‘Sorry,’ she said through numb lips. ‘Long journey… if I could have a glass of water…’
‘Er – very well,’ said Chard, as though water were in short supply. ‘Nenita?’
The woman in black reappeared.
‘The young lady needs a glass of water,’ said Chard.
Nenita gestured to Robin to follow her. Robin heard the publisher’s crutches making a gentle thump, thump behind her on the wooden floor as she entered the kitchen. She had a brief impression of steel surfaces and whitewashed walls, and the young man to whom she had given a lift prodding at a large saucepan, then found herself sitting on a low stool.
Robin had assumed that Chard had followed to see that she was all right, but as Nenita pressed a cold glass into her hand she heard him speak somewhere above her.
‘Thanks for fixing the gates, Manny.’
The young man did not reply. Robin heard the clunk of Chard’s crutches recede and the swinging of the kitchen doors.
‘That’s my fault,’ Strike told Chard, when the publisher rejoined him. He felt truly guilty. ‘I ate all the food she brought for the journey.’
‘Nenita can give her something,’ said Chard. ‘Shall we sit down?’
Strike followed him past the marble angel, which was reflected mistily in the warm wood below, and they headed on their four crutches to the end of the room, where a black iron wood-burner made a pool of welcome warmth.
‘Great place,’ said Strike, lowering himself onto one of the larger cubes of black leather and laying his crutches beside him. The compliment was insincere; his preference was for utilitarian comfort and Chard’s house seemed to him to be all surface and show.
‘Yes, I worked closely with the architects,’ said Chard, with a small flicker of enthusiasm. ‘There’s a studio’ – he pointed through another discreet pair of doors – ‘and a pool.’
He too sat down, stretching out the leg that ended in the thick, strapped boot in front of him.
‘How did it happen?’ Strike asked, nodding towards the broken leg.
Chard pointed with the end of his crutch at the metal and glass spiral staircase.
‘Painful,’ said Strike, eyeing the drop.
‘The crack echoed all through the space,’ said Chard, with an odd relish. ‘I hadn’t realised one can actually hear it happening.
‘Would you like a tea or coffee?’
‘Tea would be great.’
Strike saw Chard place his uninjured foot on a small brass plate beside his seat. Slight pressure, and Manny emerged again from the kitchen.
‘Tea, please, Manny,’ said Chard with a warmth conspicuously absent in his usual manner. The young man disappeared again, sullen as ever.
‘Is that St Michael’s Mount?’ Strike asked, pointing to a small picture hanging near the wood-burner. It was a naive painting on what seemed to be board.
‘An Alfred Wallis,’ said Chard, with another minor glow of enthusiasm. ‘The simplicity of the forms… primitive and naive. My father knew him. Wallis only took up painting seriously in his seventies. You know Cornwall?’
‘I grew up there,’ said Strike.
But Chard was more interested in talking about Alfred Wallis. He mentioned again that the artist had only found his true métier late in life and embarked on an exposition of the artist’s works. Strike’s total lack of interest in the subject went unnoticed. Chard was not fond of eye contact. The publisher’s eyes slid from the painting to spots around the large brick interior, seeming to glance at Strike only incidentally.
‘You’re just back from New York, aren’t you?’ asked Strike when Chard drew breath.
‘A three-day conference, yes,’ said Chard and the flare of enthusiasm faded. He gave the impression of repeating stock phrases as he said, ‘Challenging times. The arrival of electronic reading devices has been a game-changer. Do you read?’ he asked Strike, point-blank.
‘Sometimes,’ said Strike. There was a battered James Ellroy in his flat that he had been intending to finish for four weeks, but most nights he was too tired to focus. His favourite book lay in one of the unpacked boxes of possessions on the landing; it was twenty years old and he had not opened it for a long time.
‘We need readers,’ muttered Daniel Chard. ‘More readers. Fewer writers.’
Strike suppressed the urge to retort, Well, you’ve got rid of one of them, at least.
Manny reappeared bearing a clear perspex tray on legs, which he set down in front of his employer. Chard leaned forward to pour the tea into tall white porcelain mugs. His leather furniture, Strike noted, did not emit the irritating sounds his own office sofa did, but then, it had probably cost ten times as much. The backs of Chard’s hands were as raw and painful-looking as they had been at the company party, and in the clear overhead lighting set into the underside of the hanging first floor he looked older than he had at a distance; sixty, perhaps, yet the dark, deep-set eyes, the hawkish nose and the thin mouth were handsome still in their severity.
‘He’s forgotten the milk,’ said Chard, scrutinising the tray. ‘Do you take milk?’
‘Yeah,’ said Strike.
Chard sighed, but instead of pressing the brass plate on the floor he struggled back onto his one sound foot and his crutches, and swung off towards the kitchen, leaving Strike staring thoughtfully after him.
Those who worked with him found Daniel Chard peculiar, although Nina had described him as shrewd. His uncontrolled rages about Bombyx Mori had sounded to Strike like the reaction of an over-sensitive man of questionable judgement. He remembered the slight sense of embarrassment emanating from the crowd as Chard mumbled his speech at the anniversary party. An odd man, hard to read…
Strike’s eyes drifted upwards. Snow was falling gently onto the clear roof high above the marble angel. The glass must be heated in some way, to prevent the snow settling, Strike concluded. And the memory of Quine, eviscerated and trussed, burned and rotting beneath a great vaulted window returned to him. Like Robin, he suddenly found the high glass ceiling of Tithebarn House unpleasantly reminiscent.
Chard re-emerged from the kitchen and swung back across the floor on his crutches, a small jug of milk held precariously in his hand.
‘You’ll be wondering why I asked you to come here,’ said Chard finally, when he had sat back down and each of them held his tea at last. Strike arranged his features to look receptive.
‘I need somebody I can trust,’ said Chard without waiting for Strike’s answer. ‘Someone outside the company.’
One darting glance at Strike and he fixed his eyes safely on his Alfred Wallis again.
‘I think,’ said Chard, ‘I may be the only person who’s realised that Owen Quine did not work alone. He had an accomplice.’
‘An accomplice?’ Strike repeated at last, as Chard seemed to expect a response.
‘Yes,’ said Chard fervently. ‘Oh yes. You see, the style of Bombyx Mori is Owen’s, but somebody else was in on it. Someone helped him.’
Chard’s sallow skin had flushed. He gripped and fondled the handle of one of the crutches beside him.
‘The police will be interested, I think, if this can be proven?’ said Chard, managing to look Strike full in the face. ‘If Owen was murdered because of what was written in Bombyx Mori, wouldn’t an accomplice be culpable?’
‘Culpable?’ repeated Strike. ‘You think this accomplice persuaded Quine to insert material in the book in the hope that a third party would retaliate murderously?’
‘I… well, I’m not sure,’ said Chard, frowning. ‘He might not have expected that to happen, precisely – but he certainly intended to wreak havoc.’
His knuckles were whitening as they tightened on the handle of his crutch.
‘What makes you think Quine had help?’ asked Strike.
‘Owen couldn’t have known some of the things that are insinuated in Bombyx Mori unless he’d been fed information,’ said Chard, now staring at the side of his stone angel.
; ‘I think the police’s main interest in an accomplice,’ said Strike slowly, ‘would be because he or she might have a lead on the killer.’
It was the truth, but it was also a way of reminding Chard that a man had died in grotesque circumstances. The identity of the murderer did not seem of pressing interest to Chard.
‘Do you think so?’ asked Chard with a faint frown.
‘Yeah,’ said Strike, ‘I do. And they’d be interested in an accomplice if they were able to shed light on some of the more oblique passages in the book. One of the theories the police are bound to be following is that someone killed Quine to stop him revealing something that he had hinted at in Bombyx Mori.’
Daniel Chard was staring at Strike with an arrested expression.
‘Yes. I hadn’t… Yes.’
To Strike’s surprise, the publisher pulled himself up on his crutches and began to move a few paces backwards and forwards, swinging on his crutches in a parodic version of those first tentative physiotherapy exercises Strike had been given, years previously, at Selly Oak Hospital. Strike saw now that he was a fit man, that biceps rippled beneath the silk sleeves.
‘The killer, then—’ Chard began, and then ‘What?’ he snapped suddenly, staring over Strike’s shoulder.
Robin had re-emerged from the kitchen, a much healthier colour.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, pausing, unnerved.
‘This is confidential,’ said Chard. ‘No, I’m sorry. Could you return to the kitchen, please?’
‘I – all right,’ said Robin, taken aback and, Strike could tell, offended. She threw him a look, expecting him to say something, but he was silent.
When the swing doors had closed behind Robin, Chard said angrily:
‘Now I’ve lost my train of thought. Entirely lost—’
‘You were saying something about the killer.’
‘Yes. Yes,’ said Chard manically, resuming his backwards and forwards motion, swinging on his crutches. ‘The killer, then, if they knew about the accomplice, might want to target him too? And perhaps that’s occurred to him,’ said Chard, more to himself than to Strike, his eyes on his expensive floorboards. ‘Perhaps that accounts… Yes.’
The small window in the wall nearest Strike showed only the dark face of the wood close by the house; white flecks falling dreamily against the black.
‘Disloyalty,’ said Chard suddenly, ‘cuts at me like nothing else.’
He stopped his agitated thumping up and down and turned to face the detective.
‘If,’ he said, ‘I told you who I suspect to have helped Owen, and asked you to bring me proof, would you feel obliged to pass that information to the police?’
It was a delicate question, thought Strike, running a hand absently over his chin, imperfectly shaved in the haste of leaving that morning.
‘If you’re asking me to establish the truth of your suspicions…’ said Strike slowly.
‘Yes,’ said Chard. ‘Yes, I am. I would like to be sure.’
‘Then no, I don’t think I’d need to tell the police what I’m up to. But if I uncovered the fact that there was an accomplice and it looked like they might have killed Quine – or knew who had done it – I’d obviously consider myself duty bound to inform the police.’
Chard lowered himself back onto one of the large leather cubes, dropping his crutches with a clatter on the floor.
‘Damn,’ he said, his displeasure echoing off the many hard surfaces around them as he leaned over to check that he had not dented the varnished wood.
‘You know I’ve also been engaged by Quine’s wife to try and find out who killed him?’ Strike asked.
‘I had heard something of the sort,’ said Chard, still examining his teak floorboards for damage. ‘That won’t interfere with this line of enquiry, though?’
His self-absorption was remarkable, Strike thought. He remembered Chard’s copperplate writing on the card with the painting of violets: Do let me know if there is anything you need. Perhaps his secretary had dictated it to him.
‘Would you like to tell me who the alleged collaborator is?’ asked Strike.
‘This is extremely painful,’ mumbled Chard, his eyes flitting from Alfred Wallis to the stone angel and up to the spiral stairs.
Strike said nothing.
‘It’s Jerry Waldegrave,’ said Chard, glancing at Strike and away again. ‘And I’ll tell you why I suspect – how I know.
‘His behaviour has been strange for weeks. I first noticed it when he telephoned me about Bombyx Mori, to tell me what Quine had done. There was no embarrassment, no apology.’
‘Would you have expected Waldegrave to apologise for something Quine had written?’
The question seemed to surprise Chard.
‘Well – Owen was one of Jerry’s authors, so yes, I would have expected some regret that Owen had depicted me in that – in that way.’
And Strike’s unruly imagination again showed him the naked Phallus Impudicus standing over the body of a dead young man emitting supernatural light.
‘Are you and Waldegrave on bad terms?’ he asked.
‘I’ve shown Jerry Waldegrave a lot of forbearance, a considerable forbearance,’ said Chard, ignoring the direct question. ‘I kept him on full pay while he went to a treatment facility a year ago. Perhaps he feels hard done by,’ said Chard, ‘but I’ve been on his side, yes, on occasions when many another man, a more prudent man, might have remained neutral. Jerry’s personal misfortunes are not of my making. There is resentment. Yes, I would say that there is definite resentment, however unjustified.’
‘Resentment about what?’ asked Strike.
‘Jerry isn’t fond of Michael Fancourt,’ mumbled Chard, his eyes on the flames in the wood-burner. ‘Michael had a – a flirtation, a long time ago, with Fenella, Jerry’s wife. And as it happens, I actually warned Michael off, because of my friendship with Jerry. Yes!’ said Chard, nodding, deeply impressed by the memory of his own actions. ‘I told Michael it was unkind and unwise, even in his state of… because Michael had lost his first wife, you see, not very long before.
‘Michael didn’t appreciate my unsolicited advice. He took offence; he took off for a different publisher. The board was very unhappy,’ said Chard. ‘It’s taken us twenty-odd years to lure Michael back.
‘But after all this time,’ Chard said, his bald pate merely one more reflective surface among the glass, polished wood and steel, ‘Jerry can hardly expect his personal animosities to govern company policy. Ever since Michael agreed to come back to Roper Chard, Jerry has made it his business to – to undermine me, subtly, in a hundred little ways.
‘What I believe happened is this,’ said Chard, glancing from time to time at Strike, as though to gauge his reaction. ‘Jerry took Owen into his confidence about Michael’s deal, which we were trying to keep under wraps. Owen had, of course, been an enemy of Fancourt’s for a quarter of a century. Owen and Jerry decided to concoct this… this dreadful book, in which Michael and I are subjected to – to disgusting calumnies as a way of drawing attention away from Michael’s arrival and as an act of revenge on both of us, on the company, on anyone else they cared to denigrate.
‘And, most tellingly,’ said Chard, his voice echoing now through the empty space, ‘after I told Jerry, explicitly, to make sure the manuscript was locked safely away he allowed it to be read widely by anyone who cared to do so, and having made sure it’s being gossiped about all over London, he resigns and leaves me looking—’
‘When did Waldegrave resign?’ asked Strike.
‘The day before yesterday,’ said Chard, before plunging on: ‘and he was extremely reluctant to join me in legal action against Quine. That in itself shows—’
‘Perhaps he thought bringing in lawyers would draw more attention to the book?’ Strike suggested. ‘Waldegrave’s in Bombyx Mori himself, isn’t he?’
‘That!’ said Chard and sniggered. It was the first sign of humour Strike had seen in him and the effect was unple
asant. ‘You don’t want to take everything at face value, Mr Strike. Owen never knew about that.’
‘About what?’
‘The Cutter character is Jerry’s own work – I realised it on a third reading,’ said Chard. ‘Very, very clever: it looks like an attack on Jerry himself, but it’s really a way of causing Fenella pain. They are still married, you see, but very unhappily. Very unhappily.
‘Yes, I saw it all, on re-reading,’ said Chard. The spotlights in the hanging ceiling made rippled reflections on his skull as he nodded. ‘Owen didn’t write the Cutter. He barely knows Fenella. He didn’t know about that old business.’
‘So what exactly are the bloody sack and the dwarf supposed to—?’
‘Get it out of Jerry,’ said Chard. ‘Make him tell you. Why should I help him spread slander around?’
‘I’ve been wondering,’ Strike said, obediently dropping that line of enquiry, ‘why Michael Fancourt agreed to come to Roper Chard when Quine was working for you, given that they were on such bad terms?’
There was a short pause.
‘We were under no legal obligation to publish Owen’s next book,’ said Chard. ‘We had a first-look option. That was all.’
‘So you think Jerry Waldegrave told Quine that he was about to be dropped, to keep Fancourt happy?’
‘Yes,’ said Chard, staring at his own fingernails. ‘I do. Also, I had offended Owen the last time I saw him, so the news that I might be about to drop him no doubt swept away any last vestige of loyalty he might once have felt towards me, because I took him on when every other publisher in Britain had given up on—’
‘How did you offend him?’
‘Oh, it was when he last came into the office. He brought his daughter with him.’
‘Orlando?’
‘Named, he told me, for the eponymous protagonist of the novel by Virginia Woolf.’ Chard hesitated, his eyes flickering to Strike and then back to his nails. ‘She’s – not quite right, his daughter.’
‘Really?’ said Strike. ‘In what way?’
‘Mentally,’ mumbled Chard. ‘I was visiting the art department when they came in. Owen told me he was showing her around – something he had no business doing, but Owen always made himself at home… great sense of entitlement and self-importance, always…
The Silkworm Page 28