike, is not a policeman!'

He didn't say he was,' replied the spectacled man in meek surprise.

Well, I think we're done here,' Strike told Robin.

Aren't you worried,' Robin asked him as they walked back towards the Tube station, a little amused but mostly eager to leave the scene, what your friend Anstis is going to say about you skulking around the crime scene like this?'

Doubt he'll be happy,' Strike said, looking around for CCTV cameras, but keeping Anstis happy isn't in my job description.'

It was decent of him to share the forensic stuff with you,' Robin said.

He did that to try and warn me off the case. He thinks everything points to Leonora. Trouble is, at the moment, everything does.'

The road was packed with traffic, which was watched by a single camera as far as Strike could see, but there were many side roads leading off it down which a person wearing Owen Quine's Tyrolean cloak, or a burqa, might slide out of sight without anyone being the wiser as to their identity.

Strike bought two takeaway coffees in the Metro Café that stood in the station building, then they passed back through the pea-green ticket hall and set off for West Brompton.



What you've got to remember,' said Strike as they stood at Earl's Court waiting to change trains, Robin noticing how Strike kept all his weight on his good leg, is that Quine disappeared on the fifth. Bonfire night.'

God, of course!' said Robin.

Flashes and bangs,' said Strike, gulping coffee fast so as to empty his cup before they had to get on; he did not trust himself to balance coffee and himself on the wet, icy floors. Rockets going off in every direction, drawing everyone's attention. No big surprise that nobody saw a figure in a cloak entering the building that night.'
 
 

 

You mean Quine?'

Not necessarily.'

Robin pondered this for a while.

Do you think the man in the bookshop's lying about Quine going in there on the eighth?'

I don't know,' said Strike. Too early to say, isn't it?'

But that, he realised, was what he believed. The sudden activity around a deserted house on the fourth and fifth was strongly suggestive.

Funny, the things people notice,' said Robin as they climbed the red-and-green stairs at West Brompton, Strike now grimacing every time he put down his right leg. Memory's an odd thing, isn't-'

Strike's knee suddenly felt red hot and he slumped against the railings along the bridge over the tracks. A suited man behind him swore impatiently at finding a sudden, sizeable impediment in his path and Robin walked on a few paces, still talking, before realising that Strike was no longer beside her. She hurried back to find him pale, sweating and obliging commuters to take a detour around him as he stood slumped against the railings.

Felt something go,' he said through gritted teeth, in my knee. Shit …  shit!'

We'll get a taxi.'

Never get one in this weather.'

Then let's get back on the train and go back to the office.'

No, I want-'

He had never felt his dearth of resources more keenly than at this moment, standing on the iron lattice bridge beneath the arched glass ceiling where snow was settling. In the old days there had always been a car for him to drive. He could have summoned witnesses to him. He had been Special Investigation Branch, in charge, in control.

If you want to do this, we need a taxi,' Robin said firmly. It's a long walk up Lillie Road from here. Haven't-'

She hesitated. They never mentioned Strike's disability except obliquely.

Haven't you got a stick or something?'

Wish I had,' he said through numb lips. What was the point in pretending? He was dreading having to walk even to the end of the bridge.

We can get one,' said Robin. Chemists sometimes sell them. We'll find one.'

And then, after another momentary hesitation, she said:

Lean on me.'

I'm too heavy.'

To balance. Use me like a stick. Do it,' she said firmly.

He put his arm around her shoulders and they made their way slowly over the bridge and paused beside the exit. The snow had temporarily passed, but the cold was, if anything, worse than it had been.

Why aren't there seats anywhere?' asked Robin, glaring around.

Welcome to my world,' said Strike, who had withdrawn his arm from around her shoulders the instant they had stopped.

What d'you think's happened?' Robin asked, looking down at his right leg.

I dunno. It was all puffed up this morning. I probably shouldn't have put the prosthesis on, but I hate using crutches.'

Well, you can't go traipsing up Lillie Road in the snow like this. We'll get a cab and you can go back to the office-'

No. I want to do something,' he said angrily. Anstis is convinced it's Leonora. It isn't.'

Everything was pared down to the essential when you were in this degree of pain.

All right,' said Robin. We'll split up and you can go in a cab. OK? OK?' she said insistently.

All right,' he said, defeated. You go up to Clem Attlee Court.'

What am I looking for?'

Cameras. Hiding places for clothing and intestines. Kent can't have kept them in her flat if she took them; they'd stink. Take pictures on your phone  –  anything that seems useful … '

It seemed pathetically little to him as he said it, but he had to do something. For some reason, he kept remembering Orlando, with her wide, vacant smile and her cuddly orang-utan.

And then?' asked Robin.

Sussex Street,' said Strike after a few seconds' thought. Same thing. And then give me a ring and we'll meet up. You'd better give me the numbers of Tassel's and Waldegrave's houses.'

She gave him a piece of paper.

I'll get you a taxi.'

Before he could thank her she had marched away onto the cold street.





26




I must look to my footing:

In such slippery ice-pavements men had need

To be frost-nail'd well, they may break their necks else …

John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi



It was fortunate that Strike still had the five hundred pounds in cash in his wallet that had been given him to cut up a teenage boy. He told the taxi driver to take him to Fulham Palace Road, home of Elizabeth Tassel, took note of the route as he travelled and would have arrived at her house in a mere four minutes had he not spotted a Boots. He asked the driver to pull up and wait, and re-emerged from the chemists shortly afterwards, walking much more easily with the aid of an adjustable stick.

He estimated that a fit woman might make the journey on foot in less than half an hour. Elizabeth Tassel lived further from the murder scene than Kathryn Kent but Strike, who knew the area reasonably well, was sure that she could have made her way through most residential backstreets while avoiding the attention of cameras, and that she might have avoided detection even with a car.

Her home looked drab and dingy on this bleak winter's day. Another red brick Victorian house, but with none of the grandeur or whimsy of Talgarth Road, it stood on a corner, fronted by a dank garden overshadowed by overgrown laburnum bushes. Sleet fell again as Strike stood peering over the garden gate, trying to keep his cigarette alight by cupping it in his hand. There were gardens front and back, both well shielded from the public view by the dark bushes quivering with the weight of the icy downpour. The upper windows of the house looked out over the Fulham Palace Road Cemetery, a depressing view one month from midwinter, with bare trees reaching bony arms silhouetted into a white sky, old tombstones marching into the distance.

Could he imagine Elizabeth Tassel in her smart black suit, with her scarlet lipstick and her undisguised fury at Owen Quine, returning here under cover of darkness, stained with blood and acid, carrying a bag full of intestines?