The Silkworm (3 page)

Strike dropped onto the sofa in the outer office. It was almost new, an essential expense as he had broken the second-hand one with which he had initially furnished the office. Covered in mock leather that he had thought smart in the showroom, it made farting noises if you moved on it in the wrong way. His assistant – tall, curvaceous, with a clear, brilliant complexion and bright blue-grey eyes – scrutinised him over her coffee cup.

‘You look terrible.’

‘Spent all night weaseling details of a peer of the realm’s sexual irregularities and financial malfeasance out of a hysterical woman,’ said Strike, on a massive yawn.

‘Lord Parker?’ gasped Robin.

‘That’s the one,’ said Strike.

‘He’s been—?’

‘Shagging three women simultaneously and salting millions away offshore,’ said Strike. ‘If you’ve got a strong stomach, try the
News of the World
this Sunday.’

‘How on earth did you find all that out?’

‘Contact of a contact of a contact,’ intoned Strike.

He yawned again, so widely that it looked painful.

‘You should go to bed,’ said Robin.

‘Yeah, I should,’ said Strike, but he did not move.

‘You haven’t got anyone else till Gunfrey this afternoon at two.’

‘Gunfrey,’ sighed Strike, massaging his eye sockets. ‘Why are all my clients shits?’

‘Mrs Quine doesn’t seem like a shit.’

He peered blearily at her through his thick fingers.

‘How d’you know I took her case?’

‘I knew you would,’ said Robin with an irrepressible smirk. ‘She’s your type.’

‘A middle-aged throwback to the eighties?’

‘Your kind of client. And you wanted to spite Baker.’

‘Seemed to work, didn’t it?’

The telephone rang. Still grinning, Robin answered.

‘Cormoran Strike’s office,’ she said. ‘Oh. Hi.’

It was her fiancé, Matthew. She glanced sideways at her boss. Strike had closed his eyes and tilted his head back, his arms folded across his broad chest.

‘Listen,’ said Matthew in Robin’s ear; he never sounded very friendly when calling from work. ‘I need to move drinks from Friday to Thursday.’

‘Oh Matt,’ she said, trying to keep both disappointment and exasperation out of her voice.

It would be the fifth time that arrangements for these particular drinks had been made. Robin alone, of the three people involved, had not altered time, date or venue, but had shown herself willing and available on every occasion.

‘Why?’ she muttered.

A sudden grunting snore issued from the sofa. Strike had fallen asleep where he sat, his large head tilted back against the wall, arms still folded.

‘Work drinks on the nineteenth,’ said Matthew. ‘It’ll look bad if I don’t go. Show my face.’

She fought the urge to snap at him. He worked for a major firm of accountants and sometimes he acted as though this imposed social obligations more appropriate to a diplomatic posting.

She was sure that she knew the real reason for the change. Drinks had been postponed repeatedly at Strike’s request; on each occasion he had been busy with some piece of urgent, evening work, and while the excuses had been genuine, they had irritated Matthew. Though he had never said it aloud, Robin knew that Matthew thought Strike was implying that his time was more valuable than Matthew’s, his job more important.

In the eight months that she had worked for Cormoran Strike, her boss and her fiancé had not met, not even on that infamous night when Matthew had picked her up from the casualty department where she had accompanied Strike, with her coat wrapped tightly around his stabbed arm after a cornered killer had tried to finish him. When she had emerged, shaken and bloodstained, from the place where they were stitching Strike up, Matthew had declined her offer to introduce him to her injured boss. He had been furious about the whole business, even though Robin had reassured him that she herself had never been in any danger.

Matthew had never wanted her to take a permanent job with Strike, whom he had regarded with suspicion from the first, disliking his penury, his homelessness and the profession that Matthew seemed to find absurd. The little snatches of information that Robin brought home – Strike’s career in the Special Investigation Branch, the plain-clothes wing of the Royal Military Police, his decoration for bravery, the loss of his lower right leg, the expertise in a hundred areas of which Matthew – so used to being expert in her eyes – knew little or nothing – had not (as she had innocently hoped) built a bridge between the two men, but had somehow reinforced the wall between them.

Strike’s burst of fame, his sudden shift from failure to success, had if anything deepened Matthew’s animosity. Robin realised belatedly that she had only exacerbated matters by pointing out Matthew’s inconsistencies: ‘You don’t like him being homeless and poor and now you don’t like him getting famous and bringing in loads of work!’

But Strike’s worst crime in Matthew’s eyes, as she well knew, was the clinging designer dress that her boss had bought her after their trip to the hospital, the one that he had intended as a gift of gratitude and farewell, and which, after showing it to Matthew with pride and delight, and seeing his reaction, she had never dared wear.

All of this Robin hoped to fix with a face-to-face meeting, but repeated cancellations by Strike had merely deepened Matthew’s dislike. On the last occasion, Strike had simply failed to turn up. His excuse – that he had been forced to take a detour to shake off a tail set on him by his client’s suspicious spouse – had been accepted by Robin, who knew the intricacies of that particularly bloody divorce case, but it had reinforced Matthew’s view of Strike as attention-seeking and arrogant.

She had had some difficulty in persuading Matthew to commit to a fourth attempt at drinks. Time and venue had both been picked by Matthew, but now, after Robin had secured Strike’s agreement all over again, Matthew was changing the night and it was impossible not to feel that he was doing it to make a point, to show Strike that he too had other commitments; that he too (Robin could not help herself thinking it) could piss people around.

‘Fine,’ she sighed into the phone, ‘I’ll check with Cormoran and see whether Thursday’s OK.’

‘You don’t sound like it’s fine.’

‘Matt, don’t start. I’ll ask him, OK?’

‘I’ll see you later, then.’

Robin replaced the receiver. Strike was now in full throat, snoring like a traction engine with his mouth open, legs wide apart, feet flat on the floor, arms folded.

She sighed, looking at her sleeping boss. Strike had never shown any animosity towards Matthew, had never passed comment on him in any way. It was Matthew who brooded over the existence of Strike, who rarely lost an opportunity to point out that Robin could have earned a great deal more if she had taken any of the other jobs she had been offered before deciding to stay with a rackety private detective, deep in debt and unable to pay her what she deserved. It would ease her home life considerably if Matthew could be brought to share her opinion of Cormoran Strike, to like him, even admire him. Robin was optimistic: she liked both of them, so why could they not like each other?

With a sudden snort, Strike was awake. He opened his eyes and blinked at her.

‘I was snoring,’ he stated, wiping his mouth.

‘Not much,’ she lied. ‘Listen, Cormoran, would it be all right if we move drinks from Friday to Thursday?’

‘Drinks?’

‘With Matthew and me,’ she said. ‘Remember? The King’s Arms, Roupell Street. I did write it down for you,’ she said, with a slightly forced cheeriness.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Yeah. Friday.’

‘No, Matt wants – he can’t do Friday. Is it OK to do Thursday instead?’

‘Yeah, fine,’ he said groggily. ‘I think I’m going to try and get some sleep, Robin.’

‘All right. I’ll make a note about Thursday.’

‘What’s happening on Thursday?’

‘Drinks with
–
oh, never mind. Go and sleep.’

She sat staring blankly at her computer screen after the glass door had closed, then jumped as it opened again.

‘Robin, could you call a bloke called Christian Fisher,’ said Strike. ‘Tell him who I am, tell him I’m looking for Owen Quine and that I need the address of the writer’s retreat he told Quine about?’

‘Christian Fisher… where does he work?’

‘Bugger,’ muttered Strike. ‘I never asked. I’m so knackered. He’s a publisher… trendy publisher.’

‘No problem, I’ll find him. Go and sleep.’

When the glass door had closed a second time, Robin turned her attention to Google. Within thirty seconds she had discovered that Christian Fisher was the founder of a small press called Crossfire, based in Exmouth Market.

As she dialled the publisher’s number, she thought of the wedding invitation that had been sitting in her handbag for a week now. Robin had not told Strike the date of her and Matthew’s wedding, nor had she told Matthew that she wished to invite her boss. If Thursday’s drinks went well…

‘
Crossfire,
’ said a shrill voice on the line. Robin focused her attention on the job in hand.

Twenty past nine that evening found Strike lying in a T-shirt and boxers on top of his duvet, with the remnants of a takeaway curry on the chair beside him, reading the sports pages while the news played on the TV he had set up facing the bed. The metal rod that served as his right ankle gleamed silver in the light from the cheap desk lamp he had placed on a box beside him.

There was to be an England–France friendly at Wembley on Wednesday night, but Strike was much more interested in Arsenal’s home derby against Spurs the following Saturday. He had been an Arsenal fan since his earliest youth, in imitation of his Uncle Ted. Why Uncle Ted supported the Gunners, when he had lived all his life in Cornwall, was a question Strike had never asked.

A misty radiance, through which stars were struggling to twinkle, filled the night sky beyond the tiny window beside him. A few hours’ sleep in the middle of the day had done virtually nothing to alleviate his exhaustion, but he did not feel quite ready to turn in yet, not after a large lamb biryani and a pint of beer. A note in Robin’s handwriting lay beside him on the bed; she had given it to him as he had left the office that evening. Two appointments were noted there. The first read:

‘Why’s he want to see me?’ Strike had asked her, surprised. ‘I only need the address of that retreat he told Quine about.’

‘I know,’ said Robin, ‘that’s what I told him, but he sounded really excited to meet you. He said he could do nine tomorrow and wouldn’t take no for an answer.’

What
, Strike asked himself irritably, staring at the note,
was I playing at?

Exhausted, he had allowed temper to get the better of him that morning and ditched a well-heeled client who might well have put more work his way. Then he had allowed Leonora Quine to steamroller him into accepting her as a client on the most dubious promise of payment. Now that she was not in front of him, it was hard to remember the mixture of pity and curiosity that had made him take her case on. In the stark, cold quiet of his attic room, his agreement to find her sulking husband seemed quixotic and irresponsible. Wasn’t the whole point of trying to pay off his debts that he could regain a sliver of free time: a Saturday afternoon at the Emirates, a Sunday lie-in? He was finally making money after working almost non-stop for months, attracting clients not only because of that first glaring bout of notoriety but because of a quieter word-of-mouth. Couldn’t he have put up with William Baker for another three weeks?

And what, Strike asked himself, looking down at Robin’s handwritten note again, was this Christian Fisher so excited about that he wanted to meet in person? Could it be Strike himself, either as the solver of the Lula Landry case or (much worse) as the son of Jonny Rokeby? It was very difficult to gauge the level of your own celebrity. Strike had assumed that his burst of unexpected fame was on the wane. It had been intense while it lasted, but the telephone calls from journalists had subsided months ago and it was almost as long since he had given his name in any neutral context and heard Lula Landry’s back. Strangers were once again doing what they had done most of his life: calling him some variation on ‘Cameron Strick’.

On the other hand, perhaps the publisher knew something about the vanished Owen Quine that he was eager to impart to Strike, although why, in this case, he had refused to tell Quine’s wife, Strike could not imagine.

The second appointment that Robin had written out for him was beneath Fisher’s:

Strike knew why she had written the date out so clearly: she was determined that this time – was it the third or fourth time they’d tried? – he and her fiancé would finally meet.

Little though the unknown accountant might believe it, Strike was grateful for Matthew’s mere existence, and for the sapphire and diamond ring that shone from Robin’s third finger. Matthew sounded like a dickhead (Robin little imagined how accurately Strike remembered each of her casual asides about her fiancé), but he imposed a useful barrier between Strike and a girl who might otherwise disturb his equilibrium.

Strike had not been able to guard against warm feelings for Robin, who had stuck by him when he was at his lowest ebb and helped him turn his fortunes around; nor, having normal eyesight, could he escape the fact that she was a very good-looking woman. He viewed her engagement as the means by which a thin, persistent draught is blocked up, something that might, if allowed to flow untrammelled, start to seriously disturb his comfort. Strike considered himself to be in recovery after a long, turbulent relationship that had ended, as indeed it had begun, in lies. He had no wish to alter his single status, which he found comfortable and convenient, and had successfully avoided any further emotional entanglements for months, in spite of his sister Lucy’s attempts to fix him up with women who sounded like the desperate dregs of some dating site.

Of course, it was possible that once Matthew and Robin were actually married, Matthew might use his improved status to persuade his new wife to leave the job that he clearly disliked her doing (Strike had correctly interpreted Robin’s hesitations and evasions on that score). However, Strike was sure that Robin would have told him, had the wedding date been fixed, so he considered that danger, at present, remote.

With yet another huge yawn, he folded the newspaper and threw it onto the chair, turning his attention to the television news. His one personal extravagance since moving into the tiny attic flat had been satellite TV. His small portable set now sat on top of a Sky box and the picture, no longer reliant on a feeble indoor aerial, was sharp instead of grainy. Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, was announcing plans to slash £350 million from the legal aid budget. Strike watched through his haze of tiredness as the florid, paunchy man told Parliament that he wished to ‘discourage people from resorting to lawyers whenever they face a problem, and instead encourage them to consider more suitable methods of dispute resolution’.

He meant, of course, that poor people ought to relinquish the services of the law. The likes of Strike’s average client would still avail themselves of expensive barristers. Most of his work these days was undertaken on behalf of the mistrustful, endlessly betrayed rich. His was the information that fed their sleek lawyers, that enabled them to win better settlements in their vitriolic divorces and their acrimonious business disputes. A steady stream of well-heeled clients was passing his name on to similar men and women, with tediously similar difficulties; this was the reward for distinction in his particular line of work, and if it was often repetitive, it was also lucrative.

When the news ended he clambered laboriously off the bed, removed the remnants of his meal from the chair beside him and walked stiffly into his small kitchen area to wash everything up. He never neglected such things: habits of self-respect learned in the army had not left him in the depths of his poverty, nor were they entirely due to military training. He had been a tidy boy, imitating his Uncle Ted, whose liking for order everywhere from his toolbox to his boathouse had contrasted so starkly with the chaos that had surrounded Strike’s mother Leda.

Within ten minutes, after a last pee in the toilet that was always sodden because of its proximity to the shower, and cleaning his teeth at the kitchen sink where there was more room, Strike was back on his bed, removing his prosthesis.

The weather forecast for the next day was rounding off the news: sub-zero temperatures and fog. Strike rubbed powder into the end of his amputated leg; it was less sore tonight than it had been a few months ago. Today’s full English breakfast and takeaway curry notwithstanding, he had lost a bit of weight since he had been able to cook for himself again, and this had eased the pressure on his leg.

He pointed the remote control at the TV screen; a laughing blonde and her washing powder vanished into blankness. Strike manoeuvred himself clumsily beneath the covers.

Of course, if Owen Quine was hiding at his writer’s retreat it would be easy enough to winkle him out. Egotistical bastard, he sounded, flouncing off into the darkness with his precious book…

The hazy mental image of a furious man storming away with a holdall over his shoulder dissolved almost as quickly as it had formed. Strike was sliding into a welcome, deep and dreamless sleep. The faint pulse of a bass guitar far below in the subterranean bar was swiftly drowned by his own rasping snores.