Lethal White

by Galbraith, Robert

  Strike said nothing.

  ‘Well, goodbye,’ said Chiswell, appearing to come out of a melancholy trance. He offered his sweaty hand once more, which Strike shook, then strode away, bundled up in the thick coat that was so inappropriate on this fine June day.

  Strike proceeded up St James’s Street in the opposite direction, pulling out his mobile as he went. Robin picked up on the third ring.

  ‘Need to meet you,’ said Strike without preamble. ‘We’ve got a new job, a big one.’

  ‘Damn!’ she said. ‘I’m in Harley Street. I didn’t want to bother you, knowing you were with Chiswell, but Andy’s wife broke her wrist falling off a stepladder. I said I’d cover Dodgy while Andy takes her to hospital.’

  ‘Shit. Where’s Barclay?’

  ‘Still on Webster.’

  ‘Is Dodgy in his consulting room?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ll risk it,’ said Strike. ‘He usually goes straight home on Fridays. This is urgent. I need to tell you about it face to face. Can you meet me in the Red Lion in Duke of York Street?’

  Having refused all alcohol during his meal with Chiswell, Strike fancied a pint rather than returning to the office. If he had stuck out in his suit at the White Horse in East Ham, he was perfectly dressed for Mayfair, and two minutes later he entered the Red Lion in Duke of York Street, a snug Victorian pub whose brass fittings and etched glass reminded him of the Tottenham. Taking a pint of London Pride off to a corner table, he looked up Della Winn and her husband on his phone and began reading an article about the forthcoming Paralympics, in which Della was extensively quoted.

  ‘Hi,’ said Robin, twenty-five minutes later, dropping her bag onto the seat opposite him.

  ‘Want a drink?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ said Robin. ‘Well?’ she said, rejoining him a couple of minutes later, holding an orange juice. Strike smiled at her barely contained impatience. ‘What was it all about? What did Chiswell want?’

  The pub, which comprised only a horseshoe space around a single bar, was already tightly packed with smartly dressed men and women, who had started their weekend early or, like Strike and Robin, were finishing work over a drink. Lowering his voice, Strike told her what had passed between him and Chiswell.

  ‘Oh,’ said Robin blankly, when at last Strike had finished filling her in. ‘So we’re . . . we’re going to try and get dirt on Della Winn?’

  ‘On her husband,’ Strike corrected her, ‘and Chiswell prefers the phrase “bargaining chips”.’

  Robin said nothing, but sipped her orange juice.

  ‘Blackmail’s illegal, Robin,’ said Strike, correctly reading her uneasy expression. ‘Knight’s trying to screw forty grand out of Chiswell and Winn wants to force him out of his job.’

  ‘So he’s going to blackmail them back and we’re going to help him do it?’

  ‘We get dirt on people every day,’ said Strike roughly. ‘It’s a bit late to start getting a conscience about it.’

  He took a long pull on his pint, annoyed not only by her attitude, but by the fact that he had let his resentment show. She lived with her husband in a desirable sash-windowed house in Albury Street, while he remained in two draughty rooms, from which he might soon be ejected by the redevelopment of the street. The agency had never before been offered a job that gave three people full employment, possibly for months. Strike was not about to apologise for being keen to take it. He was tired, after years of graft, of being plunged back into the red whenever the agency hit a lean patch. He had ambitions for his business that couldn’t be achieved without building up a far healthier bank balance. Nevertheless, he felt compelled to defend his position.

  ‘We’re like lawyers, Robin. We’re on the client’s side.’

  ‘You turned down that investment banker the other day, who wanted to find out where his wife—’

  ‘—because it was bloody obvious he’d do her harm if he found her.’

  ‘Well,’ said Robin, a challenging look in her eye, ‘what if the thing they’ve found out about Chiswell—’

  But before she could finish her sentence, a tall man in deep conversation with a colleague walked straight into Robin’s chair, flinging her forward into the table and knocking over her orange juice.

  ‘Oi!’ barked Strike, as Robin tried to wipe the juice off her sopping dress. ‘Fancy apologising?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said the man in a drawl, eyeing the juice-soaked Robin as several people turned to stare. ‘Did I do that?’

  ‘Yes, you bloody did,’ said Strike, heaving himself up and moving around the table. ‘And that’s not an apology!’

  ‘Cormoran!’ said Robin warningly.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry,’ said the man, as though making an enormous concession, but taking in Strike’s size, his regret seemed to become more sincere. ‘Seriously, I do apol—’

  ‘Bugger off,’ snarled Strike. ‘Swap seats,’ he said to Robin. ‘Then if some other clumsy tosser walks by they’ll get me, not you.’

  Half-embarrassed, half-touched, she picked up her handbag, which was also soaked, and did as he had requested. Strike returned to the table clutching a fistful of paper napkins, which he handed to her.

  ‘Thanks.’

  It was difficult to maintain a combative stance given that he was voluntarily sitting in a chair covered in orange juice to spare her. Still dabbing off the juice, Robin leaned in and said quietly:

  ‘You know what I’m worried about. The thing Billy said.’

  The thin cotton dress was sticking to her everywhere: Strike kept his gaze resolutely on her eyes.

  ‘I asked Chiswell about that.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Of course I did. What else was I going to think, when he said he was being blackmailed by Billy’s brother?’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘He said he had no deaths on his hands, but “one cannot be held accountable for unintended consequences”.’

  ‘What on earth does that mean?’

  ‘I asked. He gave me the hypothetical example of a man dropping a mint, on which a small child later choked to death.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine. Billy hasn’t called back, I suppose?’

  Robin shook her head.

  ‘Look, the overwhelming probability is Billy’s delusional,’ said Strike. ‘When I told Chiswell what Billy had said, I didn’t get any sense of guilt or fear . . . ’

  As he said it, he remembered the shadow that had passed over Chiswell’s face, and the impression he had received that the story was not, to Chiswell, entirely new.

  ‘So what are they blackmailing Chiswell about?’ asked Robin.

  ‘Search me,’ said Strike. ‘He said it happened six years ago, which doesn’t fit with Billy’s story, because he wouldn’t have been a little kid six years ago. Chiswell said some people would think what he did was immoral, but it wasn’t illegal. He seemed to be suggesting that it wasn’t against the law when he did it, but is now.’

  Strike suppressed a yawn. Beer and the heat of the afternoon were making him drowsy. He was due at Lorelei’s later.

  ‘So you trust him?’ Robin asked.

  ‘Do I trust Chiswell?’ Strike wondered aloud, his eyes on the extravagantly engraved mirror behind Robin. ‘If I had to bet on it, I’d say he was being truthful with me today because he’s desperate. Do I think he’s generally trustworthy? Probably no more than anyone else.’

  ‘You didn’t like him, did you?’ asked Robin, incredulously. ‘I’ve been reading about him.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Pro-hanging, anti-immigration, voted against increasing maternity leave—’

  She didn’t notice Strike’s involuntary glance down her figure as she continued:

  ‘—banged on about family values, then left his wife for a journalist—’

  ‘All right, I wouldn’t choose him for a drinking buddy, but there’s something slightly pitiable about him. He�
��s lost one son, the other one’s just killed a woman—’

  ‘Well, yes, there you are,’ said Robin. ‘He advocates locking up petty criminals and throwing away the key, then his son runs over someone’s mother and he pulls out all the stops to get him a short sen—’

  She broke off suddenly as a loud female voice said: ‘Robin! How lovely!’

  Sarah Shadlock had entered the pub with two men.

  ‘Oh God,’ muttered Robin, before she could help herself, then, more loudly, ‘Sarah, hi!’

  She would have given much to avoid this encounter. Sarah would be delighted to tell Matthew that she had found Robin and Strike having a tête-à-tête in a Mayfair pub, when she herself had told Matthew by phone only an hour ago that she was alone in Harley Street.

  Sarah insisted on wiggling around the table to embrace Robin, something the latter was sure she would not have done had she not been with men.

  ‘Darling, what’s happened to you? You’re all sticky!’

  She was just a little posher here, in Mayfair, than anywhere else Robin had met her, and several degrees warmer to Robin.

  ‘Nothing,’ muttered Robin. ‘Spilled orange juice, that’s all.’

  ‘Cormoran!’ said Sarah blithely, swooping in for a kiss on his cheek. Strike, Robin was pleased to note, sat impassive and did not respond. ‘Bit of R and R?’ said Sarah, embracing them both in her knowing smile.

  ‘Work,’ said Strike bluntly.

  Receiving no encouragement to stay, Sarah moved along the bar, taking her colleagues with her.

  ‘I forgot Christie’s is round the corner,’ muttered Robin.

  Strike checked his watch. He didn’t want to have to wear his suit to Lorelei’s, and indeed, it was now stained with orange juice from having taken Robin’s seat.

  ‘We need to talk about how we’re going to do this job, because it starts tomorrow.’

  ‘OK,’ said Robin with some trepidation, because it had been a long time since she had worked a weekend. Matthew had got used to her coming home.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Strike, apparently reading her mind, ‘I won’t need you till Monday.

  ‘The job’s going to take three people at a minimum. I reckon we’ve already got enough on Webster to keep the client happy, so we’ll put Andy full time on Dodgy Doc, let the two waiting-list clients know we’re not going to be able to do them this month and Barclay can come in with us on the Chiswell case.

  ‘On Monday, you’re going into the House of Commons.’

  ‘I’m what?’ said Robin, startled.

  ‘You’re going to go in as Chiswell’s goddaughter, who’s interested in a career in Parliament, and get started on Geraint, who runs Della’s constituency office at the other end of the corridor to Chiswell’s. Chat him up . . . ’

  He took a swig of beer, frowning at her over the top of the glass.

  ‘What?’ said Robin, unsure what was coming.

  ‘How d’you feel,’ said Strike, so quietly that she had to lean in to hear him, ‘about breaking the law?’

  ‘Well, I tend to be opposed to it,’ said Robin, unsure whether to be amused or worried. ‘That’s sort of why I wanted to do investigative work.’

  ‘And if the law’s a bit of a grey area, and we can’t get the information any other way? Bearing in mind that Winn’s definitely breaking the law, trying to blackmail a Minister of the Crown out of his job?’

  ‘Are you talking about bugging Winn’s office?’

  ‘Right in one,’ said Strike. Correctly reading her dubious expression, he went on. ‘Listen, by Chiswell’s account, Winn’s a slapdash loudmouth, which is why he’s stuck in the constituency office and kept well away from his wife’s work at the Department for Sport. Apparently he leaves his office door open most of the time, shouts about constituents’ confidential affairs and leaves private papers lying around in the communal kitchen. There’s a good chance you’ll be able to inveigle indiscretions out of him without needing the bug, but I don’t think we can count on it.’

  Robin swilled the last of her orange juice in her glass, deliberating, then said:

  ‘All right, I’ll do it.’

  ‘Sure?’ said Strike. ‘OK, well you won’t be able to take devices in, because you’ll have to go through a metal detector. I’ve said I’m going to get a handful to Chiswell tomorrow. He’ll pass them to you once you’re inside.

  ‘You’ll need a cover name. Text it to me when you’ve thought of one so I can let Chiswell know. You could use “Venetia Hall” again, actually. Chiswell’s the kind of bloke who’d have a goddaughter called Venetia.’

  ‘Venetia’ was Robin’s middle name, but Robin was too full of apprehension and excitement to care that Strike, from his smirk, continued to find it amusing.

  ‘You’re going to have to work a disguise as well,’ said Strike. ‘Nothing major, but Chiswell remembered what you look like from the Ripper coverage, so we’ve got to assume Winn might, too.’

  ‘It’ll be too hot for a wig,’ she said. ‘I might try coloured contact lenses. I could go and buy some now. Maybe some plain-lensed glasses on top.’ A smile she could not suppress surfaced again. ‘The House of Commons!’ she repeated excitedly.

  Robin’s excited grin faded as Sarah Shadlock’s white-blonde head intruded on the periphery of her vision, on the other side of the bar. Sarah had just repositioned herself to keep Robin and Strike in her sights.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Robin said to Strike.

  As they walked back towards the Tube, Strike explained that Barclay would be tailing Jimmy Knight.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ said Strike regretfully. ‘I’ve blown my cover with him and his CORE mates.’

  ‘So what will you be up to?’

  ‘Plug gaps, follow up leads, cover nights if we need them,’ said Strike.

  ‘Poor Lorelei,’ said Robin.

  It had slipped out before she could stop herself. Increasingly heavy traffic was rolling past, and when Strike did not answer, Robin hoped that he hadn’t heard her.

  ‘Did Chiswell mention his son who died in Iraq?’ she asked, rather like a person hastily coughing to hide a laugh that has already escaped them.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘Freddie was clearly his favourite child, which doesn’t say much for his judgement.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Freddie Chiswell was a prize shit. I investigated a lot of Killed in Actions, and I never had so many people ask me whether the dead officer had been shot in the back by his own men.’

  Robin looked shocked.

  ‘De mortuis nil nisi bonum?’ asked Strike.

  Robin had learned quite a lot of Latin, working with Strike.

  ‘Well,’ she said quietly, for the first time finding some pity in her heart for Jasper Chiswell, ‘you can’t expect his father to speak ill of him.’

  They parted at the top of the street, Robin to shop for coloured contact lenses, Strike heading for the Tube.

  He felt unusually cheerful after the conversation with Robin: as they contemplated this challenging job, the familiar contours of their friendship had suddenly resurfaced. He had liked her excitement at the prospect of entering the House of Commons; liked being the one who had offered the chance. He had even enjoyed the way she stress-tested his assumptions about Chiswell’s story.

  On the point of entering the station, Strike turned suddenly aside, infuriating the irate businessman who had been walking six inches in his wake. Tutting furiously, the man barely avoided a collision and strode off huffily into the Underground while the indifferent Strike leaned up against the sun-soaked wall, enjoying the sensation of heat permeating his suit jacket as he phoned Detective Inspector Eric Wardle.

  Strike had told Robin the truth. He didn’t believe that Chiswell had ever strangled a child, yet there had been something undeniably odd about his reaction to Billy’s story. Thanks to the minister’s revelation that the Knight family had lived in proximity to his family home, Strike now knew that Bill
y had been a ‘little kid’ in Oxfordshire. The first logical step in assuaging his continued unease about that pink blanket was to find out whether any children in the area had disappeared a couple of decades ago, and never been found.

  11

  … let us stifle all memories in our sense of freedom, in joy, in passion.

  Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

  Lorelei Bevan lived in an eclectically furnished flat over her thriving vintage clothes store in Camden. Strike arrived that night at half past seven, a bottle of Pinot Noir in one hand and his mobile clamped to his ear with the other. Lorelei opened the door, smiled good-naturedly at the familiar sight of him on the phone, kissed him on the mouth, relieved him of his wine and returned to the kitchen, from which a welcome smell of Pad Thai was issuing.