Lethal White

by Galbraith, Robert

  ‘That’s really rough,’ said Robin sincerely. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Jimmy blew smoke away from her face and pulled a grimace.

  ‘Two of a kind,’ said Jimmy, clinking his can of lager against Robin’s. ‘Class war veterans.’

  Alf the anarchist lurched away, swaying slightly, and disappeared into the dark room pierced with fairy lights.

  ‘Family ever get compensation?’ asked Jimmy.

  ‘Tried,’ said Robin. ‘Mum’s still pursuing it.’

  ‘Good luck to her,’ said Jimmy, raising his can and drinking. ‘Good bloody luck to her.’

  He banged on the bathroom door.

  ‘Fucking hurry up, people are waiting,’ he shouted.

  ‘Maybe someone’s ill?’ Robin suggested.

  ‘Nah, it’ll be someone having a quickie,’ said Jimmy.

  Digby emerged from Flick’s bedroom, looking disgruntled.

  ‘I’m a tool of patriarchal oppression, apparently,’ he announced loudly.

  Nobody laughed. Digby scratched his belly under his T-shirt, which Robin now saw featured a picture of Groucho Marx, and ambled into the room where Flick was dancing.

  ‘He’s a tool, all right,’ Jimmy muttered to Robin. ‘Rudolf Steiner kid. Can’t get over the fact that nobody gives him stars for effort any more.’

  Robin laughed, but Jimmy didn’t. His eyes held hers just a fraction too long, until the bathroom door opened a crack and a plump, red-faced young girl peeked out. Behind her, Robin saw a man with a wispy grey beard replacing his Mao cap.

  ‘Larry, you filthy old bastard,’ said Jimmy, grinning as the red-faced girl scuttled past Robin and disappeared into the dark room after Digby.

  ‘Evening, Jimmy,’ said the elderly Trotskyist, with a prim smile, and he, too, left the bathroom to a couple of cheers from the young men outside.

  ‘Go on,’ Jimmy told Robin, holding open the door and blocking anyone else’s attempts to push past her.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, as she slid into the bathroom.

  The glare of the strip light was dazzling after the dinginess of the rest of the flat. The bathroom barely had standing room between the smallest shower Robin had ever seen, with a grimy transparent curtain hanging off half its hooks, a small toilet in which a large amount of sodden tissue and a cigarette end was floating. A used condom glistened in the wicker bin.

  Above the sink were three rickety shelves crammed with half-used toiletries and general clutter, crammed together so that one touch seemed likely to dislodge everything.

  Struck by a sudden idea, Robin moved closer to these shelves. She was remembering how she had relied on the squeamish ignorance and avoidance of most men towards matters pertaining to menstruation when she had hidden the listening devices in a box of Tampax. Her eyes ran swiftly over half-used bottles of supermarket-brand shampoo, an old tub of Vim, a dirty sponge, a pair of cheap deodorants and a few well-used toothbrushes in a chipped mug. Very carefully, because everything was so tightly packed together, Robin eased out a small box of Lil-Lets that proved to have only one sealed tampon inside it. As she reached up to replace the box, she spotted the corner of a small, squashy bundle, encased in a plastic wrapper and hidden behind the Vim and a bottle of fruity shower gel.

  With a sudden stab of excitement, she reached up and wriggled the white polythene parcel carefully out of the place it had been wedged, trying not to knock everything over.

  Somebody hammered on the door.

  ‘I’m fucking bursting!’ shouted a new girl.

  ‘Won’t be long!’ Robin shouted back.

  Two bulky sanitary towels had been rolled up in their own unromantic wrapping (‘for Very Heavy Flow’): the sort of thing a young woman was unlikely to steal, especially if wearing skimpy clothing. Robin extracted them. There was nothing odd about the first. The second, however, emitted a small, crisp cracking noise as Robin bent it. Her excitement mounting, Robin turned it sideways and saw that it had been slit with what had probably been a razor blade. Wriggling her fingers into the tissue-like foam within, she felt a thick, folded piece of paper, which she eased out and unfolded.

  The writing paper was exactly the same as that on which Kinvara had written her farewell note, with the name ‘Chiswell’ embossed across the top and a Tudor rose, like a drop of blood, beneath it. A few disjointed words and phrases were scrawled in the distinctive, cramped handwriting Robin had seen so often in Chiswell’s office, and in the middle of the page one word had been circled many times.

  251 Ebury Street

  London

  SW1W

  Hardly breathing in her excitement, Robin took out her mobile, took several pictures of the note, then refolded it, replaced it in the sanitary towel and returned the package to the place it had been on the shelf. She attempted to flush the toilet, but it was clogged and all she achieved was that the water rose ominously in the bowl, refusing to subside, the cigarette butt bobbing there in swirling tissue.

  ‘Sorry,’ Robin said, opening the door. ‘Loo’s blocked.’

  ‘Whatever,’ said the impatient, drunk girl outside, ‘I’ll do it in the sink.’

  She pushed past Robin and slammed the door.

  Jimmy was still standing outside.

  ‘Think I’m going to take off,’ Robin told him. ‘I only really came t’see if that room was vacant, but soombody’s got in ahead of me.’

  ‘Shame,’ said Jimmy lightly. ‘Come to a meeting some time. We could use a bit of Northern soul.’

  ‘Yeah, I might,’ said Robin.

  ‘Might what?’

  Flick had arrived, holding a bottle of Budweiser.

  ‘Come to a meeting,’ said Jimmy, taking a fresh cigarette out of his pack. ‘You were right, Flick, she’s the real deal.’

  Jimmy reached out and pulled Flick to him, pressing her to his side, and kissed her on the top of the head.

  ‘Yeah, sh’iz,’ said Flick, smiling with real warmth as she wound her arm around Jimmy’s waist. ‘Come to the next one, Bobbi.’

  ‘Yeah, I might,’ said Bobbi Cunliffe, the trade unionist’s daughter, and she bade them goodbye, pushed her way out of the hall and out into the cold stairwell.

  Not even the sight and smell of one of the black-clad teenagers vomiting copiously on the pavement just outside the main door could dampen Robin’s jubilation. Unable to wait, she texted Strike the picture of Jasper Chiswell’s note while hurrying towards the bus stop.

  52

  I can assure you, you have been on the wrong scent entirely, Miss West.

  Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

  Strike had fallen asleep, fully clothed, his prosthesis still attached, on top of the bedcovers in his attic bedroom. The cardboard folder containing everything pertaining to the Chiswell file was lying on his chest, vibrating gently as he snored, and he dreamed that he was walking hand in hand with Charlotte through an otherwise deserted Chiswell House, which they had bought together. Tall, slim and beautiful, she was no longer pregnant. She trailed Shalimar and black chiffon behind her, but their mutual happiness was evaporating in the damp chill of the shabby rooms through which they were wandering. What could have prompted the reckless, quixotic decision to purchase this draughty house, with the peeling walls and the wires dangling from the ceiling?

  The loud buzz of a text arriving jerked Strike from sleep. For a fraction of a second he registered the fact that he was back in his attic room, alone, neither the owner of Chiswell House nor the lover of Charlotte Ross, before groping for the phone on which he was half lying in the full expectation that he was about to see a message from Charlotte.

  He was wrong: it was Robin’s name he saw when he peered groggily at the screen, and it was, moreover, one in the morning. Momentarily forgetting that she had been out at a party with Flick, Strike sat up hurriedly and the cardboard file that had been lying on his chest slid smoothly off him, scattering its various pages across the floorboards, while Strike squinted, blurry-eyed, at the p
hotograph Robin had just sent him.

  ‘Fuck me backwards.’

  Ignoring the mess of notes at his feet, he called her back.

  ‘Hi,’ said Robin jubilantly, over the unmistakable sounds of a London night bus: the clatter and roar of the engine, the grinding of brakes, the tinny ding of the bell and the obligatory drunken laughter of what sounded like a gaggle of young women.

  ‘How the fuck did you manage that?’

  ‘I’m a woman,’ said Robin. He could hear her smile. ‘I know where we hide things when we really don’t want them found. I thought you’d be asleep.’

  ‘Where are you – a bus? Get off and grab a cab. We can charge it to the Chiswell account if you get a receipt.’

  ‘There’s no need—’

  ‘Do as you’re bloody told!’ Strike repeated, a little more aggressively than he had intended, because while she had just pulled off quite a coup, she had also been knifed, out alone on the street after dark, a year previously.

  ‘All right, all right, I’ll get a cab,’ said Robin. ‘Have you read Chiswell’s note?’

  ‘Looking at it now,’ said Strike, switching to speakerphone so that he could read Chiswell’s note while talking to her. ‘I hope you left it where you found it?’

  ‘Yeah. I thought that was best?’

  ‘Definitely. Where exactly—?’

  ‘Inside a sanitary towel.’

  ‘Christ,’ said Strike, taken aback. ‘I’d never’ve thought to—’

  ‘No, nor did Jimmy and Barclay,’ said Robin smugly. ‘Can you read what it says at the bottom? The Latin?’

  Squinting at the screen, Strike translated:

  ‘“I hate and I love. Why do I do it, you might ask? I don’t know. I just feel it, and it crucifies me . . .” that’s Catullus again. A famous one.’

  ‘Did you do Latin at university?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then how—?’

  ‘Long story,’ said Strike.

  In fact, the story of his ability to read Latin wasn’t long, merely (to most people) inexplicable. He didn’t feel like telling it in the middle of the night, nor did he want to explain that Charlotte had studied Catullus at Oxford.

  ‘“I hate and I love”,’ Robin repeated. ‘Why would Chiswell have written that down?’

  ‘Because he was feeling it?’ Strike suggested.

  His mouth was dry: he had smoked too much before falling asleep. He got up, feeling achy and stiff, and picked his way carefully around the fallen notes, heading for the sink in the other room, phone in hand.

  ‘Feeling it for Kinvara?’ asked Robin dubiously.

  ‘Ever see another woman around while you were in close contact with him?’

  ‘No. Of course, he might not have been talking about a woman.’

  ‘True,’ admitted Strike. ‘Plenty of man love in Catullus. Maybe that’s why Chiswell liked him so much.’

  He filled a mug with cold tap water, drank it down in one, then threw in a tea bag and switched on the kettle, all the while peering down at the lit screen of his phone in the darkness.

  ‘“Mother”, crossed out,’ he muttered.

  ‘Chiswell’s mother died twenty-two years ago,’ said Robin. ‘I’ve just looked her up.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Strike. ‘“Bill”, circled.’

  ‘Not Billy,’ Robin pointed out, ‘but if Jimmy and Flick thought it meant his brother, people must sometimes call Billy “Bill”.’

  ‘Unless it’s the thing you pay,’ said Strike. ‘Or a duck’s beak, come to that . . . “Suzuki” . . . “Blanc de” . . . Hang on. Jimmy Knight’s got an old Suzuki Alto.’

  ‘It’s off the road, according to Flick.’

  ‘Yeah. Barclay says it failed its MOT.’

  ‘There was a Grand Vitara parked outside Chiswell House when we visited, too. One of the Chiswells must own it.’

  ‘Good spot,’ said Strike.

  He switched on the overhead light and crossed to the table by the window, where he had left his pen and notebook.

  ‘You know,’ said Robin thoughtfully, ‘I think I’ve seen “Blanc de blanc” somewhere recently.’

  ‘Yeah? Been drinking champagne?’ asked Strike, who had sat down to make more notes.

  ‘No, but . . . yeah, I suppose I must’ve seen it on a wine label, mustn’t I? Blanc de blancs . . . what does it mean? “White from whites?”’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Strike.

  For nearly a minute, neither of them spoke, both examining the note. ‘You know, I hate to say this, Robin,’ said Strike at last, ‘but I think the most interesting thing about this is that Flick had it. Looks like a to-do list. Can’t see anything here that proves wrongdoing or suggests grounds for blackmail or murder.’

  ‘Mother, crossed out,’ Robin repeated, as though determined to wring meaning out of the cryptic phrases. ‘Jimmy Knight’s mother died of asbestosis. He just told me so, at Flick’s party.’

  Strike tapped his notepad lightly with the end of his pen, thinking, until Robin voiced the question that he was grappling with.

  ‘We’re going to have to tell the police about this, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yeah, we are,’ sighed Strike, rubbing his eyes. ‘This proves she had access to Ebury Street. Unfortunately, that means we’re going to have to pull you out of the jewellery shop. Once the police search her bathroom, it won’t take her long to work out who must’ve tipped them off.’

  ‘Bugger,’ said Robin. ‘I really felt like I was getting somewhere with her.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Strike agreed. ‘This is the problem with having no official standing in an inquiry. I’d give a lot to have Flick in an interrogation room . . . This bloody case,’ he said, yawning. ‘I’ve been going through the file all evening. This note’s like everything else: it raises more questions than it answers.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Robin, and he heard sounds of movement, ‘sorry – Cormoran, I’m going to get off here, I can see a taxi rank—’

  ‘OK. Great work tonight. I’ll call you tomorrow – later today, I mean.’

  When she had hung up, Strike set his cigarette down in the ashtray, returned to his bedroom to pick up the scattered case notes off the floor, and took them back to the kitchen. Ignoring the freshly boiled kettle, he took a beer from the fridge, sat back down at the table with the file and, as an afterthought, opened the sash window beside him a few inches, to let some clean air into the room while he kept smoking.

  The Military Police had trained him to organise interrogations and findings into three broad categories: people, places and things, and Strike had been applying this sound old principle to the Chiswell file before falling asleep on the bed. Now he spread the contents of the file out over the kitchen table and set to work again, while a cold night breeze laden with petrol fumes blew across the photographs and papers, so that their corners trembled.

  ‘People,’ Strike muttered.

  He had written a list before he slept of the people who most interested him in connection with Chiswell’s death. Now he saw that he had unconsciously ranked the names according to their degree of involvement in the dead man’s blackmail. Jimmy Knight’s name topped the list, followed by Geraint Winn’s, and then by what Strike thought of as each man’s respective deputy, Flick Purdue and Aamir Mallik. Next came Kinvara, who knew that Chiswell was being blackmailed, and why; Della Winn, whose super-injunction had kept the blackmail out of the press, but whose precise degree of involvement in the affair was otherwise unknown to Strike, and then Raphael, who had by all accounts been ignorant both of what his father had done, and of the blackmail itself. At the bottom of the list was Billy Knight, whose only known connection with the blackmail was the bond of blood between himself and the primary blackmailer.

  Why, Strike asked himself, had he ranked the names in this particular order? There was no proven link between Chiswell’s death and the blackmail, unless, of course, the threat of exposure of his unknown crime had indeed pushed Chiswell into killing himse
lf.

  It then occurred to Strike that a different hierarchy was revealed if he turned the list on its head. In this case Billy sat on top, a disinterested seeker, not of money or another man’s disgrace, but of truth and justice. In the reversed order, Raphael came in second, with his strange and, to Strike, implausible story of being sent to his stepmother on the morning of his father’s death, which Henry Drummond claimed grudgingly to have hidden some honourable motive as yet unknown. Della rose to third place, a widely admired woman of impeccable morality, whose true thoughts and feelings towards her blackmailing husband and to his victim remained inscrutable.