Роберт Гэлбрейт - Lethal White

Grimacing again with the effort of balancing on his crutches as he unlocked his front door, Strike almost fell into his flat. Slamming the door behind him, he dropped the holdall, crossed to the small chair at the Formica table in his kitchen-cum-living room, fell into it and cast his crutches aside. It was a relief to be home and alone, however difficult it was to manage with his leg in this state. He ought to have returned sooner, of course, but being in no condition to tail anyone and in considerable discomfort, it had been easier to remain in a comfortable armchair, his stump resting on a large square pouffe, texting Robin and Barclay instructions while Lorelei fetched him food and drink.

Strike lit a cigarette and thought back over all the women there had been since he’d left Charlotte. First, Ciara Parker, a gorgeous one-night stand, with no regrets on either side. A few weeks after he had hit the press for solving the Landry case, Ciara had called him. He had become elevated in the model’s mind from casual shag to possible boyfriend material by his newsworthiness, but he had turned down further meetings with her. Girlfriends who wanted to be photographed with him were no good to him in his line of work.

Next had come Nina, who had worked for a publisher, and whom he had used to get information on a case. He had liked her, but insufficiently, as he looked back on it, to treat her with common consideration. He had hurt Nina’s feelings. He wasn’t proud of it, but it hardly kept him up at nights.

Elin had been different, beautiful and, best of all, convenient, which was why he’d hung around. She had been in the process of divorcing a wealthy man and her need for discretion and compartmentalisation had been at least as great as his own. They had managed a few months together before he’d spilled wine all over her, and walked out of the restaurant where they were having dinner. He had called her afterwards to apologise and she had dumped him before he finished the sentence. Given that he had left her humiliated in Le Gavroche with a hefty dry-cleaning bill, he felt that it would have been in poor taste to respond with ‘that’s what I was going to say next’.

After Elin there had been Coco, on whom he preferred not to dwell, and now there was Lorelei. He liked her better than any of the others, which was why he was sorry that it had been she who said ‘I love you’.

Strike had made a vow to himself two years previously, and he made very few vows, because he trusted himself to keep them. Having never said ‘I love you’ to any woman but Charlotte, he would not say it to another unless he knew, beyond reasonable doubt, that he wanted to stay with that woman and make a life with her. It would make a mockery of what he’d been through with Charlotte if he said it under circumstances any less serious. Only love could have justified the havoc they had lived together, or the many times he had resumed the relationship, even while he knew in his soul that it couldn’t work. Love, to Strike, was pain and grief sought, accepted, endured. It was not in Lorelei’s bedroom, with the cowgirls on the curtains.

And so he had said nothing after her whispered declaration, and then, when she’d asked whether he’d heard her, he’d said, ‘Yeah, I did.’

Strike reached for his cigarettes. Yeah, I did. Well, that had been honest, as far as it went. There was nothing wrong with his hearing. After that, there’d been a fairly lengthy silence, then Lorelei had got out of bed and gone to the bathroom and stayed there for thirty minutes. Strike assumed that she’d gone there to cry, though she’d been kind enough to do it quietly, so that he couldn’t hear her. He had lain in bed, wondering what he could say to her that was both kind and truthful, but he knew that nothing short of ‘I love you, too’ would be acceptable, and the fact was that he didn’t love her, and he wasn’t going to lie.

When she came back to bed, he had reached out for her in the bed. She’d let him stroke her shoulder for a while, then told him she was tired and needed some sleep.

What was I supposed to fucking do? he demanded of an imaginary female inquisitor who strongly resembled his sister, Lucy.

You could try not accepting tea and blow jobs , came the snide response, to which Strike, with his stump throbbing, answered, fuck you.

His mobile rang. He had sellotaped up the shattered screen, and through this distorted carapace he saw an unknown number.

‘Strike.’

‘Hi, Strike, Culpepper here.’

Dominic Culpepper, who had worked for the News of the World until its closure, had previously put work Strike’s way. Relations between them, never personally warm, had become slightly antagonistic when Strike had refused Culpepper the inside story on his two most recent murder cases. Now working for the Sun , Culpepper had been one of those journalists who had most enthusiastically raked over Strike’s personal life in the aftermath of the Shacklewell Ripper arrest.

‘Wondered if you were free to do a job for us,’ said Culpepper.

You’ve got a fuck ing nerve .

‘What kind of thing’re you after?’

‘Digging up dirt on a government minister.’

‘Which one?’

‘You’ll know if you take the job.’

‘I’m pretty stretched just now. What kind of dirt are we talking?’

‘That’s what we need you to find out.’

‘How do you know there’s dirt there?’

‘A well-placed source,’ said Culpepper.

‘Why do you need me if there’s a well-placed source?’

‘He’s not ready to talk. He just hinted that there are beans to be spilled. Lots of them.’

‘Sorry, can’t do it, Culpepper,’ said Strike. ‘I’m booked solid.’

‘Sure? We’re paying good money, Strike.’

‘I’m not doing too badly these days,’ said the detective, lighting a second cigarette from the tip of his first.

‘No, I’ll bet you aren’t, you jammy bastard,’ said Culpepper. ‘All right, it’ll have to be Patterson. D’you know him?’

‘The ex-Met guy? Run across him a couple of times,’ said Strike.

The call finished with mutually insincere good wishes, leaving Strike with an increased feeling of foreboding. He Googled Culpepper’s name and found his byline on a story about the Level Playing Field from two weeks previously.

Of course, it was possible that more than one government minister was currently in danger of being exposed by the Sun for an offence against public taste or morals, but the fact that Culpepper had recently been in close proximity with the Winns strongly suggested Robin had been right in suspecting Geraint of tipping off the Sun , and that it was Chiswell whom Patterson would shortly be investigating.

Strike wondered whether Culpepper knew that he, Strike, was already working for Chiswell, whether his call had been designed to startle information out of the detective, but it seemed unlikely. The newspaperman would have been very stupid to tell Strike whom he was about to hire, if he was aware that Strike was already in the minister’s pay.

Strike knew of Mitch Patterson by reputation: they had twice been hired by different halves of divorcing couples in the last year. Previously a senior officer in the Metropolitan Police who had ‘taken early retirement’, Patterson was prematurely silver-haired and had the face of an angry pug. Though personally unpleasant, or so Eric Wardle had told Strike, Patterson was a man who ‘got results’.

‘Course, he won’t be able to kick the shit out of people in his new career,’ Wardle had commented, ‘so that’s one useful tool in his arsenal gone.’

Strike didn’t much relish the thought that Patterson would shortly be on the case. Picking up his mobile again, he noted that neither Robin nor Barclay had called in an update within the last twelve hours. Only the previous day, he had had to reassure Chiswell, who had called to express his doubts about Robin, given her lack of results thus far.