The Ink Black Heart: Chapters 44-50. The one with all the companion animals.

This section begins with a bittersweet look at the circle of life as we join Robin in first grieving with Max as they say good-bye to Wolfgang,  then rejoicing with Ilsa over the pregnancy she has finally decided will stick around and which she has finally decided to share with Nick. 

This section also includes two very important out-of-town interviews: Robin's with ex-Worm, actor and pedophile Tim Ashcroft and Strike's with Spoonie Kea Niven. What I found fascinating about both interviews are the oblique references to the killer. First, Ashcroft reports inspiration for a character in a recent play from a young man who could only be Gus Upcott:

I actually based some of the character on one of the kids who used to hang around North Garden... you know that kind of hunched-up "don't look at me" teenagers get when they're growing into their bodies?...He had really bad acne, this kid,  and he always looked like he was trying to make himself look as small as possible.

Remarkable, Ashcroft's insight into the character also applies to the real Gus Upcott:

He's--well, he's pure evil, really, but in the play you go back and see him bullied and denigrated and..."

"Bullied and denigrated" sounds like life with father Inigo, does it not? This might be one of the few glimmers of sympathy for Gus that we see in this novel. 

In the Maid's Head pub, Kea tells Strike about a young man she met at North Grove who "totally agreed the place is strange."  While Strike asks about this person, Kea is unable to remember his name:

I don't know who he was-- he was outside it one time and we got talking, that's it. 

She later describes her encounter with Anomie online, who started off using Kosh lines on her, but then became aggressive when she first saw through them, then declined to send him nudes. Kea assumed that Anomie's "Actually, we've met" indicated that Anomie was Pez Pierce; looking back, it is clear that this nameless guy who had one brief conversation with Kea, then assumed he was entitled to a relationship with her, was Gus. 

Another point I caught in this re-read was yet another connection to Lethal White. Strike expressed surprise that Sara Niven let her cockatoo fly freely around the house; his remark was very similar in tone to Robin's surprise that Kinvara Chiswell put stallions together in the same pasture. Later, Kea says that her mother is "stupid a.f. with that bird. She sets, like, no boundaries."  Strike would certainly agree with that assessment after Ozzie slices his temple open. This also sounds a lot like the way Izzy Chiswell described her stepmother's horse-rearing:

Bloody uncontrollable, bad-mannered, hot-blooded horses that she mollycoddles and keeps as child substitutes and spends all the money on!

Later, there is another echo of Kea to the Chiswells: for both Kinvara and Kea, an uncharacteristic period of happiness because of a reunion with a former lover provides a clue for the detectives  Recall Robin's conversation with Raff:

Tegan told us that one day Kinvara was manically happy again and she lied when asked why...We think the real reason was that you'd resumed the affair with her. 

Similarly Strike had "noticed a six month period between November 2013 and May 2014 during which Kea's online output had become suddenly and uncharacteristically cheerful" and correctly concluded this was when she had resumed her relationship with Josh.

The leapfrogs continue:  and recall that we are expecting leapfrogging echoes between TIBH and THM. Will our heros encounter a bad-tempered Clysdale on the car-less Sark Island, where horse-drawn carts are a major means of transportation? Or will a woman's atypical joy upon reuniting with a lover be another clue? 

A few other points of note:

• Anomie seeks out a private chat with Buffypaws for the first time on election night. We already know he is planning to dispose of Vilepechora, given the drunken promise to Morehouse that he mistakenly sends to Robin. Could he already be scoping her out as a replacement moderator? He is the one who suggests her after the Peach brothers are gone.
• As inconvenient as Strike's incapacity is, the information he gleaned from his internet searches probably did the team more good than watching one of their many Anomie suspects and hoping to get lucky with Anomie entering the game or tweeting at the right moment. 
• When Robin has her long chat with Paperwhite while observing Gus Upcott in Fischer's, she is, for the second time, watching a person with whom she is simultaneously interacting in Drek's Game. The first time was her first night at North Grove, and she picked up on the encounter. This time, not knowing Anomie is Paperwhite, she misses it.
• I do wonder if Robin's characteristic tact and kindness (pretending to have missed Anomie's drunken text on election night, sympathizing with Paperwhite over her difficulties with Morehouse) contributed to Anomie's decision to offer her a moderator's spot. If so, it was probably because Gus thought a kind woman would be easier to manipulate.
• In addition to the echoes back to Book 4, we also have two sneak peeks into Book 7 here:
• First, Strike mentions that he and Robin would be Baby Herbert's godparents. Book 7 will open with the christening celebration.
• Second, Strike muses about the Norfolk commune of his childhood on his drive to meet Kea, and sincerely hopes it no longer exists. Book 7 will tell us that, oops, yes it does still exist; moreover, the evil forged in the original Forgeman Farm has evolved into the far worse "Chapman* Farm" cult of Jonathan Wace, where Papa J sells not just stuffed turtles, corn dollies and self-serving theology, but also human infants. 

* Chapman means "merchant" 

On Tuesday: Madeline shows her true colors, and Vader and Venetia hit Comicon. 

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