Lethal White

by Galbraith, Robert

  She had both numbers off by heart, and he copied them down before closing his notebook and getting back to his feet.

  ‘You’ve been very helpful, Mrs Winn. Thank you.’

  ‘That sounds worrying,’ she said, with a faint crease between the eyebrows. ‘I’m not sure I meant to be.’

  ‘Will you be—?’

  ‘Perfectly,’ said Della, enunciating over-clearly. ‘You’ll call me when you find Aamir, won’t you?’

  ‘If you don’t hear from me before then, I’ll update you in a week’s time,’ Strike promised. ‘Er – is anyone coming in tonight, or—?’

  ‘I see you aren’t quite as hardened as your reputation would suggest,’ said Della. ‘Don’t worry about me. My neighbour will be in to walk Gwynn for me shortly. She checks the gas dials and so forth.’

  ‘In that case, don’t get up. Good night.’

  The near-white dog raised her head as he walked towards the door, sniffing the air. He left Della sitting in the darkness, a little drunk, with nothing else for company but the picture of the dead daughter she had never seen.

  Closing the front door, Strike couldn’t remember the last time he had felt such a strange mixture of admiration, sympathy and suspicion.

  55

  … let us at least fight with honourable weapons, since it seems we must fight.

  Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

  Matthew, who had supposedly been out just for the morning, still hadn’t come home. He had sent two texts since, one at three in the afternoon:

  Tom got work troubles, wants to talk. Gone to pub with him (I’m on Cokes.) Back as soon as I can.

  And then, at seven o’clock:

  Really sorry, he’s pissed, I can’t leave him. Going to find him a taxi then come back. Hope you’ve eaten. Love you x

  Still with her caller ID switched off, Robin had again phoned Tom’s mobile. He had answered immediately. There was no background babble of a pub.

  ‘Yes?’ said Tom testily and apparently sober, ‘who is this?’

  Robin hung up.

  Two bags were packed and waiting in the hall. She had already phoned Vanessa and asked whether she could stay on her sofa for a couple of nights, before she got a new place to live. She found it strange that Vanessa didn’t sound more surprised, but at the same time, was glad not to have to fend off pity.

  Waiting in the sitting room, watching night fall outside the window, Robin wondered whether she would even have been suspicious had she not found the earring. Lately she had become simply grateful for time without Matthew, when she could relax, not having to hide anything, whether the work she was doing on the Chiswell case or the panic attacks that must be conducted quietly, without fuss, on the bathroom floor.

  Sitting in the stylish armchair belonging to their absent landlord, Robin felt as though she were inhabiting a memory. How often were you aware, while it happened, that you were living an hour that would change the course of your life for ever? She would remember this room for a long time, and she gazed around it now, with the aim of fixing it in her mind, thereby trying to ignore the sadness, the shame and the pain that burned and twisted inside her.

  At just past nine o’clock, she heard, with a wave of nausea, Matthew’s key in the lock and the sound of the door opening.

  ‘Sorry,’ he shouted, before he’d even closed the door, ‘he’s a silly sod, I had a job persuading the taxi driver to take—’

  Robin heard his small exclamation of surprise as he spotted the suitcases. Safe, now, to dial, she pressed the number she had ready on her phone. He walked into the sitting room, puzzled, in time to hear her booking a minicab. She hung up. They looked at each other.

  ‘What’s with the cases?’

  ‘I’m leaving.’

  There was a long silence. Matthew seemed not to understand.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know how to say it any more clearly, Matt.’

  ‘Leaving me?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because,’ said Robin, ‘you’re sleeping with Sarah.’

  She watched Matthew struggling to find words that might save him, but the seconds slid by, and it was too late for real incredulity, for astonished innocence, for genuine incomprehension.

  ‘What?’ he said at last, with a forced laugh.

  ‘Please don’t,’ she said. ‘There’s no point. It’s over.’

  He continued to stand in the doorway of the sitting room and she thought he looked tired, even haggard.

  ‘I was going to go and leave a note,’ said Robin, ‘but that felt too melodramatic. Anyway, there are practical things we need to talk about.’

  She thought she could see him thinking, How did I give it away? Who have you told?

  ‘Listen,’ he said urgently, dropping his sports bag beside him (full, no doubt, of clean, pressed kit), ‘I know things haven’t been good between us, you and me, but it’s you I want, Robin. Don’t throw us away. Please.’

  He walked forwards, dropped into a crouch beside her chair and tried to take her hand. She pulled it away, genuinely astonished.

  ‘You’re sleeping with Sarah,’ she repeated.

  He got up, crossed to the sofa and sat down, dropped his face into his hands and said weakly:

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s been so shit between you and me—’

  ‘—that you had to sleep with your friend’s fiancée?’

  He looked up at that, in sudden panic.

  ‘Have you spoken to Tom? Does he know?’

  Suddenly unable to bear his proximity, she walked away towards the window, full of a contempt she had never felt before.

  ‘Even now, worried about your promotion prospects, Matt?’

  ‘No – fuck – you don’t understand,’ he said. ‘It’s over between me and Sarah.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes! Fuck – this is so fucking ironic – we talked all day. We agreed it couldn’t go on, not after – you and Tom – we’ve just ended it. An hour ago.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Robin, with a little laugh, feeling disembodied, ‘isn’t that ironic?’

  Her mobile rang. Dreamlike, she answered it.

  ‘Robin?’ said Strike. ‘Update. I’ve just seen Della Winn.’

  ‘How did it go?’ she asked, trying to sound steady and bright, determined not to cut the call short. Her working life was now her entire life and Matthew would no longer impinge upon it. Turning her back on her fuming husband, she looked out onto the dark cobbled street.

  ‘Very interesting on two counts,’ said Strike. ‘Firstly, she slipped up. I don’t think Geraint was with Aamir the morning Chiswell died.’

  ‘That is interesting,’ said Robin, forcing herself to concentrate, aware of Matthew watching her.

  ‘I’ve got a number for him and I tried it, but he’s not picking up. I thought I’d see if he’s still at the B&B down the road as I’m in the vicinity, but the owner says he’s moved on.’

  ‘Shame. What was the other interesting thing?’ asked Robin.

  ‘Is that Strike?’ asked Matthew loudly, from behind her. She ignored him.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Strike.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Robin. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, the second interesting thing is that Della met Kinvara last year, who was hysterical because she thought Chiswell—’

  Robin’s mobile was pulled roughly out of her hand. She wheeled around. Matthew ended the call with a stab of his finger.

  ‘How dare you?’ shouted Robin, holding out her hand. ‘Give that back!’

  ‘We’re trying to save our fucking marriage and you’re taking calls from him?’

  ‘I’m not trying to save this marriage! Give me back my phone!’

  He hesitated, then thrust it back at her, only to look outraged when she coolly phoned Strike back again.

  ‘Sorry about that, Cormoran, we got cut off,’ she said, with
Matthew’s wild eyes on her.

  ‘Everything all right there, Robin?’

  ‘It’s fine. What were you saying about Chiswell?’

  ‘That he was having an affair.’

  ‘An affair!’ said Robin, her eyes on Matthew’s. ‘Who with?’

  ‘Christ knows. Have you had any luck getting hold of Raphael? We know he’s not that bothered about protecting his father’s memory. He might tell us.’

  ‘I left a message for him, and for Tegan. Neither of them have called back.’

  ‘OK, well, keep me posted. This all sheds an interesting light on the hammer round the head, though, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Certainly does,’ said Robin.

  ‘That’s me at the Tube. Sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Robin, with what she hoped sounded like workaday impatience. ‘Speak soon.’

  She hung up.

  ‘“Speak soon”,’ Matthew imitated her, in the high-pitched, wispy voice he always used when impersonating women. ‘“Speak later, Cormoran. I’m running out on my marriage so I can be at your beck and call for ever, Cormoran. I don’t mind working for minimum wage, Cormoran, not if I can be your skivvy”.’

  ‘Fuck off, Matt,’ said Robin calmly. ‘Fuck off back to Sarah. The earring she left in our bed is upstairs on my bedside table, by the way.’

  ‘Robin,’ he said, suddenly earnest, ‘we can get through this. If we love each other, we can.’

  ‘Well, the problem with that, Matt,’ said Robin, ‘is that I don’t love you any more.’

  She had always thought the idea of eyes darkening was literary licence, but she saw his light eyes turn black as his pupils dilated in shock.

  ‘You bitch,’ he said quietly.

  She felt a cowardly impulse to lie, to back away from the absolute statement, to protect herself, but something stronger in her held on: the need to tell the unvarnished truth, when she had been lying to him and herself for so long.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t. We should have split up on the honeymoon. I stayed because you were ill. I felt sorry for you. No,’ she corrected herself, determined to do the thing properly, ‘actually, we should never have gone on the honeymoon. I ought to have walked out of the wedding once I knew you’d deleted those calls from Strike.’

  She wanted to check her watch to see when her cab would arrive, but she was scared to take her eyes off her husband. There was something in his expression that recalled a snake peering out from under a rock.

  ‘How do you think your life looks to other people?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘You bailed out on uni. Now you’re bailing out on us. You even bailed on your therapist. You’re a fucking flake. The only thing you haven’t run out on is this stupid job that’s half-killed you, and you got sacked from that. He only took you back because he wants to get into your pants. And he probably can’t get anyone else so cheap.’

  She felt as though he had punched her. Winded, her voice sounded weak.

  ‘Thanks, Matt,’ she said, moving towards the door. ‘Thanks for making this so easy.’

  But he moved quickly to block her exit.

  ‘It was a temping job. He paid you attention, so you kidded yourself that was the career for you, even though it’s the last fucking thing you should’ve been doing, with your history—’

  She was fighting tears now, but determined not to succumb.

  ‘I wanted to do police work for years and years—’

  ‘No, you fucking didn’t!’ jeered Matthew, ‘when did you ever—?’

  ‘I had a life before you!’ Robin shouted. ‘I had a home life where I said things you never heard! I never told you, Matthew, because I knew you’d laugh, like my dickhead brothers! I did psychology hoping it would take me to some kind of forensic—’

  ‘You never said this, you’re trying to justify—’

  ‘I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d sneer—’

  ‘Bullshit—’

  ‘It isn’t bullshit!’ she shouted. ‘I’m telling you the truth, this is the whole truth, and you’re proving my point, you don’t believe me! You liked it when I dropped out of uni—’

  ‘The hell d’you mean?’

  ‘“There’s no hurry to go back”, “you don’t have to have a degree . . . ”’

  ‘Oh, so now I’m being fucking blamed for being sensitive!’

  ‘You liked it, you liked me being stuck at home, why can’t you admit it? Sarah Shadlock at uni and me underachieving back in Masham – it made up for me getting better A-levels than you, getting into my first choice of—’

  ‘Oh!’ he laughed humourlessly, ‘oh, you got better fucking A-levels than me? Yeah, that keeps me up at night—’

  ‘If I hadn’t been raped, we’d have split up years ago!’

  ‘Is this what you learned in therapy? To tell lies about the past, to justify all your bullshit?’

  ‘I learned to tell the truth!’ shouted Robin, driven to the point of brutality. ‘And here’s some more: I was falling out of love with you before the rape! You weren’t interested in anything I was doing – my course, my new friends. All you wanted to know was whether any other blokes were making moves on me. But afterwards, you were so sweet, so kind . . . you seemed like the safest man in the world, the only one I could trust. That’s why I stayed. We wouldn’t be here, now, but for that rape.’

  They both heard the car pull up outside. Robin tried to slide past him into the hall, but he moved to block her again.

  ‘No, you don’t. You’re not getting out of it that bloody easily. You stayed because I was safe? Fuck off. You loved me.’

  ‘I thought I did,’ said Robin, ‘but not any more. Get out of the way. I’m leaving.’

  She tried to sidestep him, but he moved to block her again.

  ‘No,’ he said again, and now he moved forwards, jostling her back into the sitting room. ‘You’re staying here. We’re having this out.’

  The minicab driver rang the doorbell.

  ‘Coming!’ Robin shouted, but Matthew snarled:

  ‘You’re not running away this time, you’re going to stay and sort out your mess—’

  ‘No!’ shouted Robin, as though to a dog. She came to a halt, refusing to be backed further into the room, even though he was so close she could feel his breath on her face, and she was suddenly reminded of Geraint Winn, and was overwhelmed with revulsion. ‘Get away from me. Now!’

  And like a dog Matthew took a step backwards, responding not to the order, but to something in her voice. He was angry, but scared, too.

  ‘Right,’ said Robin. She knew she was on the edge of a panic attack, but she held on, and every second she did not dissolve was giving her strength, and she stood her ground. ‘I’m leaving. You try and stop me, I’ll retaliate. I’ve fought off far bigger, meaner men than you, Matthew. You haven’t even got a bloody knife.’

  She saw his eyes turn blacker than ever, and suddenly she remembered how her brother, Martin, had punched Matthew in the face, at the wedding. No matter what was coming, she vowed, in a kind of dark exhilaration, she’d do better than Martin. She’d break his damn nose if she had to.

  ‘Please,’ he said, his shoulders suddenly sagging, ‘Robin—’

  ‘You’re going to have to hurt me if you want to stop me leaving, but I warn you, I’ll prosecute you for assault if you do. That won’t go down too well at the office, will it?’

  She held his gaze for a few more seconds then walked back towards him, her fists already curling, waiting for him to block or grab her, but he moved aside.

  ‘Robin,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Wait. Seriously, wait, you said there were things we had to discuss—’

  ‘The lawyers can do it,’ she said, reaching the front door and pulling it open.

  The cool night air touched her like a blessing.

  A stocky woman was sitting at the wheel of a Vauxhall Corsa. Seeing Robin’s cases, she got out to help her
hoist them into the boot. Matthew had followed and was now standing in the doorway. As Robin made to get into the car, he called to her and her tears began to fall at last, but without looking at him, she slammed the door.

  ‘Please, let’s go,’ she said thickly, to the driver, as Matthew came down the steps and bent to speak to her through the glass.