‘Maybe they’re having technical problems,’ she suggested.
‘Let’s hope so, because the one sure-fire way of ruling out suspects is going to be observing them going about their daily business without recourse to a phone or a laptop, while Anomie’s tweeting or active in the game.
‘OK,’ said Strike, returning to his notebook, ‘our suspect profile so far reads: most likely to be under thirty’ – he glanced up at Robin, who nodded – ‘either adept at coding or artistic, or both… Male or female, do you reckon?’
‘Could be either,’ said Robin, ‘although everyone seems to assume Anomie’s male.’
‘I think we need to do a deep dive into Anomie’s Twitter account and see what they might have given away… Actually,’ said Strike, ‘explain Twitter to me.’
‘What d’you mean?’ said Robin with a laugh.
‘Well, I’ve seen it, but I’ve never used it. Have you?’
‘I used to have a Twitter account, but I never did much with it.’
‘So how exactly does it work?’
‘Well, you write short messages – tweets – and you can communicate with anybody else on Twitter, unless they’ve blocked you.’
‘And everyone on Twitter can see each other’s tweets, can they?’
‘Yes, unless you’ve made your account private. Then only your followers can read what you’ve written. And if two people are following each other, they can send direct messages that nobody else can see.’
‘Right,’ said Strike. ‘And what’s the point?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Robin, laughing again. ‘It can be fun: there are a lot of jokes and stuff on there. You can communicate directly with famous people. Have a bit of banter.’
‘People used to go to pubs for that – admittedly, not the talking to famous people bit… Yeah, probably best you look into Anomie’s output, as you understand Twitter.’
‘And what would you think about me signing up for an evening class at North Grove? If I can’t turn up anything useful, I could back out and you could go in as yourself to question them.’
‘Good thinking,’ said Strike, ‘and better you than me, as you can actually draw.’
So Robin made a note to herself.
‘And then there’s motive,’ said Strike, tapping the end of his pen against his notebook.
‘I thought—’ began Robin, smiling, but Strike, correctly anticipating the rest of her sentence, said:
‘This isn’t a normal case. Means are still going to be key, but the “why” is more relevant here than usual, because there’s an inconsistency, isn’t there? The game can’t have been created as a means of driving Ledwell to suicide, because – well, why would it? The game was surely done out of love for the cartoon.’
‘Especially as they weren’t monetising it.’
‘Right – but then Anomie switched and became highly abusive over Twitter.’
‘Edie thought that was because she criticised the game in an interview.’
‘Don’t you think that’s a fairly flimsy reason for nigh on four years of persecution?’
‘If a disordered personality’s found something that speaks to them on a level they’ve never experienced before, any criticism from the creator, or any change to the work, might feel like a personal attack,’ said Robin.
‘Yeah,’ said Strike, nodding slowly. ‘Good point.’
‘I watched a video of Edie and Josh discussing the cartoon, you know,’ Robin said. ‘They were answering fans’ questions and discussing Harty, who’s the hero – that black heart you just saw. They disagreed over whether he’s evil or not, whether he was made evil and is a victim, or whether he caused the evil his owner did while alive. In the first episode of the cartoon, Harty introduces himself as evil, quite cheerfully. Could someone who feels they don’t fit in with society see something of themselves in Harty? Is that why they’ve got so obsessive about the cartoon?’
‘You think we should add “evil and knows it” to the profile?’
‘You’re joking,’ said Robin, ‘but maybe we should… You know, I keep wondering why they called themselves “Anomie”. Wouldn’t you expect a superfan to choose the name of one of the characters? Calling themselves Anomie’s almost… almost declaring upfront what they are, isn’t it? “A lack of moral or societal values.” They’re being weirdly open about it… unless they’re just some disaffected teenager,’ she added, second-guessing herself. ‘It’s the kind of name a teenager might pick, I suppose. Somebody who’s feeling angry at the world.’
‘You’re making a good case for the fact we’re hunting a crazed fan, not a personal friend.’
‘They can’t be an ordinary fan, though, can they? They know too many personal things about her, they’ve got access to inside information, which does suggest a friend… although I suppose Anomie wasn’t necessarily in direct contact with Josh or Edie,’ said Robin. ‘They could be at one remove. We should check out partners or flatmates of anyone close to Edie and Josh. There can’t be too many intermediaries, though. Anomie’s known things too quickly. It surely can’t be a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought so,’ agreed Strike.
Both sat in thought until Strike broke the short silence.
‘There’s a definite vein of narcissism here as well. Anomie thinks they should be in charge of the cartoon.’ He picked up his phone again. ‘Which brings us back to Wally Cardew. I’d say he’s exactly the kind of egotistical little prick who wouldn’t like his game being criticised, however mildly.’
‘How come you know so much about Cardew?’
‘Watched one of his videos on YouTube,’ said Strike, now accessing it on his mobile. ‘A few hours after Ledwell and Blay were named as stabbing victims, Wally and his sidekick, MJ, did a livestream during which Cardew pulled out a bloody knife from under the desk – for a joke. It was really tomato sauce.’
‘Witty,’ said Robin coldly.
‘“Cookies”,’ said Strike, who’d found what he was looking for. ‘This is the video that got him sacked. Haven’t watched this one.’
Strike glanced around to make sure nobody was in earshot, then turned the phone on its side and propped it against his beer glass so that Robin could watch as well, and pressed play.
Wally and MJ stood side by side in front of a table of baking ingredients and a large mixing bowl. Blond Wally was long-haired and MJ chubby-faced and a little untidier than in the video Strike had watched the day after the stabbings. Both were wearing aprons and chef’s hats.
‘Welcome bwahs!’ said Wally in a high-pitched voice, ‘Today we is mingling with smugliks and mukfluks who is saying we is making bad racist jokes and that we is fascist mukfluks!’ He reverted to his normal voice. ‘So today, we’re just gonna do some baking, keep things mellow.’ He showed MJ a bag of flour. ‘Is this kosher?’
‘It’s halal,’ said MJ.
‘That’s the same thing, right?’
‘No, dude,’ said MJ, half-laughing, ‘it’s—’
‘Don’t be smuglik, bwah,’ said Wally in his falsetto. ‘Play the game, bwah!’
MJ laughed as Wally upended the bag of flour and poured it energetically into the mixing bowl, spilling quantities and making a dusty cloud rise into the air.
‘And we put in the nice kosher butter,’ said Wally, holding up a pack with a Star of David drawn on it in thick felt-tip and dropping it, unwrapped, into the bowl, before picking up a carton of milk.