Lethal White

With a dreadful crunching noise, the earth gave up something large and white. Robin gave a small yelp, stepped backwards and fell, half-sitting, into the wall of the dell.

“Fuck,” repeated Barclay.

Strike shifted the torch to his free hand so as to shine it onto the thing he had just dragged out of the earth. Stunned, Robin and Barclay saw the discolored and partially shattered skull of a horse.

66

Do not sit here musing and brooding over insoluble conundrums.

Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

Protected through the years by the blanket, the skull shone pale in the torchlight, weirdly reptilian in the length of its nose and the sharpness of its mandibles. A few blunt teeth remained. There were cavities in the skull in addition to the eyeholes, one in the jaw, one to the side of the head, and around each, the bone was cracked and splintered.

“Shot,” said Strike, turning the skull slowly in his hands. A third indentation showed the course of another bullet, which had fractured but not penetrated the horse’s head.

Robin knew she would have been feeling far worse had the skull been human, but she was nonetheless shaken by the noise it had made when released from the earth, and by the unexpected sight of this fragile shell of what had once lived and breathed, stripped bare by bacteria and insects.

“Vets euthanize horses with a single shot to the forehead,” she said. “They don’t spray them with bullets.”

“Rifle,” said Barclay authoritatively, clambering nearer to examine the skull. “Someone’s took pot shots at it.”

“Not that big, is it? Was it a foal?” Strike asked Robin.

“Maybe, but I think it looks more like a pony, or a miniature horse.”

He turned it slowly in his hands and all three of them watched the skull moving in the torchlight. They had expended so much pain and effort digging it out of the ground that it seemed to hold secrets beyond those of its mere existence.

“So Billy did witness a burial,” said Strike.

“But it wasn’t a child. You won’t have to rethink your theory,” said Robin.

“Theory?” repeated Barclay, and was ignored.

“I don’t know, Robin,” said Strike, his face ghostly beyond the torchlight. “If he didn’t invent the burial, I don’t think he invented—”

“Shit,” said Barclay. “She’s done it, she’s let those fucking dogs out.”

The yapping of the terrier and the deeper, booming barks of the Labrador, no longer muffled by containing walls, came ringing through the night. Without ceremony, Strike dropped the skull.

“Barclay, grab all the tools and get out of here. We’ll hold the dogs off.”

“What about—?”

“Leave it, there’s no time to fill it in,” said Strike, already clambering out of the dell, ignoring the excruciating pain in the end of his stump. “Robin, come on, you’re with me—”

“What if she’s called the police?” Robin said, reaching the top of the dell first and turning to help heave Strike up.

“We’ll wing it,” he panted, “come on, I want to stop the dogs before they get to Sam.”

The woods were dense and tangled. Strike had left his walking stick behind. Robin held his arm as he limped as fast as he could, grunting with pain every time he asked his stump to bear his weight. Robin glimpsed a pinprick of light through the trees. Somebody had come out of the house with a torch.

Suddenly, the Norfolk terrier burst through the undergrowth, barking ferociously.

“Good boy, yes, you found us!” Robin panted.

Ignoring her friendly overture it launched itself at her, trying to bite. She kicked out at it with her Wellingtoned foot, holding it at bay while sounds reached them of the heavier Labrador crashing towards them.

“Little fucker,” said Strike, trying to repel the Norfolk terrier as it darted around them, snarling, but seconds later the terrier had caught wind of Barclay: it turned its head towards the dell and, before either of them could stop it, took off again, yapping frenziedly.

“Shit,” said Robin.

“Never mind, keep going,” said Strike, though the end of his stump was burning and he wondered how much longer it would support him.

They had managed only a few more paces when the fat Labrador reached them.

“Good boy, yes, good boy,” Robin crooned, and the Labrador, less enthusiastic about the chase, allowed her to secure a tight grip on its collar. “Come on, come with us,” said Robin, and she half dragged it, with Strike still leaning on her, towards the overgrown croquet lawn where they now saw a torch bobbing ever nearer through the darkness. A shrill voice called:

“Badger! Rattenbury! Who’s that? Who’s there?”

The silhouette behind the torchlight was female and bulky.

“It’s all right, Mrs. Chiswell!” called Robin. “It’s only us!”

“Who’s ‘us’? Who are you?”

“Follow my lead,” Strike muttered to Robin, and he called, “Mrs. Chiswell, it’s Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott.”

“What are you doing here?” she shouted, across the diminishing space between them.

“We were interviewing Tegan Butcher in the village, Mrs. Chiswell,” called Strike, as he, Robin and the reluctant Badger made their laborious way through the long grass. “We were driving back this way and we saw two people entering your property.”

“What two people? Where?”

“They entered the woods back there,” said Strike. From the depths of the trees, the Norfolk terrier was still frenziedly barking. “We didn’t have your number, or we’d have called to warn you.”

Within a few feet of her now, they saw that Kinvara was wearing a thick, padded coat over a short nightdress of black silk, her legs bare above Wellington boots. Her suspicion, shock and incredulity met Strike’s total assurance.

“Thought we ought to do something, seeing as we were the only people who witnessed it,” he gasped, wincing a little as he hobbled up to her with Robin’s assistance, self-deprecatingly heroic. “Apologies,” he added, coming to a halt, “for the state of us. Those woods are muddy and I fell over a couple of times.”

A cold breeze swept the dark lawn. Kinvara stared at him, flummoxed, suspicious, then turned her face in the direction of the terrier’s continued barking.

“RATTENBURY!” she shouted. “RATTENBURY!”

She turned back to Strike.

“What did they look like?

“Men,” invented Strike, “young and fit from the way they were moving. We knew you’d had trouble with trespassers before—”

“Yes. Yes, I have,” said Kinvara, sounding frightened. She seemed to take in Strike’s condition for the first time, as he leaned heavily on Robin, face contorted with pain.

“I suppose you’d better come in.”

“Thanks very much,” said Strike gratefully, “very kind of you.”

Kinvara jerked the Labrador’s collar out of Robin’s grip and bellowed, “RATTENBURY!” again, but the distantly barking terrier did not respond, so she dragged the Labrador, which was showing signs of rebellion, back towards the house, Robin and Strike following.

“What if she calls the police?” Robin muttered to Strike.

“Cross that bridge when we come to it,” he responded.

A floor-to-ceiling drawing room window stood open. Kinvara had evidently followed her frantic dogs through it, as the quickest route to the woods.

“We’re pretty muddy,” Robin warned her, as they crunched their way across the gravel path that encircled the house.

“Just leave your boots outside,” said Kinvara, stepping into the drawing room without bothering to remove her own. “I’m planning to change this carpet, anyway.”

Robin tugged off her wellies, followed Strike inside and closed the window.

The cold, dingy room was illuminated by a single lamp.

“Two men?” Kinvara repeated, turning again to Strike. “Where exactly did you see them coming in?”

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“Over the wall at the road,” said Strike.

“D’you think they knew you’d seen them?”

“Oh yeah,” said Strike. “We pulled up, but they ran into the woods. Think they might’ve bottled it once we followed them, though, don’t you?” he asked Robin.

“Yes,” said Robin, “we think we heard them running back towards the road when you let the dogs out.”

“Rattenbury’s still chasing someone—of course, that could be a fox—he goes crazy about the foxes in the woods,” said Kinvara.

Strike’s attention had just been caught by a change to the room since the last time he had seen it. There was a fresh square of dark crimson wallpaper over the mantelpiece, where the painting of the mare and foal had hung.

“What happened to your picture?” he asked.

Kinvara turned to see what Strike was talking about. She answered, perhaps a few seconds too late:

“I sold it.”

“Oh,” said Strike. “I thought you were particularly fond of that one?”

“Not since what Torquil said that day. I didn’t like having it hanging there, after that.”

“Ah,” said Strike.

Rattenbury’s persistent barking continued to echo from the woods where, Strike was certain, it had found Barclay, struggling back to his car with two kit bags full of tools. Now that Kinvara had released her hold on its collar, the fat Labrador let out a single booming bark and trotted to the window, where it began whining and pawing at the glass.

“The police won’t get here in time even if I call them,” said Kinvara, half worried, half angry. “I’m never top priority. They think I make it all up, these intruders.

“I’m going to check on the horses,” she said, coming to a decision, but instead of going out through the window, she stomped out of the drawing room into the hall and from there, as far as they could hear, into a different room.

“I hope the dog hasn’t got Barclay,” Robin whispered.

“Better hope he hasn’t brained it with a spade,” muttered Strike.

The door reopened. Kinvara had returned, and to Robin’s consternation, she was carrying a revolver.

“I’ll take that,” said Strike, hobbling forwards and taking the revolver out of her startled grip. He examined it. “Harrington & Richardson 7-shot? This is illegal, Mrs. Chiswell.”

“It was Jasper’s,” she replied, as though this constituted a special permit, “and I’d rather take—”

“I’ll come with you to check on the horses,” said Strike firmly, “and Robin can stay here and keep an eye on the house.”

Kinvara might have liked to protest, but Strike was already opening the drawing room window. Seizing its opportunity, the Labrador lumbered back out into the dark garden, its deep barks echoing around the grounds.

“Oh, for God’s sake—you shouldn’t have let him out—Badger!” shouted Kinvara. She whipped back around to Robin, said, “mind you stay in this room!” then followed the Labrador back into the garden, Strike limping after her with the rifle. Both disappeared into the darkness. Robin stood where they had left her, struck by the vehemence of Kinvara’s order.

The open window had admitted plenty of night air into what was already a chilly interior. Robin approached the log basket beside the fire, which was temptingly full of newspaper, sticks, logs and firelighters, but she could hardly build a fire in Kinvara’s absence. The room was as shabby in every respect as she remembered it, the walls now denuded of everything but four prints of Oxfordshire landscapes. Outside in the grounds the two dogs continued to bark, but inside the room the only sound, which Robin hadn’t noticed on her last visit, due to the family’s talking and bickering, was the loud ticking of an old grandfather clock in the corner.

Every muscle in Robin’s body was starting to ache after the long hours of digging, and her blistered hands were smarting. She had just sat down on the sagging sofa, hugging herself for warmth, when she heard a creak overhead that sounded very like a footstep.

Robin stared up at the ceiling. She had probably imagined it. Old houses made strange noises that sounded human until they were familiar to you. Her parents’ radiators made chugging noises in the night and their old doors groaned in the central heating. It was probably nothing.

A second creak sounded, several feet from where the first had occurred.

As she got to her feet, Robin scanned the room for anything she could use as a weapon. A small, ugly bronze frog ornament sat on a table beside the sofa. As her fingers closed over the cold pock-marked surface, she heard a third creak from overhead. Unless she was imagining it, the footsteps had now moved all the way across a room directly above the one in which she was.

Robin stood quite still for almost a minute, straining her ears. She knew what Strike would say: stay put. Then she heard another tiny movement overhead. Somebody, she was sure, was creeping around upstairs.

Moving as quietly as possible in her socked feet, Robin edged around the drawing room door without touching it, in case it creaked, and walked quietly into the middle of the stone-flagged hall, where the hanging lantern cast a patchy light. She came to a halt beneath it, straining her ears, heart bumping erratically, imagining an unknown person standing above her, also standing, frozen, listening, waiting. Bronze frog still clutched in her right hand, she moved to the foot of the stairs. The landing above her was in darkness. The sound of the dogs’ barking echoed from deep in the woods.

She was halfway towards the upper landing when she thought she heard another small noise above her: the scuff of a foot on carpet followed by the swish of a closing door.

She knew that there was no point calling out “Who’s there?” If the person hiding from her had been prepared to show their face, they would hardly have let Kinvara leave the house alone to face whatever had set off the dogs.

Reaching the top of the stairs, Robin saw that a vertical strip of light lay like a spectral finger across the dark floor, emanating from the only lit room. Her neck and scalp prickled as she crept towards it, afraid that the unknown lurker was watching from one of the three dark rooms with open doors she was passing. Constantly checking over her shoulder, she pushed the door of the lit bedroom with the tips of her fingers, raised the bronze frog high and entered.

This was clearly Kinvara’s room: messy, cluttered and deserted. A single lamp burned on the bedside table nearest the door. The bed was unmade, with an air of having been left in a hurry, the cream quilted eiderdown lying crumpled on the floor. The walls were covered with many pictures of horses, all of them of significantly lesser quality, even to Robin’s untutored eye, than the missing picture in the drawing room. The wardrobe doors stood open, but only a Lilliputian could have been hidden among the densely packed clothes within.

Robin returned to the dark landing. Taking a tighter grip on the bronze frog, she oriented herself. The sounds she had heard had come from a room directly overhead, which meant that it was probably the one with the closed door, facing her.

As she reached out her hand towards the doorknob, the terrifying sensation that unseen eyes were watching intensified. Pushing the door open, she felt around on the interior wall without entering, until she found a light switch.

The stark light revealed a cold, bare bedroom with a brass bedstead and a single chest of drawers. The heavy curtains on their old fashioned brass rings had been drawn, hiding the grounds. On the double bed lay the painting, “Mare Mourning,” the brown and white mare forever nosing the pure white foal curled up in the straw.

Groping in the pocket of her jacket with the hand not holding the bronze paperweight, Robin found her mobile and took several photographs of the painting lying on the bedspread. It had the appearance of having been hastily placed there.

She had a sudden feeling that something had moved behind her. She whipped around, trying to blink away the shining impression of the gilded frame burned into her retina by the flash on her camera. Then she heard Strike’s and Kinvara’s voices

growing louder in the garden and knew that they were returning to the drawing room.

Slapping off the light in the spare room, Robin ran as quietly as possible back across the landing and down the stairs. Fearing that she wouldn’t be able to reach the drawing room in time to greet them, she darted to the downstairs bathroom, flushed the toilet, and then ran back across the hall, reaching the drawing room just as her hostess re-entered it from the garden.

67

… I had good reason enough for so jealously drawing a veil of concealment over our compact.

Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

The Norfolk terrier was struggling in Kinvara’s arms, its paws muddy. At the sight of Robin, Rattenbury set up a volley of barking again and struggled to get free.

“Sorry, I was dying for the loo,” panted Robin, the bronze frog hidden behind her back. The old cistern backed up her story, making loud gushing and clanking noises that echoed through the stone-flagged hallway. “Any luck?” Robin called to Strike, who was climbing back into the room behind Kinvara.

“Nothing,” said Strike, now haggard with pain. After waiting for the panting Labrador to hop back into the room, he closed the window, the revolver in his other hand. “There were definitely people out there, though. The dogs knew it, but I think they’ve taken off. What were the odds of us passing just as they were climbing over the wall?”

“Oh, do shut up, Rattenbury!” shouted Kinvara.

She set the terrier down and, when it refused to stop yapping at Robin, she threatened it with a raised hand, at which it whimpered and retreated into a corner to join the Labrador.

“Horses OK?” Robin asked, moving to the end table from which she had taken the bronze paperweight.

“One of the stable doors wasn’t fastened properly,” said Strike, wincing as he bent to feel his knee. “But Mrs. Chiswell thinks it might have been left like that. Would you mind if I sat down, Mrs. Chiswell?”

“I—no, I suppose not,” Kinvara said gracelessly.

She headed to a table of bottles sitting in the corner of the room, uncorked some Famous Grouse and poured herself a stiff measure of whisky. While her back was turned, Robin slid the paperweight back onto the table. She tried to catch Strike’s eyes, but he had sunk down onto the sofa with a faint groan, and now turned to Kinvara.