The Silkworm (40 page)

‘So you didn’t hold it against Chard that he turned down North’s book?’ Strike asked, returning to the main point.

After a brief pause Fancourt said:

‘Well, yes, I did hold it against him. Exactly why Dan changed his mind about publishing it only Dan could tell you, but I think it was because there was a smattering of press around Joe’s condition, drumming up middle-England disgust about the unrepentant book he was about to publish, and Dan, who had not realised that Joe now had full-blown Aids, panicked. He didn’t want to be associated with bathhouses and Aids, so he told Joe he didn’t want the book after all. It was an act of great cowardice and Owen and I—’

Another pause. How long had it been since Fancourt had bracketed himself and Quine together in amity?

‘Owen and I believed that it killed Joe. He could hardly hold a pen, he was virtually blind, but he was trying desperately to finish the book before he died. We felt that was all that was keeping him alive. Then Chard’s letter arrived cancelling their contract; Joe stopped work and within forty-eight hours he was dead.’

‘There are similarities,’ said Strike, ‘with what happened to your first wife.’

‘They weren’t the same thing at all,’ said Fancourt flatly.

‘Why not?’

‘Joe’s was an infinitely better book.’

Yet another pause, this time much longer.

‘That’s considering the matter,’ said Fancourt, ‘from a purely literary perspective. Naturally, there are other ways of looking at it.’

He finished his glass of wine and raised a hand to indicate to the barman that he wanted another. The actor beside them, who had barely drawn breath, was still talking.

‘… said, “Screw authenticity, what d’you want me to do, saw my own bloody arm off?”’

‘It must have been a very difficult time for you,’ said Strike.

‘Yes,’ said Fancourt waspishly. ‘Yes, I think we can call it “difficult”.’

‘You lost a good friend and a wife within – what – months of each other?’

‘A few months, yes.’

‘You were writing all through that time?’

‘Yes,’ said Fancourt, with an angry, condescending laugh, ‘I was writing
all through that time
. It’s my profession. Would anyone ask you whether you were
still in the army
while you were having private difficulties?’

‘I doubt it,’ said Strike, without rancour. ‘What were you writing?’

‘It was never published. I abandoned the book I was working on so that I could finish Joe’s.’

The waiter set a second glass in front of Fancourt and departed.

‘Did North’s book need much doing to it?’

‘Hardly anything,’ said Fancourt. ‘He was a brilliant writer. I tidied up a few rough bits and polished the ending. He’d left notes about how he wanted it done. Then I took it to Jerry Waldegrave, who was with Roper.’

Strike remembered what Chard had said about Fancourt’s over-closeness to Waldegrave’s wife and proceeded with some caution.

‘Had you worked with Waldegrave before?’

‘I’ve never worked with him on my own stuff, but I knew of him by reputation as a gifted editor and I knew that he’d liked Joe. We collaborated on
Towards the Mark
.’

‘He did a good job on it, did he?’

Fancourt’s flash of bad temper had gone. If anything, he looked entertained by Strike’s line of questioning.

‘Yes,’ he said, taking a sip of wine, ‘very good.’

‘But you didn’t want to work with him now you’ve moved to Roper Chard?’

‘Not particularly,’ said Fancourt, still smiling. ‘He drinks a lot these days.’

‘Why d’you think Quine put Waldegrave in
Bombyx Mori
?’

‘How can I possibly know that?’

‘Waldegrave seems to have been good to Quine. It’s hard to see why Quine felt the need to attack him.’

‘Is it?’ asked Fancourt, eyeing Strike closely.

‘Everyone I talk to seems to have a different angle on the Cutter character in
Bombyx Mori
.’

‘Really?’

‘Most people seem outraged that Quine attacked Waldegrave at all. They can’t see what Waldegrave did to deserve it. Daniel Chard thinks the Cutter shows that Quine had a collaborator,’ said Strike.

‘Who the hell does he think would have collaborated with Quine on
Bombyx Mori
?’ asked Fancourt, with a short laugh.

‘He’s got ideas,’ said Strike. ‘Meanwhile Waldegrave thinks the Cutter’s really an attack on you.’

‘But I’m Vainglorious,’ said Fancourt with a smile. ‘Everyone knows that.’

‘Why would Waldegrave think that the Cutter is about you?’

‘You’ll need to ask Jerry Waldegrave,’ said Fancourt, still smiling. ‘But I’ve got a funny feeling you think you know, Mr Strike. And I’ll tell you this: Quine was quite, quite wrong – as he really should have known.’

Impasse.
 

‘So in all these years, you’ve never managed to sell Talgarth Road?’

‘It’s been very difficult to find a buyer who satisfies the terms of Joe’s will. It was a quixotic gesture of Joe’s. He was a romantic, an idealist.

‘I set down my feelings about all of this – the legacy, the burden, the poignancy of his bequest – in
House of Hollow
,’ said Fancourt, much like a lecturer recommending additional reading. ‘Owen had his say – such as it was –’ added Fancourt, with the ghost of a smirk, ‘in
The Balzac Brothers
.’

‘
The Balzac Brothers
was about the house in Talgarth Road, was it?’ asked Strike, who had not gleaned that impression during the fifty pages he had read.

‘It was set there. Really it’s about our relationship, the three of us,’ said Fancourt. ‘Joe dead in the corner and Owen and I trying to follow in his footsteps, make sense of his death. It was set in the studio where I think – from what I’ve read – you found Quine’s body?’

Strike said nothing, but continued to take notes.

‘The critic Harvey Bird called
The Balzac Brothers
“wincingly, jaw-droppingly, sphincter-clenchingly awful”.’

‘I just remember a lot of fiddling with balls,’ said Strike and Fancourt gave a sudden, unforced girlish titter.

‘You’ve read it, have you? Oh yes, Owen was obsessed with his balls.’

The actor beside them had paused for breath at last. Fancourt’s words rang in the temporary silence. Strike grinned as the actor and his two dining companions stared at Fancourt, who treated them to his sour smile. The three men began talking hurriedly again.

‘He had a real
idée fixe
,’ said Fancourt, turning back to Strike. ‘Picasso-esque, you know, his testicles the source of his creative power. He was obsessed in both his life and his work with machismo, virility, fertility. Some might say it was an odd fixation for a man who liked to be tied up and dominated, but I see it as a natural consequence… the yin and yang of Quine’s sexual persona. You’ll have noticed the names he gave us in the book?’

‘Vas and Varicocele,’ said Strike and he noted again that slight surprise in Fancourt that a man who looked like Strike read books, or paid attention to their contents.

‘Vas – Quine – the duct that carries sperm from balls to penis – the healthy, potent, creative force. Varicocele – a painful enlargement of a vein in the testicle, sometimes leading to infertility. A typically crass Quine-esque allusion to the fact that I contracted mumps shortly after Joe died and in fact was too unwell to go to the funeral, but also to the fact that – as you’ve pointed out – I was writing under difficult circumstances around that time.’

‘You were still friends at this point?’ Strike clarified.

‘When he started the book we were still – in theory – friends,’ said Fancourt, with a grim smile. ‘But writers are a savage breed, Mr Strike. If you want life-long friendship and selfless camaraderie, join the army and learn to kill. If you want a lifetime of temporary alliances with peers who will glory in your every failure, write novels.’

Strike smiled. Fancourt said with detached pleasure:

‘
The Balzac Brothers
received some of the worst reviews I’ve ever read.’

‘Did you review it?’

‘No,’ said Fancourt.

‘You were married to your first wife at this point?’ Strike asked.

‘That’s right,’ said Fancourt. The flicker of his expression was like the shiver of an animal’s flank when a fly touches it.

‘I’m just trying to get the chronology right – you lost her shortly after North died?’

‘Euphemisms for death are so interesting, aren’t they?’ said Fancourt lightly. ‘I didn’t “lose” her. On the contrary, I tripped over her in the dark, dead in our kitchen with her head in the oven.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Strike formally.

‘Yes, well…’

Fancourt called for another drink. Strike could tell that a delicate point had been reached, where a flow of information might either be tapped, or run forever dry.

‘Did you ever talk to Quine about the parody that caused your wife’s suicide?’

‘I’ve already told you, I never talked to him again about anything after Ellie died,’ said Fancourt calmly. ‘So, no.’

‘You were sure he wrote it, though?’

‘Without question. Like a lot of writers without much to say, Quine was actually a good literary mimic. I remember him spoofing some of Joe’s stuff and it was quite funny. He wasn’t going to jeer
publicly
at Joe, of course, it did him too much good hanging around with the pair of us.’

‘Did anyone admit to seeing the parody before publication?’

‘Nobody said as much to me, but it would have been surprising if they had, wouldn’t it, given what it caused? Liz Tassel denied to my face that Owen had shown it to her, but I heard on the grapevine that she’d read it pre-publication. I’m sure she encouraged him to publish. Liz was insanely jealous of Ellie.’

There was a pause, then Fancourt said with an assumption of lightness:

‘Hard to remember these days that there was a time when you had to wait for the ink and paper reviews to see your work excoriated. With the invention of the internet, any subliterate cretin can be Michiko Kakutani.’

‘Quine always denied writing it, didn’t he?’ Strike asked.

‘Yes he did, gutless bastard that he was,’ said Fancourt, apparently unconscious of any lack of taste. ‘Like a lot of
soi-disant
mavericks, Quine was an envious, terminally competitive creature who craved adulation. He was terrified that he was going to be ostracised after Ellie died. Of course,’ said Fancourt, with unmistakable pleasure, ‘it happened anyway. Owen had benefited from a lot of reflected glory, being part of a triumvirate with Joe and me. When Joe died and I cut him adrift, he was seen for what he was: a man with a dirty imagination and an interesting style who had barely an idea that wasn’t pornographic. Some authors,’ said Fancourt, ‘have only one good book in them. That was Owen. He shot his bolt – an expression he would have approved of – with
Hobart’s Sin
. Everything after that was pointless rehashes.’

‘Didn’t you say you thought
Bombyx Mori
was “a maniac’s masterpiece”?’

‘You read that, did you?’ said Fancourt, with vaguely flattered surprise. ‘Well, so it is, a true literary curiosity. I never denied that Owen could write, you know, it was just that he was never able to dredge up anything profound or interesting to write about. It’s a surprisingly common phenomenon. But with
Bombyx Mori
he found his subject at last, didn’t he? Everybody hates me, everyone’s against me, I’m a genius and nobody can see it. The result is grotesque and comic, it reeks of bitterness and self-pity, but it has an undeniable fascination. And the language,’ said Fancourt, with the most enthusiasm he had so far brought to the discussion, ‘is admirable. Some passages are among the best things he ever wrote.’

‘This is all very useful,’ said Strike.

Fancourt seemed amused.

‘How?’

‘I’ve got a feeling that
Bombyx Mori
’s central to this case.’

‘“Case”?’ repeated Fancourt, smiling. There was a short pause. ‘Are you
seriously
telling me that you still think the killer of Owen Quine is at large?’

‘Yeah, I think so,’ said Strike.

‘Then,’ said Fancourt, smiling still more broadly, ‘wouldn’t it be more useful to analyse the writings of the killer rather than the victim?’

‘Maybe,’ said Strike, ‘but we don’t know whether the killer writes.’

‘Oh, nearly everyone does these days,’ said Fancourt. ‘The whole world’s writing novels, but nobody’s reading them.’

‘I’m sure people would read
Bombyx Mori
, especially if you did an introduction,’ said Strike.

‘I think you’re right,’ said Fancourt, smiling more broadly.

‘When exactly did you read the book for the first time?’

‘It would have been… let me see…’

Fancourt appeared to do a mental calculation.

‘Not until the, ah, middle of the week after Quine delivered it,’ said Fancourt. ‘Dan Chard called me, told me that Quine was trying to suggest that I had written the parody of Ellie’s book, and tried to persuade me to join him in legal action against Quine. I refused.’

‘Did Chard read any of it out to you?’

‘No,’ said Fancourt, smiling again. ‘Frightened he might lose his star acquisition, you see. No, he simply outlined the allegation that Quine had made and offered me the services of his lawyers.’

‘When was this telephone call?’

‘On the evening of the… seventh, it must have been,’ said Fancourt. ‘The Sunday night.’

‘The same day you filmed an interview about your new novel,’ said Strike.

‘You’re very well-informed,’ said Fancourt, his eyes narrowing.

‘I watched the programme.’

‘You know,’ said Fancourt, with a needle-prick of malice, ‘you don’t have the appearance of a man who enjoys arts programmes.’

‘I never said I enjoyed them,’ said Strike and was unsurprised to note that Fancourt appeared to enjoy his retort. ‘But I did notice that you misspoke when you said your first wife’s name on camera.’