Lethal White

by Galbraith, Robert

  She put her arm over her wet eyes in the darkness after he had rolled off her and said all the things you were supposed to say. For the first time, when she said ‘I love you, too’, she knew, beyond doubt, that she was lying.

  Very carefully, once Matthew was asleep, Robin reached out in the darkness for the phone that lay on her bedside table, and checked her texts. There was nothing from Strike. She Googled pictures of the march in Bow and thought she recognised, in the middle of the crowd, a tall man with familiar curly hair, who was wearing a Guy Fawkes mask. Robin turned her mobile face down on the bedside table to shut out its light, and closed her eyes.

  24

  … her ungovernable, wild fits of passion – which she expected me to reciprocate . . .

  Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

  Strike returned to his two attic rooms in Denmark Street six days later, early on Friday morning. Leaning on crutches, his prosthesis in a holdall over his shoulder and his right trouser leg pinned up, his expression tended to repel the sidelong glances of sympathy that passers-by gave him as he swung along the short street to number twenty-four.

  He hadn’t seen a doctor. Lorelei had called her local practice once she and the lavishly tipped cabbie had succeeded in supporting Strike upstairs to her flat, but the GP had asked Strike to come into his surgery for an examination.

  ‘What d’you want me to do, hop there? It’s my hamstring, I can feel it,’ he had snapped down the phone. ‘I know the drill: rest, ice, all that bollocks. I’ve done it before.’

  He had been forced to break his no-consecutive-overnights-at-a-woman’s rule, spending four full days and five nights at Lorelei’s. He now regretted it, but what choice had he had? He had been caught, as Chiswell would have put it, a fronte praecipitium, a tergo lupi. He and Lorelei had been supposed to have dinner on Saturday night. Having chosen to tell her the truth rather than make an excuse not to meet, he had been forced to let her help. Now he wished that he had phoned his old friends Nick and Ilsa, or even Shanker, but it was too late. The damage was done.

  The knowledge that he was being unfair and ungrateful was hardly calculated to improve Strike’s mood as he dragged himself and his holdall up the stairs. In spite of the fact that parts of the sojourn at Lorelei’s flat had been thoroughly enjoyable, all had been ruined by what had happened the previous evening, and it was entirely his own fault. He had let it happen, the thing that he had tried to guard against ever since leaving Charlotte, let it happen because he’d dropped his guard, and accepted mugs of tea, home-cooked meals and gentle affection, until finally, last night in the darkness, she had whispered onto his bare chest, ‘I love you’.

  Grimacing again with the effort of balancing on his crutches as he unlocked his front door, Strike almost fell into his flat. Slamming the door behind him, he dropped the holdall, crossed to the small chair at the Formica table in his kitchen-cum-living room, fell into it and cast his crutches aside. It was a relief to be home and alone, however difficult it was to manage with his leg in this state. He ought to have returned sooner, of course, but being in no condition to tail anyone and in considerable discomfort, it had been easier to remain in a comfortable armchair, his stump resting on a large square pouffe, texting Robin and Barclay instructions while Lorelei fetched him food and drink.

  Strike lit a cigarette and thought back over all the women there had been since he’d left Charlotte. First, Ciara Parker, a gorgeous one-night stand, with no regrets on either side. A few weeks after he had hit the press for solving the Landry case, Ciara had called him. He had become elevated in the model’s mind from casual shag to possible boyfriend material by his newsworthiness, but he had turned down further meetings with her. Girlfriends who wanted to be photographed with him were no good to him in his line of work.

  Next had come Nina, who had worked for a publisher, and whom he had used to get information on a case. He had liked her, but insufficiently, as he looked back on it, to treat her with common consideration. He had hurt Nina’s feelings. He wasn’t proud of it, but it hardly kept him up at nights.

  Elin had been different, beautiful and, best of all, convenient, which was why he’d hung around. She had been in the process of divorcing a wealthy man and her need for discretion and compartmentalisation had been at least as great as his own. They had managed a few months together before he’d spilled wine all over her, and walked out of the restaurant where they were having dinner. He had called her afterwards to apologise and she had dumped him before he finished the sentence. Given that he had left her humiliated in Le Gavroche with a hefty dry-cleaning bill, he felt that it would have been in poor taste to respond with ‘that’s what I was going to say next’.

  After Elin there had been Coco, on whom he preferred not to dwell, and now there was Lorelei. He liked her better than any of the others, which was why he was sorry that it had been she who said ‘I love you’.

  Strike had made a vow to himself two years previously, and he made very few vows, because he trusted himself to keep them. Having never said ‘I love you’ to any woman but Charlotte, he would not say it to another unless he knew, beyond reasonable doubt, that he wanted to stay with that woman and make a life with her. It would make a mockery of what he’d been through with Charlotte if he said it under circumstances any less serious. Only love could have justified the havoc they had lived together, or the many times he had resumed the relationship, even while he knew in his soul that it couldn’t work. Love, to Strike, was pain and grief sought, accepted, endured. It was not in Lorelei’s bedroom, with the cowgirls on the curtains.

  And so he had said nothing after her whispered declaration, and then, when she’d asked whether he’d heard her, he’d said, ‘Yeah, I did.’

  Strike reached for his cigarettes. Yeah, I did. Well, that had been honest, as far as it went. There was nothing wrong with his hearing. After that, there’d been a fairly lengthy silence, then Lorelei had got out of bed and gone to the bathroom and stayed there for thirty minutes. Strike assumed that she’d gone there to cry, though she’d been kind enough to do it quietly, so that he couldn’t hear her. He had lain in bed, wondering what he could say to her that was both kind and truthful, but he knew that nothing short of ‘I love you, too’ would be acceptable, and the fact was that he didn’t love her, and he wasn’t going to lie.

  When she came back to bed, he had reached out for her in the bed. She’d let him stroke her shoulder for a while, then told him she was tired and needed some sleep.

  What was I supposed to fucking do? he demanded of an imaginary female inquisitor who strongly resembled his sister, Lucy.

  You could try not accepting tea and blow jobs, came the snide response, to which Strike, with his stump throbbing, answered, fuck you.

  His mobile rang. He had sellotaped up the shattered screen, and through this distorted carapace he saw an unknown number.

  ‘Strike.’

  ‘Hi, Strike, Culpepper here.’

  Dominic Culpepper, who had worked for the News of the World until its closure, had previously put work Strike’s way. Relations between them, never personally warm, had become slightly antagonistic when Strike had refused Culpepper the inside story on his two most recent murder cases. Now working for the Sun, Culpepper had been one of those journalists who had most enthusiastically raked over Strike’s personal life in the aftermath of the Shacklewell Ripper arrest.

  ‘Wondered if you were free to do a job for us,’ said Culpepper.

  You’ve got a fucking nerve.

  ‘What kind of thing’re you after?’

  ‘Digging up dirt on a government minister.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘You’ll know if you take the job.’

  ‘I’m pretty stretched just now. What kind of dirt are we talking?’

  ‘That’s what we need you to find out.’

  ‘How do you know there’s dirt there?’

  ‘A well-placed source,’ said Culpepper.

  ‘Why do you ne
ed me if there’s a well-placed source?’

  ‘He’s not ready to talk. He just hinted that there are beans to be spilled. Lots of them.’

  ‘Sorry, can’t do it, Culpepper,’ said Strike. ‘I’m booked solid.’

  ‘Sure? We’re paying good money, Strike.’

  ‘I’m not doing too badly these days,’ said the detective, lighting a second cigarette from the tip of his first.

  ‘No, I’ll bet you aren’t, you jammy bastard,’ said Culpepper. ‘All right, it’ll have to be Patterson. D’you know him?’

  ‘The ex-Met guy? Run across him a couple of times,’ said Strike.

  The call finished with mutually insincere good wishes, leaving Strike with an increased feeling of foreboding. He Googled Culpepper’s name and found his byline on a story about the Level Playing Field from two weeks previously.

  Of course, it was possible that more than one government minister was currently in danger of being exposed by the Sun for an offence against public taste or morals, but the fact that Culpepper had recently been in close proximity with the Winns strongly suggested Robin had been right in suspecting Geraint of tipping off the Sun, and that it was Chiswell whom Patterson would shortly be investigating.

  Strike wondered whether Culpepper knew that he, Strike, was already working for Chiswell, whether his call had been designed to startle information out of the detective, but it seemed unlikely. The newspaperman would have been very stupid to tell Strike whom he was about to hire, if he was aware that Strike was already in the minister’s pay.

  Strike knew of Mitch Patterson by reputation: they had twice been hired by different halves of divorcing couples in the last year. Previously a senior officer in the Metropolitan Police who had ‘taken early retirement’, Patterson was prematurely silver-haired and had the face of an angry pug. Though personally unpleasant, or so Eric Wardle had told Strike, Patterson was a man who ‘got results’.

  ‘Course, he won’t be able to kick the shit out of people in his new career,’ Wardle had commented, ‘so that’s one useful tool in his arsenal gone.’

  Strike didn’t much relish the thought that Patterson would shortly be on the case. Picking up his mobile again, he noted that neither Robin nor Barclay had called in an update within the last twelve hours. Only the previous day, he had had to reassure Chiswell, who had called to express his doubts about Robin, given her lack of results thus far.

  Frustrated by his employees and his own incapacity, Strike texted Robin and Barclay the same message:

  Sun just tried to hire me to investigate Chiswell. Call with update asap. Need useable info NOW.

  Pulling his crutches back towards him, he got up to examine the contents of his fridge and kitchen cupboards, discovering that he would be eating nothing but tinned soup for the next four meals unless he made a trip to the supermarket. After pouring spoiled milk down the sink, he made himself a mug of black tea and returned to the Formica table, where he lit a third cigarette and contemplated, without pleasure, the prospect of doing his hamstring stretches.

  His phone rang again. Seeing that it was Lucy, he let it go to voicemail. The last thing he needed right now was updates on the school board’s last meeting.

  A few minutes after that, when Strike was in the bathroom, she called back. He had hopped back into the kitchen with his trousers at half-mast, in the hope that it was either Robin or Barclay. When he saw his sister’s number for a second time, he merely swore loudly and returned to the bathroom.

  The third call told him that she was not about to give up. Slamming down the can of soup he had been opening, Strike swept up the mobile.

  ‘Lucy, I’m busy, what is it?’ he said testily.

  ‘It’s Barclay.’

  ‘Ah, about time. Any news?’

  ‘A bit on Jimmy’s bird, if that helps. Flick.’

  ‘It all helps,’ said Strike. ‘Why didn’t you let me know earlier?’

  ‘Only found out ten minutes ago,’ said Barclay, unfazed. ‘I’ve just heard her tellin’ Jimmy in the kitchen. She’s been bumpin’ money from her work.’

  ‘What work?’

  ‘Didnae tell me. Trouble is, Jimmy’s no that keen on her, from whut I’ve seen. I’m no sure he’d care if she got nicked.’

  A distracting beeping sounded in Strike’s ear. Another caller was trying to get him. Glancing at the phone, he saw that it was Lucy again.

  ‘Tell ye somethin’ else I got out o’ him, though,’ said Barclay. ‘Last night, when he was stoned. He said he knew a government minister who had blood on his hands.’

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  ‘Strike? Ye there?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m here.’

  Strike had never told Barclay about Billy’s story.

  ‘What exactly did he say, Barclay?’

  ‘He was ramblin’ on about the government, the Tories, whut a bunch o’ bastards they are. Then, out o’ nowhere, he says “and fuckin’ killers”. I says, what d’ye mean? An’ he says, “I know one who’s got blood on his fuckin’ hands. Kids.”’

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  ‘Mind you, they’re a bunch o’ bampots, CORE. He might be talkin’ about benefit cuts. That’s as good as murder to this lot. Not that I think too much of Chiswell’s politics meself, Strike.’

  ‘Seen any sign of Billy? Jimmy’s brother?’

  ‘Nothin’. Naebody’s mentioned him, neither.’

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  ‘And no sign of Jimmy nipping off to Oxfordshire?’

  ‘Not on my watch.’

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  ‘All right,’ said Strike. ‘Keep digging. Let me know if you get anything.’

  He rang off, jabbed at his phone’s screen and brought up Lucy’s call, instead.

  ‘Lucy, hi,’ he said impatiently. ‘Bit busy now, can I—?’

  But as she began to talk, his expression became blank. Before she had finished gasping out the reason for her call, he had grabbed his door keys and was scrabbling for his crutches.

  25

  We shall try if we cannot make you powerless to do any harm.

  Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

  Strike’s text requesting an update reached Robin at ten to nine, as she arrived in the corridor where Izzy and Winn’s offices lay. So keen was she to see what he had to say that she stopped dead in the middle of the deserted passage to read it.

  ‘Oh shit,’ she murmured, reading that the Sun was becoming ever more interested in Chiswell. Leaning up against the wall of the corridor with its curved stone jambs, every oak door shut, she braced herself to call Strike back.

  They had not spoken since she had refused to tail Jimmy. When she had phoned him on Monday to apologise directly, Lorelei had answered.

  ‘Oh, hi, Robin, it’s me!’

  One of the awful things about Lorelei was that she was likeable. For reasons Robin preferred not to explore, she would have much preferred Lorelei to be unpleasant.

  ‘He’s in the shower, sorry! He’s been here all weekend, he did his knee in following somebody. He won’t tell me the details, but I suppose you know! He had to call me from the street, it was dreadful, he couldn’t stand up. I got a cabbie to take me there and paid him to help me get Corm upstairs. He can’t wear the prosthesis, he’s on crutches . . . ’

  ‘Just tell him I was checking in,’ said Robin, her stomach like ice. ‘Nothing important.’

  Robin had replayed the conversation several times in her head since. There had been an unmistakably proprietorial note in Lorelei’s voice as she talked about Strike. It had been Lorelei whom he had called when he was in trouble (well, of course it was. What was he going to do, call you in Oxfordshire?), Lorelei in whose flat he had spent the rest of the weekend (they’re dating, where else was he going to go?), Lorelei who was looking after him, consoling him and, perhaps, uniting with him in abuse of Robin, without whom this injury might not have happened.

  And now she had to call Strike and tell him that, five days on
, she had no useful information. Winn’s office, which had been so conveniently accessible when she had started work two weeks ago, was now carefully locked up whenever Geraint and Aamir had to leave it. Robin was sure that this was Aamir’s doing, that he had become suspicious of her after the incidents of the dropped bangle, and of Raphael calling loud attention to her eavesdropping on Aamir’s phone call.

  ‘Post.’