The Ink Black Heart, page 40
Meanwhile Madeline’s new collection was due to launch in a week’s time, which meant she wasn’t free to see Strike at all – which, as he acknowledged to himself while expressing regret to Madeline, was convenient. Her state of high tension translated itself into long monologues by phone.
‘I shouldn’t’ve made the collection so big. Never, ever again. Listen – will you come and meet me after the launch is over? I need to cut loose: this has been the worst one ever. I want to be with someone who doesn’t give a shit about jewellery – I want to be with you – and I want a drink and a fuck.’
Strike had no objection to most of this programme and yet a suspicion, born of the invitation to the literary launch, prompted him to say:
‘After it’s over, right? You aren’t asking me to come in? Because there’ll be press, won’t there?’
‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘but – OK, no, don’t come in, not if you don’t want to.’
‘Great, well, I’ll meet you afterwards. What time will it be over?’
‘Nine,’ she said, and then, ‘Please come if you can. I’m missing you and if I know you’re coming to take me away from it all I’ll be able to look happy for pictures.’
‘You should be happy anyway,’ he said. ‘The stuff you’ve shown me looked incredible.’
‘Oh, Corm, you’re so sweet,’ she said tearfully. ‘It all looks like complete crap to me at the moment, but I always feel like this right before a launch – or I think I do, but it always happens in such a blur I can’t be sure.’
So Strike (still in the spirit of giving a proper relationship a chance) had committed to meeting Madeline after her launch, although he’d noted that what she wanted was for him to pick her up, whereas he wanted to meet her well away from the place he was sure Charlotte would be. To articulate this concern would be to open a door onto another conversation he didn’t want to have, so the plan was left vague, both he and Madeline, perhaps, determined that their preference would prevail.
Meanwhile a couple of welcome absences temporarily alleviated pressure on the agency: Groomer took off to Morocco for ten days and Fingers flew to New York to visit his adoring mother and the stepfather who suspected him of being a thief.
‘So this is our opportunity,’ Strike told the team during a pep talk by conference call (there being no time for a face-to-face team meeting), ‘to rule out a few Anomie suspects.’
The first Monday in May, which was a bank holiday, saw Strike limping into the Lismore Circus estate shortly after dawn, there to keep watch over the three-bedroomed maisonette where Wally Cardew lived with his grandmother and sister. By eight o’clock there’d been only two signs of life from within the flat: somebody had opened the curtains, and a pure white cat had leapt up onto the window sill to stare out across the estate with the superciliousness peculiar to its species.
According to housing records, the YouTuber and his sister had lived in this same maisonette with their grandmother for the past twenty years. Wally’s sister, who worked in a local chemist’s, resembled her brother in being tow-headed and Scandinavian in appearance, though she was voluptuous where her brother was short and stocky, with large round blue eyes and full lips. Shah and Barclay had both independently informed Strike, out of earshot of Robin, Midge and Pat, that they’d be happy to keep watching Chloe Cardew for as long as the case might require, or indeed after it was no longer necessary.
While Strike watched the flat in Gospel Oak, Robin was sitting at the window of a Croydon café by the name of the Saucy Sausage, which was situated directly opposite the house of Yasmin Weatherhead and her parents. She was relieved to be out of the office, where she’d recently put in many more hours playing the game in order to allay Anomie’s suspicions that she might be there to spy on other players. This had entailed a few more private chats with Worm28, who’d told her artlessly she’d met a nice woman from ‘where I used to live’, but hadn’t let anything more slip about her boyfriend or about Anomie’s identity. Strike, who sympathised with Robin’s desire to do something other than stare at her iPad all day, had agreed that she could watch Yasmin, who was a person of second-tier interest compared to the plausible Anomie suspects.
Yasmin’s street had an air of sleepy respectability. On one side was a row of local shops and on the other a terrace of middle-sized houses with small front gardens. Robin was alternating between watching the front of Yasmin’s parents’ house and keeping an eye on the game and Twitter, on which Anomie had already been active that morning.
Anomie
@AnomieGamemaster
Heavy Fedwell reported to be looking forward to hiring multiple nannies for the kids she keeps littering, once the #InkBlackCashIn starts.
9.06 am 4 May 2015
Every Anomie suspect under surveillance had been inside their respective houses and out of sight when Anomie posted these words. Kea Niven remained unwatched due to lack of personnel, although Strike had decided to leave a new, carefully crafted message on the Nivens’ answering machine, which was designed to play on Kea’s fear of what Blay would think of her if she refused to help their investigation.
At ten past ten, Robin, who was already on her third cup of coffee to justify her continuing presence at the Saucy Sausage, and who hadn’t yet caught any glimpse of Yasmin Weatherhead, received a call from Strike.
‘Wally and his mate MJ have just come out of his flat. I’m following them. What’s Anomie’s game status?’
‘Absent,’ sighed Robin as she navigated Buffypaws past the vampire drifting along one of the game’s paths.
‘Think they’re heading towards the Tube,’ Strike told Robin, wincing as he sped up to keep the two younger men in sight. ‘MJ’s carrying a video camera. This’d be an ideal opportunity for Anomie to drop into the game. Cardew’s not on his phone.’
‘I’m starting to think Anomie knows exactly when it would be helpful to drop into the game, and avoids it on purpose,’ said Robin bitterly.
‘Any sign of Yasmin?’
‘No. Nobody’s left the house since nine this morning. Well, it is a bank holiday.’
‘Hang on,’ said Strike.
Robin waited.
‘Someone else is following them,’ said Strike in a low voice.
‘Police?’ said Robin, so sharply that the waitress looked round at her.
‘No,’ said Strike. ‘I don’t think so. I’ll call you back.’
He hung up.
The man Strike had noticed was hard to miss. He was at least six feet tall and his buzzcut was so short he was almost shaven-headed, though he also sported a bushy beard and moustache. He’d been leaning up against a wall, apparently texting, when Wally and MJ approached, but once they’d passed he’d pocketed his phone and set off in pursuit, hands in the pockets of his jeans. On the back of his old leather jacket was a skull and crossbones topped with a steel helmet. He had many visible tattoos, and while the Union Jack on the side of his neck and the gothic cross on the back of his left hand might have been fake, the large skull tattooed on the back of his head, and visible through the millimetres of stubble, certainly couldn’t be, which ruled the man out as a disguised police officer.
The unknown man entered the same Tube carriage as Wally and MJ, and Strike followed. The YouTubers were deep in conversation and didn’t seem to have noticed either of the men following them. Strike took a couple of surreptitious photographs of the unknown man on his phone, noting a further tattoo on his Adam’s apple which the detective, though no expert on the Futhark, couldn’t help thinking looked like a Norse rune.
After a twenty-minute journey, they arrived at Embankment, where Wally and MJ got out, followed, firstly, by the tattooed man and, secondly, by Strike.
The four men, two of them still oblivious to the fact they were being followed, headed into Whitehall Gardens, where Wally took a handheld microphone out of his backpack and MJ switched on the camera.
The purpose of coming to Whitehall Gardens on a bank holiday became clear when Wally and MJ began waylaying tourists and asking them, as far as Strike could see, to be interviewed on camera. A pair of Japanese girls were first, then a family who, judging from the small boy’s football strip, were from Brazil. Strike was too far away to hear what questions Wally was asking, but as each interview progressed he saw the interviewees’ expressions change from polite or giggly to bemused, dismayed or, in the case of the Brazilian father, angry. Strike surmised that the point of today’s video was to take the piss out of foreigners. The tattooed man in the leather jacket sat down on a bench a hundred yards away, openly watching the filming. Deciding against sitting down himself, in case the bearded observer noted Strike mirroring his behaviour, the detective took up a position behind a statue of Henry Bartle Frere, a nineteenth-century colonial administrator, and looked up Viking runes on his phone, where he found the very mark the bearded man was sporting so proudly on his throat. It resembled an angular letter P and its name was Thurisaz, which, according to the internet, signified danger, chaos and brute strength.
Strike was just putting his mobile back into his pocket when it rang.
‘Cormoran Strike.’
‘Hello?’ said a weak female voice, in barely more than a whisper.
‘Hi,’ said Strike. ‘Who’s this?’
‘Um… Kea Niven.’
‘Ah, great,’ said Strike. It looked as though his guilt-tripping voicemail message had done the job. ‘Thanks for getting back to me, Kea. I take it you know what this is about?’
‘Yes… Anomie,’ she whispered. ‘Yes. But I… I don’t know anything.’
She sounded far younger than twenty-five. If he hadn’t known, he might have thought she was thirteen.
‘Would it be all right to meet face to face and talk?’
‘I’m… I’m not well. I… don’t think that will be possible.’
‘I’m more than happy to come to your house, if that helps,’ said Strike.
‘No, I… I don’t think I’d be able to… but I do want to help,’ she whispered. ‘I really do. So I… thought I’d call and… and tell you I… don’t know anything.’
‘Right,’ said Strike. ‘Well, it’s probably only fair to tell you, Kea, that there’s a theory out there that you’re Anomie.’
There was no need whatsoever to say that the theory was his partner’s.
‘I – what?’
‘That you’re Anomie,’ repeated Strike.
‘Who…? Oh my God… does Josh… does Josh think that?’
‘He wants me to find out who Anomie is,’ said Strike, avoiding a direct answer. ‘But if you’re too unwell to speak to me—’
‘I… oh – oh God…’
A storm of dry sobs followed. They might have been genuine; they might not, but it wasn’t Strike’s job to offer comfort. He watched pigeons wheeling against the cloudy sky until at last Kea said:
‘Why… why can’t I just tell you now?… I don’t know anything… I’m not Anomie! I’d never… never…’
‘Look, I just wanted to give you an opportunity to speak for yourself,’ said Strike. ‘I also wanted to show you a few things—’
‘What things?’
‘Photographs,’ said Strike, which wasn’t entirely untrue. The screenshots he’d taken of her Twitter activity were photos of a type. ‘And documents,’ he added, to add a bit of extra intrigue. Documents always sounded scary.
‘Well, why c-can’t you just email them to me?’
‘Because they’re confidential,’ said Strike.
There was another long pause.
‘I… All right…’
‘You’ll let me come and talk to you?’
‘Yes, I suppose… yes.’
‘What day’s good for you?’ asked Strike.
‘Not this week,’ she said hastily. ‘I’m too ill. Um… maybe Thursday next week?’
That was the day of Madeline’s launch. Strike could have done without a five- or six-hour round trip to King’s Lynn beforehand, but as his priority had to be ruling out as many Anomie suspects as possible, he said:
‘Great. Well, I’ll be coming from London, so I could be with you around eleven, if that suits you?’
‘Yes,’ whispered Kea. ‘All right, then.’
‘And keep this between ourselves, please,’ Strike added.
‘Who… who would I tell?’
‘I just mean that talking about our investigation will hamper it and, as you can imagine, Josh is very keen for us to succeed.’
After hanging up, Strike texted Robin to tell her that an interview had been arranged and received a one-word answer: ‘Great.’
Strike had just put his phone back in his pocket when Nutley, who was supposed to have Gus Upcott under surveillance, called.
‘What’s up?’ asked Strike.
‘I’m on the young bloke, right?’
‘What d’you mean?’ said Strike, trying not to sound too irritable.
‘The old geezer’s just come out of the house.’
‘In a wheelchair?’
‘No. Walking with a stick. And he’s talking on his mobile.’
‘Stay where you are unless the son goes out,’ said Strike. ‘What about the other family members?’
‘The wife took the daughter out about half an hour ago, in the car.’
‘OK, well, you’re on Gus.’
‘Roger that.’
Nutley hung up.
Wally and MJ had now succeeded in persuading a group of Chinese students to talk to them. The tattooed man, or Thurisaz, as Strike had now mentally dubbed him, had vanished from his bench. Strike was left thinking about Inigo Upcott, walking with a stick on his wasted legs now that his wife had left the house, and taking a call where the only family member remaining in the house couldn’t disturb him.
He called Nutley back.
‘Follow the old bloke.’
‘What?’
‘Follow him. Can you still see him?’
‘Yeah, he’s not moving fast.’
‘Well, get after him. Ideally, find out what he’s talking about.’
After hanging up again, Strike asked himself what he was playing at and found no good answer. He didn’t like hunches or intuitions, which in his opinion were generally prejudice or blind guesswork. Nevertheless, he knew that if he’d been watching the Upcotts’ house he’d have gone after Inigo.
Meanwhile, in the Saucy Sausage, Robin, who was now on her fourth cup of coffee, had succeeded for the first time in making direct contact with the moderator called Fiendy1, to whom she’d never previously spoken on a private channel, and who she’d inveigled into it by expressing frustration at one of the more difficult tasks in the game.
Buffypaws: I’ve tried everything. EVERY-FRIGGING-
THING.
Fiendy1: lol
Fiendy1: you’re not the only one. We’re always getting logjams at Wombwell’s tomb
Buffypaws: Help me
Fiendy1: you need to try Drekisms.
Buffypaws: I’ve tried them all
Fiendy1: it’s an obscure one. Try and think what Drek would say if a stone lion wouldn’t let him past
Buffypaws: ?
Buffypaws: I’m supposed to be working and all I can think about is how to get past a stone lion
Fiendy1: Clue: series 2, episode 3
Buffypaws: ok that’ll help, but if I get fired for watching the Ink Black Heart at work it’s on you
Fiendy1: lol why’re you working? It’s a bank hol
Buffypaws: small business, don’t have to abide by bank holiday rules
Buffypaws: you got the day off?
Fiendy1: yeah but no
Buffypaws: ?
Fiendy1: got the day off but the Dear Leader wants me in here moderating til 6pm
Fiendy1: punishment for going to the footie on Saturday
Robin wrote ‘Fiendy1 football fan’ in her notebook. At random, she suggested:
Buffypaws: M********* U**?
Fiendy1: ha no. but I loved seeing WBA beat them.
Fiendy1: you a M** U fan?
Robin had virtually no interest in football, but deciding that Google would be her friend if she needed to fake an interest, she typed:
Buffypaws: yeah
Fiendy1: lol sorry then
Buffypaws: u?
Fiendy1: the W*****
Robin took out her phone and took a picture of this exchange.
Buffypaws: why doesn’t Anomie like u going to the football?
Fiendy1: I forgot I was supposed to be modding so Hartella had to do it all by herself all day
Reminded that she was supposed to be watching the Weatherhead house, Robin glanced up through the café window again.
A young woman was walking in lumbering fashion down the garden path. She had long, thick dark-blonde hair and wore a knee-length black cardigan, which didn’t successfully disguise the excess weight she was carrying. Robin couldn’t see her face, because she was looking down, fiddling with her phone. Opening the garden gate, the young woman Robin assumed to be Yasmin stepped out onto the pavement and stopped, still concentrating on her phone.
Robin glanced back down at her iPad screen. Fiendy1 was still messaging her.
Fiendy1: I was threatened with loss of moderator status, the works
Fiendy1: you know his motto
‘Could I pay, please?’ Robin asked the waitress, groping in her purse for some cash.
