A perceptible intake of breath rolled like a breeze across the crowd. A woman yelped excitedly. Applause broke out somewhere to the rear of the room and spread like crackling fire to the front. Strike saw a distant door open, the glimpse of an over-large head, a sour expression, before Fancourt was swallowed by the enthusiastic employees. It was several minutes before he emerged onto the stage to shake Chard’s hand.
‘Oh my God,’ an excitedly applauding Nina kept saying. ‘Oh my God.’
Jerry Waldegrave, who like Strike rose head and shoulders above the mostly female crowd, was standing almost directly opposite them on the other side of the stage. He was again holding a full glass, so could not applaud, and he raised it to his lips, unsmiling, as he watched Fancourt gesture for quiet in front of the microphone.
‘Thanks, Dan,’ said Fancourt. ‘Well, I certainly never expected to find myself here,’ he said, and these words were greeted by a raucous outbreak of laughter, ‘but it feels like a homecoming. I wrote for Chard and then I wrote for Roper and they were good days. I was an angry young man’ – widespread titters – ‘and now I’m an angry old man’ – much laughter and even a small smile from Daniel Chard – ‘and I look forward to raging for you’ – effusive laughter from Chard as well as the crowd; Strike and Waldegrave seemed to be the only two in the room not convulsed. ‘I’m delighted to be back and I’ll do my best to – what was it, Dan? – keep Roper Chard exciting, challenging and entertaining.’
A storm of applause; the two men were shaking hands amid camera flashes.
‘Half a mill’, I reckon,’ said a drunken man behind Strike, ‘and ten k to turn up tonight.’
Fancourt descended the stage right in front of Strike. His habitually dour expression had barely varied for the photographs, but he looked happier as hands stretched out towards him. Michael Fancourt did not disdain adulation.
‘Wow,’ said Nina to Strike. ‘Can you believe that?’
Fancourt’s over-large head had disappeared into the crowd. The curvaceous Joanna Waldegrave appeared, trying to make her way towards the famous author. Her father was suddenly behind her; with a drunken lurch he reached out a hand and took her upper arm none too gently.
‘He’s got other people to talk to, Jo, leave him.’
‘Mummy’s made a beeline, why don’t you grab her?’
Strike watched Joanna stalk away from her father, evidently angry. Daniel Chard had vanished too; Strike wondered whether he had slipped out of a door while the crowd was busy with Fancourt.
‘Your CEO doesn’t love the limelight,’ Strike commented to Nina.
‘They say he’s got a lot better,’ said Nina, who was still gazing towards Fancourt. ‘He could barely look up from his notes ten years ago. He’s a good businessman, though, you know. Shrewd.’
Curiosity and tiredness tussled inside Strike.
‘Nina,’ he said, drawing his companion away from the throng pressing around Fancourt; she permitted him to lead her willingly, ‘where did you say the manuscript of Bombyx Mori is?’
‘In Jerry’s safe,’ she said. ‘Floor below this.’ She sipped champagne, her huge eyes shining. ‘Are you asking what I think you’re asking?’
‘How much trouble would you be in?’
‘Loads,’ she said insouciantly. ‘But I’ve got my keycard on me and everyone’s busy, aren’t they?’
Her father, Strike thought ruthlessly, was a QC. They would be wary of how they dismissed her.
‘D’you reckon we could run off a copy?’
‘Let’s do it,’ she said, throwing back the last of her drink.
The lift was empty and the floor below dark and deserted. Nina opened the door to the department with her keycard and led him confidently between blank computer monitors and deserted desks towards a large corner office. The only light came from perennially lit London beyond the windows and the occasional tiny orange light indicating a computer on standby.
Waldegrave’s office was not locked but the safe, which stood behind a hinged bookcase, operated on a keypad. Nina input a four-number code. The door swung open and Strike saw an untidy stack of pages lying inside.
‘That’s it,’ she said happily.
‘Keep your voice down,’ Strike advised her.
Strike kept watch while she ran off a copy for him at the photocopier outside the door. The endless swish and hum was strangely soothing. Nobody came, nobody saw; fifteen minutes later, Nina was replacing the manuscript in the safe and locking it up.
‘There you go.’
She handed him the copy, with several strong elastic bands holding it together. As he took it she leaned in for a few seconds; a tipsy sway, an extended brush against him. He owed her something in return, but he was shatteringly tired; both the idea of going back to that flat in St John’s Wood and of taking her to his attic in Denmark Street were unappealing. Would a drink, tomorrow night perhaps, be adequate repayment? And then he remembered that tomorrow night was his birthday dinner at his sister’s. Lucy had said he could bring someone.
‘Want to come to a tedious dinner party tomorrow night?’ he asked her.
She laughed, clearly elated.
‘What’ll be tedious about it?’
‘Everything. You’d cheer it up. Fancy it?’
‘Well – why not?’ she said happily.
The invitation seemed to meet the bill; he felt the demand for some physical gesture recede. They made their way out of the dark department in an atmosphere of friendly camaraderie, the copied manuscript of Bombyx Mori hidden beneath Strike’s overcoat. After noting down her address and phone number, he saw her safely into a taxi with a sense of relief and release.