‘What’ve you got?’ Strike demanded.
‘Can’t tell you that, Bob, sorry.’
‘Did you get it from Kathryn Kent?’
‘Can’t say, mate.’
Barely deigning to return Anstis’s conventional good wishes, Strike hung up.
‘Dickhead!’ he said. ‘Bloody dickhead!’
Leonora was now in a place where he could not reach her. Strike was worried about how her grudging manner and the animosity to the police would appear to interlocutors. He could almost hear her complaining that Orlando was alone, demanding to know when she would be able to return to her daughter, indignant that the police had meddled with the daily grind of her miserable existence. He was afraid of her lack of self-preservation; he wanted Ilsa there, fast, before Leonora uttered innocently self-incriminating comments about her husband’s general neglect and his girlfriends, before she could state again her almost incredible and suspicious claim that she knew nothing about her husband’s books before they had proper covers on, before she attempted to explain why she had temporarily forgotten that they owned a second house where her husband’s remains had lain decaying for weeks.
Five o’clock in the afternoon came and went without news from Ilsa. Looking out at the darkening sky and the snow, Strike insisted Robin go home.
‘But you’ll ring me when you hear?’ she begged him, pulling on her coat and wrapping a thick woollen scarf around her neck.
‘Yeah, of course,’ said Strike.
But not until six thirty did Ilsa call him back.
‘Couldn’t be worse,’ were her first words. She sounded tired and stressed. ‘They’ve got proof of purchase, on the Quines’ joint credit card, of protective overalls, wellington boots, gloves and ropes. They were bought online and paid for with their Visa. Oh – and a burqa.’
‘You’re fucking kidding me.’
‘I’m not. I know you think she’s innocent—’
‘Yeah, I do,’ said Strike, conveying a clear warning not to bother trying to persuade him otherwise.
‘All right,’ said Ilsa wearily, ‘have it your own way, but I’ll tell you this: she’s not helping herself. She’s being aggressive as hell, insisting Quine must have bought the stuff himself. A burqa, for God’s sake… The ropes bought on the card are identical to the ones that were found tying the corpse. They asked her why Quine would want a burqa or plastic overalls of a strength to resist chemical spills, and all she said was: “I don’t bloody know, do I?” Every other sentence, she kept asking when she could go home to her daughter; she just doesn’t get it. The stuff was bought six months ago and sent to Talgarth Road – it couldn’t look more premeditated unless they’d found a plan in her handwriting. She’s denying she knew how Quine was going to end his book, but your guy Anstis—’
‘There in person, was he?’
‘Yeah, doing the interrogation. He kept asking whether she really expected them to believe that Quine never talked about what he was writing. Then she says, “I don’t pay much attention.” “So he does talk about his plots?” On and on it went, trying to wear her down, and in the end she says, “Well, he said something about the silkworm being boiled.” That was all Anstis needed to be convinced she’s been lying all along and she knew the whole plot. Oh, and they’ve found disturbed earth in their back garden.’
‘And I’ll lay you odds they’ll find a dead cat called Mr Poop,’ snarled Strike.
‘That won’t stop Anstis,’ predicted Ilsa. ‘He’s absolutely sure it’s her, Corm. They’ve got the right to keep her until eleven a.m. tomorrow and I’m sure they’re going to charge her.’
‘They haven’t got enough,’ said Strike fiercely. ‘Where’s the DNA evidence? Where are the witnesses?’
‘That’s the problem, Corm, there aren’t any and that credit card bill’s pretty damning. Look, I’m on your side,’ said Ilsa patiently. ‘You want my honest opinion? Anstis is taking a punt, hoping it’s going to work out. I think he’s feeling the pressure from all the press interest. And to be frank, he’s feeling agitated about you slinking around the case and wants to take the initiative.’
Strike groaned.
‘Where did they get a six-month-old Visa bill? Has it taken them this long to go through the stuff they took out of his study?’
‘No,’ said Ilsa. ‘It’s on the back of one of his daughter’s pictures. Apparently the daughter gave it to a friend of his months ago, and this friend went to the police with it early this morning, claiming they’d only just looked at the back and realised what was on there. What did you just say?’
‘Nothing,’ Strike sighed.
‘It sounded like “Tashkent”.’
‘Not that far off. I’ll let you go, Ilsa… thanks for everything.’
Strike sat for a few seconds in frustrated silence.
‘Bollocks,’ he said softly to his dark office.
He knew how this had happened. Pippa Midgley, in her paranoia and her hysteria, convinced that Strike had been hired by Leonora to pin the murder on somebody else, had run from his office straight to Kathryn Kent. Pippa had confessed that she had blown Kathryn’s pretence never to have read Bombyx Mori and urged her to use the evidence she had against Leonora. And so Kathryn Kent had ripped down her lover’s daughter’s picture (Strike imagined it stuck, with a magnet, to the fridge) and hurried off to the police station.
‘Bollocks,’ he repeated, more loudly, and dialled Robin’s number.