The Silkworm(75)

Since it opened. I was an early investor,' said Fancourt. Only club I've ever needed. I stay overnight here if I need to. There are rooms upstairs.'
 
 

 

Fancourt fixed Strike with a consciously intense stare.

I've been looking forward to meeting you. The hero of my next novel is a veteran of the so-called war on terror and its military corollaries. I'd like to pick your brains once we've got Owen Quine out of the way.'

Strike happened to know a little about the tools available to the famous when they wished to manipulate. Lucy's guitarist father, Rick, was less famous than either Strike's father or Fancourt, but still celebrated enough to cause a middle-aged woman to gasp and tremble at the sight of him queuing for ice creams in St Mawes  –  ohmigod  –  what are you doing here?' Rick had once confided in the adolescent Strike that the one sure way to get a woman into bed was to tell her you were writing a song about her. Michael Fancourt's pronouncement that he was interested in capturing something of Strike in his next novel felt like a variation on the same theme. He had clearly not appreciated that seeing himself in print was neither a novelty to Strike, nor something he had ever chased. With an unenthusiastic nod to acknowledge Fancourt's request, Strike took out a notebook.

D'you mind if I use this? Helps me remember what I want to ask you.'

Feel free,' said Fancourt, looking amused. He tossed aside the copy of the Guardian that he had been reading. Strike saw the picture of a wizened but distinguished-looking old man who was vaguely familiar even upside-down. The caption read: Pinkelman at Ninety.

Dear old Pinks,' said Fancourt, noticing the direction of Strike's gaze. We're giving him a little party at the Chelsea Arts Club next week.'

Yeah?' said Strike, hunting for a pen.

He knew my uncle. They did their national service together,' said Fancourt. When I wrote my first novel, Bellafront  –  I was fresh out of Oxford  –  my poor old Unc, trying to be helpful, sent a copy to Pinkelman, who was the only writer he'd ever met.'

He spoke in measured phrases, as though some invisible third party were taking down every word in shorthand. The story sounded pre-rehearsed, as though he had told it many times, and perhaps he had; he was an oft-interviewed man.

Pinkelman  –  at that time author of the seminal Bunty's Big Adventure series  –  didn't understand a word I'd written,' Fancourt went on, but to please my uncle he forwarded it to Chard Books, where it landed, most fortuitously, on the desk of the only person in the place who could understand it.'

Stroke of luck,' said Strike.

The waiter returned with wine for Fancourt and a glass of water for Strike.

So,' said the detective, were you returning a favour when you introduced Pinkelman to your agent?'

I was,' said Fancourt, and his nod held the hint of patronage of a teacher glad to note that one of his pupils had been paying attention. In those days Pinks was with some agent who kept "forgetting" to hand on his royalties. Whatever you say about Elizabeth Tassel, she's honest  –  in business terms, she's honest,' Fancourt amended, sipping his wine.

She'll be at Pinkelman's party too, won't she?' said Strike, watching Fancourt for his reaction. She still represents him, doesn't she?'

It doesn't matter to me if Liz is there. Does she imagine that I'm still burning with malice towards her?' asked Fancourt, with his sour smile. I don't think I give Liz Tassel a thought from one year's end to the next.'

Why did she refuse to ditch Quine when you asked her to?' asked Strike.

Strike did not see why he should not deploy the direct attack to a man who had announced an ulterior motive for meeting within seconds of their first encounter.

It was never a question of me asking her to drop Quine,' said Fancourt, still in measured cadences for the benefit of that invisible amanuensis. I explained that I could not remain at her agency while he was there, and left.'

I see,' said Strike, who was well used to the splitting of hairs. Why d'you think she let you leave? You were the bigger fish, weren't you?'

I think it's fair to say that I was a barracuda compared to Quine's stickleback,' said Fancourt with a smirk, but, you see, Liz and Quine were sleeping together.'

Really? I didn't know that,' said Strike, clicking out the nib of his pen.

Liz arrived at Oxford,' said Fancourt, this strapping great girl who'd been helping her father castrate bulls and the like on sundry northern farms, desperate to get laid, and nobody fancied the job much. She had a thing for me, a very big thing  –  we were tutorial partners, juicy Jacobean intrigue calculated to get a girl going  –  but I never felt altruistic enough to relieve her of her virginity. We remained friends,' said Fancourt, and when she started her agency I introduced her to Quine, who notoriously preferred to plumb the bottom of the barrel, sexually speaking. The inevitable occurred.'

Very interesting,' said Strike. Is this common knowledge?'

I doubt it,' said Fancourt. Quine was already married to his  –  well, his murderess, I suppose we have to call her now, don't we?' he said thoughtfully. I'd imagine "murderess" trumps "wife" when defining a close relationship? And Liz would have threatened him with dire consequences if he'd been his usual indiscreet self about her bedroom antics, on the wild off-chance that I might yet be persuaded to sleep with her.'

Was this blind vanity, Strike wondered, a matter of fact, or a mixture of both?

She used to look at me with those big cow eyes, waiting, hoping … ' said Fancourt, a cruel twist to his mouth. After Ellie died she realised that I wasn't going to oblige her even when grief-stricken. I'd imagine she was unable to bear the thought of decades of future celibacy, so she stood by her man.'

Did you ever speak to Quine again after you left the agency?' Strike asked.

For the first few years after Ellie died he'd scuttle out of any bar I entered,' said Fancourt. Eventually he got brave enough to remain in the same restaurant, throwing me nervous looks. No, I don't think we ever spoke to each other again,' said Fancourt, as though the matter were of little interest. You were injured in Afghanistan, I think?'

Yeah,' said Strike.

It might work on women, Strike reflected, the calculated intensity of the gaze. Perhaps Owen Quine had fixed Kathryn Kent and Pippa Midgley with the identical hungry, vampiric stare when he told them he would be putting them into Bombyx Mori …  and they had been thrilled to think of part of themselves, their lives, forever encased in the amber of a writer's prose …

How did it happen?' asked Fancourt, his eyes on Strike's legs.

IED,' said Strike. What about Talgarth Road? You and Quine were co-owners of the house. Didn't you ever need to communicate about the place? Did you ever run into each other there?'

Never.'

Haven't you been there to check on it? You've owned it  –  what-?'

Twenty, twenty-five years, something like that,' said Fancourt indifferently. No, I haven't been inside since Joe died.'

I suppose the police have asked you about the woman who thinks she saw you outside on the eighth of November?'

Yes,' said Fancourt shortly. She was mistaken.'

Beside them, the actor was still in full and loud flow.

 …  thought I'd bloody had it, couldn't see where the fuck I was supposed to be running, sand in my bloody eyes … '

So you haven't been in the house since eighty-six?'

No,' said Fancourt impatiently. Neither Owen nor I wanted it in the first place.'

Why not?'

Because our friend Joe died there in exceptionally squalid circumstances. He hated hospitals, refused medication. By the time he fell unconscious the place was in a disgusting state and he, who had been the living embodiment of Apollo, was reduced to a sack of bones, his skin …  it was a grisly end,' said Fancourt, made worse by Daniel Ch-'

Fancourt's expression hardened. He made an odd chewing motion as though literally eating unspoken words. Strike waited.

He's an interesting man, Dan Chard,' said Fancourt, with a palpable effort at reversing out of a cul-de-sac into which he had driven himself. I thought Owen's treatment of him in Bombyx Mori was the biggest missed opportunity of all  –  though future scholars are hardly going to look to Bombyx Mori for subtlety of characterisation, are they?' he added with a short laugh.

How would you have written Daniel Chard?' Strike asked and Fancourt seemed surprised by the question. After a moment's consideration he said:

Dan's the most unfulfilled man I've ever met. He works in a field where he's competent but unhappy. He craves the bodies of young men but can bring himself to do no more than draw them. He's full of inhibitions and self-disgust, which explains his unwise and hysterical response to Owen's caricature of him. Dan was dominated by a monstrous socialite mother who wanted her pathologically shy son to take over the family business. I think,' said Fancourt, I'd have been able to make something interesting of all that.'
 
 

 

Why did Chard turn down North's book?' Strike asked.

Fancourt made the chewing motion again, then said:

I like Daniel Chard, you know.'

I had the impression that there had been a grudge at some point,' said Strike.

What gave you that idea?'

You said that you "certainly didn't expect to find yourself" back at Roper Chard when you spoke at their anniversary party.'

You were there?' said Fancourt sharply and when Strike nodded he said: Why?'