‘Will be if it comes to anything,’ said Al.
A pause. Strike looked around for Loulou, the whole point of being here, but she was out of sight, busy as Al had probably never been busy in his life.
‘You’ve got credibility, at least,’ said Al.
‘Hmn?’ said Strike.
‘Made it on your own, haven’t you?’ said Al.
‘What?’
Strike realised that there was a one-sided crisis happening at the table. Al was looking at him with a mixture of mingled defiance and envy.
‘Yeah, well,’ said Strike, shrugging his large shoulders.
He could not think of any more meaningful response that would not sound superior or aggrieved, nor did he wish to encourage Al in what seemed to be an attempt to have a more personal conversation than they had ever managed.
‘You’re the only one of us who doesn’t use it,’ said Al. ‘Don’t suppose it would’ve helped in the army, anyway, would it?’
Futile to pretend not to know what ‘it’ was.
‘S’pose not,’ said Strike (and indeed, on the rare occasions that his parentage had attracted the attention of fellow soldiers he had met nothing but incredulity, especially given how little he looked like Rokeby).
But he thought wryly of his flat on this ice-cold winter night: two and a half cluttered rooms, ill-fitting windowpanes. Al would be spending tonight in Mayfair, in their father’s staffed house. It might be salutary to show his brother the reality of independence before he romanticised it too much…
‘S’pose you think this is self-pitying bloody whinging?’ demanded Al.
Strike had seen Al’s graduation photograph online a bare hour after interviewing an inconsolable nineteen-year-old private who had accidentally shot his best friend in the chest and neck with a machine gun.
‘Everyone’s entitled to whinge,’ said Strike.
Al looked as though he might take offence, then, reluctantly, grinned.
Loulou was suddenly beside them, clutching a glass of water and deftly removing her apron with one hand before she sat down with them.
‘OK, I’ve got five minutes,’ she said to Strike without preamble. ‘Al says you want to know about that jerk of a writer?’
‘Yeah,’ said Strike, focusing at once. ‘What makes you say he was a jerk?’
‘He loved it,’ she said, sipping her water.
‘Loved—?’
‘Causing a scene. He was yelling and swearing, but it was for show, you could tell. He wanted everyone to hear him, he wanted an audience. He wasn’t a good actor.’
‘Can you remember what he said?’ asked Strike, pulling out a notebook. Al was watching excitedly.
‘There was loads of it. He called the woman a bitch, said she’d lied to him, that he’d put the book out himself and screw her. But he was enjoying himself,’ she said. ‘It was fake fury.’
‘And what about Eliz – the woman?’
‘Oh, she was bloody furious,’ said Loulou cheerfully. ‘She wasn’t pretending. The more he ponced about waving his arms and shouting at her, the redder she got – shaking with anger, she could hardly contain herself. She said something about “roping in that stupid bloody woman” and I think it was around then that he stormed out, parking her with the bill, everyone staring at her – she looked mortified. I felt awful for her.’
‘Did she try and follow him?’
‘No, she paid and then went into the loo for a bit. I wondered whether she was crying, actually. Then she left.’
‘That’s very helpful,’ said Strike. ‘You can’t remember anything else they said to each other?’
‘Yeah,’ said Loulou calmly, ‘he shouted, “All because of Fancourt and his limp fucking dick.”’
Strike and Al stared at her.
‘“All because of Fancourt and his limp fucking dick?”’ repeated Strike.
‘Yeah,’ said Loulou. ‘That was the bit that made the restaurant go quiet—’
‘You can see why it would,’ commented Al, with a snigger.
‘She tried to shout him down, she was absolutely incensed, but he wasn’t having any of it. He was loving the attention. Lapping it up.
‘Look, I’ve got to get going,’ said Loulou, ‘sorry.’ She stood up and re-tied her apron. ‘See you, Al.’
She did not know Strike’s name, but smiled at him as she bustled away again.
Daniel Chard was leaving; his bald head had reappeared over the crowd, accompanied by a group of similarly aged and elegant people, all of them walking out together, talking, nodding to each other. Strike watched them go with his mind elsewhere. He did not notice the removal of his empty plate.
All because of Fancourt and his limp fucking dick…
Odd.
I can’t shake this mad bloody idea that Owen did it to himself. That he staged it…
‘You all right, bruv?’ asked Al.
A note with a kiss: Payback time for both of us…
‘Yeah,’ said Strike.
Load of gore and arcane symbolism… stoke that man’s vanity and you could get him to do anything you wanted… two hermaphrodites, two bloody bags… A beautiful lost soul, that’s what he said to me… the silkworm was a metaphor for the writer, who has to go through agonies to get at the good stuff…
Like the turning lid that finds its thread, a multitude of disconnected facts revolved in Strike’s mind and slid suddenly into place, incontrovertibly correct, unassailably right. He turned his theory around and around: it was perfect, snug and solid.
The problem was that he could not yet see how to prove it.