Lethal White

“Aye,” said Barclay, “aye, fair enough. What are you paying, like?”

They discussed money for five minutes. Strike explained how his other employees set themselves up as private contractors and how receipts and other professional expenses should be brought into the office for reimbursement. Finally he opened the file and slid it around to show Barclay the contents.

“I need this guy followed,” he said, pointing out a photograph of a chubby youth with thick curly hair. “Pictures of whoever he’s with and what he’s up to.”

“Aye, all right,” said Barclay, getting out his mobile and taking pictures of the target’s photograph and address.

“He’s being watched today by my other guy,” said Strike, “but I need you outside his flat from six o’clock tomorrow morning.”

He was pleased to note that Barclay did not query the early start.

“Whut happened to that lassie, though?” Barclay inquired as he put his phone back into his pocket. “The one who was in the papers with ye?”

“Robin?” said Strike. “She’s on holiday. Back next week.”

They parted with a handshake, Strike enjoying a moment’s fleeting optimism before remembering that he would now have to return to the office, which meant proximity to Denise, with her parrot-like chatter, her habit of talking with her mouth full and her inability to remember that he detested pale, milky tea.

He had to pick his way through the ever-present roadworks at the top of Tottenham Court Road to get back to his office. Waiting until he was past the noisiest stretch, he called Robin to tell her that he had hired Barclay, but his call went straight to voicemail. Remembering that she was supposed to be at the mysterious clinic right now, he cut the call without leaving a message.

Walking on, a sudden thought occurred to him. He had assumed that the clinic related to Robin’s mental health, but what if—?

The phone in his hand rang: the office number.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Strike?” said Denise’s terrified squawk in his ear. “Mr. Strike, could you come back quickly, please? Please—there’s a gentleman—he wants to see you very urgently—”

Behind her, Strike heard a loud bang and a man shouting.

“Please come back as soon as you can!” screamed Denise.

“On my way!” Strike shouted and he broke into an ungainly run.

2

… he doesn’t look the sort of man one ought to allow in here.

Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

Panting, his right knee aching, Strike used the handrail to pull himself up the last few steps of the metal staircase leading to his office. Two raised voices were reverberating through the glass door, one male, the other shrill, frightened and female. When Strike burst into the room, Denise, who was backed against the wall, gasped, “Oh, thank God!”

Strike judged the man in the middle of the room to be in his mid-twenties. Dark hair fell in straggly wisps around a thin and dirty face that was dominated by burning, sunken eyes. His T-shirt, jeans and hoodie were all torn and filthy, the sole of one of his trainers peeling away from the leather. An unwashed animal stench hit the detective’s nostrils.

That the stranger was mentally ill could be in no doubt. Every ten seconds or so, in what seemed to be an uncontrollable tic, he touched first the end of his nose, which had grown red with repeated tapping, then, with a faint hollow thud, the middle of his thin sternum, then let his hand drop to his side. Almost immediately, his hand would fly to the tip of his nose again. It was as though he had forgotten how to cross himself, or had simplified the action for speed’s sake. Nose, chest, hand at his side; nose, chest, hand at his side; the mechanical movement was distressing to watch, and the more so as he seemed barely conscious that he was doing it. He was one of those ill and desperate people you saw in the capital who were always somebody else’s problem, like the traveler on the Tube everybody tried to avoid making eye contact with and the ranting woman on the street corner whom people crossed the street to avoid, fragments of shattered humanity who were too common to trouble the imagination for long.

“You him?” said the burning-eyed man, as his hand touched nose and chest again. “You Strike? You the detective?”

With the hand that was not constantly flying from nose to chest, he suddenly tugged at his flies. Denise whimpered, as if scared he might suddenly expose himself, and, indeed, it seemed entirely possible.

“I’m Strike, yeah,” said the detective, moving around to place himself between the stranger and the temp. “You OK, Denise?”

“Yes,” she whispered, still backed against the wall.

“I seen a kid killed,” said the stranger. “Strangled.”

“OK,” said Strike, matter-of-factly. “Why don’t we go in here?”

He gestured to him that he should proceed into the inner office.

“I need a piss!” said the man, tugging at his zip.

“This way, then.”

Strike showed him the door to the toilet just outside the office. When the door had banged shut behind him, Strike returned quietly to Denise.

“What happened?”

“He wanted to see you, I said you weren’t here and he got angry and started punching things!”

“Call the police,” said Strike quietly. “Tell them we’ve got a very ill man here. Possibly psychotic. Wait until I’ve got him into my office, though.”

The bathroom door banged open. The stranger’s flies were gaping. He did not seem to be wearing underpants. Denise whimpered again as he frantically touched nose and chest, nose and chest, unaware of the large patch of dark pubic hair he was exposing.

“This way,” said Strike pleasantly. The man shuffled through the inner door, the stench of him doubly potent after a brief respite.

On being invited to sit down, the stranger perched himself on the edge of the client’s chair.

“What’s your name?” Strike asked, sitting down on the other side of the desk.

“Billy,” said the man, his hand flying from nose to chest three times in quick succession. The third time his hand fell, he grabbed it with his other hand and held it tightly.

“And you saw a child strangled, Billy?” said Strike, as in the next room Denise gabbled:

“Police, quickly!”

“What did she say?” asked Billy, his sunken eyes huge in his face as he glanced nervously towards the outer office, one hand clasping the other in his effort to suppress his tic.

“That’s nothing,” said Strike easily. “I’ve got a few different cases on. Tell me about this child.”

Strike reached for a pad and paper, all his movements slow and cautious, as though Billy were a wild bird that might take fright.

“He strangled it, up by the horse.”

Denise was now gabbling loudly into the phone beyond the flimsy partition wall.

“When was this?” asked Strike, still writing.

“Ages… I was a kid. Little girl it was, but after they said it was a little boy. Jimmy was there, he says I never saw it, but I did. I saw him do it. Strangled. I saw it.”

“And this was up by the horse, was it?”

“Right up by the horse. That’s not where they buried her, though. Him. That was down in the dell, by our dad’s. I seen them doing it, I can show you the place. She wouldn’t let me dig, but she’d let you.”

“And Jimmy did it, did he?”

“Jimmy never strangled nobody!” said Billy angrily. “He saw it with me. He says it didn’t happen but he’s lying, he was there. He’s frightened, see.”

“I see,” lied Strike, continuing to take notes. “Well, I’ll need your address if I’m going to investigate.”

He half-expected resistance, but Billy reached eagerly for the proffered pad and pen. A further gust of body odor reached Strike. Billy began to write, but suddenly seemed to think better of it.

“You won’t come to Jimmy’s place, though? He’ll fucking tan me. You can’t come to Jimmy’s.”

/>

“No, no,” said Strike soothingly. “I just need your address for my records.”

Through the door came Denise’s grating voice.

“I need someone here quicker than that, he’s very disturbed!”

“What’s she saying?” asked Billy.

To Strike’s chagrin, Billy suddenly ripped the top sheet from the pad, crumpled it, then began to touch nose and chest again with his fist enclosing the paper.

“Don’t worry about Denise,” said Strike, “she’s dealing with another client. Can I get you a drink, Billy?”

“Drink of what?”

“Tea? Or coffee?”

“Why?” asked Billy. The offer seemed to have made him even more suspicious. “Why do you want me to drink something?”

“Only if you fancy it. Doesn’t matter if you don’t.”

“I don’t need medicine!”

“I haven’t got any medicine to give you,” said Strike.

“I’m not mental! He strangled the kid and they buried it, down in the dell by our dad’s house. Wrapped in a blanket it was. Pink blanket. It wasn’t my fault. I was only a kid. I didn’t want to be there. I was just a little kid.”

“How many years ago, do you know?”

“Ages… years… can’t get it out of my head,” said Billy, his eyes burning in his thin face as the fist enclosing the piece of paper fluttered up and down, touching nose, touching chest. “They buried her in a pink blanket, down in the dell by my dad’s house. But afterwards they said it was a boy.”

“Where’s your dad’s house, Billy?”

“She won’t let me back now. You could dig, though. You could go. Strangled her, they did,” said Billy, fixing Strike with his haunted eyes. “But Jimmy said it was a boy. Strangled, up by the—”

There was a knock on the door. Before Strike could tell her not to enter, Denise had poked her head inside, much braver now that Strike was here, full of her own importance.

“They’re coming,” she said, with a look of exaggerated meaning that would have spooked a man far less jumpy than Billy. “On their way now.”

“Who’s coming?” demanded Billy, jumping up. “Who’s on their way?”

Denise whipped her head out of the room and closed the door. There was a soft thud against the wood, and Strike knew that she was leaning against it, trying to hold Billy in.

“She’s just talking about a delivery I’m expecting,” Strike said soothingly, getting to his feet. “Go on about the—”

“What have you done?” yelped Billy, backing away towards the door while he repeatedly touched nose and chest. “Who’s coming?”

“Nobody’s coming,” said Strike, but Billy was already trying to push the door open. Meeting resistance, he flung himself hard against it. There was a shriek from outside as Denise was thrown aside. Before Strike could get out from around the desk, Billy had sprinted through the outer door. They heard him jumping down the metal stairs three at a time and Strike, infuriated, knowing that he had no hope of catching a younger and, on the evidence, fitter man, turned and ran back into his office. Throwing up the sash window, he leaned outside just in time to see Billy whipping around the corner of the street out of sight.

“Bollocks!”

A man heading inside the guitar shop opposite stared around in some perplexity for the source of the noise.

Strike withdrew his head and turned to glare at Denise, who was dusting herself down in the doorway to his office. Incredibly, she looked pleased with herself.

“I tried to hold him in,” she said proudly.

“Yeah,” said Strike, exercising considerable self-restraint. “I saw.”

“The police are on their way.”

“Fantastic.”

“Would you like a cup of tea?”

“No,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Then I think I’ll go and freshen up the bathroom,” she said, adding in a whisper, “I don’t think he used the flush.”

3

I fought out that fight alone and in the completest secrecy.

Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

As she walked along the unfamiliar Deptford street, Robin was raised to temporary light-heartedness, then wondered when she had last felt this way and knew that it had been over a year. Energized and uplifted by the afternoon sunshine, the colorful shopfronts and general bustle and noise, she was currently celebrating the fact that she never need see the inside of the Villiers Trust Clinic again.

Her therapist had been unhappy that she was terminating treatment.

“We recommend a full course,” she had said.

“I know,” Robin replied, “but, well, I’m sorry, I think this has done me as much good as it’s going to.”

The therapist’s smile had been chilly.

“The CBT’s been great,” Robin had said. “It’s really helped with the anxiety, I’m going to keep that up…”

She had taken a deep breath, eyes fixed on the woman’s low-heeled Mary Janes, then forced herself to look her in the eye.

“… but I’m not finding this part helpful.”

Another silence had ensued. After five sessions, Robin was used to them. In normal conversation, it would be considered rude or passive aggressive to leave these long pauses and simply watch the other person, waiting for them to speak, but in psychodynamic therapy, she had learned, it was standard.

Robin’s doctor had given her a referral for free treatment on the NHS, but the waiting list had been so long that she had decided, with Matthew’s tight-lipped support, to pay for treatment. Matthew, she knew, was barely refraining from saying that the ideal solution would be to give up the job that had landed her with PTSD and which in his view paid far too poorly considering the dangers to which she had been exposed.

“You see,” Robin had continued with the speech she had prepared, “my life is pretty much wall to wall with people who think they know what’s best for me.”

“Well, yes,” said the therapist, in a manner that Robin felt would have been considered condescending beyond the clinic walls, “we’ve discussed—”

“—and…”

Robin was by nature conciliatory and polite. On the other hand, she had been urged repeatedly by the therapist to speak the unvarnished truth in this dingy little room with the spider plant in its dull green pot and the man-sized tissues on the low pine table.

“… and to be honest,” she said, “you feel like just another one of them.”

Another pause.

“Well,” said the therapist, with a little laugh, “I’m here to help you reach your own conclusions about—”

“Yes, but you do it by—by pushing me all the time,” said Robin. “It’s combative. You challenge everything I say.”

Robin closed her eyes, as a great wave of weariness swept her. Her muscles ached. She had spent all week putting together flat-pack furniture, heaving around boxes of books and hanging pictures.

“I come out of here,” said Robin, opening her eyes again, “feeling wrung out. I go home to my husband, and he does it, too. He leaves big sulky silences and challenges me on the smallest things. Then I phone my mother, and it’s more of the same. The only person who isn’t at me all the time to sort myself out is—”

She pulled up short, then said:

“—is my work partner.”

“Mr. Strike,” said the therapist sweetly.

It had been a matter of contention between Robin and the therapist that she had refused to discuss her relationship with Strike, other than to confirm that he was unaware of how much the Shacklewell Ripper case had affected her. Their personal relationship, she had stated firmly, was irrelevant to her present issues. The therapist had raised him in every session since, but Robin had consistently refused to engage on the subject.

“Yes,” said Robin. “Him.”

“By your own admission you haven’t told him the full extent of your anxiety.”

“So,” said Robin, ignoring the last comment,

“I really only came today to tell you I’m leaving. As I say, I’ve found the CBT really useful and I’m going to keep using the exercises.”

The therapist had seemed outraged that Robin wasn’t even prepared to stay for the full hour, but Robin had paid for the entire session and therefore felt free to walk out, giving her what felt like a bonus hour in the day. She felt justified in not hurrying home to do more unpacking, but to buy herself a Cornetto and enjoy it as she wandered through the sun-drenched streets of her new area.

Chasing her own cheerfulness like a butterfly, because she was afraid it might escape, she turned up a quieter street, forcing herself to concentrate, to take in the unfamiliar scene. She was, after all, delighted to have left behind the old flat in West Ealing, with its many bad memories. It had become clear during his trial that the Shacklewell Ripper had been tailing and watching Robin for far longer than she had ever suspected. The police had even told her that they thought he had hung around Hastings Road, lurking behind parked cars, yards from her front door.

Desperate though she had been to move, it had taken her and Matthew eleven months to find a new place. The main problem was that Matthew had been determined to “take a step up the property ladder,” now that he had a better-paid new job and a legacy from his late mother. Robin’s parents, too, had expressed a willingness to help them, given the awful associations of the old flat, but London was excruciatingly expensive. Three times had Matthew set his heart on flats that were, realistically, well out of their price range. Three times had they failed to buy what Robin could have told him would sell for thousands more than they could offer.

“It’s ridiculous!” he kept saying, “it isn’t worth that!”

“It’s worth whatever people are prepared to pay,” Robin had said, frustrated that an accountant didn’t understand the operation of market forces. She had been ready to move anywhere, even a single room, to escape the shadow of the killer who continued to haunt her dreams.