© J.K. Rowling. All Rights Reserved.
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The Silkworm
22
‘She wasn’t specific. She said, “He touched me” and “I don’t like being touched”. And that he gave her a paintbrush after he’d done it. It might not be that,’ said Strike in response to Robin’s loaded silence, her tense expression. ‘He might’ve accidentally knocked into her and given her something to placate her. She kept going off on one while I was there, shrieking because she didn’t get what she wanted or her mum had a go at her.’
Hungry, he tore open the cellophane on Robin’s gift, pulled out a chocolate bar and unwrapped it while Robin sat in thoughtful silence.
‘Thing is,’ said Strike, breaking the silence, ‘Quine implied in Bombyx Mori that Chard’s gay. I think that’s what he’s saying, anyway.’
The Silkworm
22
‘Hmm,’ said Robin, unimpressed. ‘And do you believe everything Quine wrote in that book?’
‘Well, judging by the fact that he set lawyers on Quine, it upset Chard,’ said Strike, breaking off a large chunk of chocolate and putting it in his mouth. ‘Mind you,’ he continued thickly, ‘the Chard in Bombyx Mori’s a murderer, possibly a rapist and his knob’s falling off, so the gay stuff might not have been what got his goat.’
‘It’s a constant theme in Quine’s work, sexual duality,’ said Robin and Strike stared at her, chewing, his brows raised. ‘I nipped into Foyles on the way to work and bought a copy of Hobart’s Sin,’ she explained. ‘It’s all about a hermaphrodite.’
The Silkworm
22
Strike swallowed.
‘He must’ve had a thing about them; there’s one in Bombyx Mori too,’ he said, examining the cardboard covering of his chocolate bar. ‘This was made in Mullion. That’s down the coast from where I grew up… How’s Hobart’s Sin – any good?’
‘I wouldn’t be fussed about reading past the first few pages if its author hadn’t just been murdered,’ admitted Robin.
The Silkworm
22
‘My point is,’ Robin pressed on doggedly, ‘that you can’t necessarily trust Quine when it comes to other people’s sex lives, because his characters all seem to sleep with anyone and anything. I looked him up on Wikipedia. One of the key features of his books is how characters keep swapping their gender or sexual orientation.’
‘Bombyx Mori’s like that,’ grunted Strike, helping himself to more chocolate. ‘This is good, want a bit?’
‘I’m supposed to be on a diet,’ said Robin sadly. ‘For the wedding.’
The Silkworm
22
She was forcing herself to speak matter-of-factly, as though they were discussing an abstract problem, but Robin had not been able to forget the pictures of Quine’s body: the dark cavern of the gouged-out torso, the burned-out crevices where once had been mouth and eyes. If she thought about what had been done to Quine too much, she knew that she might not be able to eat her lunch, or that she might somehow betray her horror to Strike, who was watching her with a disconcertingly shrewd expression in his dark eyes.
‘It’s all right to admit what happened to him makes you want to puke,’ he said through a mouthful of chocolate.
‘It doesn’t,’ she lied automatically. Then, ‘Well, obviously – I mean, it was horrific—’
The Silkworm
22
‘But,’ she resumed when he had sloped away, ‘Quine can’t have been killed that recently, can he? I mean, I’m no expert…’
‘Nor am I,’ said Strike, polishing off the last of the chocolate and contemplating the peanut brittle with less enthusiasm, ‘but I know what you mean. That body looked as though it had been there at least a week.’
‘Plus,’ said Robin, ‘there must have been a time lag between the murderer reading Bombyx Mori and actually killing Quine. There was a lot to organise. They had to get ropes and acid and crockery into an uninhabited house…’
The Silkworm
22
‘No,’ snapped Strike.
He felt sore, angry with himself, irritated by Matthew and suddenly a bit nauseous. He ought not to have eaten the chocolate before having steak, chips, crumble and three pints.
‘I need you to go back to the office and type up Gunfrey’s last invoice. And text me if those bloody journalists are still around, because I’ll go straight from here to Anstis’s, if they are.
The Silkworm
32
Even with snow chains on its tyres the old family Land Rover driven by Robin’s mother had had a hard job of it between York station and Masham. The wipers made fan-shaped windows, swiftly obliterated, onto roads familiar to Robin since childhood, now transformed by the worst winter she had seen in many years. The snow was relentless and the journey, which should have taken an hour, lasted nearly three. There had been moments when Robin had thought she might yet miss the funeral. At least she had been able to speak to Matthew on her mobile, explaining that she was close. He had told her that several others were still miles away, that he was afraid his aunt from Cambridge might not make it at all.
At home Robin had dodged the slobbering welcome of their old chocolate Labrador and hurtled upstairs to her room, pulling on the black dress and coat without bothering to iron them, laddering her first pair of tights in her haste, then running back downstairs to the hall where her parents and brothers were waiting for her.
They walked together through the swirling snow beneath black umbrellas, up the gentle hill Robin had climbed every day of her primary school years and across the wide square that was the ancient heart of her tiny home town, their backs to the giant chimney of the local brewery. The Saturday market had been cancelled. Deep channels had been made in the snow by those few brave souls who had crossed the square that morning, footprints converging near the church where Robin could see a crowd of black-coated mourners. The roofs of the pale gold Georgian houses lining the square wore mantels of bright, frozen icing, and still the snow kept coming. A rising sea of white was steadily burying the large square tombstones in the cemetery.
The Silkworm
33
‘Sorry I’m late,’ said Strike, limping over the threshold. ‘I had an accident leaving the house. My leg.’
He had not brought her anything, he realised, standing there in his overcoat. He should have brought wine or chocolates and he felt her notice it as her big eyes roved over him; she had good manners herself and he felt, suddenly, a little shabby.
‘And I’ve forgotten the wine I bought you,’ he lied. ‘This is crap. Chuck me out.’
The Silkworm
34
‘Love is a mirage,’ said Michael Fancourt on the television screen. ‘A mirage, a chimera, a delusion.’
Robin was sitting between Matthew and her mother on the faded, sagging sofa. The chocolate Labrador lay on the floor in front of the fire, his tail thumping lazily on the rug in his sleep. Robin felt drowsy after two nights of very little sleep and days of unexpected stresses and emotion, but she was trying hard to concentrate on Michael Fancourt. Beside her Mrs Ellacott, who had expressed the optimistic hope that Fancourt might let drop some bons mots that would help with her essay on Webster, had a notebook and pen on her lap.
‘Surely,’ began the interviewer, but Fancourt talked over him.
The Silkworm
42
‘I’d love that,’ said Robin.
Orlando set to work with her tongue between her teeth. Robin said nothing, but watched the picture develop. Feeling that Robin had already forged a better rapport with Orlando than he had managed, Strike ate a chocolate biscuit offered by Edna and made small talk about the snow.
Eventually Orlando finished her picture, tore it out of the pad and pushed it across to Robin.
The Silkworm
50
‘I’m not most women.’
‘Yeah, I’ve noticed that,’ said Strike, taking a chocolate biscuit.
‘Have they analysed it yet?’ she asked. ‘The dog poo?’