Роберт Гэлбрейт - Lethal White

The pub, which comprised only a horseshoe space around a single bar, was already tightly packed with smartly dressed men and women, who had started their weekend early or, like Strike and Robin, were finishing work over a drink. Lowering his voice, Strike told her what had passed between him and Chiswell.

‘Oh,’ said Robin blankly, when at last Strike had finished filling her in. ‘So we’re . . . we’re going to try and get dirt on Della Winn?’

‘On her husband,’ Strike corrected her, ‘and Chiswell prefers the phrase “bargaining chips”.’

Robin said nothing, but sipped her orange juice.

‘Blackmail’s illegal, Robin,’ said Strike, correctly reading her uneasy expression. ‘Knight’s trying to screw forty grand out of Chiswell and Winn wants to force him out of his job.’

‘So he’s going to blackmail them back and we’re going to help him do it?’

‘We get dirt on people every day,’ said Strike roughly. ‘It’s a bit late to start getting a conscience about it.’

He took a long pull on his pint, annoyed not only by her attitude, but by the fact that he had let his resentment show. She lived with her husband in a desirable sash-windowed house in Albury Street, while he remained in two draughty rooms, from which he might soon be ejected by the redevelopment of the street. The agency had never before been offered a job that gave three people full employment, possibly for months. Strike was not about to apologise for being keen to take it. He was tired, after years of graft, of being plunged back into the red whenever the agency hit a lean patch. He had ambitions for his business that couldn’t be achieved without building up a far healthier bank balance. Nevertheless, he felt compelled to defend his position.

‘We’re like lawyers, Robin. We’re on the client’s side.’

‘You turned down that investment banker the other day, who wanted to find out where his wife—’

‘—because it was bloody obvious he’d do her harm if he found her.’

‘Well,’ said Robin, a challenging look in her eye, ‘what if the thing they’ve found out about Chiswell—’

But before she could finish her sentence, a tall man in deep conversation with a colleague walked straight into Robin’s chair, flinging her forward into the table and knocking over her orange juice.

‘Oi!’ barked Strike, as Robin tried to wipe the juice off her sopping dress. ‘Fancy apologising?’

‘Oh dear,’ said the man in a drawl, eyeing the juice-soaked Robin as several people turned to stare. ‘Did I do that?’

‘Yes, you bloody did,’ said Strike, heaving himself up and moving around the table. ‘And that’s not an apology!’

‘Cormoran!’ said Robin warningly.

‘Well, I’m sorry,’ said the man, as though making an enormous concession, but taking in Strike’s size, his regret seemed to become more sincere. ‘Seriously, I do apol—’

‘Bugger off,’ snarled Strike. ‘Swap seats,’ he said to Robin. ‘Then if some other clumsy tosser walks by they’ll get me, not you.’

Half-embarrassed, half-touched, she picked up her handbag, which was also soaked, and did as he had requested. Strike returned to the table clutching a fistful of paper napkins, which he handed to her.

‘Thanks.’

It was difficult to maintain a combative stance given that he was voluntarily sitting in a chair covered in orange juice to spare her. Still dabbing off the juice, Robin leaned in and said quietly:

‘You know what I’m worried about. The thing Billy said.’

The thin cotton dress was sticking to her everywhere: Strike kept his gaze resolutely on her eyes.

‘I asked Chiswell about that.’

‘Did you?’

‘Of course I did. What else was I going to think, when he said he was being blackmailed by Billy’s brother?’

‘And what did he say?’

‘He said he had no deaths on his hands, but “one cannot be held accountable for unintended consequences”.’

‘What on earth does t hat mean?’

‘I asked. He gave me the hypothetical example of a man dropping a mint, on which a small child later choked to death.’

‘ What? ’

‘Your guess is as good as mine. Billy hasn’t called back, I suppose?’

Robin shook her head.

‘Look, the overwhelming probability is Billy’s delusional,’ said Strike. ‘When I told Chiswell what Billy had said, I didn’t get any sense of guilt or fear . . . ’

As he said it, he remembered the shadow that had passed over Chiswell’s face, and the impression he had received that the story was not, to Chiswell, entirely new.

‘So what are they blackmailing Chiswell about?’ asked Robin.

‘Search me,’ said Strike. ‘He said it happened six years ago, which doesn’t fit with Billy’s story, because he wouldn’t have been a little kid six years ago. Chiswell said some people would think what he did was immoral, but it wasn’t illegal. He seemed to be suggesting that it wasn’t against the law when he did it, but is now.’

Strike suppressed a yawn. Beer and the heat of the afternoon were making him drowsy. He was due at Lorelei’s later.

‘So you trust him?’ Robin asked.

‘Do I trust Chiswell?’ Strike wondered aloud, his eyes on the extravagantly engraved mirror behind Robin. ‘If I had to bet on it, I’d say he was being truthful with me today because he’s desperate. Do I think he’s generally trustworthy? Probably no more than anyone else.’

‘You didn’t like him, did you?’ asked Robin, incredulously. ‘I’ve been reading about him.’

‘And?’

‘Pro-hanging, anti-immigration, voted against increasing maternity leave—’

She didn’t notice Strike’s involuntary glance down her figure as she continued:

‘—banged on about family values, then left his wife for a journalist—’

‘All right, I wouldn’t choose him for a drinking buddy, but there’s something slightly pitiable about him. He’s lost one son, the other one’s just killed a woman—’

‘Well, yes, there you are,’ said Robin. ‘He advocates locking up petty criminals and throwing away the key, then his son runs over someone’s mother and he pulls out all the stops to get him a short sen—’

She broke off suddenly as a loud female voice said: ‘Robin! How lovely!’

Sarah Shadlock had entered the pub with two men.

‘Oh God,’ muttered Robin, before she could help herself, then, more loudly, ‘Sarah, hi!’

She would have given much to avoid this encounter. Sarah would be delighted to tell Matthew that she had found Robin and Strike having a tête-à-tête in a Mayfair pub, when she herself had told Matthew by phone only an hour ago that she was alone in Harley Street.

Sarah insisted on wiggling around the table to embrace Robin, something the latter was sure she would not have done had she not been with men.

‘Darling, what’s happened to you? You’re all sticky!’

She was just a little posher here, in Mayfair, than anywhere else Robin had met her, and several degrees warmer to Robin.

‘Nothing,’ muttered Robin. ‘Spilled orange juice, that’s all.’

‘Cormoran!’ said Sarah blithely, swooping in for a kiss on his cheek. Strike, Robin was pleased to note, sat impassive and did not respond. ‘Bit of R and R?’ said Sarah, embracing them both in her knowing smile.

‘Work,’ said Strike bluntly.

Receiving no encouragement to stay, Sarah moved along the bar, taking her colleagues with her.

‘I forgot Christie’s is round the corner,’ muttered Robin.

Strike checked his watch. He didn’t want to have to wear his suit to Lorelei’s, and indeed, it was now stained with orange juice from having taken Robin’s seat.