Lethal White

by Galbraith, Robert

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ he muttered, pain shooting up into his groin every time he put his weight onto the prosthesis as he drew closer to the assembled sports fans and royal watchers. He could see no placards or banners of a political nature, but as he joined the back of the crowd and looked down Cleveland Row, he spotted a press pen and ranks of photographers, which stood waiting for the prince and famous athletes. It was only when a car slid past, containing a glossy-haired brunette Strike vaguely recognised from the television, that he remembered he had not called Lorelei to tell her he would be late to dinner. He hastily dialled her number.

  ‘Hi, Corm.’

  She sounded apprehensive. He guessed that she thought he was going to cancel.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, his eyes still darting around for some sign of Jimmy. ‘I’m really sorry, but something’s come up. I might be late.’

  ‘Oh, that’s fine,’ she said, and he could tell that she was relieved that he was still intending to come. ‘Shall I try and change the booking?’

  ‘Yeah – maybe make it eight instead of seven?’

  Turning for the third time to scan Pall Mall behind him, Strike spotted Flick’s tomato-red hair. Eight CORE members were heading for the crowd, including a stringy, blond-dreadlocked youth and a short, thickset man who resembled a bouncer. Flick was the only woman. All bar Jimmy were holding placards with the broken Olympic rings on them, and slogans such as ‘Fair Play Is Fair Pay’ and ‘Homes Not Bombs’. Jimmy was holding his own placard upside down, the picture on it turned inwards, parallel with his leg.

  ‘Lorelei, I’ve got to go. Speak later.’

  Uniformed police were walking around the perimeter fencing keeping the crowds back, walkie-talkies in hand, eyes roving constantly over the cheerful spectators. They, too, had spotted CORE, who were trying to reach a spot opposite the press pen.

  Gritting his teeth, Strike began to forge a path through the pressing crowd, eyes on Jimmy.

  30

  There is no denying it would have been more fortunate if we had succeeded in checking the stream at an earlier point.

  Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

  Slightly self-conscious in her clinging green dress and heels, Robin attracted a considerable number of appreciative glances from male passers-by as she climbed out of her taxi at the entrance to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. As she reached the doorway, she saw approaching from fifty yards away Izzy, who was wearing bright orange, and Kinvara, in what appeared to be the slinky black dress and heavy diamond necklace that she had worn in the photograph that Robin had seen of her online.

  Acutely anxious about what was happening with Jimmy and Strike, Robin nevertheless registered that Kinvara appeared to be upset. Izzy rolled her eyes at Robin as they approached. Kinvara gave Robin a pointed up-and-down look that suggested she found the green dress inappropriate, if not indecent.

  ‘We were supposed,’ said a booming male voice in Robin’s near vicinity, ‘to be meeting here.’

  Jasper Chiswell had just emerged from the building, carrying three engraved invitations, one of which he held out to Robin.

  ‘Yes, I know that now, Jasper, thank you,’ said Kinvara, puffing slightly as she approached. ‘Very sorry for getting it wrong again. Nobody bothered to check I knew what the arrangements were.’

  Passers-by stared at Chiswell, finding him vaguely familiar with his chimney-brush hair. Robin saw a suited man nudge his companion and point. A sleek black Mercedes drew up at the kerb. The chauffeur got out; Kinvara walked around the back of the car to sit behind him. Izzy wriggled over into the middle of the back seat, leaving Robin to take the back seat directly behind Chiswell.

  The car pulled away from the kerb, the atmosphere inside unpleasant. Robin turned her head to watch the after-work drinkers and evening shoppers, wondering whether Strike had found Knight yet, scared of what might happen when he did, and wishing she could spirit the car directly to Lancaster House.

  ‘You haven’t invited Raphael, then?’ Kinvara shot at the back of her husband’s head.

  ‘No,’ said Chiswell. ‘He angled for an invitation, but that will be because he’s smitten with Venetia.’

  Robin felt her face flood with colour.

  ‘Venetia seems to have quite the fan base,’ said Kinvara tersely.

  ‘Going to have a little chat with Raphael tomorrow,’ said Chiswell. ‘I’m seeing him rather differently these days, I don’t mind telling you.’

  Out of the corner of her eye, Robin saw Kinvara’s hands twist around the chain on her ugly evening bag, which sported a horse’s head picked out in crystals. A tense silence settled over the car’s interior as it purred on through the warm city.

  31

  … the result was, that he got a thrashing . . .

  Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

  Adrenaline made it easier for Strike to block out the mounting pain in his leg. He was closing on Jimmy and his companions, who were being thwarted in their desire to show themselves clearly to the press, because the excitable crowd had pressed forwards as the first official cars began to glide past, hoping to spot some celebrities. Late to the party, CORE now found themselves faced by an impenetrable mass.

  Mercedes and Bentleys swished past, affording the crowd glimpses of the famous and the not-so-famous. A comedian got a loud cheer as he waved. A few flashes went off.

  Clearly deciding that he could not hope for a more prominent spot, Jimmy began to drag his homemade banner out of the tangle of legs around him, preparatory to hoisting it aloft.

  A woman ahead of Strike gave a shriek of indignation as he pushed her out of the way. In three strides, Strike had closed his large left hand around Jimmy’s right wrist, preventing him from raising the placard above waist height, forcing it back towards the ground. Strike had time to see the recognition in his eyes before Jimmy’s fist came hurtling at his throat. A second woman saw the punch coming and screamed.

  Strike dodged it and brought his left foot down hard on the placard, splintering the pole, but his amputated leg was not equal to bearing all his weight, especially as Jimmy’s second punch connected. As Strike crumpled, he hit Jimmy in the balls. Knight gave a soft scream of pain, doubled up, hit the falling Strike and both of them toppled over, knocking bystanders sideways, all of whom shouted their indignation. As Strike hit the pavement, one of Jimmy’s companions aimed a kick at his head. Strike caught his foot and twisted it. Through the mounting furore, he heard a third woman shriek:

  ‘They’re attacking that man!’

  Strike was too intent on seizing hold of Jimmy’s mangled cardboard banner to care whether he was being cast as victim or aggressor. Tugging on the banner, which like himself was being trampled underfoot, he succeeded in ripping it. One of the pieces attached to the spike heel of a panicking woman trying to get out of the way of the fight, and was carried away.

  Fingers closed around his neck from behind. He aimed an elbow at Jimmy’s face and his hold loosened, but then somebody kicked Strike in the stomach and another blow hit him on the back of the head. Red spots popped in front of his eyes.

  More shouting, a whistle, and the crowd was suddenly thinning around them. Strike could taste blood, but, from what he could see, the splintered and torn remnants of Jimmy’s placard had been scattered by the mêlée. Jimmy’s hands were again scrabbling at Strike’s neck, but then Jimmy was pulled away, swearing fluently at the top of his voice. The winded Strike was seized and dragged to his feet as well. He put up no resistance. He doubted he could have stood of his own accord.

  32

  … and now we can go in to supper. Will you come in, Mr. Kroll?

  Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

  Chiswell’s Mercedes turned the corner of St James’s Street onto Pall Mall and set off along Cleveland Row.

  ‘What’s going on?’ growled Chiswell, as the car slowed, then stopped.

  The shouting ahead was not of the excited, enthusiastic kind that royalty or cel
ebrities might expect. Several uniformed officers were converging on the crowd on the left-hand side of the street which was jostling and pushing as it tried to move away from what appeared to be a confrontation between police and protestors. Two dishevelled men in jeans and T-shirts emerged from the fray, both held in arm-locks by uniformed officers: Jimmy Knight, and a youth with limp blond dreadlocks.

  Then Robin bit back a cry of dismay as a hobbling, bloody Strike appeared, also being led along by police. Behind them, an altercation in the crowd had not subsided, but was growing. A barrier swayed.

  ‘Pull up, PULL UP!’ bellowed Chiswell at the driver, who had just begun to accelerate again. Chiswell wound down his window. ‘Door open – Venetia, open your door! – that man!’ Chiswell roared at a nearby policeman, who turned, startled, to see the Minister for Culture shouting at him and pointing at Strike. ‘He’s my guest – that man – bloody well let him go!’

  Confronted by an official car, a government minister, the steely, patrician voice, the brandishing of a thick embossed invitation, the policeman did as he was told. Most people’s attention was focused on the increasingly violent brawl between police and CORE, and the consequent trampling and pushing of the crowd trying to get away from it. A couple of cameramen had broken away from the press pen up ahead, and were running towards the fracas.

  ‘Izzy, move up – get in, GET IN!’ Chiswell snarled at Strike through the window.

  Robin squeezed backwards, half-sitting in Izzy’s lap to accommodate Strike as he clambered into the back seat. The door slammed. The car rolled on.

  ‘Who are you?’ squealed the frightened Kinvara, who was now pinned against the opposite door by Izzy. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘He’s a private detective,’ growled Chiswell. His decision to bring Strike into the car seemed born of panic. Twisting around in his seat to glare at Strike, he said, ‘How does it help me if you get bloody arrested?’

  ‘They weren’t arresting me,’ said Strike, dabbing his nose with the back of his hand. ‘They wanted to take a statement. Knight attacked me when I went for his placard. Cheers,’ he added, as, with difficulty given how tightly compressed they all were, Robin passed him a box of tissues that had been lying on the ledge behind the rear seat. He pressed one to his nose. ‘I got rid of the placard,’ Strike added, through the blood-stained tissue, but nobody congratulated him.

  ‘Jasper,’ said Kinvara, ‘what’s going—?’

  ‘Shut up,’ snapped Chiswell, without looking at her. ‘I can’t let you out in front of all these people,’ he told Strike angrily, as though the latter had suggested it. ‘There are more photographers . . . You’ll have to come in with us. I’ll fix it.’

  The car was now proceeding towards a barrier where police and security were checking ID and investigations.

  ‘Nobody say anything,’ Chiswell instructed. ‘Shut up,’ he added pre-emptively to Kinvara, who had opened her mouth.

  A Bentley up ahead was admitted and the Mercedes rolled forwards.

  In pain, because she was bearing a good proportion of Strike’s weight across her left hip and leg, Robin heard screeching from behind the car. Turning, she saw a young woman running after the car, a female police officer chasing her. The girl had wild tomato-red hair, a T-shirt with a logo of broken Olympic rings on it, and she screamed after Chiswell’s car:

  ‘He put the fucking horse on them, Chiswell! He put the horse on them, you cheating, thieving bastard, you murderer—’

  ‘I have a guest here who didn’t get his invitation,’ Chiswell was shouting through his wound-down window to the armed policeman at the barrier. ‘Cormoran Strike, the amputee. He’s been in the papers. There was a balls-up at my department, his invitation didn’t go. The prince,’ he said, with breathtaking chutzpah, ‘asked to meet him specifically!’

  Strike and Robin were watching what was happening behind the car. Two policemen had seized the struggling Flick and were escorting her away. A few more cameras flashed. Caving under the weight of ministerial pressure, the armed policeman requested ID of Strike. Strike, who always carried a couple of forms of identification, though not necessarily in his own name, passed over his genuine driving licence. A queue of stationary cars grew longer behind them. The prince was due in fifteen minutes’ time. Finally, the policeman waved them through.

  ‘Shouldn’t have done that,’ said Strike in an undertone to Robin. ‘Shouldn’t have let me in. Bloody lax.’

  The Mercedes swung around the inner courtyard and arrived, finally, at the foot of a shallow flight of red-carpeted steps, in front of an enormous, honey-coloured building that resembled a stately home. Wheelchair ramps had been set either side of the carpet, and a celebrated wheelchair basketball player was already manoeuvring his way up one.

  Strike pushed open the door, clambered out of the car, then turned and reached back inside to assist Robin. She accepted the offer of help. Her left leg was almost completely numb from where he’d sat on her.

  ‘Nice to see you again, Corm,’ said Izzy, beaming, as she got out behind Robin.

  ‘Hi, Izzy,’ said Strike.

  Now burdened with Strike whether he wanted him or not, Chiswell hurried up the steps to explain to one of the liveried men standing outside the front door that Strike must be admitted without his invitation. They heard a recurrence of the word ‘amputee’. All around them, more cars were releasing their smartly dressed passengers.

  ‘What’s all this about?’ Kinvara said, who had marched around the rear of the Mercedes to address Strike. ‘What’s going on? What does my husband need a private detective for?’

  ‘Will you be quiet, you stupid, stupid bitch?’

  Stressed and disturbed though Chiswell undoubtedly was, his naked hostility shocked Robin. He hates her, she thought. He genuinely hates her.

  ‘You two,’ said the minister, pointing at his wife and daughter, ‘get inside.

  ‘Give me one good reason I should keep paying you,’ he added, turning on Strike as still more people spilled past them. ‘You realise,’ said Chiswell, and in his necessarily quiet fury, spit flew from his mouth onto Strike’s tie, ‘I’ve just been called a bloody murderer in front of twenty people, including press?’

  ‘They’ll think she’s a crank,’ said Strike.

  If the suggestion brought Chiswell any comfort, it didn’t show.

  ‘I want to see you tomorrow morning at ten o’clock,’ he told Strike. ‘Not at my office. Come to the flat in Ebury Street.’ He turned away, then, as an afterthought, turned back. ‘You too,’ he barked at Robin.

  Side by side, they watched him lumbering up the steps.

  ‘We’re about to get sacked, aren’t we?’ whispered Robin.

  ‘I’d say it’s odds on,’ said Strike, who, now that he was on his feet, was in considerable pain.

  ‘Cormoran, what was on the placard?’ said Robin.

  Strike allowed a woman in peach chiffon to pass, then said quietly:

  ‘Picture of Chiswell hanging from a gallows and, beneath him, a bunch of dead children. One odd thing, though.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘All the kids were black.’

  Still dabbing at his nose, Strike reached inside his pocket for a cigarette, then remembered where he was and let his hand fall back to his side.

  ‘Listen, if that Elspeth woman’s in here, you might as well try and find out what else she knows about Winn. It’ll help justify our final invoice.’

  ‘OK,’ said Robin. ‘The back of your head’s bleeding, by the way.’

  Strike dabbed at it ineffectually with the tissues he had pocketed and began to limp up the steps beside Robin.

  ‘We shouldn’t be seen together any more tonight,’ he told her, as they passed over the threshold into a blaze of ochre, scarlet and gold. ‘There was a café in Ebury Street, not far from Chiswell’s house. I’ll meet you there at nine o’clock tomorrow, and we can face the firing squad together. Go on, you go ahead.’

  But as she
moved away from him, towards the grand staircase, he called after her:

  ‘Nice dress, by the way.’

  33

  I believe you could bewitch any one – if you set yourself to do it.

  Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

  The grand hallway of the mansion constituted a vast empty block of space. A red-and-gold-carpeted central staircase led to an upper balcony that split left and right. The walls, which appeared to be of marble, were ochre, dull green and rose. Sundry Paralympians were being shown to a lift on the left of the entrance, but the limping Strike made his way laboriously to the stairs and heaved himself upwards by liberal use of the banister. The sky visible through a huge and ornate skylight, supported by columns, was fading through technicolour variations that intensified the colours of the massive Venetian paintings of classical subjects hanging on every wall.