Lethal White

by Galbraith, Robert

  Raphael let out a long, slow hiss.

  ‘Well,’ he said quietly, ‘if they can make Kinvara believe that, I’m fucked, aren’t I? But right now, Kinvara believes her Raffy loves her more than anything in the world, and she’s going to take a lot of convincing that’s not true, because her whole life’s going to fall apart otherwise. I drilled it into her: if they don’t know about the affair, they can’t touch us. I virtually had her reciting it while I fucked her. And I warned her they’d try and turn us against each other if either one of us was suspected. I’ve got her very well-schooled and I said, when in doubt, cry your eyes out, tell them nobody ever tells you anything and act bloody confused.’

  ‘She’s already told one silly lie to try and protect you, and the police know about it,’ said Robin.

  ‘What lie?’

  ‘About the necklace, in the early hours of Sunday morning. Didn’t she tell you? Maybe she realised you’d be angry.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Strike told her he didn’t buy the new explanation for you going down to Chiswell House the morning your father died—’

  ‘What d’you mean, he didn’t buy it?’ said Raphael, and Robin saw outraged vanity mingled with his panic.

  ‘I thought it was convincing,’ she assured him. ‘Clever, to tell a story that you’d appear to give up only unwillingly. Everyone’s always more disposed to believe something they believe they’ve uncovered for themsel—’

  Raphael raised the gun so that it was close to her forehead again and even though the cold ring of metal had not yet touched her skin again, she felt it there.

  ‘What lie did Kinvara tell?’

  ‘She claimed you came to tell her that your mother removed diamonds from the necklace and replaced them with fakes.’

  Raphael appeared horrified.

  ‘What the fuck did she say that for?’

  ‘Because she’d had a shock, I suppose, finding Strike and me in the grounds when you were hiding upstairs. Strike said he didn’t believe the necklace story, so she panicked and made up a new version. The trouble is, this one’s checkable.’

  ‘The stupid cunt,’ said Raphael quietly, but with a venom that made the back of Robin’s neck prickle. ‘That stupid, stupid cunt . . . why didn’t she just stick to our story? And . . . no, wait . . . ’ he said, with the air of a man suddenly making a welcome connection, and to Robin’s mingled consternation and relief, he withdrew the gun from where it had been almost touching her, and laughed softly. ‘That’s why she hid the necklace on Sunday afternoon. She gave me some fucking guff about not wanting Izzy or Fizzy to sneak in and take it . . . well, she’s stupid, but she’s not hopeless. Unless someone checks the stones, we’re still in the clear . . . And they’ll have to take apart the stable block to find it. OK,’ he said, as though talking to himself, ‘OK, I think all of that’s recoverable.

  ‘Is that it, Venetia? Is that all you’ve got?’

  ‘No,’ said Robin. ‘There’s Flick Purdue.’

  ‘I don’t know who that is.’

  ‘Yes, you do. You picked her up months ago, and fed her the truth about the gallows, knowing she’d pass the information to Jimmy.’

  ‘What a busy boy I’ve been,’ said Raphael lightly. ‘So what? Flick won’t admit to shagging a Tory minister’s son, especially if Jimmy might find out. She’s as besotted with him as Kinvara is with me.’

  ‘That’s true, she didn’t want to admit it, but somebody must have spotted you creeping out of her flat next morning. She tried to pretend you were an Indian waiter.’

  Robin thought she saw a minute wince of surprise and displeasure. Raphael’s amour propre was wounded at the thought that he could have been so described.

  ‘OK,’ he said, after a moment or two, ‘OK, let’s see . . . what if it was a waiter Flick shagged, but she’s maliciously claiming it was me because of her class warrior bullshit and the grudge her boyfriend’s got against my family?’

  ‘You stole her flatmate’s credit card out of her bag in the kitchen.’

  She could tell by the tightening of his mouth that he had not expected this. Doubtless he had thought that given Flick’s lifestyle, suspicion would fall on anyone passing through her tiny, overcrowded flat, and perhaps especially Jimmy.

  ‘Proof?’ he said again.

  ‘Flick can provide the date you were at her flat and if Laura testifies her credit card went missing that night—’

  ‘But with no firm evidence I was ever there—’

  ‘How did Flick find out about the gallows? We know she told Jimmy about them, not the other way around.’

  ‘Well, it can’t have been me, can it? I’m the only member of the family who never knew.’

  ‘You knew everything. Kinvara had the full story from your father, and she passed it all to you.’

  ‘No,’ said Raphael, ‘I think you’ll find Flick heard about the gallows from the Butcher brothers. I’m reliably informed that one of them lives in London now. Yeah, I think I’ve heard a rumour one of them shagged their mate Jimmy’s girlfriend. And believe me, the Butcher brothers aren’t going to come over well in court, pair of shifty oiks driving gallows around under cover of darkness. I’m going to look a lot more plausible and presentable than Flick and the Butchers if this comes to court, I really am.’

  ‘The police have got phone records,’ Robin persisted. ‘They know about an anonymous call to Geraint Winn, which was made around the time Flick found out about the gallows. We think you tipped off Winn anonymously about Samuel Murape. You knew Winn had a grudge against the Chiswells. Kinvara told you everything.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that phone call, Your Honour,’ said Raphael, ‘and I’m very sorry that my late brother was a prize cunt to Rhiannon Winn, but that’s nothing to do with me.’

  ‘We think you made that threatening call to Izzy’s office, the first day you were there, talking about people pissing themselves as they die,’ said Robin, ‘and we think it was your idea for Kinvara to pretend she kept hearing intruders in the grounds. Everything was designed to create as many witnesses as possible to the fact that your father had reason to be anxious and paranoid, that he might crack under extreme pressure—’

  ‘He was under extreme pressure. He was being blackmailed by Jimmy Knight. Geraint Winn was trying to force him out of his job. Those aren’t lies, they’re facts and they’re going to be pretty sensational in a courtroom, especially once the Samuel Murape story gets out.’

  ‘Except that you made stupid, avoidable mistakes.’

  He sat up straighter and leaned forwards, his elbow sliding a few inches, so that the nozzle of the gun grew larger. His eyes, which had been smudges in the shadow, became clearly defined again, onyx black and white. Robin wondered how she had ever thought him handsome.

  ‘What mistakes?’

  As he said it, Robin saw, out of the corner of her eye, a flashing blue light glide over the bridge just visible through the window to her right, which was blocked from Raphael’s view by the side of the boat. The light vanished and the bridge was reabsorbed by the deepening darkness.

  ‘For one thing,’ said Robin carefully, ‘it was a mistake to keep meeting Kinvara in the lead-up to the murder. She kept pretending she’d forgotten where she was meeting your father, didn’t she? Just to get a couple of minutes with you, just to see you and check up on you—’

  ‘That’s not proof.’

  ‘Kinvara was followed to Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons on her birthday.’

  His eyes narrowed.

  ‘Who by?’

  ‘Jimmy Knight. Flick’s confirmed it. Jimmy thought your father was with Kinvara and wanted to confront him publicly about not giving him his money. Obviously, your father wasn’t there, so Jimmy went home and wrote an angry blog about how High Tories spend their money, mentioning Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons by name.’

  ‘Well, unless he saw me sneaking into Kinvara’s hotel suite,’ said Raphael, ‘which he didn’t, b
ecause I took fucking good care to make sure nobody did, that’s all supposition, too.’

  ‘All right,’ said Robin, ‘what about the second time you were overheard having sex in the gallery bathroom? That wasn’t Francesca. You were with Kinvara.’

  ‘Prove it.’

  ‘Kinvara was in town that day, buying lachesis pills and pretending she was angry that your father was still seeing you, which was all part of the cover story that she hated you. She rang your father to check that he was having lunch elsewhere. Strike overheard that call. What you and Kinvara didn’t realise was that your father was having lunch only a hundred yards away from where you were having sex.

  ‘When your father forced his way into the bathroom, he found a tube of lachesis pills on the floor. That’s why he nearly had a heart attack. He knew that’s what she’d come to town for. He knew who’d just been having sex with you in the bathroom.’

  Raphael’s smile was more of a grimace.

  ‘Yeah, that was a fuck-up. The day he came into our office, talking about Lachesis – “knows when everyone’s number’s up” – I realised later, he was trying to put the frighteners on me, wasn’t he? I didn’t know what the hell he was on about at the time. But when you and your crippled boss mentioned the pills at Chiswell House, Kinvara twigged: they fell out of her pocket while we were screwing. We hadn’t known what first tipped him off . . . it was only after I heard he was ringing Le Manoir about Freddie’s money clip that I knew he must have realised something was going on. Then he invited me over to Ebury Street and I knew he was about to confront me about it, and we needed to get a move on, killing him.’

  The entirely matter-of-fact way he discussed patricide chilled Robin. He might have been talking about wallpapering a room.

  ‘He must’ve been planning to produce those pills during his big “I know you’re fucking my wife” speech . . . why didn’t I spot them on the floor? I tried to put the room straight afterwards, but they must’ve rolled out of his pocket or something . . . it’s harder than you’d think,’ said Raphael, ‘tidying up around a corpse you’ve just dispatched. I was surprised, actually, how much it affected me.’

  She had never heard his narcissism so clearly. His interest and sympathy was entirely for himself. His dead father was nothing.

  ‘The police have taken statements from Francesca and her parents, now,’ Robin said. ‘She absolutely denies being in the bathroom with you that second time. Her parents never believed her, but—’

  ‘They didn’t believe her because she’s even fucking dumber than Kinvara.’

  ‘The police are combing through security camera footage from the shops she says she was in, while you and Kinvara were in the bathroom.’

  ‘OK,’ said Raphael, ‘well, worst comes to the worst, and they can prove she wasn’t with me, I might have to come clean about the fact that it was another young lady I was with in the bathroom that day, whose reputation I’ve been chivalrously trying to defend.’

  ‘Will you really be able to find a woman to lie for you, in court, on a murder charge?’ asked Robin, in disbelief.

  ‘The woman who owns this houseboat is mad for me,’ said Raphael softly. ‘We had a thing going before I went inside. She visited me in jail and everything. She’s in rehab right now. Crazy bitch, loves drama. Thinks she’s an artist. She drinks too much, she’s a real pain in the arse, actually, but she fucks like a rabbit. She never bothered taking the spare key to this place off me, and she keeps a key to her mummy’s house in that drawer over there—’

  ‘It wouldn’t happen to be her mother’s house where you had the helium, tubing and gloves delivered, would it?’ asked Robin.

  Raphael blinked. He hadn’t expected that.

  ‘You needed an address that didn’t seem connected to you. You made sure it was delivered while the owners were away, or at work, then you could let yourself in, collect the failed delivery card . . . ’

  ‘Pick it up, disguised and get it couriered it off to dear old Dad’s house, yeah.’

  ‘And Flick took delivery and Kinvara made sure she hid it from your father until it was time to kill him?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Raphael. ‘You pick up a lot of tips in jail. Fake IDs, vacant buildings, empty addresses, you can do a hell of a lot with them. Once you’re dead—’ Robin’s scalp prickled – ‘nobody’s going to connect me with any of the addresses.’

  ‘The owner of this barge—’

  ‘Is going to be telling everyone she was having sex with me in Drummond’s bathroom, remember? She’s on my team, Venetia,’ he said quietly, ‘so it’s not looking good for you, is it?’

  ‘There were other mistakes,’ said Robin, her mouth dry.

  ‘Like?’

  ‘You told Flick your father needed a cleaner.’

  ‘Yeah, because it makes her and Jimmy look fishy as hell, that she wheedled her way into my father’s house. The jury’ll be focused on that, not how she found out he wanted a cleaner. I’ve already told you, she’s going to look like a grubby little tart with a grudge in the dock. That’s just one more lie.’

  ‘But she stole a note from your father, a note he wrote while he was trying to check Kinvara’s story with Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons. I found it in her bathroom. She’d lied, told him her mother was going to the hotel with her. They’d never normally give out information about guests, but he was a government minister and he’d previously been there, so we think he managed to trick them into agreeing that they could remember the family vehicle there and that it was a shame her mother hadn’t made it. He made a note of the suite Kinvara was in, probably pretending he’d forgotten it, and he was trying to get hold of the bill, to see whether there was any sign of two lots of breakfast or dinner, I suppose. When the prosecution produce the note and the bill in court—’

  ‘You found that note, did you?’ said Raphael.

  Robin’s stomach turned over. She had not meant to give Raphael another reason to shoot her.

  ‘I knew I’d underestimated you after that dinner we had, at Nam Long Le Shaker,’ said Raphael. It wasn’t a compliment. His eyes were narrowed, his nostrils flared in dislike. ‘You were a mess, but you were still asking fucking inconvenient questions. You and your boss were cosier with the police than I expected, too. And even after I tipped off the Mail—’

  ‘That was you,’ said Robin, wondering how she had never realised. ‘You put the press and Mitch Patterson back on us . . . ’

  ‘I told them you’d left your husband for Strike, but that he was still shagging his ex. Izzy had given me that bit of gossip. I thought you needed slowing down, you two, because you kept poking away at my alibi . . . but after I’ve shot you,’ – an icy chill ran the length of Robin’s body – ‘your boss’ll be busy answering the press’s questions about how your body ended up in a canal, won’t he? I think that’s called killing two birds with one stone.’

  ‘Even if I’m dead,’ said Robin, her voice as steady as she could make it, ‘there’ll still be your father’s note and the hotel’s testimony—’

  ‘OK, so he was worried about what Kinvara was doing at Le Manoir,’ said Raphael roughly. ‘I’ve just told you, nobody saw me on the premises. The stupid cow did ask for two glasses with the champagne, but she could’ve been with someone else.’

  ‘You aren’t going to have any opportunity to cook up a new story with her,’ said Robin, her mouth drier than ever, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth as she tried to sound calm and confident. ‘She’s in custody now, she isn’t as clever as you – and you made other mistakes,’ Robin rushed on, ‘stupid ones, because you had to enact the plan in a hurry once you realised your father was onto you.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Like Kinvara taking away the packaging on the amitriptyline, after she’d doctored the orange juice. Kinvara forgetting to tell you the trick to closing the front door properly. And,’ said Robin, aware that she was playing her very last card, ‘her throwing the front door key to you
, at Paddington.’

  In the wordless space that now stretched between them, Robin thought she heard footsteps close at hand. She didn’t dare look out of the window in case she alerted Raphael, who appeared too appalled by what she had just said to take in anything else.

  ‘“Throwing the front door key to me?”’ repeated Raphael, with fragile bravado. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘The keys to Ebury Street are restricted, almost impossible to copy. The pair of you only had access to one: hers, because your father was suspicious of you both by the time he died, and he’d made sure the spare was out of your reach.

  ‘She needed the key to get into the house and doctor the orange juice and you needed it to go in early next morning and suffocate him. So you cobbled together a plan at the last minute: she’d pass you the key at a prearranged spot at Paddington, where you’d be disguised as a homeless person.