‘—and she says he won’t let them sell. There was bad blood between Fancourt and Quine.’ Strike drank his whisky; it warmed throat and stomach. (Quine’s stomach, his entire digestive tract, had been cut out. Where the hell was it?) ‘Anyway, I went along at lunchtime and there he was – or most of him was.’
The whisky had made him crave a cigarette worse than ever.
‘The body’s a real fucking mess, from what I’ve heard,’ said Anstis.
‘Wanna see?’
Strike pulled his mobile phone from his pocket, brought up the photographs of the corpse and handed it across the desk.
‘Holy shit,’ said Anstis. After a minute of silent contemplation of the rotting corpse he asked, disgusted, ‘What are those around him… plates?’
‘Yep,’ said Strike.
‘That mean anything to you?’
‘Nothing,’ said Strike.
‘Any idea when he was last seen alive?’
‘The last time his wife saw him was the night of the fifth. He’d just had dinner with his agent, who’d told him he couldn’t publish his latest book because he’s libelled Christ knows how many people, including a couple of very litigious men.’
Anstis looked down at the notes left by DI Rawlins.
‘You didn’t tell Bridget that.’
‘She didn’t ask. We didn’t strike up much of a rapport.’
‘How long’s this book been in the shops?’
‘It isn’t in the shops,’ said Strike, adding more whisky to his beaker. ‘It hasn’t been published yet. I told you, he rowed with his agent because she told him he couldn’t publish it.’
‘Have you read it?’
‘Most of it.’
‘Did his wife give you a copy?’
‘No, she says she’s never read it.’
‘She forgot she owned a second house and she doesn’t read her own husband’s books,’ said Anstis without emphasis.
‘Her story is that she reads them once they’ve got proper covers on,’ said Strike. ‘For what it’s worth, I believe her.’
‘Uh-huh,’ said Anstis, who was now scribbling additions to Strike’s statement. ‘How did you get a copy of the manuscript?’
‘I’d prefer not to say.’
‘Could be a problem,’ said Anstis, glancing up.
‘Not for me,’ said Strike.
‘We might need to come back to that one, Bob.’
Strike shrugged, then asked:
‘Has his wife been told?’
‘Should have been by now, yeah.’
Strike had not called Leonora. The news that her husband was dead must be broken in person by somebody with the necessary training. He had done the job himself, many times, but he was out of practice; in any case, his allegiance this afternoon had been to the desecrated remains of Owen Quine, to stand watch over them until he had delivered them safely into the hands of the police.
He had not forgotten what Leonora would be going through while he was interrogated at Scotland Yard. He had imagined her opening the door to the police officer – or two of them, perhaps – the first thrill of alarm at the sight of the uniform; the hammer blow dealt to the heart by the calm, understanding, sympathetic invitation to retire indoors; the horror of the pronouncement (although they would not tell her, at least at first, about the thick purple ropes binding her husband, or the dark empty cavern that a murderer had made of his chest and belly; they would not say that his face had been burned away by acid or that somebody had laid out plates around him as though he were a giant roast… Strike remembered the platter of lamb that Lucy had handed around nearly twenty-four hours previously. He was not a squeamish man, but the smooth malt seemed to catch in his throat and he set down his beaker).
‘How many people know what’s in this book, d’you reckon?’ asked Anstis slowly.
‘No idea,’ said Strike. ‘Could be a lot by now. Quine’s agent, Elizabeth Tassel – spelled like it sounds,’ he added helpfully, as Anstis scribbled, ‘sent it to Christian Fisher at Crossfire Publishing and he’s a man who likes to gossip. Lawyers got involved to try and stop the talk.’
‘More and more interesting,’ muttered Anstis, writing fast. ‘You want anything else to eat, Bob?’
‘I want a smoke.’
‘Won’t be long,’ promised Anstis. ‘Who’s he libelled?’
‘The question is,’ said Strike, flexing his sore leg, ‘whether it’s libel, or whether he’s exposed the truth about people. But the characters I recognised were – give us a pen and paper,’ he said, because it was quicker to write than to dictate. He said the names aloud as he jotted them down: ‘Michael Fancourt, the writer; Daniel Chard, who’s head of Quine’s publisher; Kathryn Kent, Quine’s girlfriend—’
‘There’s a girlfriend?’
‘Yeah, they’ve been together over a year, apparently. I went to see her – Stafford Cripps House, part of Clement Attlee Court – and she claimed he wasn’t at her flat and she hadn’t seen him… Liz Tassel, his agent; Jerry Waldegrave, his editor, and’ – a fractional hesitation – ‘his wife.’
‘He’s put his wife in there as well, has he?’
‘Yeah,’ said Strike, pushing the list over the desk to Anstis. ‘But there are a load of other characters I wouldn’t recognise. You’ve got a wide field if you’re looking for someone he put in the book.’
‘Have you still got the manuscript?’
‘No.’ Strike, expecting the question, lied easily. Let Anstis get a copy of his own, without Nina’s fingerprints on it.