‘Anomie knew,’ said Robin, as Strike finished reading and looked up. She was now sitting beside him on the bed. ‘They knew I was talking to Paperwhite. I shouldn’t have lied, but I was worried about her and—’
‘They might not have known for sure,’ said Strike, ‘although I s’pose they could’ve found a way to watch private channels.’
‘Shit,’ said Robin, putting her face in her hands. ‘All that work, for nothing.’
‘It wasn’t for nothing,’ said Strike reflexively, because she looked so wretched. He drew the bottle of whisky out of its plastic bag, trying to think of something to say that wasn’t but we really didn’t need this.
‘Paperwhite’s the one who was in a relationship with Morehouse, right?’ he said, looking around for a glass or even a mug.
‘Yes, and she claimed she knew his real identity.’
‘So she knows he’s been murdered. Hardly surprising she’s clearing out,’ said Strike. ‘The question is whether leaving the game will put her in more danger, because if Morehouse told her who Anomie is, and Anomie knows who she is – and we know he’s seen her picture, at the very least – she might be lucky not to end up with a knife in her back.’
‘What do we do?’
‘I’ll tell Murphy what’s happened tomorrow,’ said Strike, ‘although as he and Darwish seem convinced The Halvening’s behind everything, I’m not sure how interested he’s going to be. At least I’ll have a pretext for asking what they got off the CCTV cameras in Cambridge.’
‘What does that bit of Latin mean?’ asked Robin. ‘The thing Anomie said before banning me?’
Strike looked back down at the iPad.
‘You said “It’s why I love the game, talking to other fans” and the response, roughly translated, is “from which secret meetings with enemies are born”. So, yeah, he now considers Paperwhite an enemy… Pity Vilepechora didn’t show you that picture of Paperwhite.’
‘Yasmin saw it. She doesn’t like Paperwhite. She might’ve kept the picture as proof she was breaking Rule 14.’
‘That’s an idea,’ said Strike, now tugging his pen and notebook out of his pocket and writing a reminder to himself. ‘Might pay Yasmin a visit. Desperate times and all that. Want some whisky while you tell me the good news?’
‘Oh,’ said Robin, who’d almost forgotten there was good news. ‘Kea Niven’s definitely not Anomie.’
‘What?’ said Strike, taken aback. Kea had recently moved right up to the top of his personal suspect list.
‘Midge called half an hour ago. It’s Sara Niven’s birthday and she and Kea have been out for dinner at an oyster bar with friends. Kea hasn’t been typing on her phone at all, and as you’ve just seen, Anomie’s been very active on private channels tonight.’
‘Shit,’ said Strike, frowning as he uncorked the whisky. ‘No, I don’t mean that – it’s good she’s been ruled out, but that only leaves us with—’
‘Tim Ashcroft and Pez Pierce,’ said Robin. ‘I know. I’ve had to field calls from Pez all evening too. He’s after a date. Maybe I should accept.’
Strike gave a noncommittal grunt. ‘Got a glass?’
‘Only one. It’s in the bathroom, holding my toothbrush.’
‘OK, I’ll get mine and come back.’
It was only after Strike had left the room that Robin remembered he’d just come back from confronting Jago Ross: her despair over being banned from the game had driven everything else from her mind. She went to get the glass from her bathroom and when Strike reappeared with his own tooth glass in hand, she said,
‘How did—?’
But Strike cut across her.
‘It’s just bloody happened again! Just then, when I was getting my glass! One of those voice-change calls! The Darth Vader voice!’
‘You’re kidding?’ said Robin.
‘“If you dig up Edie you’ll know who Anomie is. It’s all in the letter.” I said, “Who are you?” And there was a weird growl and they hung up.’
They stared at each other.
‘That’s new, mentioning Anomie, isn’t it?’ said Robin.
‘It is, yeah,’ said Strike. ‘Previously it was “if you want to know the truth” and “if you want to know who killed her”.’
He picked up the whisky and poured a double measure into the glass in Robin’s hand. As she sat back down on the bed, drawing her robe around her, she said,
‘I told you Bram’s got that voice-change device, didn’t I? He used it on me at North Grove.’
‘Did it make him sound like Darth Vader?’
‘It did, a bit.’
Strike, who’d also poured himself a large whisky, took a sizeable gulp, sat down beside Robin on the bed, took out his e-cigarette and said,
‘You think Bram’s making the calls?’
‘Trying to get Edie dug up feels very Bram.’
‘Would he have known there were letters in the coffin?’
‘Probably,’ said Robin, after a slight hesitation. ‘Mariam and Pez have both been in contact with Josh, haven’t they?’
‘Would Bram be interested in the letters?’
‘I don’t know… he’s a very strange kid. Far cleverer than you might think when he’s just shouting Drek catchphrases. You heard what Pez said: he’s got a genius-level IQ.’
Strike took a deep drag on his e-cigarette, then said,
‘Grant Ledwell thinks whoever’s making these calls is trying to cast suspicion on Ormond, and it’s hard to fault his logic. Nobody in their right mind’s going to think Josh killed Edie, nearly sliced his own head off, then dictated a confession to Katya to put in the coffin. But Ormond’s been arrested, so why keep harping on the letters?’
‘Bram might not have thought that far ahead. It’s like Josh said: he might just be trying to see what will happen next.’
‘You’d have thought a kid with a genius-level IQ would know full well that nothing will happen. You don’t start digging up bodies on the say-so of an anonymous Darth Vader sound-a-like. Anyway, from what we know of him, I’d have thought Bram’s more the type to break into the cemetery at night and try and dig her up himself.’
‘Don’t,’ said Robin with an involuntary shudder.
‘There’s also the fact that nobody at North Grove should know we’re investigating Anomie. Whoever keeps calling me clearly does know, which ought to make them one of a very small group of people… always assuming we haven’t been rumbled, of course. Our pictures have been in the papers a lot recently and Tim Ashcroft, Pez Pierce and Yasmin Weatherhead could have connected you with Jessica Robins or Venetia Hall.’
‘But the anonymous calls started before that,’ said Robin.
‘True,’ said Strike.
Both drank some whisky, then stared blankly into thin air for a while, contemplating this new problem, the vapour from Strike’s e-cigarette drifting between them.
‘If the caller genuinely wants Edie dug up,’ said Robin finally, ‘why aren’t they saying explicitly what they know, or think they know, about the letters?’
‘Well,’ said Strike slowly, ‘the obvious answer would be because they’re scared of being identified. I might ask Murphy whether the police have had any of these calls.’ Strike picked up his pen again and wrote another reminder to himself in his notebook.
‘There has to be something we’re not seeing,’ said Robin, who was still staring into space. ‘Or someone we’re not seeing… Did you have any luck with friends of Gus Upcott’s?’
‘Couldn’t find any trace of him online, except for an old YouTube clip of him playing the cello. We could put surveillance back on him, see who he’s meeting,’ said Strike, though he didn’t sound enthusiastic. ‘But you said it right at the start: Anomie surely can’t be a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend of Josh’s or Edie’s. The speed with which insider information’s shared doesn’t suggest a long chain of communication.’