The Ink Black Heart, Chapters 58-64: Was Edie originally killed on the Sleeping Angel?

Part four begins with a moderators' conversation that is especially interesting to re-read.  Morehouse is calling Paperwhite, fairly panicked because of his fears that Anomie has disposed of Vilepechora and that Vilepechora was not joking about Anomie using Bitcon to buy a taser and machete to kill Edie and Josh. I would love to know what was going through Gus's head at this; I doubt he was expecting Vikas to make the connection. Vikas could certainly have acted on his suspicions and contacted the authorities without consulting his online girlfriend, and then Gus would have been in quite a pickle. How fast did he have to think to have "Paperwhite" fear for her safety, and get Morehouse to agree to the wait and see approach?

Interesting that Paperwhite's suggestion that Morehouse "keep him sweet" is the same phrase Jasper Chiswell used about Geraint Winn in regard to his charity trustees. 

It is a little surprising to me that Strike was not more proactive when he realized the injured man was likely Halvening member  Algiz/ @Gizzard_Al. At the very least, I would have expected him to call Robin and warn her they both might be targets as soon as her name was released. He also could have alerted Murphy and possibly gotten help from him (and MI5's Angela Darwish) to prevent her name from being released at all. It might not have helped, but what did he have to lose?

He certainly would have had no problem interrupting his date with Madeline to make that call; it is clear that the relationship is not going to bounce back from the row in the jewelry shop. He should be at the point where he realizes that, as his imaginary interrogator said in LW, it's time to stop accepting "tea and blow jobs," but then Maddie turns up with that coffee.... and a bit more. 

As angry as Mads got when she found out Strike was staying with Robin after the bombing, what do you think would have happened if she found out he made up the story of a broken wrist to get away from her (even before he heard that Robin was attempting her house move alone) and then wound up spending the afternoon and evening at Robin's? It might have saved him the trouble of breaking up with her. 

As for Strike turning up at the move: this scene typically ranks in serious Striker's top favorites. It is a wonderful echo to Robin turning up at the hospital in LW.

• Both have one partner showing up when the other least expects it, at a moment when both are having a stressful day and worried about a hospitalized family member. 
• Both react with relief and tears, as the other arrives to offer support and sustenance (Robin brings tea, Strike sandwiches).
• Both have romantic relationships that are on a downward spiral and will be over in a matter of weeks.  
• Strike accidentally gives a token of love in both: the inadvertent lip-kiss in LW and the philodendron in TIBH.  I doubt the man who shunned the "Shaggable You" named perfumes intentionally bought something nicknamed the "Sweetheart Plant." 

There is an interesting time jump here. Strike appears to leave Madeline's house fairly early in the day; he was getting dressed when Dev called and even if their morning "lie-in" took a while, it is unlikely to be much past noon. Robin doesn't get away from the storage unit until late: it is 4:30 when her mother calls her while she's driving to her new apartment, so she likely arrived at 5 or so.  It seemed Strike had several hours to kill before she showed up.  Just how long did he hang out by her building with the sandwiches and plant? 

Once again, we see the contrast between Madeline and Robin reflected in the plant gifts they receive from Strike. Mads' orchids were a gift of obligation, and are showy, delicate and hard to maintain. The leaf-shape of Robin's plant indicates it is a gift from the heart, and it is hearty, well-rooted and low-maintenance. As we'll see in the next book, not even Ryan Murphy can kill it.  I hope by the time they get married, Phyllis will have grown enough to contribute a few leaves of greenery to Robin's wedding bouquet. 

With all the swooning over Strike's thoughtful gesture, it is easy to miss the progress they make on the case during their evening together. Robin finds out that Anomie has kicked Vilepechora and Lord Drek out of the game, and Strike deduces that not only is Vilepechora Oliver Peach but that Lord Drek is likely his brother Charlie and the wearer of what must be a fairly distinctive corduroy jacket that he saw on the recruiter at the Ship and Shovel. Again, it surprises me that Strike is concerned enough to check out the security at Robin's new flat, but doesn't explicitly warn Robin (or, apparently, anyone else in the agency?) that they might now be a Halvening target. 

I see that Papa Peach offered a 100K pound reward for "any information relating to the attacker" of his son.  I certainly hope the Strike and Ellacott Detective Agency collected that. That would certainly help fulfull their wish for a healthy enough bank balance to see them through the lean times. Will the met tell them of the role Strike and Robin played in securing the mass Halvening arrest, including the two Peach sons?  

Funny-in-retrospect line #1: 

Strike (trying to remember who used the term "bugged" recently: It was a bloke on Twitter. Lepine's Disciple.

Robin: Oh, him. He's vile. 

No, Robin, he's Anomie.  Algernon Gizzard is Vile. 

Chapter 61 cuts to another three-way moderators' chat, where 1) Hartella confesses her indiscretion to Anomie and the blackmail begins; 2) Anomie suggests Buffypaws as a moderator to Morehouse and 3) Paperwhite concocts another loyalty test for Morehouse by suggesting they take their suspicions about Anomie to the Strike and Ellacott detective agency. One note:  Anomie did not need Hartella to tell him about Robin's identity; he apparently had deduced it already, as Hartella's confession, where she misstates Robin's name as "Elcott," is happening concurrently with Paperwhite's talk with Morehouse, when Gus states the name correctly. He would not have had time to look them up and read about their past solved murders while chatting with two different people under different identities. 

Funny-in-retrospect line #2:

Morehouse: lol, just happy Vilepechora and Lord Drek are gone, bwah. did you tell them why or just slice their legs out from under them when they were least expecting it?

Anomie: lol bit of both

Gus could have been a bit more specific here, since he did the former to Lord Drek and the latter to Vilepechora. 

Anomie's blackmail pays off quickly, as Gus Upcott is incorrectly ruled out as an Anomie suspect in the next chapter.  Anomie also reveals the insider secret that Maverick films doesn't want The Ink Black Heart cartoon to have an ink black heart as its main character. I cannot help but think this is the author's dig at Scholastic Books, who, despite the popularity of the first Harry Potter volume in the UK, insisted that the titular Philosopher's Stone be re-christened "Sorcerer's Stone." Harty is clearly the most beloved character in the cartoon, and Big Media doesn't think he'd appeal to a wider audience. Sigh. 

We get a little comic relief before the heart-tugging visit with Josh Blay in the hospital in the form of Katya and Kea's near-fisticuffs in the parking lot, and Kea's "Oh God no! Not him!" at the sight of Strike. Also amusing is Robin's non-too-subtle double-back to retrieve Kea's letter from the bin, and Flavia's instant realization about what Robin has done. This is even more meaningful upon re-read, once we've learned that what Flavia really wants them to do is to retrieve a very different letter, from Edie's grave. 

Speaking of Flavia, we learn part of the reason for Inigo's hostility to her from Josh: Flavia uncovered his extra-marital affair by spying lipstick on a glass in the kitchen. I didn't realize until this re-read that the affair, according to Josh, was 3-4 years ago, meaning Flavia was only 8 or 9 at the time. This means her observation was likely completely innocent; she would have been too young to conclude that her father was cheating. This 1) makes Inigo seem even more cruel (if that's possible!) and 2) is more evidence that the kid is a natural detective.  If there's a years-later epilogue to the series, I hope Flavia is working as one of their most trusted subcontractors, with lots of dogs at home to snuggle up with after a hard day's work. Perhaps she'll even name one Wolfgang. 

A lot has already been written about Strike's non-touchy-feely approach to the touchy-feely needs of another disabled man, so on this re-read I focused more on the case-relevant information our heroes glean from the conversation. See this earlier post for details on Josh's neurological condition and why I think Katya's over-involvement in his caretaking may not be in his best interest. 

We learn again that Kea is either delusional or lying when she claimed Josh "more-or-less" confirmed her charges of plagiarism; he claims that the only bit of information he got from her was that magpies can talk, a detail that is neither copyrightable or particularly necessary in a cartoon that already features talking hearts, worms and skeletons. 

I spied one potential error that I hadn't seen before. When Josh is describing his attack, he specifies exactly where they were to meet:

In a patch of graves where you're not s'posed to go. It's off the path and some of the tombs are unstable. Near a grave Edie always liked. It's got a pelican on it. Be'hind there. You couldn' see us from the paths on either side. There's a bit of an 'ollow.

Josh says that on the way to this pelican grave he passed, "A big guy, bending over a grave. He must have worked there." Yet, Strike asks him later: 

The big guy you passed, bending over the grave, as you were heading towards the sleeping angel. Was he bald?

Josh has never mentioned the sleeping angel grave, nor has anyone in the book to date, though Robin will see this grave and recognize it as the cartoon Paperwhite's when she tours Highgate. Having toured the place myself in 2023, I can vouch for the fact that the pelican grave is well off the path; the picture above is the closest shot I could get, even with my camera zoomed to max. The sleeping angel grave, in contrast, is right on the path. My guess is, in an earlier draft, Edie's body was originally planned to be placed near, or perhaps even on the sleeping angel itself, since she, like Josh, was stabbed in the back and presumably found face down. This seems like the kind of dramatic flourish Gus would like. At some point,  Mr. Galbraith decided it would make more sense to place Edie's body near the pelican grave instead. There are three possible reasons for this: 

1. The motherless and abandoned Edie would find the pelican's sacrificial maternal imagery especially meaningful. 
2. It made more sense to have Edie's body better hidden, so it would be found after Josh's. 
3. The author wanted to prevent over-enthusiastic Strike fans from disrupting tours by posing as the corpse or, worse, draping themselves over the angel on the inevitable fan pilgrimages to Highgate that the book would no doubt inspire. 

If there are any readers out there with a later edition paperback, could you check the last page of Chapter 63 and see if the sleeping angel part has been corrected? If so, I'll add it to the list. 

Strike's meet-up with Uncle Grunt is an entertaining way of dumping a good bit of information on us and on Strike. For yet another even-numbered book common theme, the setting is an overly masculine place, like the one Waldegrave chose in Book 2 and Chiswell chose in Book 4. So, an exceptionally testosterone-laden eatery should be on the list as a prediction for The Hallmarked Man. Perhaps most interesting (and a bit lost in the news that the Ledwells are also getting "dig up Edie" calls) is Grant's belief that Josh was trying to oust Edie from the cartoon and Rachel's insistence on coming to the funeral. Unlike with Zoe, I didn't catch on immediately that Rachel was another one of the moderators. 

Oh, and Pez Pierce earns a few brownie points when we learn he chased pedophile Tim Ashcroft away from our beloved Flavia at Edie's wake. 

Tune in next Tuesday for a look at a particularly explosive development. Also, Robin visits Highgate and snogs Pez Pierce. 

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