Роберт Гэлбрейт - Lethal White

‘What was it that made Jasper Chiswell so eager to find out things to your disadvantage, would you say?’

‘He didn’t like me,’ said Della simply. ‘We disagreed frequently. He came from a background that finds anything that deviates from its own conventions and norms to be suspect, unnatural, even dangerous. He was a rich white Conservative male, Mr Strike, and he felt the corridors of power were best populated exclusively by rich white Conservative males. He sought, in everything, to restore a status quo he remembered in his youth. In pursuit of that objective, he was frequently unprincipled and certainly hypocritical.’

‘In what way?’

‘Ask his wife.’

‘You know Kinvara, do you?’

‘I wouldn’t say I “know” her. I had an encounter with her a while ago that was certainly interesting in the light of Chiswell’s public proclamations about the sanctity of marriage.’

Strike had the impression that beneath the lofty language, and in spite of her genuine anxiety about Aamir, Della was deriving pleasure from saying these things.

‘What happened?’ Strike asked.

‘Kinvara turned up unexpectedly late one afternoon at the ministry, but Jasper had already left for Oxfordshire. I think it was her aim to surprise him.’

‘When was this?’

‘I should say . . . a year ago, at least. Shortly before Parliament went into recess, I think. She was in a state of great distress. I heard a commotion outside and went to find out what was going on. I could tell by the silence of the outer office that they were all agog. She was very emotional, demanding to see her husband. Initially I thought she must have had dreadful news and perhaps needed Jasper as a source of comfort and support. I took her into my office.

‘Once it was just the two of us, she broke down completely. She was barely coherent, but from the little I could understand,’ said Della, ‘she’d just found out there was another woman.’

‘Did she say who?’

‘I don’t think so. She may have done, but she was – well, it was quite disturbing,’ said Della austerely. ‘More as though she had suffered a bereavement than the end of a marriage. “I was just part of his game”, “He never loved me” and so forth.’

‘What game did you take her to mean?’ asked Strike.

‘The political game, I suppose. She spoke of being humiliated, of being told, in so many words, that she had served her purpose . . .

‘Jasper Chiswell was a very ambitious man, you know. He’d lost his career once over infidelity. I imagine he cast around quite clinically for the kind of new wife who’d burnish his image. No more Italian fly-by-nights now he was trying to get back into the cabinet. He probably thought Kinvara would go down very well with the county Conservatives. Well-bred. Horsey.

‘I heard, later, that Jasper had bundled her off into some kind of psychiatric clinic not long afterwards. That’s how families like the Chiswells deal with excessive emotion, I suppose,’ said Della, taking another sip of wine. ‘Yet she stayed with him. Of course, people do stay, even when they’re treated abominably. He talked about her within my hearing as though she was a deficient, needy child. I remember him saying Kinvara’s mother would be “babysitting” her for her birthday, because he had to be in Parliament for a vote. He could have paired his vote, of course – found a Labour MP and struck a deal. Simply couldn’t be bothered.

‘Women like Kinvara Chiswell, whose entire self-worth is predicated on the status and success of marriage, are naturally shattered when everything goes wrong. I think all those horses of hers were an outlet, a substitute and – oh yes,’ said Della, ‘I’ve just remembered – the very last thing she said to me that day was that in addition to everything else, she now had to go home to put down a beloved mare.’

Della felt for the broad, soft head of Gwynn, who was lying beside her chair.

‘I felt very sorry for her, there. Animals have been an enormous consolation to me in my life. One can hardly overstate the comfort they give, sometimes.’

The hand that caressed the dog still sported a wedding ring, Strike noticed, along with a heavy amethyst ring that matched her housecoat. Somebody, he supposed Geraint, must have told her that it was the same colour and again, he felt an unwelcome pang of pity.

‘Did Kinvara tell you how or when she’d found out that her husband had been unfaithful?’

‘No, no, she simply gave way to an almost incoherent outpouring of rage and grief, like a small child. Kept saying, “I loved him and he never loved me, it was all a lie”. I’ve never heard such a raw explosion of grief, even at a funeral or a deathbed. I never spoke to her again except for hello. She acted as though she had no memory of what had passed between us.’

Della took another sip of wine.

‘Can we return to Mallik?’ Strike asked.

‘Yes, of course,’ she said at once.

‘The morning that Jasper Chiswell died – the thirteenth – you were here, at home?’

There was a lengthy silence.

‘Why are you asking me that?’ Della said, in a changed tone.

‘Because I’d like to corroborate a story I’ve heard,’ said Strike.

‘You mean, that Aamir was here with me, that morning?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Well, that’s quite true. I’d slipped downstairs and sprained my wrist. I called Aamir and he came over. He wanted me to go to casualty, but there was no need. I could still move all my fingers. I simply needed some help managing breakfast and so on.’

‘ You called Mallik?’

‘What?’ she said.

It was the age-old, transparent ‘what?’ of the person who is afraid they’ve made a mistake. Strike guessed that some very rapid thinking was going on behind the dark glasses.

‘ You called Aamir?’

‘Why? What does he say happened?’

‘He says your husband went in person to fetch him from his house.’

‘Oh,’ said Della and then, ‘of course, yes, I forgot.’

‘Did you?’ asked Strike gently. ‘Or are you backing up their story?’

‘I forgot,’ Della repeated firmly. ‘When I said I “called” him I wasn’t talking about the telephone. I meant that I called “on” him. Via Geraint.’

‘But if Geraint was here when you slipped, couldn’t he have helped you with your breakfast?’

‘I think Geraint wanted Aamir to help persuade me to go to casualty.’

‘Right. So it was Geraint’s idea to go to Aamir, rather than yours?’

‘I can’t remember now,’ she said, but then, contradicting herself, ‘I’d fallen rather heavily. Geraint has a bad back, naturally he wanted help and I thought of Aamir, and then the pair of them nagged me to go to A&E, but there was no need. It was a simple sprain.’

The light was now fading beyond the net curtains. Della’s black lenses reflected the neon red of the dying sun above the rooftops.

‘I’m extremely worried about Aamir,’ she said again, in a strained voice.

‘A couple more questions and I’m done,’ Strike replied. ‘Jasper Chiswell hinted in front of a roomful of people that he knew something disreputable about Mallik. Can you tell me anything about that?’

‘Yes, well, it was that conversation,’ said Della quietly, ‘that first made Aamir think about resigning. I could feel him pulling away from me after it happened. And then you finished the job, didn’t you? You went to his house, to taunt him further.’

‘There was no taunting, Mrs Winn—’

‘ Liwat , Mr Strike, did you never learn what that meant all the time you were in the Middle East?’

‘Yeah, I know what it means,’ said Strike matter-of-factly. ‘Sodomy. Chiswell seemed to be threatening Aamir with exposure—’