The Ink Black Heart, page 48
Strike heard the sound of wings. The large white cockatoo had landed on top of the kitchen door, from where it peered down at him with what seemed to Strike a nasty glint in its button-bright eyes.
‘All right… Yes, I’ll tell him. Yes… No, I’ll make sure he knows that. All right, darling… Please, Kea , don’t… Yes… OK… Bye dar—’
But apparently Kea had hung up.
Sara opened the back door just enough to slide back in and closed it quickly, glancing up at her cockatoo as she did so. She was breathing a little wheezily.
‘She’ll meet you in the Maids Head. She won’t be able to stay more than twenty minutes; she’s feeling too unwell.’
Sara took another large suck on her inhaler.
‘Is the Maids Head within walking distance?’ Strike asked.
‘You’re probably better driving. It’s only a few minutes by car. In the Tuesday Market Place. You can’t miss it.’
‘Great. Well, thanks very much, Mrs Niven.’
Strike had just picked up his folder of screenshots and turned back to the hall when the cockatoo suddenly gave a loud shriek and dived. He saw a blur of white feathers and tried to protect himself with the folder, but too late: the razor-like beak had already sliced into his temple.
‘Don’t hit him!’ cried Sara as Strike tried to smack the bird away from him, while its claws scrabbled in the detective’s thick hair. Eyes closed, fearing the attacking beak would hit his eyeball next, Strike made his way blindly towards the place where he knew the front door was.
‘Don’t open it!’ screamed Sara, as the cockatoo seemed intent on pursuing Strike, but the latter, unwilling to afford the bird further target practice, had already grabbed the doorknob. Whether because his repeated attempts to scare it off with the folder had worked, or because Sara’s shrieks had somehow convinced it to retreat, the whirring mass of claw, beak and feathers disappeared. Blood now trickling down the side of his face, Strike wrenched open the door and stepped outside.
49
And in her lurid eyes there shone
The dying flame of life’s desire,
Made mad because its hope was gone,
And kindled at the leaping fire
Of jealousy, and fierce revenge,
And strength that could not change nor tire.
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
The Other Side of a Mirror
‘Fuck!’ said Strike loudly as the front door slammed behind him. The gash made by the bird’s beak was deep and felt at least an inch long. He groped in his pocket for something to mop himself up with, but found nothing.
‘Yew might as well ’ave went in with a tiger, as go in there with that bird,’ said an elderly male voice. Strike looked around to see Sara’s neighbour, a frail-looking, white-haired old man, standing on his doorstep and watching Strike wince as he tried to staunch the blood oozing out of the stinging cut left by the cockatoo. ‘’Ere,’ said the man. ‘Oi’ve got an ’andkerchief.’
He shuffled forwards and handed Strike a clean, folded square out of his pocket.
‘That’s very kind, but—’
‘Do yew keep it, boi,’ said the old man as Strike hesitated. ‘That’ll bleed a while if Oi knows that bird… And Oi do know that bloody bird,’ he added bitterly.
Strike thanked him, accepted the handkerchief and the old man disappeared into his house.
As Strike passed Sara Niven’s front window on the way back to the car he saw her glaring out at him, the cockatoo now standing on the lovebirds’ cage behind her.
‘OK?’ she mouthed through the glass, though she looked more cross than concerned.
‘Fine,’ he mouthed back, insincerely.
Once back in the car, Strike called Robin, one hand still holding the handkerchief to his head.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Anomie’s not in the game. What happened with Kea?’
‘Nothing yet,’ said Strike. ‘She ran out the back door when I turned up at the front. She’s deigning to give me twenty minutes in the pub. One interesting titbit from her mother, though: Josh Blay called Kea the night before he met Edie Ledwell in the cemetery.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘I’m not. Have to say, your theory he kept in touch with her after the so-called break-up is looking more and more plausible. In other news, I just got attacked by a fucking cockatoo.’
‘By a what?’
‘A bird,’ said Strike, ‘with a beak like a fucking razor.’
‘Shit,’ said Robin, and he appreciated the fact she hadn’t laughed. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’ll live,’ said Strike irritably, chucking the bloodstained handkerchief down on the passenger seat. ‘Where’s Gus Upcott?’
‘Inside his dermatologist’s. He’s carrying a bag that looks like it’s got a laptop in it. I’m lurking outside the – wait, Anomie just tweeted,’ said Robin. ‘Sorry, I’m just going to check if anyone’s just used a phone.’
She rang off and Strike opened Twitter to see what Anomie had just written.
Anomie
@AnomieGamemaster
Wear your support for Drek’s Game.
T-shirts online now at https://bit.ly/2I3tYGg
#KeepDreksGame #ComicCon2015
Strike snorted, closed Twitter, then brought up the picture he’d taken of Kea’s internet history.
Patent pink stilettos https://www.prettylittlething.com/patentpink…
Faux leather leggings https://www.prettylittlething.com/fauxleathe…
Hoop earrings https://www.prettylittlething.com/hoopearring…
Josh Blay recovery – Google search
Josh Blay – Google search
Twitter Josh Blay (@realJoshBlay)
Fayola Johnson talks mental health https://www.buzzfeed.com/scifiwriterFayolaJo…
10 Tell-tale Signs You Aren’t (Entirely) Cis https ://www.thebuzz.com/10tell-talesignsyou…
Bumblefootandspoons https://www.bumblefootandspoons.tumblr.com
Drek’s Game https://www.dreksgame/login
Keep Drek’s Game T-shirts https://www.spreadshirt.co.uk/KeepDreksGam…
Cormoran Strike Jonny Rokeby – Google search
Cormoran Strike leg – Google search
Cormoran Strike – Google search
Otherkin World https ://www.otherkinworld/ghostkin/fanfic…
Tribulationem et Dolorum https ://www.tribulationemetdolorum/forums…
Comic Con 2015 https://animecons.com/events/info/15951/mcm.
Twitter Wally Cardew (@the_r3&l_Wally)
Twitter Anomie (@AnomieGamemaster)
Eyebrows raised, Strike put his mobile down beside the bloody handkerchief and set off for the Tuesday Market Place, the cut over his left eye still smarting.
The large square he entered a few minutes later was bordered on all sides with many fine buildings, including banks and hotels. There was no market there today, and the central space was full of parked cars. The Maids Head, a squat pub of dark brick, stood right beside the larger and grander Duke’s Head.
Strike parked, then used the old man’s handkerchief and his own saliva to remove from his face all traces of blood, of which there was a surprising amount. Having cleaned his face, he picked up his folder and left the car, this time leaving the walking stick behind.
There weren’t many people inside the bar, and a quick glance around told Strike that Kea wasn’t there.
You’d better be in the bloody bathroom.
‘Oooh, that looks nasty,’ said the barmaid, looking up at Strike’s forehead as she came to take his order. ‘What happened?’
‘Accident,’ said Strike gruffly.
He bought himself a non-alcoholic beer. Just as he turned to look for a free table, Kea entered the bar, walking slowly and supported by a collapsible stick of exactly the type Strike had left in the car. She was wearing a baby-pink sweatshirt, matching sweatpants and white trainers. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail. Even barefaced and without filters, she was a gorgeous young woman. When she caught sight of Strike approaching she looked apprehensive. Her gaze dropped to the folder in his hand.
‘Kea?’
‘Yes,’ she said, in the same whispery voice with which she’d spoken to him on the phone.
‘Very good of you to meet me. I appreciate it, and I know Josh will too,’ said Strike. ‘Can I get you something?’
‘No,’ said Kea weakly. ‘I can’t actually keep anything down right now.’
Strike judged it best to glide past this comment.
‘Shall we sit down?’
He stood back to let her pass, but she said in the same breathy voice,
‘You’d better go first. I’m so slow.’
So Strike took his folder and his pint to the nearest table for two, and Kea came slowly after him, leaning heavily on her stick. If she was exaggerating her symptoms, it was only what Strike himself had done back at her mother’s house, so he settled for a neutral expression until Kea had lowered herself carefully into the seat opposite him.
By piecing together Kea’s own account of the previous seven years, Strike knew she was twenty-five, that her relationship with Josh Blay had lasted eighteen months, surviving Josh being kicked out of St Martin’s but ending when Josh started dating Edie. Shortly after the relationship had foundered, Kea had taken a year out of her course due to ill health. She had spent most of that year at her mother’s house, but, judging by her Instagram page, had made frequent trips to London, sometimes staying on student friends’ couches for weeks at a time. She’d returned to St Martin’s after a year, only to drop out for good two Christmases later, again citing ill health.
She looked incredibly young to Strike, with her perfect skin, an impression enhanced, perhaps, by the baby-pink sweatshirt that might have been a pyjama top. And yet something about Kea reminded him of Charlotte. There was a shadow of a dare in her behaviour. He thought he’d have known, even if he hadn’t read her Twitter output, that somewhere beneath all this marshmallow softness lay steel.
‘Thanks for meeting me, Kea,’ said Strike. ‘I appreciate it.’
‘Oh no,’ she said, eyeing the gash in his temple. ‘Was that Ozzy?’
‘If Ozzy’s a large white raptor, yes,’ said Strike.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Kea with a sad smile. ‘My mother’s stupid a.f. with that bird. She sets, like, no boundaries. See?’
She held out a soft white hand, on which a thin, raised pink scar was clearly visible at the base of the thumb.
‘That was Ozzy. And I’ve got one here’ – she showed Strike her palm, which was similarly scarred – ‘and behind here’ – she pointed at her left ear.
‘Ah. I thought it was my fault for being a bloke.’
‘Um, no, he’s just a bad-tempered little scrote. Umbrella cockatoos, ’specially the males, can be tricky. You’ve got to know how to handle them…’
Her voice died away.
‘What’s in there?’ she asked apprehensively, looking down at the cardboard folder he’d laid on the table between them. ‘Are those the things you wanted me to look at?’
‘That’s right,’ said Strike, taking a sip of beer. ‘You OK if I take notes?’
‘Yeah, I – I s’pose,’ she said. As Strike took out his notebook, she asked tentatively:
‘Have you seen Josh?’
‘Not yet,’ said Strike. ‘He isn’t well enough.’
Kea’s beautiful brown eyes, which were the colour of old brandy, glittered immediately with tears.
‘It isn’t true, is it? That he’s paralysed? That’s what they’re saying online. That isn’t right, is it?’
‘I’m afraid it is,’ said Strike.
‘Oh,’ said Kea.
She caught her breath, then began to sob silently into her hands. Out of the corner of his eye, Strike saw people at the bar watching them. Possibly they thought him a wicked stepfather. Kea didn’t seem to care much who saw her sobbing. Charlotte hadn’t minded witnesses either. Tears, screams, threatening to jump off high buildings: he’d endured it all in front of friends and, occasionally, passers-by.
‘S-sorry,’ whispered Kea, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
‘That’s all right,’ said Strike. ‘So…’
He opened the folder.
‘… as you know, I’ve been hired to find out who Anomie is. What are your thoughts on Anomie?’
‘Who cares what I think?’ said Kea hopelessly.
‘I do,’ said Strike, not unkindly. ‘That’s why I asked.’
She wiped both eyes with the back of her hand and said,
‘Josh wouldn’t want me to say.’
‘I promise you he would,’ said Strike.
‘People will accuse me of having an agenda.’
‘Why d’you say that?’
‘Everyone al-always accuses me of having an agenda.’
‘If speculating on Anomie’s identity’s having an agenda, everyone in the fandom—’
‘I’m not part of the fandom,’ said Kea, her anger rearing suddenly out of nowhere like a snake. ‘I’m actually one of the creators.’
Phillip Ormond had glared unblinkingly across the table as he’d made a similar claim, but Ormond had known he was lying. Strike wasn’t so sure about Kea.
‘She stole my ideas,’ said Kea, reverting to her broken whisper. ‘Her being dead doesn’t change that. She took my ideas and pretended they were hers. Josh admitted it to me, pretty much.’
‘Did he?’ said Strike. ‘When was that?’
Kea blinked at Strike, her long lashes beaded with tears.
‘I don’t know whether he’d want me to tell you.’
‘He wants you to tell me everything,’ said Strike firmly.
‘OK, well – did – did he tell you we started dating again?’
‘Would this be in November 2013?’ said Strike, expression impassive while his mind worked rapidly. He opened the folder. He’d noticed a six-month period between November 2013 and May 2014 during which Kea’s online output had become suddenly and uncharacteristically cheerful, then descended into even more fury and despair than before.
‘He did tell you?’ said Kea, and Strike saw the dawning of hope in her expression.
‘No,’ said Strike, extracting the evidence in the folder Robin had put together, ‘but you deactivated your YouTube channel around then, didn’t you? And you tweeted about how happy you were feeling… Yeah,’ he said, looking down at a couple of pages of the tweets he’d highlighted, then turning them so that Kea could read them.
Kea Niven @realPaperwhite
Woke up feeling so weird. Then I realised I’m… happy?
Kea Niven @realPaperwhite
I fucking love all of you who’re struggling right now. I was ready to kill myself. Omg, I’d have missed so much.
The second page showed a series of tweets from six months later, by which time the old tone of grievance and passive aggression had slid back across her posts like an oil slick.
Kea Niven @realPaperwhite
If you know somebody’s fragile and you drop them anyway, then yeah, it is absolutely your fault if they break.
Kea Niven @realPaperwhite
If one day you wake up and find out I didn’t, it’s ok. We’re both where we’re meant to be.
‘Do these tweets span the period you and Josh dated again?’ asked Strike.
Kea nodded, her eyes brimming with tears as she shoved her tweets back towards Strike.
‘How’s this helping you find out who Anomie is?’
‘We were simply interested in the fact that you were criticising Edie much less during that time period, whereas Anomie was keeping up their harassment of her.’
‘Well, that’s because I’m not Anomie,’ whispered Kea. ‘I’m not. I can’t code, I wouldn’t know where to begin, making that game.’
‘You’ve played it, have you?’ asked Strike.
‘No, why would I? What d’you think it feels like, seeing all these people go crazy for my ideas? I mean – did you see the heart out there, over the window’ – she gestured towards the square outside – ‘on number sixteen?’
‘No,’ said Strike.
‘OK, well, they burned a witch out there in the sixteenth century…’
Kea told Strike the story of Margaret Read’s heart bursting out of her burning chest and he agreed insincerely that that certainly sounded like the inspiration for Harty.
‘Right?’ said Kea. ‘I mean, Harty’s even black, like he was burned!’
‘So, going back to this six months when you and Josh got back together – did you stop saying publicly that Edie had plagiarised you because Josh asked you to?’
‘Yes,’ mumbled Kea. ‘He didn’t want her to know we’d got back together, because he knew she’d go crazy and he still had to work with her on the cartoon. She was really unstable and kind of a bully. She was a lot older than him. I think Josh was scared of her. So we were kind of sneaking around, so nobody would know. I didn’t even tell Mum, because I knew she’d be angry. Mum blames Josh for me being ill, but it wasn’t all down to him. I was already having symptoms before we met. I suppose the stress didn’t help,’ she added in a whisper.
Kea suddenly reached out and grabbed the edge of the table.
‘Sorry,’ she gasped. ‘I get terrible vertigo. Everything’s spinning.’
She closed her eyes, her long lashes grazing her cheek. Strike drank some of his beer. Kea opened her eyes again.
‘Sorry,’ she whispered again.
‘OK to continue?’ asked Strike.
‘Um… yes. This won’t take too much longer, will it?’
‘No,’ lied Strike. ‘So, it was during the second period of dating that Josh admitted he’d passed on your ideas to Edie, was it?’
‘Yes,’ said Kea. ‘He agreed he’d probably told her the story about Margaret Read that day in the cemetery, when she claimed she came up with it all out of nowhere. And he admitted Magspie was inspired by what I’d told him about talking birds, and the Drek figure, with the big beak, well, that was taken directly from one of my pictures.’
