Роберт Гэлбрейт - Lethal White

‘This is where her well-known instability and unhappiness with my father works in my favour. Izzy and Fizzy will line up to tell the world that she never paid much attention to what he was up to, because she didn’t love him and was only in it for the money. Reasonable doubt is all I need.’

‘What’s going to happen when the police put it to Kinvara that you only restarted the affair because you realised she might be about to become fantastically wealthy?’

Raphael let out a long, slow hiss.

‘Well,’ he said quietly, ‘if they can make Kinvara believe that, I’m fucked, aren’t I? But right now, Kinvara believes her Raffy loves her more than anything in the world, and she’s going to take a lot of convincing that’s not true, because her whole life’s going to fall apart otherwise. I drilled it into her: if they don’t know about the affair, they can’t touch us. I virtually had her reciting it while I fucked her. And I warned her they’d try and turn us against each other if either one of us was suspected. I’ve got her very well-schooled and I said, when in doubt, cry your eyes out, tell them nobody ever tells you anything and act bloody confused.’

‘She’s already told one silly lie to try and protect you, and the police know about it,’ said Robin.

‘What lie?’

‘About the necklace, in the early hours of Sunday morning. Didn’t she tell you? Maybe she realised you’d be angry.’

‘ What did she say? ’

‘Strike told her he didn’t buy the new explanation for you going down to Chiswell House the morning your father died—’

‘What d’you mean, he didn’t buy it?’ said Raphael, and Robin saw outraged vanity mingled with his panic.

‘ I thought it was convincing,’ she assured him. ‘Clever, to tell a story that you’d appear to give up only unwillingly. Everyone’s always more disposed to believe something they believe they’ve uncovered for themsel—’

Raphael raised the gun so that it was close to her forehead again and even though the cold ring of metal had not yet touched her skin again, she felt it there.

‘What lie did Kinvara tell?’

‘She claimed you came to tell her that your mother removed diamonds from the necklace and replaced them with fakes.’

Raphael appeared horrified.

‘What the fuck did she say that for?’

‘Because she’d had a shock, I suppose, finding Strike and me in the grounds when you were hiding upstairs. Strike said he didn’t believe the necklace story, so she panicked and made up a new version. The trouble is, this one’s checkable.’

‘The stupid cunt,’ said Raphael quietly, but with a venom that made the back of Robin’s neck prickle. ‘That stupid, stupid cunt . . . why didn’t she just stick to our story? And . . . no, wait . . . ’ he said, with the air of a man suddenly making a welcome connection, and to Robin’s mingled consternation and relief, he withdrew the gun from where it had been almost touching her, and laughed softly. ‘ That’s why she hid the necklace on Sunday afternoon. She gave me some fucking guff about not wanting Izzy or Fizzy to sneak in and take it . . . well, she’s stupid, but she’s not hopeless. Unless someone checks the stones, we’re still in the clear . . . And they’ll have to take apart the stable block to find it. OK,’ he said, as though talking to himself, ‘OK, I think all of that’s recoverable.

‘Is that it, Venetia? Is that all you’ve got?’

‘No,’ said Robin. ‘There’s Flick Purdue.’

‘I don’t know who that is.’

‘Yes, you do. You picked her up months ago, and fed her the truth about the gallows, knowing she’d pass the information to Jimmy.’

‘What a busy boy I’ve been,’ said Raphael lightly. ‘So what? Flick won’t admit to shagging a Tory minister’s son, especially if Jimmy might find out. She’s as besotted with him as Kinvara is with me.’

‘That’s true, she didn’t want to admit it, but somebody must have spotted you creeping out of her flat next morning. She tried to pretend you were an Indian waiter.’

Robin thought she saw a minute wince of surprise and displeasure. Raphael’s amour propre was wounded at the thought that he could have been so described.

‘OK,’ he said, after a moment or two, ‘OK, let’s see . . . what if it was a waiter Flick shagged, but she’s maliciously claiming it was me because of her class warrior bullshit and the grudge her boyfriend’s got against my family?’

‘You stole her flatmate’s credit card out of her bag in the kitchen.’

She could tell by the tightening of his mouth that he had not expected this. Doubtless he had thought that given Flick’s lifestyle, suspicion would fall on anyone passing through her tiny, overcrowded flat, and perhaps especially Jimmy.

‘Proof?’ he said again.

‘Flick can provide the date you were at her flat and if Laura testifies her credit card went missing that night—’

‘But with no firm evidence I was ever there—’

‘How did Flick find out about the gallows? We know she told Jimmy about them, not the other way around.’

‘Well, it can’t have been me, can it? I’m the only member of the family who never knew.’

‘You knew everything. Kinvara had the full story from your father, and she passed it all to you.’

‘No,’ said Raphael, ‘I think you’ll find Flick heard about the gallows from the Butcher brothers. I’m reliably informed that one of them lives in London now. Yeah, I think I’ve heard a rumour one of them shagged their mate Jimmy’s girlfriend. And believe me, the Butcher brothers aren’t going to come over well in court, pair of shifty oiks driving gallows around under cover of darkness. I’m going to look a lot more plausible and presentable than Flick and the Butchers if this comes to court, I really am.’

‘The police have got phone records,’ Robin persisted. ‘They know about an anonymous call to Geraint Winn, which was made around the time Flick found out about the gallows. We think you tipped off Winn anonymously about Samuel Murape. You knew Winn had a grudge against the Chiswells. Kinvara told you everything.’

‘I don’t know anything about that phone call, Your Honour,’ said Raphael, ‘and I’m very sorry that my late brother was a prize cunt to Rhiannon Winn, but that’s nothing to do with me.’

‘We think you made that threatening call to Izzy’s office, the first day you were there, talking about people pissing themselves as they die,’ said Robin, ‘and we think it was your idea for Kinvara to pretend she kept hearing intruders in the grounds. Everything was designed to create as many witnesses as possible to the fact that your father had reason to be anxious and paranoid, that he might crack under extreme pressure—’

‘He was under extreme pressure. He was being blackmailed by Jimmy Knight. Geraint Winn was trying to force him out of his job. Those aren’t lies, they’re facts and they’re going to be pretty sensational in a courtroom, especially once the Samuel Murape story gets out.’

‘Except that you made stupid, avoidable mistakes.’

He sat up straighter and leaned forwards, his elbow sliding a few inches, so that the nozzle of the gun grew larger. His eyes, which had been smudges in the shadow, became clearly defined again, onyx black and white. Robin wondered how she had ever thought him handsome.

‘What mistakes?’

As he said it, Robin saw, out of the corner of her eye, a flashing blue light glide over the bridge just visible through the window to her right, which was blocked from Raphael’s view by the side of the boat. The light vanished and the bridge was reabsorbed by the deepening darkness.