Lethal White

“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.”

Passersby 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 curb. 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 curb, 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 color.

“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 celebrities 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 disheveled men in jeans and T-shirts emerged from the fray, both held in armlocks 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 ha

d 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 license. 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-colored building that resembled a stately home. Wheelchair ramps had been set either side of the carpet, and a celebrated wheelchair basketball player was already maneuvering 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 realize,” 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 anyone—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 technicolor variations that intensified the colors of the massive Venetian paintings of classical subjects hanging on every wall.

Doing his best to walk naturally, because he was afraid he might be mistaken for some veteran Paralympian and perhaps asked to expound on past triumphs, Strike followed the crowd up the right staircase, around the balcony and into a small anteroom overlooking the courtyard where the official cars were parked. From here, the guests were ushered left into a long and spacious picture gallery, where the carpet was apple green and decorated with a rosette pattern. Tall windows stood at either end of the room and almost every inch of white wall was covered in paintings.

“Drink, sir?” said a waiter just inside the doorway.

“Is it champagne?” asked Strike.

“English sparkling wine, sir,” said the waiter.

Strike helped himself, though without enthusiasm, and continued through the crowd, passing Chiswell and Kinvara, who were listening (or, Strike thought, pretending to listen) to a wheelchair-bound athlete. Kinvara shot Strike a swift, suspicious side glance as he passed, aiming for the far wall where he hoped to find either a chair, or something on which he could conveniently lean. Unfortunately, the gallery walls were so densely packed with pictures that leaning was impossible, nor were there any seats, so Strike came to rest beside an enormous painting by Count d’Orsay of Queen Victoria riding a dapple-gray horse. While he sipped his sparkling wine, he tried discreetly to staunch the blood still leaking from his nose, and wipe the worst of the dirt off his suit trousers.

Waiters were circulating, carrying trays of canapés. Strike managed to grab a couple of miniature crab cakes as they passed, then fell to examining his surroundings, noting another spectacular skylight, this one supported by a number of gilded palm trees.

The room had a peculiar energy. The prince’s arrival was imminent and the guests’ gaiety came and went in nervous spurts, with increasingly frequent glances at the doors. From his vantage point beside Queen Victoria, Strike spotted a stately figure in a primrose-yellow dress standing almost directly opposite him, close beside an ornate black and gold fireplace. One hand was keeping a gentle hold on the harness of a pale yellow Lab

rador, who sat panting gently at her feet in the overcrowded room. Strike had not immediately recognized Della, because she was not wearing sunglasses, but prosthetic eyes. Her slightly sunken, opaque, china-blue gaze gave her an odd innocence. Geraint stood a short distance from his wife, gabbling at a thin, mousy woman whose eyes darted around, searching for a rescuer.

A sudden hush fell near the doors through which Strike had entered. Strike saw the top of a ginger head and a flurry of suits. Self-consciousness spread through the packed room like a petrifying breeze. Strike watched the top of the ginger head move away, towards the far right side of the room. Still sipping his English wine and wondering which of the women in the room was the trustee with dirt on Geraint Winn, his attention was suddenly caught by a tall woman nearby with her back to him.

Her long dark hair was twisted up into a messy bun and, unlike every other woman present, her outfit gave no suggestion of party best. The straight black knee-length dress was plain to the point of severity, and though barelegged she wore a pair of spike-heeled, open-toed ankle boots. For a sliver of a second Strike thought he must be mistaken, but then she moved and he knew for sure that it was her. Before he could move away from her vicinity, she turned around and looked straight into his eyes.

Color flooded her face, which as he knew was normally cameo pale. She was heavily pregnant. Her condition had not touched her anywhere but the swollen belly. She was as fine-boned as ever in face and limbs. Less adorned than any other woman in the room, she was easily the most beautiful. For a few seconds they contemplated each other, then she took a few tentative steps forwards, the color ebbing from her cheeks as fast as it had come.

“Corm?”

“Hello, Charlotte.”

If she thought of kissing him, his stony face deterred her.