‘And we put in – is this kosher? Is cows kosher, bwah?’
‘Cows are – is it Hindu where they’re holy?’ asked MJ.
‘Who thinks cows are fucking holy? These people is mukfluks, they is all mukfluks,’ said Wally, splashing the milk into the mixing bowl and making sure to splatter MJ, who backed off, laughing.
‘And the eggs are kosher, look – nice,’ said Wally, showing them to camera. As with the butter, he’d drawn on Stars of David. He now threw the eggs into the bowl, hard, with the clear intention of getting MJ as covered in the mixture as possible.
‘You is nice white boy now, MJ,’ said Wally in his Drek voice, as MJ, half-laughing and half-coughing, wiped flour off his face.
‘And we mixes and mixes,’ said Wally, grabbing a spoon and flicking more of the soggy mass at MJ. ‘And we sings: “Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony–”’
‘Fuck, dude, stop!’ said MJ, still laughing but now trying to shield himself from the mixture Wally was throwing at him.
‘And now we has nice mixture, bwahs,’ said Wally.
The video cut to a shot of Wally and MJ with a ball of uncooked cookie dough on the table in front of them. MJ was completely covered in flour, Wally entirely clean.
‘And now we smashes this mukfluk,’ said Wally, taking a rolling pin and smashing the ball of dough with one end of it, ‘and now we cuts up mukfluk into smuglik pieces.’ He took a gingerbread-person-shaped cookie cutter and pressed it into the dough.
The video cut again, to several rows of perfect gingerbread men, each with a Star of David on them, and some with yarmulkes and payots.
‘Oh no,’ said Robin, who could see exactly where this was heading. Strike’s expression was impassive.
‘And now we puts smugliks into oven and turns it up high, high, high,’ said Wally in his falsetto.
The video cut to Wally putting the tray into an oven, then to a cartoon hand turning up a dial to ‘fucking hot’, and finally back to Wally and MJ standing in front of their table, both with their arms folded. In his normal voice, Wally now turned to MJ and asked:
‘See the game Saturday?’
‘Yeah, nice goal by Drogba,’ said MJ, equally seriously.
‘See what Fuller—?’
‘Yeah,’ said MJ. ‘Stamping on a guy’s fucking balls is not fucking cool.’
There was a pause, and both young men drummed their fingers on their arms.
‘Think the cookies are done?’ Wally asked MJ.
‘Yeah, maybe,’ said MJ.
Wally checked his watch.
‘Might give ’em a bit longer.’
The video cut to a black screen with the words ‘1 hour later’ written across it, then back to Wally and MJ, who were now standing in front of an oven billowing black smoke. They continued to talk, apparently oblivious.
‘… take my gran out for the day,’ Wally was saying.
‘That’s nice, dude, that’s a nice thing to do.’
There was another brief silence, then Wally said:
‘Yeah, they should be done by now.’
He opened the oven door, coughing.
The video cut to a close-up shot of cookies burned beyond recognition, then to a wide shot of Wally and MJ holding their chef’s hats in silent respect, candles burning in a menorah behind them. Strike hit pause and looked at Robin.
‘Not amused?’
‘On what planet is that satire?’
‘We’re obviously too stupid to grasp the delicate irony. Incidentally, I noticed when I watched the livestream he did the night after the stabbings that a few of Wally’s fans had the number eighty-eight after their names. You add together Holocaust jokes, far-right followers and a connection to The Ink Black Heart—’
‘And you can definitely see why MI5 might have questions,’ said Robin.
‘You can. On the other hand, Cardew might not know he’s attracted neo-Nazi fans. There’s a chance,’ said Strike, picking up his pint again, ‘he thinks because his best mate’s brown he can’t possibly be racist.’
‘You know, if Wally’s Anomie, and was recruited to The Halvening after making the game—’
‘The switch from fan to persecutor is explained, yeah,’ said Strike. ‘When you’re going through Anomie’s Twitter account, pay attention for any indication as to what their politics are. I’d imagine MI5 have checked, but I doubt they’ll share their conclusions with us.’
Robin made another note.
‘If it’s not a Halvening member, though,’ said Strike, ‘we’re left with the question of why these two creators are so keen on maintaining their anonymity. You’d think they’d be proud of the game, if they’re genuinely just two kids having fun. Richard Elgar said back there he thinks Anomie being unmasked would hurt them and I agree as far as that goes, but why would it hurt them? Why don’t they want credit?’
‘Anomie’s getting a kind of public credit,’ said Robin. ‘Fifty thousand followers on Twitter and a lot of interest in who they really are. That must feed their ego.’
‘True, but you heard what Elgar said: revealing themselves back in the early days might’ve got them some genuine input into the franchise, so why didn’t they do it? And then there’s the lack of monetisation.’
‘Well, we know why that is, don’t we?’ said Robin. ‘It’d be copyright violation, making money out of someone else’s characters.’
‘True, but I’m looking at it from a different angle. Anomie and Morehouse have spent years working on the game without earning anything from it. That suggests people with a lot of time on their hands and no great need for money. Are they being supported by someone else? Parents? Taxpayers?’
‘There are some jobs with downtime,’ Robin pointed out. ‘They could be self-employed or working part time. They could be making a good living and this is just a hobby.’
‘But if Anomie’s in work, they must be doing a job where they can access the internet or use their phone whenever they fancy… which makes Edie’s boyfriend, this’ – Strike flipped back his notes to find the name – ‘this teacher, Phillip Ormond, an unlikely fit.’
‘He was never a possibility, though, surely?’ said Robin. ‘Why would her boyfriend want to persecute her online? Anyway, they wouldn’t have been together when Anomie started the game. She was still dating Josh.’
‘It isn’t unknown for people to play games with their nearest and dearest online, or even for someone to date a person without realising they’ve met them online,’ said Strike, ‘but I agree, Ormond’s unlikely. On the other hand, he should be able to tell us who Edie was close to, or might have confided in, other than the people we’ve already heard about.
‘So,’ said Strike, picking up his pen again, ‘I’ll contact Ormond, Katya Upcott and that foster sister, Catriona. Short term,’ he continued, ‘we’ll put surveillance on Seb Montgomery and Wally Car—’
Robin’s phone rang.
‘Oh my God, that’s the estate agent,’ said Robin, looking suddenly panicked, and she answered. ‘Hello, Andy?’
Strike watched Robin’s expression change from tension to elation.
‘Seriously? Oh, that’s fantastic! Thank you!… Yes!… Yes, definitely!… When? No, that’s fine by me… OK… I will… Thanks so much!’
‘Bad news?’ said Strike as Robin hung up, beaming.
‘I got the flat! Oh, wow – you know what, I am going to have a drink. I’m not working this evening.’
‘I’ll get it,’ said Strike, but Robin was already on her feet. As she edged out from behind the table she bent down impulsively and hugged Strike, her hair falling over his face, and he inhaled the perfume he’d bought her on her thirtieth.