Kea Niven is Josh Blay’s ex-girlfriend. She claims Josh and Edie Ledwell stole her ideas for The Ink Black Heart cartoon.

We first come across Kea (@realPaperwhite) when Robin sees one of her Twitter replies to Anomie, saying Edie is “violently racist and ableist.” In another tweet, Kea claims that all her ideas are going to Netflix to make a ton of money for Edie Ledwell. Kea’s Twitter bio is “Spoonie – CFS – POTs – fibromyalgia – she/they. Yes, I was named after a parrot. What of it?”

She is described as being very pretty with a heart-shaped face, long black hair that tumbles over her shoulders, and wide brown eyes that are enormous (probably because of the photo filter). In a photo on Twitter, she is pouting slightly and has scarlet lips. When Robin watches a YouTube video of her, her lips are described as “cupid’s bow lips.” She uses a walking stick.

Kea’s pinned tweet is a link to a YouTube video in which she explains how Edie and Josh stole her ideas for The Ink Black Heart cartoon. In the video, we learn Kea is a student at St Martin’s art school (she shows her student ID). Kea and Josh dated when he was at St Martin’s, and she claims she told him about Margaret Read’s heart bursting out of her chest and that magpies can learn to talk.

Strike manages to interview Kea after turning up at her mother Sara’s house in King’s Lynn, despite a voicemail from Sara saying Kea was too ill. On Strike’s arrival, Kea runs out the back door, but is later persuaded by Sara over the phone to meet Strike in the Maids Head on the Tuesday Market Place. During the interview, Strike suspects Kea might be exaggerating her symptoms in front of him; she holds onto the table and claims she’s suffering from bad vertigo; she tells Strike to walk in front of her because she’s so slow (despite just walking all the way from her mother’s house); she refuses the offer of a drink, because she “can’t keep anything down.”

In the interview, Kea sticks to her plagiarism claims that Edie stole her ideas for the cartoon. Strike also asks her about her relationship with Josh and, at the end of the interview, asks about her relationship with Wally Cardew, who she started sleeping with after Josh broke up with her the first time.

When Strike and Robin first arrive at the hospital to interview Josh Blay, Kea and Sara are arguing with Katya about visiting Josh. Kea and Sara had driven from King’s Lynn to see him. Katya turns them down, but agrees to take a letter from Kea to Josh. She chucks it in a bin inside the hospital, shortly retrieved by Robin.

For a large portion of the book, Kea is Robin’s main suspect for Anomie.