The Silkworm Chapters 41-43: Busywork, Cheeky Monkey, Edna the Great and the Groucho Club, and why we should expect Catullus in The Hallmarked Man.

Chapter 41 is relatively brief, but we get a lot of personal reflection from Strike. After his revelation at the River Cafe, and with the knowledge of Charlotte's imminent wedding looming over him, he goes a bit stir-crazy, busying himself with pointless tasks. After a fruitless visit to Kath Kent's flat and call to Jerry Waldegrave, he holes up in the Tottenham, with Charlotte never far from his mind. He imagines her prepping for the wedding, waiting and hoping for him to stop it, but sticks to his resolution to let her "continue towards the prison of her own choosing: he would not call, he would not text." Instead, he does everything he can think of that might help free Leonora from the prison she did not choose. 

In the midst of this brooding, he has one of his flashes of insight where he seems to understand Robin's dilemma with Matthew better than she does herself, and better than he understands his own obsession with Charlotte.  

You and Matthew...Strike could see it even if she could not: the condition of being with Matthew was not to be herself.

 Robin is in the midst of a reverse-alchemical process that begins with her giddiness over her engagement at the start of CC and ends in the disastrous and mock-alchemical wedding at the end of CoE.  Ironically, as we learn in the start of the next chapter, Robin is, at this moment, having the conversation with Matthew that she thinks is going to fix everything; she's telling him about her longtime ambition to be an investigator. He agrees to support her. Unfortunately, like his agreeing in CC that it was her choice whether to stay with Strike, and his helping her rehearse her case for returning to work in CoE, it means nothing; as soon as they are married he'll be right back to complaining about her job and her salary. Because he's a Flobberworm. But I digress. 

Strike's emotional intelligence about Robin's love life does not stop Strike from making mistakes about his own. Once he learns that Charlotte has become Mrs. Jago Ross, he makes his first convenient use of a woman as a "restaurant and brothel"--or at least a brothel--as he makes plans to go sleep with Nina again, rather than spend the night alone. He'll ghost her shortly thereafter. 

The next day, Strike decides to drive Robin a bit crazy by leaving her the "Know who killed Quine" note before heading out to buy the world's most annoying toys for his nephews and Timothy Anstis. Robin is distracted by the picture of Charlotte as a distraught bride, "her eyes staring straight into Robin's as though they alone were friends," --  ironic, since Robin will be equally miserable at her own wedding barely six months later. There's that wonderfully awkward moment when Robin is embarrassed over viewing the picture.  Incidentally, the line "'Just delete it,' he said. He sounded neither sad nor angry, but firm." is missing from my print copy, though it is in the audiobook. Does anyone know if that was a later addition, a la Mia Thompson?

Strike explains his hypothesis about whodunnit, and asks her to go with him to see Orlando, so, with Robin still quite skeptical of the idea, they set off for Edna's. He also has another job that involves plastic gloves and something disgusting.

Honestly, I think Edna Nextdoor is one of the unsung heroes of the series. Not only has she been Leonora's only friend for years, a job that probably can be pretty challenging at times, she has taken on the hard job of caring for Orlando, without any indication of how long that job will last. She "talked nonstop in the pent-up fashion of the stressed and lonely, " saying,  "Don't get me wrong, I don't mind having her, poor lamb but...  But how long for?"  You can feel her anguish and dread; she understands that, if Leonora is convicted, she, Edna, is going to face the heart-wrenching decision of either committing the rest of her life to being Orlando's permanent caregiver or turning her over to some sort of institutional care. That can't be an easy choice to for a woman as kind-hearted as Edna to face, having watched Leonora devote her entire existence to Orlando for 20+years. 

Fortunately, Robin is able to forge exactly the kind of rapport with Orlando that Strike knew was needed, and her pajama case has exactly what Strike hoped it would have in it. In fact, it has almost everything they need except a note saying, "I did it. Signed, Liz."

One hint we get abut Quine is the postcard that comes out of Cheeky Monkey, signed with two XX's by someone calling her (presumed) self "V." Is this another woman he has on the side, or just an eager student?  We know he was telling Kath Kent he was going to leave his wife for her, while, at the same time, telling Leonora he'd never do such a thing. It's not a stretch to think Kath Kent was his only side piece. 

Moving onto the Fancourt interview, which is great fun. It is always great to see Strike get the best of someone who thinks himself intellectually superior. The Groucho club itself has an interesting history, founded in 1985 by a group largely composed of women publishers.  Its name comes from the quotation attributed to Groucho Marx, about how he would never want to be a part of a club that would accept him as a member. I was also able to find what I think is a picture of the Damien Hirst spot painting that "hung right behind [Fancourt's] overlarge head, like a neon halo." Damien Hirst, if you recall, is the same person that carved the dissected angel statue of which Daniel Chard has a replica. Ring theory fans, take note; we had an angel in chapter 29 with the publisher and now a halo in chapter 42 with the writer. I guess neither Chard nor the Club wanted a formaldehyde-preserved sheep around. But, I think the fact that this is the second mention we've had of a Damien Hirst piece of art is supposed to be an echo to Owen Quine himself, another artist who some may think of as a genius, but who others characterize as just gross, worthy of attention only for the shock value. 

A detail about Liz Tassel that is easy to miss. We knew her father was a vet, but Fancourt tells us she used to "castrate bulls and the like." Not only does this fit her reputation for ruthlessness in the publishing industry, it also tells us she has some surgical expertise. We also learn, if Fancourt is to be believed here, that Tassel was "insanely jealous" of Elsbeth. 

But Strike's best moment is when he one-ups Fancourt with a perfect Latin quotation from Catullus, one that depicts Quine's death nearly as well as Bombyx Mori. 

So that's how you crept up on me, an acid eating away

My guts, stole from me everything I most treasure?

Yes, alas, stole: grim poison in my blood

The plague, alas, of the friendship we once shared.

One has to wonder if Mr. Galbraith was inspired directly by this quotation when he fashioned the scene at Talgarth Road. 

We can add Catullus to the list of leap-frog predicted elements in Strike 8, as he has now turned up in books 2, 4 and 6, here quoted by Strike and by Chiswell in Lethal White.  In TIBH, we find out how Strike both learned Latin and learned to use it to take educated snobs down a peg or two, as he does so effectively here.  Other elements that Books 2, 4 and 6 have in common that might pop up in The Hallmarked Man: 

• Strike's leg gives out, forcing him to use crutches.  
• Detectives find a dead body, in the victim's secondary residence (Quine, Chiswell, Vikas). 
• Strike dines in ultra-masculine restaurant with unpleasant man connected to the case. 

Comments welcome!  Though some find it easier on the Substack version of this blog.  We are in the home stretch!  I'll be posting the reading schedule for Lethal White soon.