The Ink Black Heart, page 29
‘Good work, finding this,’ Strike said. ‘Was that the last time the Brotherhood and Wally interacted on Twitter, three years ago?’
‘I think so. I couldn’t see anything else.’
‘Maybe they took the relationship offline after that. Did you read what the Brotherhood had to say about Wally’s sacking?’ he added, checking that the article wasn’t attached.
‘Yes,’ said Robin, ‘but there was nothing new there. Boiled down to Wally being discriminated against because he was a straight white man, feminazis are taking over the world and you can’t make a simple joke about burning Jews without the thought police coming for you.’
The car rolled on up Tottenham Court Road.
‘Mind if I smoke?’ asked Strike in deference to Robin’s definitely cold manner; he wouldn’t normally have asked, given that she kept a tin in the glove compartment for him to use as an ashtray.
‘No,’ she said, and then, ‘d’you think there’s any chance the Brotherhood of Ultima Thule and The Halvening—?’
‘Are the public and secret face of the same organisation?’
‘Exactly.’
‘A bloody good chance, I’d’ve thought,’ said Strike, blowing his smoke carefully out of the window. ‘The Brotherhood’s the recruitment tool and the hardcore members get drafted into the militant wing.’
Strike now turned to the last page Robin had printed out, which was a short excerpt from an online interview with Edie Ledwell from a website called Women Who Create back in 2011.
WWC: What’s a typical day like for you?
Edie: There isn’t really a typical day. Getting Josh out of bed is the first big job. But then we often work through till 3 or 4 a.m., so I suppose he’s entitled to a lie-in.
WWC: And what’s the division of labour?
Edie: Well, I tend to come up with the story for each episode, although Josh is always throwing in ideas and I often use them or develop them, or whatever. We both animate: he does Harty, Magspie and Lord and Lady Wyrdy-Grob and I do Drek, The Worm and Paperwhite.
WWC: Has your process evolved, or has it remained the same?
Edie: We’ve got a bit more organised. I’ve started putting ideas and reminders on my phone instead of scraps of paper I immediately drop or throw away by mistake.
‘She kept ideas on her phone,’ said Strike. ‘Interesting… I’ve been wondering why the phones were taken. The obvious answer was to try and stop the police seeing who they’d called before they were killed at the cemetery, but that would’ve meant the killer didn’t realise the police could get that information anyway. If getting hold of her ideas was the motive, it fits better with my other theory.’
‘Which is?’
‘That the phones were taken as trophies,’ said Strike. ‘Mark Chapman made sure to get his album signed before he killed Lennon.’
An unpleasant prickle ran down Robin’s spine.
They drove on, up through Camden, Strike smoking out of the window.
He was wondering exactly why Robin’s manner was so frosty. Usually, when a woman gave him the silent treatment, he could hazard a good guess at what he’d done wrong. He’d certainly detected an edge to her voice after Charlotte had so skilfully broken the news that he was dating Madeline, but he’d been so consumed by his own fury, discomfort and worry in the aftermath of her visit he hadn’t had much room in his head for analysing what Robin felt about it all. Was her continuing coolness merely down to the fact that, as her supposed best friend, he’d failed to mention the relationship, and therefore rooted in hurt pride at being the last to know? Or was she pissed off that he’d added another case to their already groaning workload, a case, moreover, that she might see (however unfairly) as of his own making? Or – and he was well aware that even posing the question to himself might be more of the same vanity that had led him to assume she’d welcome his advances outside the Ritz – was she jealous?
Merely to break the silence, he said,
‘I still can’t get into that bloody game.’
‘Nor can I,’ said Robin.
She hadn’t told Strike her idea about using Midge’s ex-girlfriend’s log-in details, partly because Midge hadn’t got back to her and she didn’t want to promise what she might not be able to deliver, but also (if she were honest) because she didn’t see why Strike should be the only person who kept secrets.
‘Oh, and I read your notes about the Pen of Justice,’ Strike said, flicking ash out of the window. ‘We should definitely ask Katya Upcott what she knows about the Pen, and about Kea Niven… Straight on here,’ he added, as they entered Parkhill Road, ‘and then left in about half a mile.’
The rest of the journey passed in silence.
33
By slow degrees it broke on her slow sense…
That she too in that Eden of delight
Was out of place, and, like the silly kid,
Still did most mischief where she meant most love.
A thought enough to make a woman mad.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Aurora Leigh
Lisburne Road was a quiet residential street of terraced red-brick houses: solid, palatial family homes. As most of the parking spaces were full, Strike and Robin had to park some distance from Katya Upcott’s house, and Strike suffered in silence the renewed twinges of his hamstring and the irritated end of his stump as they proceeded up the street, which was built on a slight incline.
As they approached the front door, the sound of a cello reached them through the downstairs window. So accomplished was the solo that Robin assumed it was a recording, but when Strike pressed the doorbell a long, drawn-out note broke off and they heard a male voice call:
‘I’ll get it.’
The door was opened by a thin young man in a very baggy sweatshirt. The most noticeable features of his face were painful-looking raised cauliflower-like bumps over both cheeks and the swelling of one eye.
‘Hi,’ he mumbled. ‘Come in.’
The walls of the hall were painted cream and hung with oil paintings. A stairlift had been installed, and it currently sat at the top landing. Three large cardboard boxes stood beside the stairs. One had been opened and revealed a selection of fabric squares.
‘Oh, thank you, Gus darling!’ said a flustered female voice, and a woman they assumed was Katya Upcott came hurrying downstairs. Like her son, she was thin, but where Gus had dark, thick hair, Katya’s was mousy and sparse. She was wearing a mustard-yellow sweater, which looked homemade, a tweed skirt and sensible sheepskin slippers. A pair of reading glasses swung on a chain around her neck. As Gus retreated into what Strike and Robin assumed was the sitting room and closed the door, Katya said:
‘That’s actually Gus’s bedroom. We remodelled the house to make things easier for Inigo, so he can stay mostly on one level. He’s got ME – Inigo, I mean. So we put Gus downstairs and moved the drawing room upstairs, knocked through, and Inigo has a study and combined bedroom off it, and a bathroom he can get his wheelchair into. Oh’ – she gave a little gasping laugh, and held out a thin hand – ‘I’m Katya, obviously, and you must be, um, Cormoran, and you’re—?’
‘Robin,’ said Robin, who was used to her name not springing as readily to clients’ lips as Strike’s did.
As they followed Katya upstairs, the sound of the cello started up again through Gus’s bedroom door.
‘He’s wonderful,’ said Robin.
‘Yes, isn’t he?’ said Katya, looking delighted by Robin’s praise. ‘He should be doing his final year at the Royal College of Music, but we had to take him out while we try and sort out his urticaria. You saw?’ she whispered, making a circular movement towards her own face with a forefinger. ‘We thought it was under control then it came back with a vengeance, and he got angioedema – even his throat swelled up. He’s been really ill, poor thing, he was in hospital for a bit. But we’ve got him a really good new specialist in Harley Street and hopefully that will sort him out. He just wants to get back to college. Nobody wants to be stuck at home with their parents at that age, do they?’
The entrance to the drawing room had a push button set at waist height beside a snugly fitting door. When Katya pressed the button, the door swung slowly open. Robin wondered how much money it had cost to renovate the house to this standard and assumed that Katya’s crafting supplies business must be doing very well. Once they’d entered the drawing room and the door had closed behind them, the sound of the cello disappeared entirely.
‘We had the door and floor soundproofed,’ Katya explained, ‘so Gus practising doesn’t disturb Inigo when he’s napping. Now, would you like tea? Coffee?’
Before either could answer, a second electric door at the end of the room slid open, and a man in a wheelchair emerged slowly to the accompaniment of ‘The Show Must Go On’ by Queen, which was playing in the room behind him. Puffy-faced and yellowish of skin, he had untidy grey hair and thick lips that gave him a petulant air, and wore half-moon glasses perched on the end of his nose. There were flecks of dandruff on the shoulders of his thin maroon sweater and his legs showed signs of muscle wastage. Without acknowledging either Strike or Robin, he addressed his wife in a slow, quiet voice that gave the impression of a man who spoke only with immense effort.
‘Well, it’s a total mess. Barely turned a penny’s profit this month.’
Then, as though his vision was time-lagged, he gave what Strike considered a slightly hammy performance of a man who’d only just realised there were two strangers in the room.
‘Ah – good afternoon. Excuse me. Trying to make sense of my wife’s accounts.’
‘Darling, you don’t need to do that,’ began Katya, in evident distress. ‘I’ll sort it out later.’
‘Acta non verba,’ said Inigo, and looking up at Strike he added, ‘And you are—?’
‘Cormoran Strike,’ said the detective, holding out his hand.
‘I don’t shake, I’m afraid,’ said Inigo, unsmiling, his hands remaining on his knees. ‘I have to be exceptionally careful about germs.’
‘Ah,’ said Strike. ‘Well, this is Robin Ellacott.’
Robin smiled. Inigo blinked slowly back at her, poker-faced, and she felt as though she’d committed a social solecism.
‘Yes, so – would you like tea or coffee?’ Katya asked Strike and Robin nervously. Both accepted the offer of coffee. ‘Darling?’ she asked Inigo.
‘One of those non-caffeinated teas,’ he said. ‘But not that strawberry thing,’ he called after her, as the door swung closed.
After another slight pause, Inigo said, ‘Sit down, do,’ and rolled himself to sit at the end of the coffee table that stood between twin sofas, both of which were the same mustard yellow as his wife’s sweater. An abstract painting in shades of brown hung over the mantelpiece and a modernist marble sculpture of a woman’s torso sat squatly on a side table. Otherwise, the room was sparsely furnished and devoid of decorative objects, the polished floorboards an ideal surface for the wheelchair. Strike and Robin sat down facing each other on different sofas.
From the side room, which contained a day bed and a desk, Freddie Mercury continued to sing:
Outside the dawn is breaking
But inside in the dark I’m aching to be free…
It seemed to Strike that Inigo’s entrance into the room had been highly contrived, perhaps even down to the grandeur and melancholy of the song still playing. From putting down his wife’s business in front of strangers and his implausible pretence that he didn’t know, or had forgotten, that Katya had an appointment with two detectives to the unsmiling way he’d offered his justification for not wishing to shake hands, Strike thought he sensed a thwarted, even embittered, will to power.
‘An accountant, are you, Mr Upcott?’ he asked.
‘Why should you think I’m an accountant?’ said Inigo, who appeared offended by the suggestion which, in fact, Strike had made purely to draw him out, without believing it.
‘You said you were sorting out your wife’s—’
‘Any fool can read a spreadsheet – except Katya, it appears,’ said Inigo. ‘She runs a crafting business. Thought she could make a go of it… Ever the optimist.’
After a short pause, he went on:
‘I used to be an independent music publisher.’
‘Really? What kind of—?’
‘Largely ecclesiastical. We had an extensive—’
The electrically operated door from the landing opened and a girl of around twelve walked in. She had long dark hair and wore thick-lensed glasses and a fleece onesie patterned like a Christmas pudding, with a sprig of holly on the hood. Either the presence of strangers or her mother’s absence seemed to disconcert her, and she turned to leave without speaking, but was called back by her father.
‘What did I tell you, Flavia?’ he demanded.
‘Not to come—’
‘Not to come anywhere near me,’ said Inigo. ‘If you’re ill enough to be off school, you should be in bed. Now get out.’
Flavia pressed the button opening the electric door and departed.
‘I have to be exceptionally careful about viruses,’ Inigo told Strike and Robin.
Another pause ensued, until Inigo said,
‘Well, this is all a bloody fine mess, isn’t it?’
‘What’s that?’ asked Strike.
‘These stabbings and what have you,’ said Inigo.
‘Certainly is,’ said the detective.
‘Katya’s at the hospital nearly every day… She won’t be able to press the button if she’s holding a tray,’ he added, looking towards the door, but as he spoke the door opened again. Gus had accompanied his mother upstairs to press the button for her. Robin saw Gus try to duck out of sight again, but Inigo called him back into the room.
‘Been practising?’
‘Yes,’ said Gus a little defensively, and he showed his father the calloused fingertips of his left hand, in which were deep grooves made by the strings.
‘Did you hear him as you came to the door?’ Inigo asked Robin, who wasn’t sure whether Inigo was fishing for vicarious compliments or thought his son might be lying.
‘We did, yes,’ she said. ‘It was beautiful.’
Looking self-conscious, Gus edged towards the door again.
‘Heard from Darcy, darling?’ his mother asked him.
‘No,’ said Gus, and before anyone could ask him anything else he slid out of the room. The electric door swung closed. Katya whispered,
‘We think he’s split up with his girlfriend.’
‘There’s no need to whisper, we’re soundproofed,’ said Inigo, and with sudden vehemence he said, ‘And she’s a bloody waste of time if she can’t stick by a man when he’s sick, isn’t she? So why d’you keep pestering him about her? Good riddance.’
The short silence that followed was enlivened by Freddie Mercury, now singing a different song.
I’m going slightly mad,
I’m going slightly mad…
‘Turn that off, will you?’ Inigo barked at Katya, who hurried off to do so.
‘Inigo’s a musician too,’ she said with brittle brightness as she returned and began handing around mugs.
‘Was,’ Inigo corrected her. ‘Until this bloody thing happened.’
He gestured towards his chair.
‘What did you play?’ asked Strike.
‘Guitar and keyboards… band… songwriter too.’
‘What kind of music?’
‘Rock,’ said Inigo with a faint flicker of animation, ‘when we were doing our own stuff. A few covers. Nothing of your father’s,’ he shot at Strike, who registered with silent amusement Inigo’s sudden swerve away from pretending he’d forgotten the detectives were coming to knowing Strike’s parentage. ‘Could’ve gone the classical route, like Gus – had the ability – but there you are, I never did the expected thing. Despair of my parents. You’re looking at a bishop’s son… Nobody much appreciated rock music at home…’
Turning to his wife he added:
‘Flavia was just in here, by the way. If she’s got a fever she shouldn’t be anywhere near me.’
‘I know, I’m sorry, darling,’ said Katya, who remained standing. ‘She’s just bored up there, you know.’
‘Our problem child,’ said Inigo, looking at Robin, who could think of no appropriate response to this. ‘We had her late. Bad timing. I’d just got this bloody thing.’
Again, he indicated his wheelchair.
‘Oh, she’s not so bad,’ said Katya weakly, and possibly to stop further discussion of Flavia she said to Strike, ‘You said on the phone you wanted to know all about Josh and Edie’s friends, so I thought—’
She crossed to a small escritoire in the corner of the room, took a sheet of writing paper from the top and returned to Strike, holding it out.
‘—this might help. I’ve made a list of everybody I can remember who was close to Edie and Josh when Anomie’s game first appeared.’
‘That,’ said Strike, taking the handwritten sheet, ‘is extremely helpful. Thank you very much.’
‘I had to look up some of the surnames,’ said Katya, now perching on the edge of the sofa beside Robin, ‘but luckily they were on the credits of the early episodes, so I could go online and check. I know you’ll need to rule out as many people as you can. I’m quite, quite sure,’ she added emphatically, ‘none of Josh’s friends can be Anomie. They were all lovely people, but I understand you need to rule people out.’
The sun flooding through the large bay window showed every line on Katya’s exhausted face. She must, once, have been a good-looking woman, Robin thought, and perhaps could be again, with enough sleep. Her warm brown eyes and full-lipped mouth were attractive, but her skin was dry and slightly flaky, and the deep lines across her forehead and around her mouth suggested a state of perennial anxiety.
‘How’s Josh?’ Robin asked Katya.
‘Oh, thank you for – there’s no change, but the doctors say they wouldn’t expect any, so – so soon.’
