12
She is a woman of an excellent assurance, and an extraordinary happy wit, and tongue.
Ben Jonson, Epicoene, or The Silent Woman
Strike proceeded along the dark, cold Strand towards Fleet Street that evening with his hands balled deep in his pockets, walking as briskly as fatigue and an increasingly sore right leg would permit. He regretted leaving the peace and comfort of his glorified bedsit; he was not sure that anything useful would come of this evening’s expedition and yet, almost against his will, he was struck anew in the frosty haze of this winter’s night by the aged beauty of the old city to which he owed a divided childhood allegiance.
Every taint of the touristic was wiped away by the freezing November evening: the seventeenth-century façade of the Old Bell Tavern, with its diamond windowpanes aglow, exuded a noble antiquity; the dragon standing sentinel on top of the Temple Bar marker was silhouetted, stark and fierce, against the star-studded blackness above; and in the far distance the misty dome of St Paul’s shone like a rising moon. High on a brick wall above him as he approached his destination were names that spoke of Fleet Street’s inky past – the People’s Friend, the Dundee Courier – but Culpepper and his journalistic ilk had long since been driven out of their traditional home to Wapping and Canary Wharf. The law dominated the area now, the Royal Courts of Justice staring down upon the passing detective, the ultimate temple of Strike’s trade.
In this forgiving and strangely sentimental mood, Strike approached the round yellow lamp across the road that marked the entrance to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese and headed up the narrow passageway that led to the entrance, stooping to avoid hitting his head on the low lintel.
A cramped wood-panelled entrance lined with ancient oil paintings opened on to a tiny front room. Strike ducked again, avoiding the faded wooden sign ‘Gentlemen only in this bar’, and was greeted at once with an enthusiastic wave from a pale, petite girl whose dominant feature was a pair of large brown eyes. Huddled in a black coat beside the log fire, she was cradling an empty glass in two small white hands.
‘Nina?’
‘I knew it was you, Dominic described you to a T.’
‘Can I get you a drink?’
She asked for a white wine. Strike fetched himself a pint of Sam Smith and edged onto the uncomfortable wooden bench beside her. London accents filled the room. As though she had read his mood, Nina said:
‘It’s still a real pub. It’s only people who never come here who think it’s full of tourists. And Dickens came here, and Johnson and Yeats… I love it.’
She beamed at him and he smiled back, mustering real warmth with several mouthfuls of beer inside him.
‘How far’s your office?’
‘About a ten-minute walk,’ she said. ‘We’re just off the Strand. It’s a new building and there’s a roof garden. It’s going to be bloody freezing,’ she added, giving a pre-emptive shiver and drawing her coat more tightly around her. ‘But the bosses had an excuse not to hire anywhere. Times are hard in publishing.’
‘There’s been some trouble about Bombyx Mori, you said?’ asked Strike, getting down to business as he stretched out his prosthetic leg as far as it would go under the table.
‘Trouble,’ she said, ‘is the understatement of the century. Daniel Chard’s livid. You don’t make Daniel Chard the baddie in a dirty novel. Not done. No. Bad idea. He’s a strange man. They say he got sucked into the family business, but he really wanted to be an artist. Like Hitler,’ she added with a giggle.
The lights over the bar danced in her big eyes. She looked, Strike thought, like an alert and excited mouse.
‘Hitler?’ he repeated, faintly amused.
‘He rants like Hitler when he’s upset – we’ve found that out this week. Nobody’s ever heard Daniel speak above a mumble before this. Shouting and screaming at Jerry; we could hear him through the walls.’
‘Have you read the book?’
She hesitated, a naughty grin playing around her mouth.
‘Not officially,’ she said at last.
‘But unofficially…’
‘I might have had a sneaky peek,’ she said.
‘Isn’t it under lock and key?’
‘Well, yeah, it’s in Jerry’s safe.’
A sly sideways glance invited Strike to join her in gentle mockery of the innocent editor.
‘The trouble is, he’s told everyone the combination because he keeps forgetting it and that means he can ask us to remind him. Jerry’s the sweetest, straightest man in the world and I don’t think it would have occurred to him that we’d have a read if we weren’t supposed to.’
‘When did you look at it?’
‘The Monday after he got it. Rumours were really picking up by then, because Christian Fisher had rung about fifty people over the weekend and read bits of the book over the phone. I’ve heard he scanned it and started emailing parts around, as well.’
‘This would have been before lawyers started getting involved?’
‘Yeah. They called us all together and gave us this ridiculous speech about what would happen if we talked about the book. It was just nonsense, trying to tell us the company’s reputation would suffer if the CEO’s ridiculed – we’re about to go public, or that’s the rumour – and ultimately our jobs would be imperilled. I don’t know how the lawyer kept a straight face saying it. My dad’s a QC,’ she went on airily, ‘and he says Chard’ll have a hard time going after any of us when so many people outside the company know.’
‘Is he a good CEO, Chard?’ asked Strike.
‘I suppose so,’ she said restlessly, ‘but he’s quite mysterious and dignified so… well, it’s just funny, what Quine wrote about him.’
‘Which was…?’
‘Well, in the book Chard’s called Phallus Impudicus and—’
Strike choked on his pint. Nina giggled.
‘He’s called “Impudent Cock”?’ Strike asked, laughing, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. Nina laughed; a surprisingly dirty cackle for one who looked like an eager schoolgirl.