The Ink Black Heart: Chapters 8-15

I'm going to jump through the section in thematic groupings, rather than chapter-by-chapter. I will start off with the Madeline sections:  Chapter 8, Chapter 13 and a bit of Chapter 15.  Chapter 8 gives us a glimpse at Strike's sixth date with Madeline, at a fancy bar and jazz club called Nightjar. While Strike appears to be enjoying himself and giving things a chance, as he puts it, there are some early harbingers of doom in this relationship. 

• This bar, with its jazzy music and froofy drinks, does not seem to be Strike's style at all. He would prefer a beer, and leaves at the first opportunity. 
• The name "Nightjar" refers to a bird with a sinister (though undeserved) reputation. It is nocturnal, and has a odd, insect-like call and is seldom seen, leading to dark associations It was once believed to cause infertility and blindness to goats by sucking milk from their udders at night, and to carry a fatal disease to cattle. It is also called a "corpse bird" and was once believed by some to be the form in which the souls of unbaptized children were doomed to wander the earth for eternity. 
• She doesn't think about feeding him, forcing him to scarf down unhealthy McDonald's meals before meeting her, an indicator this relationship is not going to be a healthy one. 
• She's rude to the waitress. 
• They have little interest in or understanding of each other's professional lives. something that was also true of Charlotte. 
• Strike likes her better once she has some alcohol in her, something that was also true of Charlotte. 
• She has a need to "be seen" by the press and the rich and famous, something that was also true of Charlotte. Strike has a need to avoid that. We'll see later in Chapter 15 that this will be a recurrent problem. 

The visit to her home on Valentine's Eve (Ch. 13) wasn't much more encouraging, with Strike acknowledging to himself that he would rather spend the evening with Robin discussing the Ledwell/Blay knife attacks over a takeaway. Then there's this: 

Strike had arranged for a showy spray of orchids to be delivered to Madeline in the morning and was carrying a card for her in his rucksack. These were the things you did for the woman you were sleeping with if you wanted to keep sleeping with her, and Strike was clearly keen to keep sleeping with Madeline, for reasons both obvious and barely acknowledged. 

This is about as romantic as something you would expect from Michael Fancourt. Nothing about affection for her, let alone love, on what is supposed to be the most romantic of holidays. Contrast this to his later gift of Phyllis the Philodendron to Robin on her move-in day; a more-or-less spontaneous gift of a much cheaper plant, but one with genuine heart-shaped leaves and given for the right reasons: because he cares for her, wants her to have a something nice for her new apartment and and without any ulterior motive or expectation of sex. 

Despite his stated intentions to "give things a chance" Strike seems fully in his restaurants and brothels mode, except, since Mads keeps no decent food in the house, he's missing the restaurant part. 

Ironically for the man who has always fled from the title "Mummy's Boyfriend," the most optimistic aspect of this visit is Strike's interaction with Henry. He actually does well with the teenager, despite all his reservations about anything kid-related. He sets no expectations for any kind of relationship, having lots of empathy for a teenager who has no reason to like any of the men his mom brings home. He's careful to give the kid space and not appear to be making himself at home too much. Most importantly, Henry's knowledge of TIBH cartoon and Wally's Youtube show are pretty darn useful. It is likely that, once the solving of Edie Ledwell's murder hits the news media, Henry will have a good story to tell his buddies. 

It is a bit weird that Strike asks Henry for Wally Cardew's last name, given that he should have seen it when he looked up the reason for his dismissal in the previous chapter. Is this a gaffe, or an early indicator that Strike's memory is not what it once was? 

So, this seems as good a time as any to address the sections that deal with Strike and Robin investigating the history of the cartoon and its toxic fandom, well before they were actually hired to do so. This happens with Strike's two views of Wally's show at Madeline's and Robin's look at the early Josh and Edie video in Chapter 14. 

First, Strike views the "Ink Black Fart" video from summer-fall 2012 (so LW/Olympics time!) which tells him that Wally Cardew has a long-time grudge against Edie and Josh. The live show and the response to the recent murder is a bit more revealing, and the viewer comments are very interesting upon re-reading. We see Kea Niven turn up twice as "ArketheShadow," calling Edie a thief and a liar and saying it's OK to celebrate when bad people die. There's Rachel Ledwell as TheFiend who is furious at the pair for playing her cousin Edie's death for laughs. There's several who we can assume from their handles are Brotherhood or Halvening types (Heimd&II88, TommyEngland14, saxonaxe14, BwahBoy88 and UltimaBro88) as well as known Halvening member Al Gizzard. A sneak preview happens when someone asks if Wally is "f*cking Kea Niven" and there is Anomie's first public claim to have murdered Edie, via his sock puppet Lepine's Disciple. But one interesting comment connection that I hadn't caught before was "RubyLoob" saying "Ledwell was the epitome of white privilege." This is likely the same person as "RubyNooby"-- the 12 year old Tim Ashcroft had tried to groom in 2013, as seen in Chapter 75. This suggests that, two years later, she is a fan of his ideas and website, and possibly much more. 

Wally reminds Strike of one Private Dean Shaw from the Army. I have some ideas that Dean may turn up again; you can read about them here, in a post originally published on Hogwartsprofessor. 

In Ch. 14, Robin first reads news articles about the murder, which gives us one of the most obvious parallels to TIBH's ring-structure echo, The Silkworm, with very similar language as the media used to describe Owen Quine's death. 

Nearly every one of these articles began with by noting the strange irony of Ledwell meeting her death in the cemetery where she and Blay had set the cartoon: "a grotesque symmetry," "an almost unbelievable coincidence", "a horrible end that had all the gothic strangeness of her creation."

The Sunday broadsheets next day strove to find a dignified balance between an objective assessment of Owen Quine's life and work and the macabre, Gothic nature of his death.

Instead of the cartoon, Robin winds up watching the same interview that Wally and MJ had apparently parodied in their 2012 video. It had been filmed in June 2010, shortly after the events of The Cuckoo's Calling concluded. I wonder if part of Robin's tears harkened back to where she was at this time, a 25-year-old, like Edie, completely smitten with her partner and proceeding as if the relationship would last forever. 

Let's turn now to the two moderator chat chapters: 9 and 11, the former a brief look on the day Josh and Edie are supposed to meet, and the latter the moderators' responses to the attack.  In retrospect, the most interesting part of Chapter 9 are 1) Paperwhite's effort to get the location of the meeting out of Hartella 2) Anomie and Paperwhite leaving at about the same time and this exchange between Vilepechora and Hartella:

V: guess who's left the mod channel because they need to be somewhere later?

H: Well, there you are.  As if we needed more proof. 

Of course, Anomie and Paperwhite are heading to the meeting, but not for the reason everyone thinks. 

Morehouse's relative maturity compared to the rest of the moderators really comes through in Chapter 11, as he consoles Worm, suggests closing the game out of respect, is angered by the online party being thrown by fans, and upset at Anomie for celebrating the numbers. They're also what Anomie says to Vile and Drek after Morehouse leaves: "F*ck off then, you little brown dwarf." Is 14 Anomie's favorite number only because he, like other incels, idolizes Marc Lepine, or is he aware of the racist symbolism? Was that remark merely part of his act to befriend Drek and Vile, or does he share their white supremacy? 

Fiendy1's disgust for Anomie's delight at the increased numbers echoes her comment on Wally's show. 

Finally, Anomie's last line seems designed to evoke goosebumps:

A: (to Vile and Drek) So, which of you stabbed Blay and which Ledwell?

V: lol, we thought you did them both, bwah. 

A: I did. Just testing. 

On to more pleasant topics. I really enjoyed the team meeting of Chapter 10. It seems that the agency is really "gelling," (insert Dr. Gupta-style finger-lock here) with sub-contractors Dev, Barclay and Midge and manager Pat all being good fits, and no pesky Morris, Nutley or Littlejohn around to mess things up. If Kim Cochran does join the team in the next book, I hope she's a similar team player. 

One nice bit was Strike swapping Sunday shifts with Robin so she can go view a flat. That flat, of course, turns out to be the one she buys, so both she and Strike will benefit from that before the end of the book. The mood quickly sours, however, with the news of Edie Ledwell's death. 

Chapter 12 picks up after the team meeting, and includes the visit from Ryan Murphy and Angela Darwish. It was sweet to see both Strike and Pat's concern for Robin. As in Career of Evil, we see the police impressed with Robin's observational skills, and, as in Lethal White, Strike suspects that they are being interviewed by an M15 agent that does not reveal their affiliation. And, I remember during my first read, when Murphy was described as having a "sweetness" in his face and "large, warm and dry" hands that shook Robin's, thinking, oh yeah, he's going to ask her out. 

Chapter 15 rounds out with Strike feeling conflicted both about his relationship with Madeline and about getting to know his half-sister Prudence, then gives us an imformation-dump in the form of a news article about the Halvening. We learn about their two M.O.'s for taking out women perceived as too powerful and too liberal: attempted murder by mail bombs and indirect killing via online harassment, and their claim to have dispatched both Edie Ledwell and Madeline's friend Gigi Cazenove through the latter method. And we finish with Strike getting a call from the late Edie's agent.  In other words, this chapter spends a lot of time setting up the rest of the book.

Interesting note: I assume the name Edie is short for Edith, which means "prosperity in strife"-- fitting for a young woman who survived a childhood in foster care and later homelessness to become a wealthy cartoon creator.   

We'll pick up Saturday with Chapters 16-23.  Please tune in!

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