‘After a while, she started acting as their de facto agent . In 2012 Edie decided to find a professional agent, and I took her on. Josh remained with Katya. It isn’t unusual, you know, for people who have a surprise hit to cling to familiar people. There’s loyalty, of course, but also fear. It can be hard to know who to trust when you suddenly become hot property. Katya’s a perfectly nice, well-intentioned woman,’ he emphasised, ‘and she knows I’m calling in private detectives to try and find Anomie and she’s said she’ll give any help she can. She’ll know far more than I do about Josh’s friends and close contacts, but you’ll need to tread carefully, because she’s deeply resistant to the idea that Josh, through naivety, carelessness or lack of good judgement, could be partly responsible for the Anomie mess.’
‘What family has Josh got?’ asked Robin.
‘He was raised by a single father, one of three children, and my impression is – this is from things Edie told me, I’m not speaking from personal knowledge – that Mr Blay senior never really knew how to handle his son, and lately seems to have abnegated parental duties to Katya, who’s old enough to be Josh’s mother.’
‘If you could give us Katya’s contact details, that would be great,’ said Strike, and Yeoman nodded as he picked up his knife and fork again.
‘Edie was in a new relationship when she died, wasn’t she?’ asked Robin.
‘Him!’ said Heather with a small snort.
‘Yes. His name’s Phillip Ormond,’ said Yeoman. ‘He’s a teacher – geography, I think. He works at a local school in Highgate. He met Josh and Edie because he went for evening art classes, same as Katya. After Josh and Edie split up, Phillip offered a shoulder to cry on.’
‘He claims they were engaged when she died,’ said Heather.
‘You don’t think they were?’ asked Strike.
‘Well, nobody else thought they were. She didn’t have a ring,’ said Heather, whose own third finger sported a large solitaire diamond above her wide wedding band.
‘She didn’t tell me she was planning to get married either,’ said Yeoman.
‘Or her foster sister,’ said Heather. ‘I asked, at the funeral.’
‘What’s the foster sister’s name?’ asked Strike.
‘Catriona Douglas,’ said Grant. ‘Edie remained in touch with her after she left the family.’
Strike noted down the name.
‘Ormond’s got an eye to the main chance, if you ask me,’ Heather said. ‘He’s hoping he’ll have some kind of claim on her estate. There was a whole ridiculous thing about letters in the coffin. First, Blay – you’d have thought, after he’d accused her of being Anomie… Well, anyway, he dictated what he wanted to say to Katya, who brought us the letter and blah-di-blah and then’ – Heather rolled her eyes – ‘when Phillip got wind of Blay writing a letter, he had to write a letter too. I said to Grub, a coffin’s not a bloody letterbox!’
If Heather had expected laughter at this, she was disappointed.
‘Yeah, there was definitely a bit of competition between them to be chief mourner,’ said Grant. ‘Can’t say I took much to Ormond, but he had a better right to it than Blay. He was living with Edie at the time and he wasn’t making wild accusations against her.’
‘It’d be good to talk to Ormond,’ said Strike. ‘And to this foster sister, Catriona. Have you got their contact details?’
‘I’ve got Ormond’s,’ said Grant, pulling out his phone. He glanced down at it, scowled and muttered to his wife,
‘Missed call from Rachel.’
‘His daughter with his ex,’ she told Robin in another stage whisper. ‘Bit of a handful.’
‘She’ll be calling about the match,’ said Grant, handing Strike his mobile. ‘I’ll ring her back later.’
‘You said you’d had problems with the members of the cast who were Josh’s friends,’ Strike said to Yeoman. ‘Are you talking about Wally Cardew?’
‘You already know about Wally, do you?’ said Yeoman. ‘Yes, he was one of our early headaches. He and Josh were at school together. Wally had no acting experience, but he used to do a comic voice when they were teenagers – high-pitched, sinister – imitating a teacher they had. When Edie and Josh animated the first episode, they asked Wally to voice the character of Drek. He did his falsetto and fans loved it.
‘But Wally got very big for his boots. He started making videos of his own on YouTube, using the Drek voice and the character’s stock expressions and catchphrases, and making some extremely questionable jokes. Some elements of the fandom loved it. Others didn’t. Then Wally and his friend MJ made the infamous “cookies” video.’
‘“Cookies”?’ repeated Strike.
‘A so-called satirical piece mocking the Holocaust,’ said the unsmiling Yeoman. ‘There was a lot of fallout. Josh thought it would all blow over, but Edie was furious. Josh went along with the sacking, though grudgingly, and Wally took it extremely badly. He’s since made a career for himself on YouTube. We’ve wondered whether Wally could be Anomie,’ Yeoman said, correctly anticipating Strike’s next question. ‘He’s wily, but I don’t think he’s got the kind of brains you’d need to create this game, and I have to say I think his ego’s too big for him to remain anonymous.’
‘Any other friends of Josh’s we should talk to?’ asked Strike.
‘Well, yes, there was Sebastian Montgomery, an animator who helped them with the first couple of episodes. He was at art school with Josh and he was a bit snide about The Ink Black Heart on social media after he was dropped, but I’m not sure he ever knew Edie that well, so I can’t imagine he’d have all those personal details about her that Anomie’s used.’
‘Unless,’ said Strike, ‘they came via Josh.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so,’ admitted Yeoman.
‘Anyone else?’
‘Let’s think… There was a young man called Timothy Ashcroft – although, now I think of it, he was a friend of Edie’s originally, not Josh’s. He voiced The Worm and I think he had acting ambitions, so he can’t have liked being dropped, but he and Edie remained friends as far as I know. I haven’t got any contact details for Tim, I’m afraid.’
‘Why did they let him go?’ asked Robin.
‘Candidly,’ said Yeoman, ‘he wasn’t very good. I’ve seen the early episodes; The Worm’s a good comic character but Tim wasn’t doing him justice. When they did the TV deal, it was a condition that Netflix would have a say over casting. I think it was a relief to Edie, honestly, to have somebody else make those decisions. Josh himself had voiced Harty in the beginning and Catriona, Edie’s foster sister, was Paperwhite at first, but from what she told me at Edie’s wake, she couldn’t wait to leave. She never enjoyed doing the voice and was happy for a real actress to take over.
‘But I wasn’t involved back then, so there may be others who were left by the wayside that I don’t know about. As I say, Katya’s the one you should talk to about the old days. She was there from the begin— No, wait,’ said Yeoman. ‘There was another friend Edie mentioned. She lived at the art collective. What was she called?… Something like Miriam.’
‘This would be the North Grove Art Collective, right?’ asked Strike, pen poised.
‘Yes, exactly,’ said Yeoman. ‘It’s run by a Dutch man who sounds quite eccentric. Edie and Blay both rented rooms there for a while, which is how they met, and I know Josh stayed friendly with the Dutch man and used to hang around the collective even after the cartoon became successful. North Grove’s right beside Highgate Cemetery, which is how Edie and Josh ended up among the graves one day and came up with the idea for the cartoon.’