38

So long in secret cabin there he held

Her captive to his sensual desire;

Till that with timely fruit her belly swell’d,

And bore a boy unto that salvage sire…

Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene

Asking himself whether he could possibly have got as lucky as he hoped, Strike threw a tip on the table and hurried outside into the driving rain, pulling on his coat as he went.

If the mentally impaired adult in the sopping Sonic sweatshirt was indeed the big-eared child once marched around these streets by his eccentric parent, he’d have been living in this corner of Clerkenwell for forty years. Well, people did that, of course, Strike reflected, particularly if they had support there and if their whole world was a few familiar streets. The man was still within sight, heading stolidly toward Clerkenwell Road in the pelting rain, neither speeding up, nor making any attempt to prevent himself becoming progressively more sodden. Strike turned up his coat collar and followed.

A short distance down St. John Street, Strike’s target turned right past a small ironmonger’s on the corner, and headed into Albemarle Way, the short street with an old red telephone box at the other end, and tall, unbroken buildings on either side. Strike’s interest quickened.

Just past the ironmonger’s, the man set down both of his shopping bags on the wet pavement and took out a door key. Strike kept walking, because there was nowhere to hide, but made a note of the door number as he passed. Was it possible that the late Applethorpe had lived in this very flat? Hadn’t Strike thought that Albemarle Way presented a promising place to lie in wait for a victim? Not, perhaps, as good as Passing Alley, nor as convenient as the flats along Jerusalem Passage, but better by far than busy Clerkenwell Green, where Talbot had been convinced that Margot had struggled with a disguised Dennis Creed.

Strike heard the front door close behind the large-eared man and doubled back. The dark blue door needed painting. A small push-button bell was beside it, beneath which was stuck the printed name “Athorn.” Could this be the name Irene had misremembered as Applethorpe, Appleton or Apton? Then Strike noticed that the man had left the key in the lock.

With a feeling that he might have been far too dismissive of the mysterious ways of the universe, Strike pulled out the key and pressed the doorbell, which rang loudly inside. For a moment or two, nothing happened, then the door opened again and there stood the man in the wet Sonic sweatshirt.

“You left this in the lock,” said Strike, holding out the key.

The man addressed the third button of Strike’s overcoat rather than look him in eye.

“I did that before and Clare said not to again,” he mumbled, holding out his hand for the key, which Strike gave him. The man began to close the door.

“My name’s Cormoran Strike. I wonder whether I could come in and talk to you about your father?” Strike said, not quite putting his foot in the door, but preparing to do so should it be required.

The other’s big-eared face stood out, pale, against the dark hall.

“My-Dad-Gwilherm’s dead.”

“Yes,” said Strike, “I know.”

“He carried me on his shoulders.”

“Did he?”

“Yeah. Mum told me.”

“D’you live alone?”

“I live with Mum.”

“Is her name Clare?”

“No. Deborah.”

“I’m a detective,” said Strike, pulling a card out of his pocket. “My name’s Cormoran Strike and I’d really like to talk to your mum, if that’s OK.”

The man didn’t take the card, but looked at it out of the corner of his eye. Strike suspected that he couldn’t read.

“Would that be all right?” Strike asked, as the cold rain continued to fall.

“Yer, OK. You can come in,” said the other, still addressing Strike’s coat button, and he opened the door fully to admit the detective. Without waiting to see whether Strike was following, he headed up the dark staircase inside.

Strike felt some qualms about capitalizing on the vulnerabilities of a man like Athorn, but the prospect of looking around what he now strongly suspected was the flat in which the self-proclaimed killer of Margot Bamborough had been living in 1974 was irresistible. After wiping his feet carefully on the doormat, Strike closed the door behind him, spotting as he did so a couple of letters lying on the floor, which the son of the house had simply walked over; one of them carried a wet footprint. Strike picked up the letters, then climbed the bare wooden stairs, over which hung a naked, non-functioning lightbulb.

As he climbed, Strike indulged himself with the fantasy of a flat which nobody other than the inhabitants had entered for forty years, with locked cupboards and rooms, or even—it had been known to happen—a skeleton lying in open view. For a split-second, as he stepped out onto the landing, his hopes surged: the oven in the tiny kitchen straight ahead looked as though it dated from the seventies, as did the brown wall tiles, but unfortunately, from a detective point of view, the flat looked neat and smelled fresh and clean. There were even recent Hoover marks on the old carpet, which was patterned in orange and brown swirls. The Tesco bags sat waiting to be unpacked on lino that was scuffed, but that had been recently washed.

To Strike’s right stood an open door onto a small sitting room. The man he’d followed was standing there, facing a much older woman, who was sitting crocheting in an armchair beside the window. She looked, as well she might, shocked to see a large stranger standing in her hall.

“He wants to talk to you,” announced the man.

“Only if you’re comfortable with that, Mrs. Athorn,” Strike called from the landing. He wished Robin was with him. She was particularly good at putting nervous women at their ease. He remembered that Janice had said that this woman was agoraphobic. “My name’s Cormoran Strike and I wanted to ask a few questions about your husband. But if you’re not happy, of course, I’ll leave immediately.”

“I’m cold,” said the man loudly.

“Change your clothes,” his mother advised him. “You’ve got wet. Why don’t you wear your coat?”

“Too tight,” he said, “you silly woman.”

He turned and walked out of the room past Strike, who stood back to let him pass. Gwilherm’s son disappeared into a room opposite, on the door of which the name “Samhain” appeared in painted wooden letters.

Samhain’s mother didn’t appear to enjoy eye contact any more than her son did. At last, addressing Strike’s knees, she said,

“All right. Come in, then.”

“Thanks very much.”

Two budgerigars, one blue, one green, chirruped in a cage in the corner of the sitting room. Samhain’s mother had been crocheting a patchwork blanket. A number of completed woolen squares were piled on the wide windowsill beside her and a basket of wools sat at her feet. A huge jigsaw mat was spread out on a large ottoman in front of the sofa. It bore a two-thirds completed puzzle of unicorns. As far as tidiness went, the sitting room compared very favorably with Gregory Talbot’s.

“You’ve got some letters,” Strike said, and he held up the damp envelopes to show her.

“You open them,” she said.