Deciphering More Screen Names, Four Men in a Pub, One Delusional Parrot-Girl and..(insert Jaws theme here)... Charlotte! The Ink Black Heart Read-along, Ch. 13-24, (Part 2 of 8)

 

Chapter 13 picks up with Strike visiting Madeline's, and wishing he had picked up that Chinatown takeaway after all. I quite like the interactions with Henry, much more so than the ones with Madeline. Strike has, finally, accepted the role of "mum's boyfriend" and does it quite well, simply treating Henry as he would have wanted to be treated at that age (which was, of course, the year Whittaker arrived at the squat). He is smart enough to realize that it is not realistic for a teenager to be thrilled about a new man in his mother's life. 

As with the Twitter feed, there are a few recognizable names and terms among the viewers of Wally Cardew's Youtube show, which are scrolling by too fast for Strike to read, even if he had been familiar with the characters.

• ArkeTheShadow, who writes "it's OK to celebrate when bad people die" and "Ledwell was a thief and a liar" is presumably Kea Niven, aka RealPaperwhite, with "Arke" as a syllable-reversed "Kea," and "The Shadow" as the opposite of a paper-white ghost. 
• TheFiend, with her "what won't you guys do for views you pos" is Rachel Ledwell,  who, in the last moderators' chat, stormed out in disgust about Anomie's gloating over numbers. 
• Two people invite Wally to check out the Brotherhood of Ultima Thule: TommyEngland14 and the soon-to-be familiar algizzard. Two others have the 88 Brotherhood indicator in their screen names, as Strike does notice and will helpfully recall later.  
• An unknown PokerFac£ asks crudely if Wally has had relations with Kea Niven. 
• The answer, turns out, will be yes. 
• Finally, Lepine's Disciple turns up again, claiming to have killed Edie. 

Seeing Robin alone in Max's flat, crying over Edie and Josh's first video, was touching but depressing, as we know Robin is both feeling bad about not taking the case and remembering the time she and Matthew were smitten in the same way. I wish Max had been there to offer some comfort and friendship. He seemed like a nice person and a potential good friend for Robin in the last book; I was disappointed by the way he largely vanished in this one. As for Hugh Jacks:

1. What was Katie thinking, handing over Robin's address? She may be demoted from "favorite cousin." 
2. Why would he think that dog-drooling is in any way appealing?
3. It is amusing that both our heroes have now gotten dog-themed cards for people they would prefer never to hear from again. 

Part Two picks up a month later with indicators that all is not "fine" with Strike and the Madwoman (yaaaaay!) and that Strike is still toying with the idea of meeting his half-sister Prudence. The lengthy article on the Halvening introduces that organization and their claim to be responsible for Edie's death. Meanwhile, Robin is tailing Groomer and Legs to an art museum, which gives an opportunity to explain the Christian significance of the pelican that will turn up on Edie's favorite grave. Robin is obviously excited at the prospect of paid work for a case in which she is still intensely interested.

In Chapter 17, we shift to a rare two-person, one-channel moderators' chat, where Vikas Bhardwaj shows that his reputation for brilliance is well-deserved, as he has recognized the Halvening's modus operandi in their dossier scheme and wants to alert the police immediately. It takes serious fast-talking for the disguised Anomie to throw him off, first a lie about a "Paperwhite's" cancer-stricken mother and then another tantrum over not getting a picture in return, which causes his alleged online friend to question his love for her. 

The Arts Club lunch with Allen Yeoman, Richard Elgar and Grant and Heather Ledwell bears some connections with the Gallery Mess lunch of CoE. First, it is an expensive, arty restaurant, with a contrast that Strike and Robin, now flush with funds, are treated to the meal, whereas in the Gallery Mess they were skint, yet had to foot the bill. Robin is as annoyed with Heather as she was with Tempest:

 "This is a treat," said Heather happily and Robin, who’d been fighting her feeling of dislike, silently stopped resisting. They were here in this sleekly appointed club, eating this delicious food, because of the brutal death of Heather’s niece by marriage. Even if Heather had barely known her, as seemed to be the case, her frank enjoyment of her fancy lunch and her persistent eyeing-up of Strike seemed both inappropriate and distasteful to Robin.

Fortunately, Strike does not blow up at anyone and have to be hustled out of the establishment, having gotten that out of his system at the American Bar in TB. The one positive thing I can say about Heather Ledwell is that her "Grub" nickname for her money-grubbing husband is spot on.  Finally, there is such irony in the last words of this chapter:

I’m sure, if you’re able to find out who Anomie is, we’ll be able to find some evidence of hypocrisy, racial insensitivity, sexual harassment... Those who live by the mob must be prepared to die by the mob. Once we know who we’re dealing with, I don’t think it’ll be too hard to turn Anomie from hunter into prey.

Of course, the discovery that Anomie is also the voice behind the Incel Foursome of Lepine's Disciple et. al, would have done exactly this. But before they could tell anybody, Anomie made the point moot by stabbing his parents. 

Our heroes' subsequent debrief in the Tottenham is mostly routine division-of-labor tasks, most interesting for the bookends:

1. Strike's opening musing that maybe Robin's friendliness means she doesn't find him repulsive after all, and 
2. At chapter's close, Robin's impulsive hug of Strike while celebrating her successful flat purchase, and Strike's lingering enjoyment of it. 

Of course, we are treated to the disgusting "Cookies" video in between. 

The biggest clue in the next moderators' chat is Anomie's displeasure that #ExhumeLedwell is trending on Twitter, something we would have expected Anomie to enjoy, if not actively promote himself. We also learn that Anomie and Hartella are collaborating on something involving royalties with "P."

Chapter 21 is both informative and fun as Sherlock Bigcock's and the Tartan Twelve-Inch's targets converge at the Red Lion and Sun Pub near Highgate Cemetery. Seb Montgomery and Wally Cardew are eventually joined by Tim Ashcroft and Nils DeJong, along with Nils' ill-behaved son Bram. Anomie, unfortunately, remains annoyingly silent, given that this would have been a golden opportunity to rule out suspects, given the difficulty (though not impossibility, Morehouse could likely have managed) of scheduling tweets in 2015. This strategy also would not have protected against people sharing accounts or impersonating others online, as both Robin and Yasmin will do in Drek's Game later. Our team picks up some useful information, such as Josh staying at the arts collective before the attack, and Yasmin being the one who supplied the dossier, which is now presumably in the killers hands, along with Josh's amd possibly Edie's cell phones. There is also an interesting hint from Wally when he suggests the police should be looking for a "SJW c*nt"-- by which he presumably meant Kea Niven. 

Once the group breaks up, Strike spies Zoe Haig, distraught, impoverished and clearly an Inkheart, judging from her tattoos, and follows her, clearly hoping she will prove as fortuitous a finding as Samhain Athorn. While tailing her, he makes phone contact with Katya Upcott, learns more of Josh's condition (and perhaps more importantly, Katya's unusually close relationship with him) and arranges an interview. Strike makes an interesting observation of Zoe, with her pale face and "Gothic-Victorian" clothing fitting in well with the outline of the Highgate Cemetery graves he can see. Given that Strike has viewed a couple of cartoon episodes by now, one must wonder if he is thinking of the sleeping angel that is the bereft Paperwhite's home. 

A final interesting bit is the "young man with his hood raised" who Strike spies looking at the sobbing Zoe "without compassion." Given that Anomie will soon tweet, "If god meant us to feel sympathetic, why'd he make crying people look so fkn ugly," it is likely that the boy in the hoodie was Gus. If so, it strains credulity that Gus would randomly, in a city of 10 million, stroll by and comment about one of his moderators in the park. So, we must assume he was intentionally tailing the person he knew was Worm28. The question is, why? 

• Was he intentionally checking out what she looked like to decide whether she was worth some Kosh lines, via one of his Twitter aliases?  
• Had he already decided that he had to dispose of three of his moderators, and spying on her to see if she was secretly in cahoots with any of his perceived enemies? 
• Does anyone have any other ideas?

It is also possible this is a red herring. Katya was sobbing on the phone to Strike, so Gus could have been talking about her, and the guy in the hoodie was a random stranger. 

The next moderator chat is most notable for the strong disagreement between Anomie and Morehouse over the continued presence of Vilepechora and LordDrek, and the information that Anomie, like Morehouse, has been sent a picture of Paperwhite, supposedly by accident.  Paperwhite seems unusually friendly to Worm28, which is interesting given Gus's recent spying on Zoe. Anomie orders Hartella to ban "that f*cker Inky 501"  for "asking people what they know about me," which raises the possibility that this user is either one of Yeoman's or Maverick's operatives, or a police spy who got in before Anomie started restricting new gamers. There is an apparent error on page 207 where Anomie suddenly breaks into the main moderators's channel with "not gossiping behind the leader's back, are we?" with no indication he was either present at the start or had joined since.  

Chapter 24: After a morning tailing Fingers. and with plans to go to Bob Bob Ricard's with Ilsa that night, Robin comes to the office for more computer work, and gets a message from Strike helpfully (for her and us) summarizing what Strike learned at his evening at the Red Lion and Sun. On the Twitter account she had created to impersonate an inoffensive Inkheart, Robin encounters the fourth of Anomie's Incel Sock Puppets, Julius @i_am_Evola, who is trying Kosh lines on her. Robin also finds her way to Kea Niven's delusional vlog, where the pathetic young bird-lover apparently thinks she has common-law trademarks on: 

• The idea of a heart existing outside the body.
• First, what does a burning witch legend have to do with a rotting male corpse in a grave?
• Second, is she expecting to hear from Edgar Allen Poe's ghost lawyer?
• Ghosts being pale.
• Talking magpies, in a cartoon where worms and skeletons also talk.
• If she had a time machine, I expect she'd be suing Mel Blanc and Walt Disney.

Furthermore, she seems to be missing the point that Josh, not Edie, saw the picture she claimed was copied. I hesitate to accuse anyone who claims a to have chronic illness of faking, but if her health issues are as exaggerated as her claims of plagiarism, I wouldn't want to be her disability claims attorney. 

Robin is pursuing Kea's tumblir when Pat calls her about another "Gateshead." They really need a new code; given that both arrivals for which they have used it have guessed the meaning immediately. The potential nutter turns out to be...  drumroll... Charlotte Campbell-Ross. And on that cliffhanger, I'll return next week, hopefully back on my Monday-Thursday schedule. 

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