Filed to story: The Ink Black Heart Read Online Free (PDF/ePuB) >>
Thou shalt have fame! – Oh, mockery! give the reed
From storms a shelter – give the drooping vine
Something round which its tendrils may entwine –
Give the parch’d flower a rain-drop, and the meed
Of love’s kind words to woman! Worthless fame!
Felicia Hemans
Properzia Rossi
The last Friday afternoon in January found Robin sitting alone at the partners’ desk in the agency’s small office in Denmark Street, killing time before setting out to view a flat in Acton by reviewing the Groomer file. There was a lot of noise in the street outside: comprehensive building work continued to cause disruption around Charing Cross Road, and all journeys to and from the office meant walking over planks, past pneumatic drills and the catcalls of builders. In consequence of the racket outside, the first intimation Robin had that a prospective client had just walked in off the street wasn’t the sound of the glass outer door opening, but the phone on the desk ringing.
On answering, she heard Pat’s baritone.
‘Message from Mr Strike. Would you be free to visit Gateshead this Saturday?’
This was code. Since last year’s successful resolution of a cold case, which had earned the agency another flurry of flattering press coverage, two would-be clients of pronounced eccentricity had walked in off the street. The first, a clearly mentally ill woman, had begged Barclay, the only detective present at the time, to help her prove the government was watching her through the air vent of her flat in Gateshead. The second, a heavily tattooed man who seemed slightly manic, had become threatening to Pat when she’d told him there were no detectives available to take down the details of his neighbour who, he was convinced, was part of an ISIS cell. Fortunately, Strike had walked in just as the man had picked up Pat’s stapler, with the apparent aim of throwing it at her. Since then, Strike had insisted that Pat keep the outside door locked when she was alone in the office, and they’d all agreed on a code which meant, in essence, ‘I’ve got a nutter here.’
‘Threatening?’ said Robin quietly, flicking the Groomer file closed.
‘Oh, no,’ said Pat calmly.
‘Mentally ill?’
‘Maybe a bit.’
‘Male?’
‘No.’
‘Have you asked her to leave?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does she want to talk to Strike?’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘All right, Pat, I’ll have a word with her. Coming out now.’
Robin hung up the phone, put the Groomer file back in the drawer and headed for the outer office.
A young woman with untidy brown shoulder-length hair was sitting on the sofa opposite Pat’s desk. Robin was immediately struck by several oddities in the woman’s appearance. The overall impression she gave was of scruffiness, even grubbiness: she was wearing old ankle boots that needed re-heeling, slapdash eyeliner which looked as though it might have been applied the day before and a shirt so deeply creased it could have been slept in. However, unless it was a fake, the Yves Saint Laurent handbag sitting on the sofa beside her would have cost over a thousand pounds and her long black wool coat looked brand new and of high quality. When she saw Robin, the woman caught her breath in a little gasp, and before Robin could say anything, said,
‘Please don’t chuck me out. Please. I really, really need to talk to you. Please.’
Robin hesitated, then said,
‘OK, come through. Pat, could you tell Strike I’m fine to go to Gateshead?’
‘Hmm,’ said Pat. ‘I’d have refused, personally.’
Robin stood back to let the young woman pass into the inner office, then mouthed at Pat ‘twenty minutes’.
As Robin closed the inner-office door, she noticed that the back of the woman’s hair was a little matted, as if it hadn’t been brushed in days, but the label standing up out of the back of her coat declared it to have come from Alexander McQueen.
‘Was that some sort of code?’ she said, turning to face Robin. ‘That stuff about Gateshead?’
‘No, of course not,’ lied Robin with a reassuring smile. ‘Have a seat.’
Robin sat down behind the desk and the woman, who looked around her own age, took the chair facing her. In spite of the unbrushed hair, the badly applied make-up and the pinched expression, she was attractive in an offbeat way. Her square face was pale, her mouth generous and her eyes a striking shade of amber. Judging by her accent, she was London-born. Robin noticed a small, blurry tattoo on one of the woman’s knuckles: a black heart that looked as though she might have inked it herself. Her fingernails were bitten to the quick and the index and middle fingers of her right hand were stained yellow. Taken all in all, the stranger gave the impression of somebody down on their luck who’d just fled a rich woman’s house, stealing her coat and bag as she went.
‘I don’t suppose I can smoke?’ she said.
‘I’m afraid not, we’re a non-smoking—’
”S’all right,’ said the woman. ‘I’ve got gum.’
She ferreted around in her handbag, first taking out a brown cardboard folder full of papers. As she was trying to pop a piece of gum out of its pack while balancing the bag on her knee and keeping a grip on the folder, the papers inside slid out and scattered all over the floor. From what Robin could see, they were a mixture of printed-out tweets and handwritten notes.
‘Shit, sorry,’ said the woman breathlessly, scooping up the fallen papers and ramming them back into the folder. Having stuffed it back into her bag and put a piece of gum into her mouth, she sat upright again, now even more dishevelled, her coat bundled untidily around her and her bag clutched defensively on her lap as though it was a pet that might flee.
‘You’re Robin Ellacott, right?’
‘Yes,’ said Robin.
‘I was hoping for you, I read about you in the paper,’ said the woman. Robin was surprised. Clients usually wanted Strike. ‘My name’s Edie Ledwell. That woman outside said you haven’t got any room for more clients—’
‘I’m afraid that’s—’
‘I knew you must be really in demand, but – I can pay,’ she said, and her voice carried an odd undertone of surprise. ‘I really can pay, I can afford it, and I’m – to be perfectly honest, I’m desperate.’
‘We are very booked up, I’m afraid,’ Robin began. ‘We’ve got a waiting—’
‘Please can I just tell you what it’s about? Can I just do that? Please? And then, maybe, even if you can’t actually – actually do it – you can give me some advice about how to – or tell me someone who could help? Please?’
‘All right,’ said Robin, whose curiosity was piqued.
‘OK, so – have you heard of The Ink Black Heart?’
‘Er – yes,’ said Robin, surprised. Her cousin Katie had mentioned the cartoon one night at dinner in Zermatt. Katie had watched The Ink Black Heart while on maternity leave and become fascinated by it, though she’d seemed unsure whether it was funny or simply strange. ‘It’s on Netflix, isn’t it? I’ve never actually watched it.’
‘OK, well, that doesn’t really matter,’ said Edie. ‘The point is, I co-created it with my ex-boyfriend and it’s a success, or whatever’ – Edie sounded strangely tense as she said the word – ‘and there might be a film deal, but that’s only relevant because – well, it’s not relevant to what I need investigating, but I just need you to know that I can pay.’
Before Robin could say anything, more words tumbled out.
‘So, two fans of our cartoon, this is a few years ago now – I suppose you’d call them fans, in the beginning, anyway – these two fans created an online game based on our characters.
‘Nobody knows who the two people who made the game are. They call themselves Anomie and Morehouse. Anomie gets most of the credit and he’s the one who’s got the big following online. Some people say Anomie and Morehouse are the same person, but I don’t know whether that’s true.
‘Anyway, Anomie’ – she took a deep breath – ‘he – I’m sure it’s a “he” – he’s made it his mission to – to—’
She suddenly laughed, a laugh totally without humour: she might as well have cried out in pain.
‘—to make my life as unbearable as he can. It’s like – it’s a daily – he never lets up, it never stops.
‘It started when Josh and I gave an interview and they asked us whether we’d seen Anomie’s game and whether we liked it. And – this is hard to explain – there’s a character called Drek in the cartoon, right? I actually really fucking wish there wasn’t a character called Drek in the cartoon, but it’s too late for that now. Anyway, in our cartoon, Drek makes the other characters play a game and he’s always inventing new rules and it always ends badly for everyone except Drek. His game isn’t really a game at all, there’s no logic to it, it’s just him messing around with the other characters.
‘So we were asked in this interview whether we’d seen Anomie and Morehouse’s game and I said yes, but that the game in our cartoon isn’t really a game at all. It’s more of a metaphor – I’m sorry, this must all sound so stupid, but that’s where it started, right, with me saying Anomie’s game wasn’t really the same as Drek’s game in the cartoon.
‘Anyway, Anomie went ballistic when the interview went online. He started attacking me non-stop. He said they’d taken all the rules of their game directly from Drek’s rules, so what the fuck was I doing, claiming it wasn’t accurate? And tons of the fans agreed with him, saying I was throwing shade on the game because it was free and I wanted to shut it down so I could make an official Drek game and profit off it.
‘I thought it would blow over, but it’s just got worse and worse. You can’t – it’s escalated beyond – Anomie posted a picture of my flat online. He’s convinced people I worked as a prostitute when I was broke. He sent me pictures of my dead mother, claiming I told lies about her death. And the fandom believes all of it, and they attack me for stuff I’ve never done, never said, things I don’t believe.
‘But he also knows true things about me, things he shouldn’t.
‘Last year,’ said Edie, and Robin could see her fingers trembling on the handles of the expensive bag, ‘I tried to kill myself.’
‘I’m so—’ Robin began, but Edie made a gesture of impatience: she evidently didn’t want sympathy.
‘Hardly anyone knew I’d done it, but Anomie did before there was any news coverage; he even knew which hospital I was in. He tweeted about it, saying it was all a put-up job, done to make the fans feel sorry for me.
‘Anyway, last Sunday,’ said Edie, her voice now shaking, ‘Josh – he’s the guy I created The Ink Black Heart with – like I say, we used to be… we were together but we broke up, but we still do the cartoon together – Josh called me and said a rumour’s going round that I’m Anomie, that I’m attacking myself online and making up lies about myself, all for attention and sympathy. I said, “Who’s saying that?” and he wouldn’t tell me, he just said, “That’s what I’m hearing.” And he said he wanted me to tell him directly it wasn’t true.
‘I said, “How can you even think, for a second, that that could be fucking true?”’
Edie’s voice had risen to a shout.
‘I hung up on him, but he called again, and we rowed again, and it’s been two weeks or something and he still fucking believes it, and I can’t convince him—’
There was a knock on the door.
‘Hello?’ called Robin.
‘Anyone like coffee?’ said Pat, opening the door a crack and looking from Robin to Edie. Robin knew Pat wanted to check that everything was all right, having heard Edie’s raised voice.
‘I’m good, thanks, Pat,’ said Robin. ‘Edie?’
‘I – no, thanks,’ said Edie, and Pat closed the door again.
‘So the day before yesterday,’ Edie resumed, ‘Josh and I spoke on the phone again and this time he said he’s got a dossier of “evidence”’ – Edie sketched quotation marks in mid-air – ‘proving I’m really Anomie.’
‘Is that the—?’ began Robin, pointing at the bag on Edie’s lap containing the cardboard folder.
‘No, this is just the stuff Anomie’s tweeted at me – I don’t think this supposed fucking dossier of Josh’s even exists. I said to him, “Where did it come from?” And he wouldn’t tell me. He was stoned,’ said Edie, ‘he smokes a lot of weed. I hung up again.
‘I spent all day yesterday just, like, pacing up and down and… What fucking proof can he have that proves I’m Anomie? It’s just fucking ridiculous!’
Her voice rose again and cracked. Tears now spilled out from the amber eyes; in wiping them away Edie smeared her eyeliner into broad grey streaks across her cheeks and temples. ‘My boyfriend was at work and I was just – I was feeling so fucking desperate, and then I thought, there’s only one way I can stop this. I’ve got to prove who Anomie is. Because I think I know.
‘His name’s Seb Montgomery. He was at art school with Josh. Josh got chucked out but he and Seb stayed friends. Seb helped us animate the first couple of episodes of The Ink Black Heart. He’s a good animator, but we didn’t need him as we went on, and I know he resented it once we started getting a big following, and he blamed me. It’s true I never liked him much, but I didn’t pressure Josh into dropping him, we just didn’t need him any more.
‘Seb and Josh are still friends, and Josh will tell anyone anything, he hasn’t got any kind of filter, especially when he’s pissed or stoned, which he mostly is, which is how Seb would know all the personal stuff Anomie knows about me, but what proves it’s Seb,’ said Edie, her knuckles now white on the handle of her bag, ‘is that Anomie knows something I only ever told Seb. You see, there’s this other character in the cartoon…’
Even though Robin felt genuinely sympathetic towards her uninvited guest, she glanced discreetly at her watch. The minutes were sliding by and Robin had a flat in Acton to see.
‘… called Paperwhite, she’s a ghost, and she’s caused a whole lot of fucking trouble, too – but that’s beside the – what’s relevant is, I told Seb in the pub one night that I based bits of Paperwhite’s character on my ex-flatmate. And a month ago, Anomie tweeted that, naming the flatmate.
‘I called Seb. I said to him, “Who have you told about Paperwhite and Shereece?” And he pretended he couldn’t even remember me telling him.
‘He’s lying. I know Seb’s Anomie, I know he is and I need to prove it, I’ve got to, I can’t keep on like this. Six months ago,’ Edie pressed on as Robin opened her mouth to interrupt again, ‘I joined the game myself, to look at it from the inside. It does look beautiful; whoever animated it is definitely talented, but it isn’t that good as an actual game – it’s really more of an animated chatroom. Loads of fans go in there just to slag me off, from what I can see. I tried asking the other players who Anomie was, and if they knew anything about him. Somebody must have told him I was asking too many questions, because I got banned.
‘I hardly slept last night, and I woke up this morning and just thought, I’ve got to do something about it, because I can’t carry on like this. I need a professional investigator, which is why—’
‘Edie,’ said Robin, breaking across her at last, ‘I totally understand why you want to find out who Anomie is, and I sympathise, but—’
‘Please,’ said Edie, who seemed to shrink inside her bulky coat at Robin’s tone. ‘Please help me. I’ll pay anything at this point.’
‘We don’t do work of the kind that might be needed here,’ Robin finished, truthfully. ‘I think you need somebody who specialises in cyber-investigation, which we’ve never really done. And we haven’t got—’
‘You can’t imagine what it’s like, wondering who it is, wondering who hates me this much. The way he talks… he likes Josh, but he hates me. I think he sees himself as the true – I don’t know – I think he believes he should be in total control of The Ink Black Heart, to decide the storylines and make stipulations to the film company and cast all the voice actors – that’s how he goes on, as though he should be in charge, and I’m just some inconvenient… some inconvenient parasite that got accidentally attached to the thing he loves.’
‘Listen,’ said Robin gently, ‘I’m going to give you the names of two other agencies that might be able to help, because I don’t think we’re the right fit for you.’
Robin wrote the names down for Edie and passed her the note.
‘Thank you,’ said Edie in a small voice, the paper trembling as she looked down at the names of the agencies Robin had given her. ‘I wish… I kind of wanted it to be you, but I suppose if you can’t…’
She thrust the piece of paper into her bag, and Robin resisted the urge to tell her not to lose it, which seemed only too likely. Noticing Robin looking at the bag, Edie raised it off her lap slightly.
‘I’ve only had it a month,’ she said, and turning it around she showed Robin several black stains across the dark red leather. ‘My pen exploded. I’m shit at keeping things nice. I bought it because I told myself I deserved it because we’re a success… Ha ha ha,’ she said bitterly. ‘Big fat success.’
She got to her feet, clutching her bag, and Robin rose too. The harsh office light emphasised Edie’s pallor, and as Robin moved towards her to open the door, she realised that what she’d thought was dirt or make-up on Edie’s neck was in fact bruising.
‘What happened to your neck?’
‘What?’ said Edie.
‘Your neck,’ said Robin, pointing. ‘It’s bruised.’
‘Oh.’
Edie raised a hand to where Robin had noticed the bruising.
‘That’s nothing. I’m clumsy. As you might have noticed.’
Pat looked round as Robin and Edie entered the outer office.
‘Is there a loo I could use?’ asked Edie, her voice constricted.
‘On the landing, just outside the door,’ said Robin.
‘Right. Well… bye, then.’
The glass door opened and closed, and Edie Ledwell disappeared.