‘—who had a sizeable grudge against Edie Ledwell,’ said Strike, while Robin returned and sank into a crouch beside Inigo to mop up the water, ‘who claimed Ledwell had stolen all her ideas, who harassed Ledwell online, who stalked Blay after they split up and made violent threats against both of them on the night before the stabbings.’
‘Who says she made threats?’ asked Inigo furiously, while Robin carefully picked up the shattered glass.
‘I do,’ retorted Strike. ‘I’ve seen the tweets she deleted after she’d sobered up. Wally Cardew advised her to do it. Probably the only sensible thing he’s done since we’ve started investigating this case. Did you know they’re still in contact? Were you aware she slept with Wally after splitting up with Blay?’
It was hard to tell what effect these questions had on Inigo, because his face was already mottled and empurpled, but Strike rather thought he saw a flicker of shock. Strike’s hunch was that Inigo had been captivated by a girl he saw as vulnerable and innocent, and indeed he could imagine Kea playing that part very well.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Inigo. ‘I have no idea who this Cardew person is.’
‘Really? He played Drek until he was sacked for an antisemitic video he put on YouTube.’
‘I didn’t keep up with all the shenanigans around that damn cartoon. All I know is that Kea’s a vulnerable young person who got caught up in a bad situation, and I’ll tell you this, right now: she most definitely isn’t Anomie. Absolutely not.’
‘So you never discussed The Ink Black Heart with her?’
After a slight pause Inigo said,
‘Only in the broadest terms. Naturally, after I realised who she was, we mentioned it. She felt she’d been plagiarised. I offered her my advice. As an ex-publisher, I have some expertise in that area.’
‘So you were supporting her in her plagiarism claims?’
‘I wasn’t supporting her claims, I was merely giving her an intelligent sounding board,’ said Inigo as Robin carried the broken glass back to the kitchen and put it in the bin. ‘Her mental health was suffering from the feeling that she’d been taken advantage of – used, then tossed aside. She was in need of a friendly ear: I supplied it. Kea and I have a great deal in common,’ he added, turning still redder.
Strike remembered the bare-faced beauty of Kea, sitting opposite him in the Maids Head, as he looked into the puffy, middle-aged face, with its enlarged pores and its purplish bags beneath the pale grey bespectacled eyes.
‘I happen to know exactly how it feels to be cut off in one’s prime,’ Inigo continued, ‘to know that one could have excelled, only to watch others succeed while one’s own world shrinks around one and all one’s hopes for the future are dashed. I was pushed out of my bloody job when this bastard illness hit me. I had my music, but the band, my so-called friends, made it clear they weren’t prepared to accommodate my physical limitations, in spite of the fact that I was the best bloody musician of the lot of them. I could have done what Gus has done, gone the scholarship route, oh yes. And I had a lot of artistic talent too, but this bloody illness means I’ve been unable to dedicate the necessary time to pursue it in any meaningful—’
Robin’s mobile rang. She’d been about to retake her seat, but now, having pulled her phone out of her pocket with apologies, glanced at the caller’s number, then said,
‘I think I’d better take this, sorry.’
As there was no private place to talk in the open-plan area where they were sitting, Robin headed back outside onto the street. As she left, Inigo took off his glasses and mopped his eyes, which Strike now realised had filled with tears during his recitation of his various losses. After replacing his spectacles shakily on his nose, he gave a loud sniff.
But if Inigo Upcott was expecting sympathy from Strike, he was disappointed. He who’d once lain on a dusty road in Afghanistan, his own leg blasted off, with the severed torso of a man who’d minutes previously been bantering about a drunken stag night in Newcastle lying beside him, had no pity to spare for Inigo Upcott’s crushed dreams. If Upcott’s work colleagues and bandmates hadn’t been inclined to generosity, Strike was ready to bet it had been due to the bullying, self-aggrandising nature of the man sitting opposite him, rather than any lack of compassion. The older Strike got, the more he’d come to believe that in a prosperous country, in peacetime – notwithstanding those heavy blows of fate to which nobody was immune, and those strokes of unearned luck of which Inigo, the inheritor of wealth, had clearly benefited – character was the most powerful determinant of life’s course.
‘Did you pass on to Kea anything your wife told you, about negotiations with Maverick and so forth?’
‘I – may have mentioned it,’ said Inigo, his resentment at Strike’s matter-of-fact tone very evident, and he repeated, ‘but only in the broadest terms.’
‘Has Kea asked you to pass messages to Josh?’
‘Occasionally,’ said Inigo, after a slight hesitation.
‘But you haven’t passed those messages on?’
‘I have no contact with Blay.’
‘And I suppose you can hardly ask your wife to take him messages from Kea.’
Inigo’s only response was to tighten his lips.
‘Have you promised Kea any assistance, aside from advising her on her plagiarism claims?’
‘I’ve given her some reassurance.’
‘Reassurance about what?’
‘She’s well aware my wife dislikes her,’ said Inigo. ‘It’s certainly crossed Kea’s mind that she might be accused of being Anomie, or of having something to do with Ledwell’s death. I merely promised her I’d talk sense into Katya. I repeat,’ said Inigo forcefully, ‘Kea cannot be Anomie.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Well, firstly, she’s too unwell,’ said Inigo loudly. ‘Any sustained work – building and maintaining an online game of the type in question – would be impossible for her, due to her medical problems. She requires a good deal of rest and sleep – not that sleep comes easily with this bloody illness.
‘Moreover, Anomie’s attacked Kea online. She was very unpleasant indeed to Kea. Kea was very upset by it.’
‘“She”?’ repeated Strike.
‘What?’
‘You just referred to Anomie as “she”.’
Inigo scowled at Strike, then said,
‘My wife didn’t want me telling you this on your first visit. I agreed not to, because I didn’t want Katya whining and complaining afterwards. There’s a limit to how much I can cope with; I’m not supposed to be stressed. But after all,’ said Inigo, temper flaring again, ‘she can hardly complain, when I’m followed and harassed in a place that’s supposed to be a sanctuary for me…
‘Yasmin Weatherhead’s Anomie,’ said Inigo. ‘She works in IT, she’s nosy, manipulative and was always in it for all she could get. I could see what that bloody girl was up to as soon as she crossed our threshold. Katya doesn’t want to admit it, because, of course, she was the one who brought the damn woman into their circle. Just one more bloody stupid thing Katya’s done, but she’s always surprised when it all blows up in her face.’
‘Yasmin Weatherhead works in PR, not IT,’ said Strike.
‘You’re mistaken,’ said Inigo, with all the arrogance of a man unused to contradiction. ‘She’s very adept with computers, very knowledgeable. I was having a problem with mine one day and she fixed it.’