The Ink Black Heart, page 11
‘You’ve watched this cartoon, have you?’ Murphy asked Robin.
‘Only a tiny bit,’ said Robin. ‘It’s…’
‘Nuts?’
Robin forced a smile and said, ‘A bit. Yes.’
Darwish, who’d made another brief note, now closed her notebook and then cast a look at DCI Murphy that plainly said I’ve got everything I need.
‘Right, well, you’ve been very helpful, Miss Ellacott,’ said Murphy as he and Darwish stood up. ‘I’m going to give you my direct number, in case you remember anything else.’
He handed her his card. His hand was large, warm and dry as he shook hers. He was as tall as Strike, though rather slimmer.
Strike showed the visitors out. Robin was putting Murphy’s card into her purse when her partner reappeared.
‘You OK?’ he asked, closing the glass door on the sound of the retreating footsteps.
‘Fine,’ said Robin, for what felt like the umpteenth time. She took the dregs of her sugary tea over to the sink and washed up the mug.
‘There’s something up,’ said Strike as the sound of the door to the street slamming echoed up the stairwell.
Robin turned to look at him. Strike had just taken down his overcoat from beside the door. The rain was still pounding against the windows.
‘What d’you mean?’ asked Robin.
‘That question about politics.’
‘Well… I suppose people argue about politics all the time on Twitter.’
‘Yeah,’ said Strike, who was holding his mobile in his right hand, ‘but while Murphy was asking you your opinion of the cartoon, I looked up the voice actor who played Drek.’
‘And?’
‘He was fired because of what many took to be his far-right political position. He claimed he was being satirical, but Ledwell and Blay weren’t having it and sacked him.’
‘Oh,’ said Robin.
Strike scratched his chin, eyes on the glass door.
‘Don’t know if you noticed, but they never told us what that Angela Darwish does either. She didn’t leave a card.’
‘I assumed she was CID as well.’
‘Maybe.’
‘What else could she be?’
‘I wondered,’ said Strike slowly, ‘whether she was counter-terrorism… maybe MI5.’
Robin stared at Strike until she realised warm water from the mug she was still holding was dripping onto her feet. She set it down on the draining board.
‘MI5?’
‘Just a thought.’
‘What kind of terrorist would target a pair of animat—?’
She caught herself as Strike raised his eyebrows at her. The faint echo of bullets ripping through a Parisian publishers’ office seemed to fill the space between them.
‘But Charlie Hebdo – that was entirely different. The Ink Black Heart isn’t a political cartoon, there was nothing about religion…’
‘No,’ said Strike. ‘Maybe you’re right. You ready to go? I’ll walk down with you, I’m going to get a takeaway.’
If Robin hadn’t been pondering the question of why the stabbing of two animators could have possibly interested MI5, she might have asked herself why Strike was taking a small rucksack into Chinatown to pick up his takeaway, but she was so preoccupied, his lie went unchallenged.
13
But when thy friends are in distress,
Thou’lt laugh and chuckle ne’er the less…
Joanna Baillie
A Mother to her Waking Infant
Madeline and her son, Henry, lived in a mews house in Eccleston Square, Pimlico. Henry’s father lived a few streets away with his wife and their three children. He and Madeline had deliberately chosen to move into the same area so their son could come and go easily between the two houses. Henry seemed to be on good terms with both his stepmother and his half-siblings. To Strike, who’d been raised in conditions of insecurity and chaos, it all felt very grown-up and civilised.
He walked the short distance from Victoria Station with his collar turned up against the continuing rain, smoking while he still had the chance, because Madeline was a non-smoker and preferred her pristine house to remain cigarette-free. The subtle recalibration he always needed to perform when moving from work to a date with Madeline was proving harder than usual this evening. One reason he had no objection to Madeline’s persistent lateness was because it allowed him extra time to summon the energy needed to meet her always keyed-up demeanour on first contact. Tonight, though, his thoughts remained with Robin and with the oddly vivid picture she’d painted for the police, of the now-dead animator with her bruised neck and old boots. If he were honest with himself, he’d rather still be at the office, speculating about the stabbings with Robin over a Chinese takeaway than heading towards Madeline’s.
Best, then, not to be honest with himself.
It was Valentine’s Day tomorrow. Strike had arranged for a showy spray of orchids to be delivered to Madeline in the morning and was carrying a card for her in his rucksack. These were the things you did for the woman you were sleeping with if you wanted to keep sleeping with her, and Strike was keen to keep sleeping with Madeline, for reasons both obvious and barely acknowledged.
The rapid thumps of teenage feet on the stairs followed Strike’s ring on the doorbell, and Henry opened the door. He was a good-looking boy with Madeline’s red-gold hair, which he wore as long and floppy as Westminster School would permit. Strike remembered being the age Henry was now: the indignity of angry pimples burgeoning on his hairless chin, being unable to find trousers long enough in the leg but small enough in the waist (a problem that, for Strike, had long since vanished), feeling uncoordinated and clumsy and full of a range of desperate and unfulfilled desires that the teenaged Strike had partly sublimated in the boxing ring.
‘Evening,’ said Strike.
‘Hi,’ said Henry, unsmiling, and he turned immediately to run back upstairs. Strike surmised that he’d been told to answer the door, rather than done it of his own accord.
The detective stepped inside, wiped his feet, took off his overcoat and hung it up beside the front door, then proceeded upstairs at a far slower pace than Henry, making liberal use of the banister. He arrived in the open-plan living area to find Madeline sitting on the sofa, pencil in hand, head bowed over an assortment of gemstones that were lying on a large piece of white paper spread out on the coffee table. A half-empty bottle of wine stood next to the paper, the glass beside it full.
‘Sorry, babes, d’you mind if I just finish this?’ said Madeline anxiously.
‘’Course not,’ said Strike, setting his rucksack down on a leather chair.
‘I’m really sorry,’ she said, frowning at the design she was working on, ‘I just had an idea and I want to follow it through before I lose it. Henry’ll get you a drink – Hen, get Cormoran a drink – Hen!’ she bellowed, because Henry had just put earphones in and was sitting back down at the desk in the corner, which had a large PC on it.
‘What?’
‘Get – Cormoran – a – drink!’
Henry just prevented himself from throwing down the headphones. Strike would have offered to get the drink himself, but he guessed that would have been making himself a little too at home in the teenager’s eyes.
‘What d’you want?’ Henry grunted at the detective as he passed him.
‘Beer would be great.’
Henry strode off towards the kitchen, his fringe flopping over his eyes. Wanting to give Madeline peace and space, Strike followed her son.
The house was largely white: white walls, white ceilings, a white carpet in Madeline’s bedroom, stripped floorboards everywhere else, the other furnishings almost all silvery grey. Madeline had told Strike she found it restful, after hours staring at vibrant gemstones in the workshop, or else presiding over her eclectically decorated Bond Street shop, to spend evenings in a serene, monochrome space. Her house in the country, she’d told him, was far busier and more colourful in style: they should go there, one weekend, and Strike – in the spirit of giving a real relationship a chance – had agreed.
Henry had already opened the enormous Smeg fridge-freezer when Strike arrived in the minimalist kitchen.
‘There’s Heineken or Peroni.’
‘Heineken, please,’ said Strike. ‘Can I ask you something, Henry?’
‘What?’ said Henry, his tone suspicious. He was a full foot shorter than the detective and appeared to resent having to look up at him.
‘Your mother told me you used to watch The Ink Black Heart.’
‘Yeah,’ said Henry, still sounding suspicious as he opened drawers, looking for a bottle-opener.
‘I’ve never seen it. What’s it about?’
‘Dunno,’ said Henry with an irritable half-shrug. ‘What goes on in a cemetery after dark.’
He opened and shut another drawer and then, slightly to Strike’s surprise, volunteered more information.
‘It went off. It used to be funnier. They sold out.’
‘Who did?’
‘The people who made it.’
‘The two who were stabbed yesterday?’
‘What?’ said Henry, looking round at Strike.
‘The two people who created it were stabbed in Highgate Cemetery yesterday afternoon. The police have just released their names.’
‘Ledwell and Blay?’ said Henry. ‘Stabbed in Highgate Cemetery?’
‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘She’s dead. He’s critical.’
‘Fuck,’ said Henry, then, catching himself, he said, ‘I mean—’
‘No,’ said Strike. ‘Fuck’s about right.’
Something adjacent to a smile flickered briefly on Henry’s face. He’d found a bottle-opener. After prising off the cap he said,
‘D’you want a glass?’
‘I’m good with the bottle,’ said Strike, and Henry passed it to him.
‘Are you investigating it?’ asked Henry, looking sideways at Strike.
‘The stabbings? No.’
‘Who do they think did it?’
‘Don’t think they know yet.’ Strike took a swig of beer. ‘There’s a character called Drek in the cartoon, isn’t there?’
‘Yeah,’ said Henry. ‘That was what went downhill. He was the main reason I watched it. He used to be really funny… Is she seriously dead? Ledwell?’
Strike resisted the urge to reply, ‘Not seriously. Only a bit.’
‘She is, yeah.’
‘Wow,’ said Henry. He looked more puzzled than sad. Strike remembered being sixteen: death, unless of your very nearest or dearest, was a distant and almost incomprehensible abstraction.
‘I heard the voice actor who played Drek was sacked,’ Strike said.
‘Yeah,’ said Henry. ‘It was after they sacked Wally it all turned to shit. Got too PC.’
‘What’s Wally’s full name?’
‘Wally Cardew,’ said Henry, now with a little renewed suspicion. ‘Why?’
‘Did he manage to get another job, d’you know?’
‘Yeah, he’s a YouTuber now.’
‘Ah,’ said Strike. ‘And what does that entail?’
‘What d’you—?’
‘What does he do on YouTube?’
‘Makes gaming videos and stuff,’ said Henry, his tone comparable to an adult explaining what the prime minister does to a toddler.
‘Right.’
‘He’s on tonight,’ said Henry, glancing at the clock on the cooker. ‘Eleven o’clock.’
Strike checked his watch.
‘D’you need to subscribe to YouTube to watch?’
‘No,’ said Henry, wincing in further embarrassment at this ignorance.
‘Well, thanks for the beer. And the information.’
‘’S’all right,’ muttered Henry, sidling back out of the kitchen.
Strike remained where he was, leaning up against the side, facing the fridge. After drinking some more lager he took his mobile out of his pocket, opened YouTube and searched for Wally Cardew.
He now understood Henry’s scorn at his ignorance: the ex-Drek voice actor had over a hundred thousand subscribers to his YouTube channel. Sipping Heineken, Strike scrolled slowly down through the archived videos. The still shots beside the titles all featured Cardew pulling a comical face: clutching his head in despair, wide-mouthed in hysterical laughter or yelling in triumph while giving a fist-pump.
Cardew bore a strong physical resemblance to a young soldier Strike had investigated while still in the SIB, one Private Dean Shaw, who’d had exactly the same combination of tow-coloured hair, pink-and-white skin and small, bright blue eyes. Shaw had been court-martialled for what he’d insisted was a prank gone wrong, which had resulted in the fatal shooting of a sixteen-year-old recruit. Reflecting ruefully that he’d now reached the age where almost everyone he met reminded him of somebody else he’d known, Strike continued to scroll through Cardew’s list of videos.
The YouTuber’s hairstyle varied according to the year in which the video had been filmed. Three years previously, he’d worn his white-blond hair to his shoulders, but it was now much shorter. Most of his videos were headlined The Wally Shows MJ Show. Strike assumed MJ was the cheery-looking, chubby-faced, bearded, brown-skinned young man who appeared next to Wally in some of the pictures, sidekick to the star.
Strike stopped scrolling at a video dating from 2012, entitled ‘The Ink Black Fart’, which had been viewed ninety thousand times. He pressed play. Long-haired Wally and short-haired MJ appeared, sitting side by side at a desk, each in a large padded leather chair. The wall behind them was covered in gaming posters.
‘So, yeah, hi, ev’ryone,’ said Wally, whose accent was pure working-class London, not dissimilar to Madeline’s. He was holding a piece of what looked like headed notepaper. ‘Just wan’ed to update you all on what my, ah, erstwhile friends’ve sent me. Fink it’s called a “cease and desist” letter.’
‘Yeah,’ said MJ, nodding.
‘MJ there, tryna look like he understands legals,’ said Wally to camera, and MJ laughed.
‘My uncle’s a lawyer, man!’
‘Yeah? Mine’s a fuckin’ gynaecologist, but I don’t get to shove my fingers up random women.’
‘Is he a gynaecologist? Seriously?’ said MJ, giggling.
‘No, you melt, I’m jokin’… So, yeah, basically I’m not allowed to use Drek’s voice any more, or ’is catchphrases or…’
He consulted the letter, reading from it:
‘“… any intellectual property of Edie Ledwell and Joshua Blay, ’ereinafter called the creators”. So… yeah. There ya go.’
‘Fuckin’ bullshit, man,’ said MJ, shaking his head.
‘Hey,’ said Wally, as though struck by a sudden thought. ‘Would your uncle represent me for free?’
MJ looked taken aback. Wally laughed.
‘I’m kiddin’, man, but’ – he looked back to camera – ‘yeah, so I guess – no more Drek from me, bwahs.’
‘Careful!’ said MJ.
‘It’s fuckin’—’
‘Yeah, it is,’ said MJ soberly. ‘It’s shit.’
‘I pretty much created the voice, the character an’ everyfing, but you can’t make fuckin’ jokes any more, apparently, you can’t be satirical, you can’t take the piss –’
The camera zoomed in suddenly, so that Wally’s face appeared in extreme close-up.
‘OR CAN YOU?’ thundered Wally, his voice artificially manipulated so that it echoed.
When the camera moved to wide shot again, the two men were in the middle of an all-white space. MJ was now lolling in his chair, pretending to be half-asleep, and wearing a long dark brown wig, a denim shirt and ripped jeans, and smoking what appeared to be a gigantic joint. Wally had donned a light brown straggly wig, some badly applied lipstick and eyeliner, a T-shirt reading ‘The Ink Black Fart’ and a long floral skirt.
Speaking in a high-pitched Essex accent he said,
‘So yeah… we was lying in the cemetery… you’d just copped a feel, hadn’t you, Josh?’
‘Yeah…’ said MJ, sounding sleepy.
‘An’ we was smokin’, wasn’t we?’
‘Yeah…’
‘And then all this brilliance come floodin’ out my brain. And that’s ’ow we created The Ink Black Fart. Because when you fart, right, it’s like a bit of the inner you is struggling to free itself, so it’s a metaphor and it’s kind of beau’iful and deep, innit?’
Wally raised one buttock off his chair and produced a loud and apparently genuine fart. MJ corpsed before saying in the same stoned voice as before:
‘Metaphor, yeah…’
‘I got the idea of the fart from my dead mum… she ’ad a big wind problem…’
MJ was convulsed with barely suppressed laughter.
‘And we ain’t interested in cash, are we, Josh?’
‘Nah…’
‘We’re two free spirits, innit. We want the whole world to enjoy my brilliance for free.’
‘Free… yeah…’
‘Which is why we don’t pay no one, innit, Josh?’
MJ silently offered Wally a toke on his joint.
‘No, Joshy babes, I gotta keep my head clear for negotiations wiv Netflix. Whoops, wait – did I say that out loud? Did I? Shit. Well anyway, fanks ev’ryone, I ’ope you all keep watching The Ink Black Fart.’
Wally produced a second fart.
‘Oooh, that’s better. Right, c’mon babes,’ he said, getting up and taking hold of MJ by the shirt, ‘you gotta draw Harty.’
‘I need a proper slug, Ed,’ moaned MJ. ‘I’m blunted.’
‘You come wiv me, you lazy bastard, we got money to make. Art, I mean. Art to m—’
‘What the hell are you watching?’
Strike paused the video and looked around. Madeline was standing in the kitchen doorway.
‘YouTubers,’ said Strike.
Grinning, Madeline walked barefoot towards him in her pale grey cashmere sweater and jeans, slid her arms around his neck and kissed him on the mouth. She tasted of Merlot.
