The Silkworm(85)

I think,' said Strike, with calculated cruelty, it's driven you literally mad, Elizabeth, hasn't it? Better hope the jury buys that anyway, eh? What a waste of a life. Your business down the toilet, no man, no children …  Tell me, was there ever an abortive coupling between the two of you?' asked Strike bluntly, watching their profiles. This "limp dick" business …  sounds to me like Quine might've fictionalised it in the real Bombyx Mori.'

With their backs to the light he could not see their expressions, but their body language had given him his answer: the instantaneous swing away from each other to face him had expressed the ghost of a united front.

When was this?' Strike asked, watching the dark outline that was Elizabeth. After Elspeth died? But then you moved on to Fenella Waldegrave, eh, Michael? No trouble keeping it up there, I take it?'

Elizabeth emitted a small gasp. It was as though he had hit her.

For Christ's sake,' growled Fancourt. He was angry with Strike now. Strike ignored the implicit reproach. He was still working on Elizabeth, goading her, while her whistling lungs struggled for oxygen in the falling snow.

Must've really pissed you off when Quine got carried away and started shouting about the contents of the real Bombyx Mori in the River Café, did it, Elizabeth? After you'd warned him not to breathe a word about the contents?'

Insane. You're insane,' she whispered, with a forced smile beneath the shark eyes, her big yellow teeth glinting. The war didn't just cripple you-'

Nice,' said Strike appreciatively. There's the bullying bitch everyone's told me you are-'

You hobble around London trying to get in the papers,' she panted. You're just like poor Owen, just like him …  how he loved the papers, didn't he, Michael?' She turned to appeal to Fancourt. Didn't Owen adore publicity? Running off like a little boy playing hide-and-seek … '

You encouraged Quine to go and hide in Talgarth Road,' said Strike. That was all your idea.'

I won't listen to any more,' she whispered and her lungs were whistling as she gasped the winter air and she raised her voice: I'm not listening, Mr Strike, I'm not listening. Nobody's listening to you, you poor silly man … '

You told me Quine was a glutton for praise,' said Strike, raising his voice over the high-pitched chant with which she was trying to drown out his words. I think he told you his whole prospective plot for Bombyx Mori months ago and I think Michael here was in there in some form  –  nothing as crude as Vainglorious, but mocked for not getting it up, perhaps? "Payback time for both of you", eh?'

And as he had expected, she gave a little gasp at that and stopped her frantic chanting.

You told Quine that Bombyx Mori sounded brilliant, that it would be the best thing he'd ever done, that it was going to be a massive success, but that he ought to keep the contents very, very quiet in case of legal action, and to make a bigger splash when it was unveiled. And all the time you were writing your own version. You had plenty of time on your hands to get it right, didn't you, Elizabeth? Twenty-six years of empty evenings, you could have written plenty of books by now, with your first from Oxford …  but what would you write about? You haven't exactly lived a full life, have you?'

Naked rage flickered across her face. Her fingers flexed, but she controlled herself. Strike wanted her to crack, wanted her to give in, but the shark's eyes seemed to be waiting for him to show weakness, for an opening.

You crafted a novel out of a murder plan. The removal of the guts and the covering of the corpse in acid weren't symbolic, they were designed to screw forensics  –  but everyone bought it as literature.

And you got that stupid, egotistical bastard to collude in planning his own death. You told him you had a great idea for maximising his publicity and his profits: the pair of you would stage a very public row  –  you saying the book was too contentious to put out there  –  and he'd disappear. You'd circulate rumours about the book's contents and finally, when Quine allowed himself to be found, you'd secure him a big fat deal.'

She was shaking her head, her lungs audibly labouring, but her dead eyes did not leave his face.

He delivered the book. You delayed a few days, until bonfire night, to make sure you had lots of nice diversionary noise, then you sent out copies of the fake Bombyx to Fisher  –  the better to get the book talked about  –  to Waldegrave and to Michael here. You faked your public row, then you followed Quine to Talgarth Road-'

No,' said Fancourt, apparently unable to help himself.

Yes,' said Strike, pitiless. Quine didn't realise he had anything to fear from Elizabeth  –  not from his co-conspirator in the comeback of the century. I think he'd almost forgotten by then that what he'd been doing to you for years was blackmail, hadn't he?' he asked Tassel. He'd just developed the habit of asking you for money and being given it. I doubt you ever even talked about the parody any more, the thing that ruined your life …

And you know what I think happened once he let you in, Elizabeth?'

Against his will, Strike remembered the scene: the great vaulted window, the body centred there as though for a grisly still life.

I think you got that poor naive, narcissistic sod to pose for a publicity photograph. Was he kneeling down? Did the hero in the real book plead, or pray? Or did he get tied up like your Bombyx? He'd have liked that, wouldn't he, Quine, posing in ropes? It would've made it nice and easy to move behind him and smash his head in with the metal doorstop, wouldn't it? Under cover of the neighbourhood fireworks, you knocked Quine out, tied him up, sliced him open and-'

Fancourt let out a strangled moan of horror, but Tassel spoke again, crooning at him in a travesty of consolation:

You ought to see someone, Mr Strike. Poor Mr Strike,' and to his surprise she reached out to lay one of her big hands on his snow-covered shoulder. Remembering what those hands had done, Strike stepped back instinctively and her arm fell heavily back to her side, hanging there, the fingers clenching reflexively.

You filled a holdall with Owen's guts and the real manuscript,' said the detective. She had moved so close that he could again smell the combination of perfume and stale cigarettes. Then you put on Quine's own cloak and hat and left. Off you went, to feed a fourth copy of the fake Bombyx Mori through Kathryn Kent's letter box, to maximise suspects and incriminate another woman who was getting what you never got  –  sex. Companionship. At least one friend.'

She feigned laughter again but this time the sound was manic. Her fingers were still flexing and unflexing.

You and Owen would have got on so well,' she whispered. Wouldn't he, Michael? Wouldn't he have got on marvellously with Owen? Sick fantasists …  people will laugh at you, Mr Strike.' She was panting harder than ever, those dead, blank eyes staring out of her fixed white face. A poor cripple trying to recreate the sensation of success, chasing your famous fath-'

Have you got proof of any of this?' Fancourt demanded in the swirling snow, his voice harsh with the desire not to believe. This was no ink-and-paper tragedy, no greasepaint death scene. Here beside him stood the living friend of his student years and whatever life had subsequently done to them, the idea that the big, ungainly, besotted girl whom he had known at Oxford could have turned into a woman capable of grotesque murder was almost unbearable.
 
 

 

Yeah, I've got proof,' said Strike quietly. I've got a second electric typewriter, the exact model of Quine's, wrapped up in a black burqa and hydrochloric-stained overalls and weighted with stones. An amateur diver I happen to know pulled it out of the sea just a few days ago. It was lying beneath some notorious cliffs at Gwithian: Hell's Mouth, a place featured on Dorcus Pengelly's book cover. I expect she showed it to you when you visited, didn't she, Elizabeth? Did you walk back there alone with your mobile, telling her you needed to find better reception?'

She let out a ghastly low moan, like the sound of a man who has been punched in the stomach. For a second nobody moved, then Tassel turned clumsily and began running and stumbling away from them, back towards the club. A bright yellow rectangle of light shivered then disappeared as the door opened and closed.

But,' said Fancourt, taking a few steps and looking back at Strike a little wildly, you can't  –  you've got to stop her!'

Couldn't catch her if I wanted to,' said Strike, throwing the butt of his cigarette down into the snow. Dodgy knee.'

She could do anything-'

Off to kill herself, probably,' agreed Strike, pulling out his mobile.

The writer stared at him.

You  –  you cold-blooded bastard!'

You're not the first to say it,' said Strike, pressing keys on his phone. Ready?' he said into it. We're off.'





49




Dangers, like stars, in dark attempts best shine.

Thomas Dekker, The Noble Spanish Soldier



Out past the smokers at the front of the club the large woman came, blindly, slipping a little in the snow. She began to run up the dark street, her fur-collared coat flapping behind her.

A taxi, its For Hire' light on, slid out of a side road and she hailed it, flapping her arms madly. The cab slid to a halt, its headlamps making two cones of light whose trajectory was cut by the thickly falling snow.

Fulham Palace Road,' said the harsh, deep voice, breaking with sobs.

They pulled slowly away from the kerb. The cab was old, the glass partition scratched and a little stained by years of its owner's smoking. Elizabeth Tassel was visible in the rear-view mirror as the street light slid over her, sobbing silently into her large hands, shaking all over.