21
Is he then dead?
What, dead at last, quite, quite for ever dead?
William Congreve, The Mourning Bride
At a quarter to nine the next morning Strike made his way slowly down the metal stairs, asking himself, not for the first time, why he did not do something about getting the birdcage lift fixed. His knee was still sore and puffy after his fall, so he was allowing over an hour to get to Ladbroke Grove, because he could not afford to keep taking taxis.
A gust of icy air stung his face as he opened the door, then everything went white as a flash went off inches from his eyes. He blinked – the outlines of three men danced in front of him – he threw up his hand against another volley of flashes.
‘Why didn’t you inform the police that Owen Quine was missing, Mr Strike?’
‘Did you know he was dead, Mr Strike?’
For a split-second he considered retreat, slamming the door on them, but that meant being trapped and having to face them later.
‘No comment,’ he said coolly and walked into them, refusing to alter his course by a hair’s breadth, so that they were forced to step out of his path, two asking questions and one running backwards, snapping and snapping. The girl who so often joined Strike for smoking breaks in the doorway of the guitar shop was gaping at the scene through the window.
‘Why didn’t you tell anyone he’d been missing for more than a fortnight, Mr Strike?’
‘Why didn’t you notify the police?’
Strike strode in silence, his hands in his pockets and his expression grim. They scurried along beside him, trying to make him talk, a pair of razor-beaked seagulls dive-bombing a fishing trawler.
‘Trying to show them up again, Mr Strike?’
‘Get one over on the police?’
‘Publicity good for business, Mr Strike?’
He had boxed in the army. In his imagination he wheeled around and delivered a left hook to the floating rib area, so that the little shit crumpled…
‘Taxi!’ he shouted.
Flash, flash, flash went the camera as he got into it; thankfully the lights ahead turned green, the taxi moved smoothly away from the kerb and they gave up running after a few steps.
Fuckers, Strike thought, glancing over his shoulder as the taxi rounded a corner. Some bastard at the Met must have tipped them off that he had found the body. It would not have been Anstis, who had held back the information from the official statement, but one of the embittered bastards who had not forgiven him for Lula Landry.
‘You famous?’ asked the cabbie, staring at him in the rear-view mirror.
‘No,’ said Strike shortly. ‘Drop me at Oxford Circus, will you?’
Disgruntled at such a short fare, the cabbie muttered under his breath.
Strike took out his mobile and texted Robin again.
2 journalists outside door when I left. Say you work for Crowdy.