The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike) by Robert Galbraith

Author:Robert Galbraith [Galbraith, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2014-06-19T00:00:00+00:00

28

…that (of all other) was the most fatal and dangerous exploit that ever I was ranged in, since I first bore arms before the face of the enemy…

Ben Jonson, Every Man in His Humour

At five o’clock the following morning, a muffled and gloved Robin boarded one of the first Tube trains of the day, her hair glistening with snowflakes, a small backpack over her shoulder and carrying a weekend bag into which she had packed the black dress, coat and shoes that she would need for Mrs. Cunliffe’s funeral. She did not dare count on getting back home after the round trip to Devon, but intended to go straight to King’s Cross once she had returned the car to the hire company.

Sitting on the almost empty train she consulted her own feelings about the day ahead and found them mixed. Excitement was her dominant emotion, because she was convinced that Strike had some excellent reason for interviewing Chard that could not wait. Robin had learned to trust her boss’s judgment and his hunches; it was one of the things that so irritated Matthew.

Matthew…Robin’s black-gloved fingers tightened on the handle of the bag beside her. She kept lying to Matthew. Robin was a truthful person and never, in the nine years that they had been together, had she lied, or not until recently. Some had been lies of omission. Matthew had asked her on the telephone on Wednesday night what she had done at work that day and she had given him a brief and heavily edited version of her activities, omitting her trip with Strike to the house where Quine had been murdered, lunch at the Albion and, of course, the walk across the bridge at West Brompton station with Strike’s heavy arm over her shoulder.

But there had been outright lies too. Just last night he had asked her, like Strike, whether she oughtn’t take the day off, get an earlier train.

“I tried,” she had said, the lie sliding easily from her lips before she considered it. “They’re all full. It’s the weather, isn’t it? I suppose people are taking the train instead of risking it in their cars. I’ll just have to stick with the sleeper.”

What else could I say? thought Robin as the dark windows reflected her own tense face back at her. He’d have gone ballistic.

The truth was that she wanted to go to Devon; she wanted to help Strike; she wanted to get out from behind her computer, however much quiet satisfaction her competent administration of the business gave her, and investigate. Was that wrong? Matthew thought so. It wasn’t what he’d counted on. He had wanted her to go with the advertising agency, into human resources, at nearly twice the salary. London was so expensive. Matthew wanted a bigger flat. He was, she supposed, carrying her…

Then there was Strike. A familiar frustration, a tight knot in her stomach: we’ll have to get someone else in. Constant mentions of this prospective partner, who was assuming

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