Роберт Гэлбрейт - Lethal White

Bees buzzed in the churchyard roses around her as Robin wondered, for the thousandth time, where she would be right now if Matthew hadn’t scratched himself on coral. Most of her now-terminated therapy sessions had been full of her need to talk about the doubts that had plagued her ever since she had agreed to remain married.

In the months that had followed, and especially when she and Matthew were getting on reasonably well, it seemed to her that it had been right to give the marriage a fair trial, but she never forgot to think of it in terms of a trial, and this in itself sometimes led her, sleepless at night, to castigate herself for the pusillanimous failure to pull herself free once Matthew had recovered.

She had never explained to Strike what had happened, why she had agreed to try and keep the marriage afloat. Perhaps that was why their friendship had grown so cold and distant. When she had returned from her honeymoon, it was to find Strike changed towards her – and perhaps, she acknowledged, she had changed towards him, too, because of what she had heard on the line when she had called, in desperation, from the Maldives bar.

‘Sticking with it, then, are you?’ he had said roughly, after a glance at her ring finger.

His tone had nettled her, as had the fact that he had never asked why she was trying, never asked about her home life from that point onwards, never so much as hinted that he remembered the hug on the stairs.

Whether because Strike had arranged matters that way or not, they had not worked a case together since that of the Shacklewell Ripper. Imitating her senior partner, Robin had retreated into a cool professionalism.

But sometimes she was afraid that he no longer valued her as he once had, now that she had proven herself so conventional and cowardly. There had been an awkward conversation a few months ago in which he had suggested that she take time off, asked whether she felt she was fully recovered after the knife attack. Taking this as a slight upon her bravery, afraid that she would again find herself sidelined, losing the only part of her life that she currently found fulfilling, she had insisted that she was perfectly well and redoubled her professional efforts.

The muted mobile in her bag vibrated. Robin slipped her hand inside and looked to see who was calling. Strike. She also noticed that he had called earlier, while she was saying a joyful goodbye to the Villiers Trust Clinic.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I missed you earlier, sorry.’

‘Not a problem. Move gone all right?’

‘Fine,’ she said.

‘Just wanted to let you know, I’ve hired us a new subcontractor. Name of Sam Barclay.’

‘Great,’ said Robin, watching a fly shimmering on a fat, blush-pink rose. ‘What’s his background?’

‘Army,’ said Strike.

‘Military police?’

‘Er – not exactly.’

As he told her the story of Sam Barclay, Robin found herself grinning.

‘So you’ve hired a dope-smoking painter and decorator?’

‘Vaping, dope vaping ,’ Strike corrected her, and Robin could tell that he was grinning, too. ‘He’s on a health kick. New baby.’

‘Well, he sounds . . . interesting.’

She waited, but Strike did not speak.

‘I’ll see you Saturday night, then,’ she said.

Robin had felt obliged to invite Strike to her and Matthew’s house-warming party, because she had given their most regular and reliable subcontractor, Andy Hutchins, an invitation, and felt it would be odd to leave out Strike. She had been surprised when he had accepted.

‘Yeah, see you then.’

‘Is Lorelei coming?’ Robin asked, striving for casualness, but not sure she had succeeded.

Back in central London, Strike thought he detected a sardonic note in the question, as though challenging him to admit that his girlfriend had a ludicrous moniker. He would once have pulled her up on it, asked what her problem was with the name ‘Lorelei’, enjoyed sparring with her, but this was dangerous territory.

‘Yeah, she’s coming. The invitation was to both—’

‘Yes, of course it was,’ said Robin hastily. ‘All right, I’ll see you—’

‘Hang on,’ said Strike.

He was alone in the office, because he had sent Denise home early. The temp had not wanted to leave: she was paid by the hour, after all, and only after Strike had assured her that he would pay for a full day had she gathered up all her possessions, talking nonstop all the while.

‘Funny thing happened this afternoon,’ said Strike.

Robin listened intently, without interrupting, to Strike’s vivid account of the brief visit of Billy. By the end of it, she had forgotten to worry about Strike’s coolness. Indeed, he now sounded like the Strike of a year ago.

‘He was definitely mentally ill,’ said Strike, his eyes on the clear sky beyond the window. ‘Possibly psychotic.’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘I know,’ said Strike. He picked up the pad from which Billy had ripped his half-written address and turned it absently in his free hand. ‘Is he mentally ill, so he thinks he saw a kid strangled? Or is he mentally ill and he saw a kid strangled?’

Neither spoke for a while, during which time both turned over Billy’s story in their minds, knowing that the other was doing the same. This brief, companionable spell of reflection ended abruptly when a cocker spaniel, which Robin had not noticed as it came snuffling through the roses, laid its cold nose without warning on her bare knee and she shrieked.

‘What the fuck?’

‘Nothing – a dog—’

‘Where are you?’

‘In a graveyard.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Just exploring the area. I’d better go,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘There’s another flat-pack waiting for me at home.’

‘Right you are,’ said Strike, with a return to his usual briskness. ‘See you Saturday.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said the cocker spaniel’s elderly owner, as Robin slid her mobile back into her bag. ‘Are you frightened of dogs?’

‘Not at all,’ said Robin, smiling and patting the dog’s soft golden head. ‘He surprised me, that’s all.’

As she headed back past the giant skulls towards her new home, Robin thought about Billy, whom Strike had described with such vividness that Robin felt as though she had met him, too.

So deeply absorbed in her thoughts was she, that for the first time all week, Robin forgot to glance up at the White Swan pub as she passed it. High above the street, on the corner of the building, was a single carved swan, which reminded Robin, every time she passed it, of her calamitous wedding day.

4

But what do you propose to do in the town, then?

Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

Six and a half miles away, Strike set his mobile down on his desk and lit a cigarette. Robin’s interest in his story had been soothing after the interview he had endured half an hour after Billy had fled. The two policemen who had answered Denise’s call had seemed to relish their opportunity to make the famous Cormoran Strike admit his fallibility, taking their time as they ascertained that he had succeeded in finding out neither full name nor address of the probably psychotic Billy.

The late afternoon sun hit the notebook on his desk at an angle, revealing faint indentations. Strike dropped his cigarette into an ashtray he had stolen long ago from a German bar, picked up the notepad and tilted it this way and that, trying to make out the letters formed by the impressions, then reached for a pencil and lightly shaded over them. Untidy capital letters were soon revealed, clearly spelling the words ‘Charlemont Road’. Billy had pressed less hard on the house or flat number than the street name. One of the faint indents looked like either a 5 or an incomplete 8, but the spacing suggested more than one figure, or possibly a letter.