‘Yeah,’ said Henry. ‘That was what went downhill. He was the main reason I watched it. He used to be really funny… Is she seriously dead? Ledwell?’
Strike resisted the urge to reply, ‘Not seriously. Only a bit.’
‘She is, yeah.’
‘Wow,’ said Henry. He looked more puzzled than sad. Strike remembered being sixteen: death, unless of your very nearest or dearest, was a distant and almost incomprehensible abstraction.
‘I heard the voice actor who played Drek was sacked,’ Strike said.
‘Yeah,’ said Henry. ‘It was after they sacked Wally it all turned to shit. Got too PC.’
‘What’s Wally’s full name?’
‘Wally Cardew,’ said Henry, now with a little renewed suspicion. ‘Why?’
‘Did he manage to get another job, d’you know?’
‘Yeah, he’s a YouTuber now.’
‘Ah,’ said Strike. ‘And what does that entail?’
‘What d’you—?’
‘What does he do on YouTube?’
‘Makes gaming videos and stuff,’ said Henry, his tone comparable to an adult explaining what the prime minister does to a toddler.
‘Right.’
‘He’s on tonight,’ said Henry, glancing at the clock on the cooker. ‘Eleven o’clock.’
Strike checked his watch.
‘D’you need to subscribe to YouTube to watch?’
‘No,’ said Henry, wincing in further embarrassment at this ignorance.
‘Well, thanks for the beer. And the information.’
‘’S’all right,’ muttered Henry, sidling back out of the kitchen.
Strike remained where he was, leaning up against the side, facing the fridge. After drinking some more lager he took his mobile out of his pocket, opened YouTube and searched for Wally Cardew.
He now understood Henry’s scorn at his ignorance: the ex-Drek voice actor had over a hundred thousand subscribers to his YouTube channel. Sipping Heineken, Strike scrolled slowly down through the archived videos. The still shots beside the titles all featured Cardew pulling a comical face: clutching his head in despair, wide-mouthed in hysterical laughter or yelling in triumph while giving a fist-pump.
Cardew bore a strong physical resemblance to a young soldier Strike had investigated while still in the SIB, one Private Dean Shaw, who’d had exactly the same combination of tow-coloured hair, pink-and-white skin and small, bright blue eyes. Shaw had been court-martialled for what he’d insisted was a prank gone wrong, which had resulted in the fatal shooting of a sixteen-year-old recruit. Reflecting ruefully that he’d now reached the age where almost everyone he met reminded him of somebody else he’d known, Strike continued to scroll through Cardew’s list of videos.
The YouTuber’s hairstyle varied according to the year in which the video had been filmed. Three years previously, he’d worn his white-blond hair to his shoulders, but it was now much shorter. Most of his videos were headlined The Wally Shows MJ Show. Strike assumed MJ was the cheery-looking, chubby-faced, bearded, brown-skinned young man who appeared next to Wally in some of the pictures, sidekick to the star.
Strike stopped scrolling at a video dating from 2012, entitled ‘The Ink Black Fart’, which had been viewed ninety thousand times. He pressed play. Long-haired Wally and short-haired MJ appeared, sitting side by side at a desk, each in a large padded leather chair. The wall behind them was covered in gaming posters.
‘So, yeah, hi, ev’ryone,’ said Wally, whose accent was pure working-class London, not dissimilar to Madeline’s. He was holding a piece of what looked like headed notepaper. ‘Just wan’ed to update you all on what my, ah, erstwhile friends’ve sent me. Fink it’s called a “cease and desist” letter.’
‘Yeah,’ said MJ, nodding.
‘MJ there, tryna look like he understands legals,’ said Wally to camera, and MJ laughed.
‘My uncle’s a lawyer, man!’
‘Yeah? Mine’s a fuckin’ gynaecologist, but I don’t get to shove my fingers up random women.’
‘Is he a gynaecologist? Seriously?’ said MJ, giggling.
‘No, you melt, I’m jokin’… So, yeah, basically I’m not allowed to use Drek’s voice any more, or ’is catchphrases or…’
He consulted the letter, reading from it:
‘“… any intellectual property of Edie Ledwell and Joshua Blay, ’ereinafter called the creators”. So… yeah. There ya go.’
‘Fuckin’ bullshit, man,’ said MJ, shaking his head.
‘Hey,’ said Wally, as though struck by a sudden thought. ‘Would your uncle represent me for free?’
MJ looked taken aback. Wally laughed.
‘I’m kiddin’, man, but’ – he looked back to camera – ‘yeah, so I guess – no more Drek from me, bwahs.’
‘Careful!’ said MJ.
‘It’s fuckin’—’
‘Yeah, it is,’ said MJ soberly. ‘It’s shit.’
‘I pretty much created the voice, the character an’ everyfing, but you can’t make fuckin’ jokes any more, apparently, you can’t be satirical, you can’t take the piss –’
The camera zoomed in suddenly, so that Wally’s face appeared in extreme close-up.
‘OR CAN YOU?’ thundered Wally, his voice artificially manipulated so that it echoed.
When the camera moved to wide shot again, the two men were in the middle of an all-white space. MJ was now lolling in his chair, pretending to be half-asleep, and wearing a long dark brown wig, a denim shirt and ripped jeans, and smoking what appeared to be a gigantic joint. Wally had donned a light brown straggly wig, some badly applied lipstick and eyeliner, a T-shirt reading ‘The Ink Black Fart’ and a long floral skirt.
Speaking in a high-pitched Essex accent he said,
‘So yeah… we was lying in the cemetery… you’d just copped a feel, hadn’t you, Josh?’
‘Yeah…’ said MJ, sounding sleepy.
‘An’ we was smokin’, wasn’t we?’
‘Yeah…’
‘And then all this brilliance come floodin’ out my brain. And that’s ’ow we created The Ink Black Fart. Because when you fart, right, it’s like a bit of the inner you is struggling to free itself, so it’s a metaphor and it’s kind of beau’iful and deep, innit?’
Wally raised one buttock off his chair and produced a loud and apparently genuine fart. MJ corpsed before saying in the same stoned voice as before:
‘Metaphor, yeah…’
‘I got the idea of the fart from my dead mum… she ’ad a big wind problem…’
MJ was convulsed with barely suppressed laughter.
‘And we ain’t interested in cash, are we, Josh?’
‘Nah…’
‘We’re two free spirits, innit. We want the whole world to enjoy my brilliance for free.’
‘Free… yeah…’
‘Which is why we don’t pay no one, innit, Josh?’
MJ silently offered Wally a toke on his joint.
‘No, Joshy babes, I gotta keep my head clear for negotiations wiv Netflix. Whoops, wait – did I say that out loud? Did I? Shit. Well anyway, fanks ev’ryone, I ’ope you all keep watching The Ink Black Fart.’
Wally produced a second fart.
‘Oooh, that’s better. Right, c’mon babes,’ he said, getting up and taking hold of MJ by the shirt, ‘you gotta draw Harty.’
‘I need a proper slug, Ed,’ moaned MJ. ‘I’m blunted.’
‘You come wiv me, you lazy bastard, we got money to make. Art, I mean. Art to m—’
‘What the hell are you watching?’
Strike paused the video and looked around. Madeline was standing in the kitchen doorway.
‘YouTubers,’ said Strike.
Grinning, Madeline walked barefoot towards him in her pale grey cashmere sweater and jeans, slid her arms around his neck and kissed him on the mouth. She tasted of Merlot.