Strike looked sideways at her pale profile, serious as she watched the road ahead, her eyes flicking to the rear-view mirror.
‘What’s inside?’
‘The aborted baby,’ said Robin. ‘It’s horrible.’
Strike digested this information as they passed the turning to Maidenhead.
‘Strange,’ he said at last.
‘Grotesque,’ said Robin.
‘No, it’s strange,’ insisted Strike. ‘Quine was repeating himself. That’s the second thing from Hobart’s Sin he put in Bombyx Mori. Two hermaphrodites, two bloody sacks. Why?’
‘Well,’ said Robin, ‘they aren’t exactly the same. In Bombyx Mori the bloody sack doesn’t belong to the hermaphrodite and it hasn’t got an aborted baby in it… maybe he’d reached the end of his invention,’ she said. ‘Maybe Bombyx Mori was like a – a final bonfire of all his ideas.’
‘The funeral pyre for his career is what it was.’
Strike sat deep in thought while the scenery beyond the window became steadily more rural. Breaks in the trees showed wide fields of snow, white upon white beneath a pearly grey sky, and still the snow came thick and fast at the car.
‘You know,’ Strike said at last, ‘I think there are two alternatives here. Either Quine genuinely was having a breakdown, had lost touch with what he was doing and believed Bombyx Mori was a masterpiece – or he meant to cause as much trouble as possible, and the duplications are there for a reason.’
‘What reason?’
‘It’s a key,’ said Strike. ‘By cross-referencing his other books, he was helping people understand what he was getting at in Bombyx Mori. He was trying to tell without being had up for libel.’
Robin did not take her eyes off the snowy motorway, but inclined her face towards him, frowning.
‘You think it was all totally deliberate? You think he wanted to cause all this trouble?’
‘When you stop and think about it,’ said Strike, ‘it’s not a bad business plan for an egotistical, thick-skinned man who’s hardly selling any books. Kick off as much trouble as you can, get the book gossiped about all over London, threats of legal action, loads of people upset, veiled revelations about a famous writer… and then disappear where the writs can’t find you and, before anyone can stop you, put it out as an ebook.’
‘But he was furious when Elizabeth Tassel told him she wouldn’t publish it.’
‘Was he?’ said Strike thoughtfully, ‘Or was he faking? Did he keep badgering her to read it because he was getting ready to stage a nice big public row? He sounds like a massive exhibitionist. Perhaps it was all part of his promotional plan. He didn’t think Roper Chard got his books enough publicity – I had that from Leonora.’
‘So you think he’d already planned to storm out of the restaurant when he met Elizabeth Tassel?’
‘Could be,’ said Strike.
‘And to go to Talgarth Road?’
‘Maybe.’
The sun had risen fully now, so that the frosted treetops sparkled.
‘And he got what he wanted, didn’t he?’ said Strike, squinting as a thousand specks of ice glittered over the windscreen. ‘Couldn’t have arranged better publicity for his book if he’d tried. Just a pity he didn’t live to see himself on the BBC news.
‘Oh, bollocks,’ he added under his breath.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I’ve finished all the biscuits… sorry,’ said Strike, contrite.
‘That’s all right,’ Robin said, amused. ‘I had breakfast.’
‘I didn’t,’ Strike confided.
His antipathy to discussing his leg had been dissolved by warm coffee, by their discussion and by her practical thoughts for his comfort.
‘Couldn’t get the bloody prosthesis on. My knee’s swollen to hell: I’m going to have to see someone. Took me ages to get sorted.’
She had guessed as much, but appreciated the confidence.
They passed a golf course, its flags protruding from acres of soft whiteness, and water-filled gravel pits now sheets of burnished pewter in the winter light. As they approached Swindon Strike’s phone rang. Checking the number (he half expected a repeat call from Nina Lascelles) he saw that it was Ilsa, his old schoolfriend. He also saw, with misgivings, that he had missed a call from Leonora Quine at six thirty, when he must have been struggling down Charing Cross Road on his crutches.
‘Ilsa, hi. What’s going on?’
‘Quite a lot, actually,’ she said. She sounded tinny and distant; he could tell that she was in her car.
‘Did Leonora Quine call you on Wednesday?’
‘Yep, we met that afternoon,’ she said. ‘And I’ve just spoken to her again. She told me she tried to speak to you this morning and couldn’t get you.’
‘Yeah, I had an early start, must’ve missed her.’
‘I’ve got her permission to tell—’
‘What’s happened?’
‘They’ve taken her in for questioning. I’m on my way to the station now.’
‘Shit,’ said Strike. ‘Shit. What have they got?’
‘She told me they found photographs in her and Quine’s bedroom. Apparently he liked being tied up and he liked being photographed once restrained,’ said Ilsa with mordant matter-of-factness. ‘She told me all this as though she was talking about the gardening.’
He could hear faint sounds of heavy traffic back in central London. Here on the motorway the loudest sounds were the swish of the windscreen wipers, the steady purr of the powerful engine and the occasional whoosh of the reckless, overtaking in the swirling snow.
‘You’d think she’d have the sense to get rid of the pictures,’ said Strike.
‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that suggestion about destroying evidence,’ said Ilsa mock-sternly.
‘Those pictures aren’t bloody evidence,’ said Strike. ‘Christ almighty, of course they had a kinky sex life, those two – how else was Leonora going to keep hold of a man like Quine? Anstis’s mind’s too clean, that’s the problem; he thinks everything except the missionary position is evidence of bloody criminal tendencies.’
‘What do you know about the investigating officer’s sexual habits?’ Ilsa asked, amused.
‘He’s the bloke I pulled to the back of the vehicle in Afghanistan,’ muttered Strike.
‘Oh,’ said Ilsa.
‘And he’s determined to fit up Leonora. If that’s all they’ve got, dirty photos—’
‘It isn’t. Did you know the Quines have got a lock-up?’
Strike listened, tense, suddenly worried. Could he have been wrong, completely wrong—?
‘Well, did you?’ asked Ilsa.
‘What’ve they found?’ asked Strike, no longer flippant. ‘Not the guts?’
‘What did you just say? It sounded like “not the guts”!’
‘What’ve they found?’ Strike corrected himself.
‘I don’t know, but I expect I’ll find out when I get there.’
‘She’s not under arrest?’
‘Just in for questioning, but they’re sure it’s her, I can tell, and I don’t think she realises how serious things are getting. When she rang me, all she could talk about was her daughter being left with the neighbour, her daughter being upset—’
‘The daughter’s twenty-four and she’s got learning difficulties.’
‘Oh,’ said Ilsa. ‘Sad… Listen, I’m nearly there, I’ll have to go.’
‘Keep me posted.’
‘Don’t expect anything soon. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be a while.’
‘Shit,’ Strike said again as he hung up.
‘What’s happened?’
An enormous tanker had pulled out of the slow lane to overtake a Honda Civic with a Baby On Board sign in its rear window. Strike watched its gargantuan silver bullet of a body swaying at speed on the icy road and noted with unspoken approval that Robin slowed down, leaving more braking room.
‘The police have taken Leonora in for qu
estioning.’
Robin gasped.
‘They’ve found photos of Quine tied up in their bedroom and something else in a lock-up, but Ilsa doesn’t know what—’
It had happened to Strike before. The instantaneous shift from calm to calamity. The slowing of time. Every sense suddenly wire-taut and screaming.
The tanker was jack-knifing.
He heard himself bellow ‘BRAKE!’ because that was what he had done last time to try to stave off death—
But Robin slammed her foot on the accelerator. The car roared forward. There was no room to pass. The lorry hit the icy road on its side and spun; the Civic hit it, flipped over and skidded on its roof towards the side of the road; a Golf and a Mercedes had slammed into each other and were locked together, speeding towards the truck of the tanker—
They were hurtling towards the ditch at the side of the road. Robin missed the overturned Civic by an inch. Strike grabbed hold of the door handle as the Land Cruiser hit the rough ground at speed – they were going to plough into the ditch and maybe overturn – the tail end of the tanker was swinging lethally towards them, but they were travelling so fast that she missed that by a whisker – a massive jolt, Strike’s head hit the roof of the car, and they had swerved back onto the icy tarmac on the other side of the pile-up, unscathed.
‘Holy fucking—’
She was braking at last, in total control, pulling up on the hard shoulder, and her face was as white as the snow spattering the windscreen.
‘There was a kid in that Civic.’
And before he could say another word she had gone, slamming the door behind her.
He leaned over the back of his seat, trying to grab his crutches. Never had he felt his disability more acutely. He had just managed to pull the crutches into the seat with him when he heard sirens. Squinting through the snowy rear window, he spotted the distant flicker of blue light. The police were there already. He was a one-legged liability. He threw the crutches back down, swearing.
Robin returned to the car ten minutes later.
‘It’s OK,’ she panted. ‘The little boy’s all right, he was in a car seat. The lorry driver’s covered in blood but he’s conscious—’
‘Are you OK?’
She was trembling a little, but smiled at the question.
‘Yeah, I’m fine. I was just scared I was going to see a dead child.’
‘Right then,’ said Strike, taking a deep breath. ‘Where the fuck did you learn to drive like that?’
‘Oh, I did a couple of advanced driving courses,’ said Robin with a shrug, pushing her wet hair out of her eyes.
Strike stared at her.
‘When was this?’
‘Not long after I dropped out of university. I was… I was going through a bad time and I wasn’t going out much. It was my dad’s idea. I’ve always loved cars.
‘It was just something to do,’ she said, putting on her seatbelt and turning on the ignition. ‘Sometimes when I’m home, I go up to the farm to practise. My uncle’s got a field he lets me drive in.’
Strike was still staring at her.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to wait a bit before we—?’
‘No, I’ve given them my name and address. We should get going.’
She shifted gear and pulled smoothly out onto the motorway. Strike could not look away from her calm profile; her eyes were again fixed on the road, her hands confident and relaxed on the wheel.
‘I’ve seen worse steering than that from defensive drivers in the army,’ he told her. ‘The ones who drive generals, who’re trained to make a getaway under fire.’ He glanced back at the tangle of overturned vehicles now blocking the road. ‘I still don’t know how you got us out of that.’
The near-crash had not brought Robin close to tears, but at these words of praise and appreciation she suddenly thought she might cry, let herself down. With a great effort of will she compressed her emotion into a little laugh and said:
‘You realise that if I’d braked, we’d have skidded right into the tanker?’
‘Yeah,’ said Strike, and he laughed too. ‘Dunno why I said that,’ he lied.
29
There is a path vpon your left hand side,
That leadeth from a guiltie conscience
Vnto a forrest of distrust and feare,–
Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedie
In spite of their near-crash, Strike and Robin entered the Devonshire town of Tiverton shortly after twelve. Robin followed the sat nav’s instructions past quiet country houses topped with thick layers of glittering white, over a neat little bridge spanning a river the colour of flint and past a sixteenth-century church of unexpected grandeur to the far side of the town, where a pair of electric gates were discreetly set back from the road.
A handsome young Filipino man wearing what appeared to be deck shoes and an over-large coat was attempting to prise these open manually. When he caught sight of the Land Cruiser he mimed to Robin to wind down her window.
‘Frozen,’ he told her succinctly. ‘Wait a moment, please.’
They sat for five minutes until at last he had succeeded in unfreezing the gates and had dug a clearing in the steadily falling snow to allow the gates to swing open.
‘Do you want a lift back to the house?’ Robin asked him.
He climbed into the back seat beside Strike’s crutches.
‘You friends of Mr Chard?’
‘He’s expecting us,’ said Strike evasively.
Up a long and winding private driveway they went, the Land Cruiser making easy work of the heaped, crunchy overnight fall. The shiny dark green leaves of the rhododendrons lining the path had refused to bear their load of snow, so that the approach was all black and white: walls of dense foliage crowding in on the pale, powdery drive. Tiny spots of light had started popping in front of Robin’s eyes. It had been a very long time since breakfast and, of course, Strike had eaten all the biscuits.
Her feeling of seasickness and a slight sense of unreality persisted as she got down out of the Toyota and looked up at Tithebarn House, which stood beside a dark patch of wood that pressed close to one side of the house. The massive oblong structure in front of them had been converted by an adventurous architect: half of the roof had been replaced by sheet glass; the other seemed to be covered in solar panels. Looking up at the place where the structure became transparent and skeletal against the bright, light grey sky made Robin feel even giddier. It reminded her of the ghastly picture on Strike’s phone, the vaulted space of glass and light in which Quine’s mutilated body had lain.
‘Are you all right?’ said Strike, concerned. She looked very pale.
‘Fine,’ said Robin, who wanted to maintain her heroic status in his eyes. Taking deep lungfuls of the frosty air, she followed Strike, surprisingly nimble on his crutches, up the gravel path towards the entrance. Their young passenger had disappeared without another word to them.
Daniel Chard opened the front door himself. He was wearing a mandarin-collared, smock-like shirt in chartreuse silk and loose linen trousers. Like Strike, he was on crutches, his left foot and calf encased in a thick surgical boot and strapping. Chard looked down at Strike’s dangling, empty trouser leg and for several painful seconds did not seem able to look away.
‘And you thought you had problems,’ said Strike, holding out his hand.
The small joke fell flat. Chard did not smile. The aura of awkwardness, of otherness, that had surrounded him at his firm’s party clung to him still. He shook Strike’s hand without looking him in the eye and his welcoming words were:
‘I’ve been expecting you to cancel all morning.’
‘No, we made it,’ said Strike unnecessarily. ‘This is my assistant, Robin, who’s driven me down. I hope—’
‘No, she can’t sit outside in the snow,’ said Chard, though without noticeable warmth. ‘Come in.’
He backed away on his crutches to let them move over the threshold onto highly polished floorboards the
colour of honey.
‘Would you mind removing your shoes?’
A stocky, middle-aged Filipina woman with her black hair in a bun emerged from a pair of swing doors set into the brick wall on their right. She was clothed entirely in black and holding two white linen bags into which Strike and Robin were evidently expected to put their footwear. Robin handed hers over; it made her feel strangely vulnerable to feel the boards beneath her soles. Strike merely stood there on his single foot.
‘Oh,’ said Chard, staring again. ‘No, I suppose… Mr Strike had better keep his shoe on, Nenita.’
The woman retired wordlessly into the kitchen.
Somehow, the interior of Tithebarn House increased Robin’s unpleasant sensation of vertigo. No walls divided its vast interior. The first floor, which was reached by a steel and glass spiral staircase, was suspended on thick metal cables from the high ceiling. Chard’s huge double bed, which seemed to be of black leather, was visible, high above them, with what looked like a huge crucifix of barbed wire hanging over it on the brick wall. Robin dropped her gaze hastily, feeling sicker than ever.
Most of the furniture on the lower level comprised cubes of white or black leather. Vertical steel radiators were interspersed with artfully simple bookshelves of more wood and metal. The dominant feature of the under-furnished room was a life-size white marble sculpture of an angel, perched on a rock and partially dissected to expose half of her skull, a portion of her guts and a slice of the bone in her leg. Her breast, Robin saw, unable to tear her eyes away, was revealed as a mound of fat globules sitting on a circle of muscle that resembled the gills of a mushroom.
Ludicrous to feel sick when the dissected body was made of cold, pure stone, mere insentient albescence, nothing like the rotting carcass preserved on Strike’s mobile… don’t think about that… she ought to have made Strike leave at least one biscuit… sweat had broken out on her upper lip, her scalp…
‘You all right, Robin?’ asked Strike sharply. She knew she must have changed colour from the look on the two men’s faces, and to her fear that she might pass out was added embarrassment that she was being a liability to Strike.
The Silkworm Page 27