‘You can sit down,’ said Yasmin, so Strike took the sofa while she placed herself in an armchair and set her mobile down on the arm.
‘When did you talk to Phillip?’ she asked.
‘A few weeks ago,’ said Strike. ‘My agency’s been hired to find out who Anomie is. I’d have thought he’d have told you that.’
Yasmin blinked rapidly a few times, then said,
‘It was your partner, who talked to me at Comic Con, wasn’t it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, I’ve already told the police everything I know, which is nothing?’ she added, and he noticed the uptalking Robin had mentioned.
‘That’s not what you told my partner. You told her you’d put clues together to find out Anomie’s identity.’
Yasmin’s right hand was playing with the perfectly manicured nails of her left. Since getting home, she’d changed her shoes for a pair of Ugg boots, which had made large, flat imprints on the new carpet.
‘You’re Hartella in Drek’s Game, of course,’ said Strike.
The colour now drained out of Yasmin’s lips. If it occurred to her to return an incredulous ‘I’m what?’, she was plainly incapable of delivering the words with any conviction, so merely stared at him, mute.
‘I don’t know whether you’ve seen the news this afternoon,’ said Strike. ‘Nineteen members of a far-right terrorist group—’
Yasmin burst into tears. The heavy fall of dark blonde hair concealed her face as she sobbed into her hands, while her thick legs, planted in their Uggs on the carpet, trembled. Strike, whose instinct was that he’d get more out of Yasmin by being businesslike rather than sympathetic, waited in silence for her to regain control.
After nearly a minute, Yasmin raised her head again. Her face was as blotchy as her neck now, and she’d wept away her mascara, which made pale grey smears beneath her swollen eyes.
‘I don’t know anything,’ she said in a pleading voice. ‘I don’t!’
Having no tissue on her, Yasmin wiped both eyes and nose on the arm of her black cardigan.
‘We both know that’s not true,’ said Strike, unsmiling. ‘Where did you get that dossier of supposed proof that Edie Ledwell was Anomie?’
‘I put it together myself?’ she said, in barely more than a whisper.
‘You didn’t,’ said Strike calmly. ‘Someone else put that dossier together, and passed it to you inside Drek’s Game.’
Given the puffiness of Yasmin’s eyes, Strike guessed this wasn’t the first time she’d cried today. Perhaps seeing the news of The Halvening arrests had sent her scurrying into the bathroom at work, where she’d wept in terror of what was to come, before carefully reapplying her make-up.
‘We know two members of The Halvening infiltrated the moderator channel,’ he said. ‘The police will soon find the devices used by LordDrek and Vilepechora –’
She gasped at the names, as though he’d thrown freezing water at her.
‘– to play Drek’s Game. MI5 are on the case, too. It’s not going to be long before they track you down and –’
Yasmin began to cry again, one hand over her mouth as she rocked backwards and forwards in the chair.
‘ – ask why you didn’t tell them—’
‘I didn’t know!’ she said, through her fingers, ‘I didn’t! I didn’t!’
‘—where that dossier came from.’
There was a soft knock on the sitting-room door, and it began to open.
‘Would you like a cup—?’ Mrs Weatherhead began.
‘No!’ said Yasmin in a strangled voice.
Mrs Weatherhead edged further in through the door, looking concerned. Like her daughter, she was wearing Uggs.
‘What’s going—?’
‘I’ll tell you afterwards, Mum!’ whispered Yasmin. ‘Just go away!’
Yasmin’s mother withdrew, looking worried. Once the door had closed, Yasmin put her face back in her hands and began to sob again. Muffled words escaped her, which to Strike were indistinguishable until he caught ‘so… humiliating…’
‘What’s humiliating?’
Yasmin looked up, her nose and eyes still streaming.
‘I thought… I thought LordDrek w-was… an actor? He told me he was, he was really convincing… s-so I went to his p-play… and told the woman on the stage door Hartella w-was there… he’d p-promised me an autograph… backstage?… And… he looked straight p-past me and I was saying “It’s me! It’s me!” and…’
A storm of sobs ensued.
‘If you keep pretending they were never in the game, you’ll look like you’re one of them,’ said Strike remorselessly. ‘People will think you helped them willingly.’
‘They can’t,’ said Yasmin, looking up with a kind of desperate defiance. ‘I mean, like, everyone who knows me knows I’m super left-wing? And all my social media proves it?’
‘People tell lies about themselves online all the time. A prosecutor would argue you were pretending to be a left-winger to cover up your real beliefs.’
She stared at him for a second or two, eyes swimming with tears, and then, not altogether to the detective’s surprise, she lashed out.
‘I thought you were s’posed to be finding out who Anomie is? It’s the police’s job to find out about The Halvening, not yours! Or are you just trying to make yourself more famous or something?’
‘If you’d rather talk about Anomie, let’s do that,’ said Strike. ‘Ever wondered whether they’re the one who killed Ledwell?’
‘Of course not!’ said Yasmin, with a hint of a gasp.
‘Even though they’ve been boasting they killed her, inside the game?’
‘That’s just – I mean, he’s joking?’ said Yasmin, trying for incredulity.
‘And it’s never occurred to you that it’s not a joke? That Anomie actually did it?’
‘Of course not!’ she repeated.
‘How’s your book going? Anomie still getting part of the proceeds?’
‘It’s not – it’s on hold? Because—’
‘Because one of your co-authors was arrested for murder, and the other might have actually done it?’
‘Because – because now doesn’t feel like the right time,’ she said breathlessly.
‘You realise all the detailed information Ormond gave you about Edie’s new characters, and the plot of the film, came off the phone he picked up and hid after she’d been murdered?’
Strike knew that, somewhere behind the aghast expression and swollen eyes, Yasmin’s dreams of press interviews and flattering photographs, of enhanced prestige in the fandom and status as a published author were crumbling to dust.
‘If it turns out Anomie murdered Edie Ledwell and paralysed Josh Blay—’
‘Josh isn’t paralysed,’ said Yasmin with desperate certainty. ‘I know people have been saying that, but he isn’t. I’ve heard he’s getting much better?’
‘Where did you hear that? From someone on Twitter, who knows a guy whose sister works at the hospital? Josh is paralysed down one side of his body and has lost feeling in the other – as I know, because I interviewed him in hospital.’
Yasmin turned still paler, her trembling fingers playing with her cuff.
‘If Anomie was the attacker—’ persisted Strike.
‘If Anomie’s who I think he is, he can’t have done it,’ whispered Yasmin. ‘He physically can’t have done it.’