Worm28: I’m working kind of
Worm28: fuck I wish I could tell u where
Buffypaws: tell me!
Worm28: lol
Worm28: i ‘m scred of Anomie
Worm28: if I tell u we ‘d trigger conseqnce 14
>
Buffypaws: ok hint
Worm28: lol no better not
Worm28: guess what tho
Worm28: I met B***!!!
>
>
Vilepechora: so pissed right now
Buffypaws: aren’t we all
>
Vilepechora: what u wearing?
Buffypaws: full body armour
>
>
Vilepechora: so fkn bored of this place
Buffypaws: why u still here then?
Vilepechora: intel
Vilepechora: so do u use a strap on or what
>
>
>
Robin picked up her pen again and jotted rapidly under ‘Worm28’ poss met Blay, ‘kind of’ working; beneath ‘Vilepechora’: here for ‘intel’ and, on the facing, so far blank page, trigger Consequence 14 what is this? She resumed her typing.
Buffypaws: no way!!!
Worm28: yaeh true story
Worm28: I just walked in the room and he was their
Worm28: I nearly fainted !!
Buffypaws: did u talk to him?
Worm28: no i was shaking !!!
Buffypaws: lol
Vilepechora: are u sitting on a strap on right now?
Buffypaws: your sense of humour as sophisticated as ever I see
Vilepechora: you’re lucky I don’t ban u
>
Buffypaws: what for?
Vilepechora: for being a fkn pervert
The American reader of the guidebook was now reading the menu aloud to her companions, even though each had one of their own.
‘Steak and kidney pie… boiled potatoes…’
Robin’s phone vibrated. She looked down; Strike had texted:
Ormond’s here.
36
And on his shield a bleeding heart he bore…
Strike, who was sitting at a table for two facing the door of the pub, correctly identified Phillip Ormond as soon as he entered, even though the man in no way conformed to Strike’s mental image of either a geography teacher or a person likely to sign up for art classes. Strike might even have suspected a military background, given the man’s bearing and the meticulous smartness of his appearance.
Several inches shorter than the man he’d come to meet, Ormond looked as though he might be a regular gym user. He had light blue, wide-set eyes, light brown hair, which was worn short and neat, and a pointed jaw covered in carefully trimmed stubble. Without the black briefcase he was carrying, his dark suit and plain navy tie might have suggested funeral wear. He paused inside the doorway to look around, squaring his shoulders as he did so.
Catching the detective’s eye, Ormond approached Strike’s table.
‘Cormoran Strike?’
‘That’s me,’ said Strike, standing to shake hands, his stump protesting angrily at having to bear his weight so soon after sitting down.
‘Phillip.’
Ormond now proved himself to belong to that category of men who seem to think they’ll be suspected of impotence unless their handshake causes the recipient physical pain.
‘I’ll get a drink,’ said Ormond, before departing for the bar. He returned to the table carrying a half-pint of lager and sat down facing Strike, giving off an aura of slight suspicion.
‘Well, as I told you on the phone—’ Strike began.
‘You’re trying to find out who Anomie is. Yeah.’
‘Would you mind if I took notes?’
‘Feel free,’ said Ormond, though he didn’t look particularly happy about it.
‘What happened there?’ Strike asked, now noticing that two fingers on Ormond’s left hand were bandaged.
‘Hydrofluoric acid spill,’ said Ormond and when Strike looked blank, he said, ‘I was doing a bit of steel etching at North Grove. Won’t be trying that again. Burn got infected. I’ve had two lots of antibiotics so far.’
‘Sounds nasty.’
‘Hardly the worst thing that’s happened to me lately,’ said Ormond with a trace of aggression.
‘No, of course not,’ said Strike. ‘I’m very sorry for your loss.’
‘Thanks,’ said Ormond, unbending very slightly. ‘It’s been… a bad time.’
‘I’m sure,’ said Strike. ‘Would you mind answering a couple of questions about North Grove?’
‘Fire away.’
‘When did you start classes there?’
‘2011,’ said Ormond.
‘Do you do a lot of art, or—?’
‘Not really. Writing’s more my thing, actually.’
‘Really?’ said Strike. ‘Published?’
‘Not yet. Just playing around with a few ideas. That was something Edie and I had in common, you know: stories.’
Strike, who had some difficulty imagining Phillip Ormond writing stories, nodded. Reasonably good-looking though the teacher was, Strike was slightly puzzled by Edie’s choice of boyfriend, but perhaps Ormond’s appeal had lain in him being the absolute antithesis of her feckless, pot-smoking, curtain-burning ex.
‘No, I went to North Grove because I’d just separated from my wife,’ said Ormond, unprompted. ‘Trying to fill my evenings a bit. Signed up for an evening class… thought I might try the old-fashioned way of meeting a girl, you know?’ he said, with a self-consciously bleak smile. ‘Met my wife on a dating site. And the ones you meet at the gym – they haven’t usually got enough upstairs for me,’ he added, tapping his temple.
‘So when you first met Edie—?’
‘She was still dating Blay, yeah. I got interested in their cartoon, listening to people at North Grove talking about it, and ended up inviting her and Blay to come into school and give my Year Sevens a talk about animation and computer-generated imagery. The kids enjoyed it,’ said Ormond, though not as if this gave him any particular gratification.
‘You teach geography, right?’
‘Computing,’ said Ormond, frowning. ‘Who told you I teach geography?’
‘Think it was Edie’s agent,’ said Strike, making a note. ‘Crossed wires somewhere. When did you first become aware of Anomie?’
‘I saw he’d posted a picture of Edie’s flat on Twitter. I sent her a text to see whether she was OK. I still had her phone number from when she came into school to talk to the kids. We texted back and forth a bit and ended up going for a drink. She and Blay had split up by that time. Found out we had quite a bit in common. Writing,’ he said again. ‘Stories. We had a bit of a laugh about North Grove. There are some real characters there. A kid who’s a proper Jeremy Kyle candidate.’
‘Would that be Bram de Jong?’ asked Strike, noting that Ormond had just used a bit of police slang.
‘That’s him, yeah,’ said Ormond, nodding. ‘I was leaving North Grove one night and took a fucking rock to the back of the head. He was up on the roof throwing them at anyone he could hit. If I could’ve laid hands on him – he cut me,’ said Ormond, pointing at the back of his head. ‘I’ve still got a scar there. Edie told me about some of the things he did while she was living there. She found a dead bird in her bed one time. The parents are just… There’s no control,’ said Ormond and Strike noticed his nostrils flare as he said it. ‘None.’