Роберт Гэлбрейт - Lethal White

‘Has he got it in for that Mallik, or something?’

‘I really don’t know,’ lied Robin.

Running out of ways to occupy her time at the desk, she shuffled papers again.

‘How long are you staying, Venetia?’

‘I’m not sure. Until Parliament goes into recess, probably.’

‘You seriously want to work here? Permanently?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think it’s interesting.’

‘What were you doing before this?’

‘PR,’ said Robin. ‘It was quite fun, but I fancied a change.’

‘Hoping to bag an MP?’ he said, with a faint smile.

‘I can’t say I’ve seen anyone round here I’d like to marry,’ said Robin.

‘Hurtful,’ said Raphael, with a mock sigh.

Afraid that she had blushed, Robin tried to cover up by bending down to open a drawer and taking a few objects out at random.

‘So, is Venetia Hall seeing anyone?’ he persisted, as she straightened up.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘His name’s Tim. We’ve been together a year now.’

‘Yeah? What does Tim do?’

‘He works at Christie’s,’ said Robin.

She had got the idea from the men she had seen with Sarah Shadlock in the Red Lion: immaculate, suited public-school types of the kind she imagined Chiswell’s goddaughter would know.

‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘Izzy said something—’

‘At the gallery?’ said Raphael, cutting her off. ‘That was nothing. She was too young for me. Her parents have sent her to Florence now, anyway.’

He had swung his chair around to face her, his expression grave and searching, contemplating her as though he wanted to know something that common conversation would not yield. Robin broke their mutual gaze. Holding a look that intense was not compatible with being the contented girlfriend of the imaginary Tim.

‘D’you believe in redemption?’

The question caught Robin totally by surprise. It had a kind of gravity and beauty, like the gleaming jewel of the chapel at the foot of a winding stair.

‘I . . . yes, I do,’ she said.

He had picked up a pencil from Izzy’s desk. His long fingers turned it over and over as he watched her intently. He seemed to be sizing her up.

‘You know what I did? In the car?’

‘Yes,’ she answered.

The silence that unspooled between them seemed to Robin to be peopled with flashing lights and shadowy figures. She could imagine Raphael bloody at the steering wheel, and the broken figure of the young mother on the road, and the police cars and the incident tape and the gawpers in passing cars. He was watching her intently, hoping, she thought, for some kind of benison, as though her forgiveness mattered. And sometimes, she knew, the kindness of a stranger, or even a casual acquaintance, could be transformative, something to cling to while those closest to you dragged you under in their efforts to help. She thought of the elderly steward in the Members’ Lobby, uncomprehending but immensely consoling, his hoarse, kindly words a thread to hold on to, which would lead her back to sanity.

The door opened again. Both Robin and Raphael jumped as a curvy redhead entered the room, a visitor’s pass hanging around her neck on a lanyard. Robin recognised her at once from online photographs as Jasper Chiswell’s wife, Kinvara.

‘Hello,’ said Robin, because Kinvara was merely staring blankly at Raphael, who had swung hastily back to his computer and began typing again.

‘You must be Venetia,’ said Kinvara, switching her clear golden gaze onto Robin. She had a high-pitched, girlish voice. Her eyes were catlike in a slightly puffy face. ‘Aren’t you pretty? Nobody told me you were so pretty.’

Robin had no idea how to respond to this. Kinvara dropped down into the sagging chair where Raff usually sat, took off the designer sunglasses holding her long red hair off her face and shook it loose. Her bare arms and legs were heavily freckled. The top buttons of her sleeveless green shirt-dress were straining across her heavy bust.

‘ Whose daughter are you?’ asked Kinvara with a trace of petulance. ‘Jasper didn’t tell me. He doesn’t tell me anything he doesn’t have to tell me, actually. I’m used to it. He just said you’re a goddaughter.’

Nobody had warned Robin that Kinvara did not know who she really was. Perhaps Izzy and Chiswell had not expected them to come face to face.

‘I’m Jonathan Hall’s daughter,’ said Robin nervously. She had come up with a rudimentary background for Venetia-the-goddaughter, but had never expected to have to elaborate for the benefit of Chiswell’s own wife, who presumably knew all Chiswell’s friends and acquaintances.

‘Who’s he?’ asked Kinvara. ‘I should probably know, Jasper’ll be cross I haven’t paid attention—’

‘He’s in land management up in—’

‘Oh, was it the Northumberland property?’ interrupted Kinvara, whose interest had not seemed particularly profound. ‘That was before my time.’

Thank God , thought Robin.

Kinvara crossed her legs and folded her arms across her large chest. Her foot bounced up and down. She shot Raphael a hard, almost spiteful look.

‘Aren’t you going to say hello, Raphael?’

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘Jasper told me to meet him here, but if you’d rather I waited in the corridor I can,’ Kinvara said in her high, tight voice.

‘Of course not,’ muttered Raphael, frowning determinedly at his monitor.

‘Well, I wouldn’t want to interrupt anything,’ said Kinvara, turning from Raphael to Robin. The story of the blonde in the art gallery bathroom swam back into Robin’s mind. For a second time she pretended to be searching for something in a drawer and it was with relief that she heard the sounds of Chiswell and Izzy coming along the corridor.

‘ . . . and by ten o’clock, no later, or I won’t have time to read the whole bloody thing. And tell Haines he’ll have to talk to the BBC, I haven’t got time for a bunch of idiots talking about inclu – Kinvara.’

Chiswell stopped dead in the office door and said, without any trace of affection, ‘I told you to meet me at DCMS, not here.’

‘And it’s lovely to see you, too, Jasper, after three days apart,’ said Kinvara, getting to her feet and smoothing her crumpled dress.

‘Hi, Kinvara,’ said Izzy.

‘I forgot you said DCMS,’ Kinvara told Chiswell, ignoring her stepdaughter. ‘I’ve been trying to call you all morning—’

‘I told you,’ growled Chiswell, ‘I’d be in meetings till one, and if it’s about those bloody stud fees again—’

‘No, it isn’t about the stud fees, Jasper, actually , and I’d have preferred to tell you in private, but if you want me to say it in front of your children, I will!’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Chiswell blustered. ‘Come away, then, come on, we’ll find a private room—’

‘There was a man last night,’ said Kinvara, ‘who – don’t look at me like that, Isabella! ’

Izzy’s expression was indeed conveying naked scepticism. She raised her eyebrows and walked into the room, acting as though Kinvara had become invisible to her.

‘I said you can tell me in a private room!’ snarled Chiswell, but Kinvara refused to be deflected.

‘I saw a man in the woods by the house last night, Jasper!’ she said, in a loud, high-pitched voice that Robin knew would be echoing all the way along the narrow corridor. ‘I’m not imagining things – there was a man with a spade in the woods, I saw him, and he ran when the dogs chased him! You keep telling me not to make a fuss, but I’m alone in that house at night and if you’re not going to do anything about this, Jasper, I’m going to call the police!’