The Silkworm(84)

There are also all the duplications from his earlier work,' said Strike. Two hermaphrodites. Two bloody bags. All that gratuitous sex.'

He was a man of limited imagination, Mr Strike.'

He left behind a scribbled note with what looks like a bunch of possible character names on it. One of those names appears on a used typewriter cassette that came out of his study before the police sealed it off, but it's nowhere in the finished manuscript.'

So he changed his mind,' said Fancourt irritably.

It's an everyday name, not symbolic or archetypal like the names in the finished manuscript,' said Strike.

His eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness, Strike saw a look of faint curiosity on Fancourt's heavy-featured face.

A restaurant full of people witnessed what I think is going to turn out to be Quine's last meal and his final public performance,' Strike went on. A credible witness says that Quine shouted for the whole restaurant to hear that one of the reasons Tassel was too cowardly to represent the book was "Fancourt's limp dick".'

He doubted that he and Fancourt were clearly visible to the jittery people at the publisher's table. Their figures would blend with the trees and statuary, but the determined or desperate might still be able to make out their location by the tiny luminous eye of Strike's glowing cigarette: a marksman's bead.

Thing is, there's nothing in Bombyx Mori about your dick,' continued Strike. There's nothing in there about Quine's mistress and his young transgendered friend being "beautiful lost souls", which is how he told them he was going to describe them. And you don't pour acid on silkworms; you boil them to get their cocoons.'

So?' repeated Fancourt.

So I've been forced to the conclusion,' said Strike, that the Bombyx Mori everyone's read is a different book to the Bombyx Mori Owen Quine wrote.'

Fancourt stopped shuffling his feet. Momentarily frozen, he appeared to give Strike's words serious consideration.

I  –  no,' he said, almost, it seemed, to himself. Quine wrote that book. It's his style.'

It's funny you should say that, because everyone else who had a decent ear for Quine's particular style seems to detect a foreign voice in the book. Daniel Chard thought it was Waldegrave. Waldegrave thought it was Elizabeth Tassel. And Christian Fisher heard you.'

Fancourt shrugged with his usual easy arrogance.

Quine was trying to imitate a better writer.'

Don't you think the way he treats his living models is strangely uneven?'

Fancourt, accepting the cigarette Strike offered him and a light, now listened in silence and with interest.

He says his wife and agent were parasites on him,' Strike said. Unpleasant, but the sort of accusation anyone could throw at the people who might be said to live off his earnings. He implies his mistress isn't fond of animals and throws in something that could either be a veiled reference to her producing crap books or a pretty sick allusion to breast cancer. His transgendered friend gets off with a jibe about vocal exercises  –  and that's after she claimed she showed him the life story she was writing and shared all her deepest secrets. He accuses Chard of effectively killing Joe North, and makes a crass suggestion of what Chard really wanted to do to him. And there's the accusation that you were responsible for your first wife's death.

All of which is either in the public domain, public gossip or an easy accusation to sling.'

Which isn't to say it wasn't hurtful,' said Fancourt quietly.

Agreed,' said Strike. It gave plenty of people reason to be pissed off at him. But the only real revelation in the book is the insinuation that you fathered Joanna Waldegrave.'

I told you  –  as good as told you  –  last time we met,' said Fancourt, sounding tense, that that accusation is not only false but impossible. I am infertile, as Quine-'

-as Quine should have known,' agreed Strike, because you and he were still ostensibly on good terms when you had mumps and he'd already made a jibe about it in The Balzac Brothers. And that makes the accusation contained in the Cutter even stranger, doesn't it? As though it was written by someone who didn't know that you were infertile. Didn't any of this occur to you when you read the book?'

The snow fell thickly on the two men's hair, on their shoulders.

I didn't think Owen cared whether any of it was true or not,' said Fancourt slowly, exhaling smoke. Mud sticks. He was just flinging a lot around. I thought he was looking to cause as much trouble as possible.'

D'you think that's why he sent you an early copy of the manuscript?' When Fancourt did not respond, Strike went on: It's easily checkable, you know. Courier  –  postal service  –  there'll be a record. You might as well tell me.'

A lengthy pause.

All right,' said Fancourt, at last.

When did you get it?'

The morning of the sixth.'

What did you do with it?'

Burned it,' said Fancourt shortly, exactly like Kathryn Kent. I could see what he was doing: trying to provoke a public row, maximise publicity. The last resort of a failure  –  I was not going to humour him.'

Another snatch of the interior revelry reached them as the door to the garden opened and closed again. Uncertain footsteps, winding through the snow, and then a large shadow looming out of the darkness.

What,' croaked Elizabeth Tassel, who was wrapped in a heavy coat with a fur collar, is going on out here?'

The moment he heard her voice Fancourt made to move back inside. Strike wondered when was the last time they had come face to face in anything less than a crowd of hundreds.

Wait a minute, will you?' Strike asked the writer.

Fancourt hesitated. Tassel addressed Strike in her deep, croaky voice.

Pinks is missing Michael.'

Something you'd know all about,' said Strike.

The snow whispered down upon leaves and onto the frozen pond where the cupid sat, pointing his arrow skywards.

You thought Elizabeth's writing "lamentably derivative", isn't that right?' Strike asked Fancourt. You both studied Jacobean revenge tragedies, which accounts for the similarities in your styles. But you're a very good imitator of other people's writing, I think,' Strike told Tassel.

He had known that she would come if he took Fancourt away, known that she would be frightened of what he was telling the writer out in the dark. She stood perfectly still as snow landed in her fur collar, on her iron-grey hair. Strike could just make out the contours of her face by the faint light of the club's distant windows. The intensity and emptiness of her gaze were remarkable. She had the dead, blank eyes of a shark.

You took off Elspeth Fancourt's style to perfection, for instance.'

Fancourt's mouth fell quietly open. For a few seconds the only sound other than the whispering snow was the barely audible whistle emanating from Elizabeth Tassel's lungs.

I thought from the start that Quine must've had some hold on you,' said Strike. You never seemed like the kind of woman who'd let herself be turned into a private bank and skivvy, who'd choose to keep Quine and let Fancourt go. All that bull about freedom of expression …  you wrote the parody of Elspeth Fancourt's book that made her kill herself. All these years, there's only been your word for it that Owen showed you the piece he'd written. It was the other way round.'

There was silence except for the rustle of snow on snow and that faint, eerie sound emanating from Elizabeth Tassel's chest. Fancourt was looking from the agent to the detective, open-mouthed.

The police suspected that Quine was blackmailing you,' Strike said, but you fobbed them off with a touching story about lending him money for Orlando. You've been paying Owen off for more than a quarter of a century, haven't you?'

He was trying to goad her into speech, but she said nothing, continuing to stare at him out of the dark empty eyes like holes in her plain, pale face.

How did you describe yourself to me when we had lunch?' Strike asked her. "The very definition of a blameless spinster"? Found an outlet for your frustrations, though, didn't you, Elizabeth?'
 
 

 

The mad, blank eyes swivelled suddenly towards Fancourt, who had shifted where he stood.

Did it feel good, raping and killing your way through everyone you knew, Elizabeth? One big explosion of malice and obscenity, revenging yourself on everyone, painting yourself as the unacclaimed genius, taking sideswipes at everyone with a more successful love life, a more satisfying-'

A soft voice spoke in the darkness, and for a second Strike did not know where it was coming from. It was strange, unfamiliar, high-pitched and sickly: the voice a madwoman might imagine to express innocence, kindliness.

No, Mr Strike,' she whispered, like a mother telling a sleepy child not to sit up, not to struggle. You poor silly man. You poor thing.'

She forced a laugh that left her chest heaving, her lungs whistling.

He was badly hurt in Afghanistan,' she said to Fancourt in that eerie, crooning voice. I think he's shell-shocked. Brain damaged, just like little Orlando. He needs help, poor Mr Strike.'

Her lungs whistled as she breathed faster.

Should've bought a mask, Elizabeth, shouldn't you?' Strike asked.

He thought he saw the eyes darken and enlarge, her pupils dilating with the adrenalin coursing through her. The large, mannish hands had curled into claws.

Thought you had it all worked out, didn't you? Ropes, disguise, protective clothing to protect yourself against the acid  –  but you didn't realise you'd get tissue damage just from inhaling the fumes.'

The cold air was exacerbating her breathlessness. In her panic, she sounded sexually excited.