Роберт Гэлбрейт - Lethal White

Frustrated by his employees and his own incapacity, Strike texted Robin and Barclay the same message:

Sun just tried to hire me to investigate Chiswell. Call with update asap. Need useable info NOW.

Pulling his crutches back towards him, he got up to examine the contents of his fridge and kitchen cupboards, discovering that he would be eating nothing but tinned soup for the next four meals unless he made a trip to the supermarket. After pouring spoiled milk down the sink, he made himself a mug of black tea and returned to the Formica table, where he lit a third cigarette and contemplated, without pleasure, the prospect of doing his hamstring stretches.

His phone rang again. Seeing that it was Lucy, he let it go to voicemail. The last thing he needed right now was updates on the school board’s last meeting.

A few minutes after that, when Strike was in the bathroom, she called back. He had hopped back into the kitchen with his trousers at half-mast, in the hope that it was either Robin or Barclay. When he saw his sister’s number for a second time, he merely swore loudly and returned to the bathroom.

The third call told him that she was not about to give up. Slamming down the can of soup he had been opening, Strike swept up the mobile.

‘Lucy, I’m busy, what is it?’ he said testily.

‘It’s Barclay.’

‘Ah, about time. Any news?’

‘A bit on Jimmy’s bird, if that helps. Flick.’

‘It all helps,’ said Strike. ‘Why didn’t you let me know earlier?’

‘Only found out ten minutes ago,’ said Barclay, unfazed. ‘I’ve just heard her tellin’ Jimmy in the kitchen. She’s been bumpin’ money from her work.’

‘What work?’

‘Didnae tell me. Trouble is, Jimmy’s no that keen on her, from whut I’ve seen. I’m no sure he’d care if she got nicked.’

A distracting beeping sounded in Strike’s ear. Another caller was trying to get him. Glancing at the phone, he saw that it was Lucy again.

‘Tell ye somethin’ else I got out o’ him, though,’ said Barclay. ‘Last night, when he was stoned. He said he knew a government minister who had blood on his hands.’

Beep. B eep. Beep.

‘Strike? Ye there?’

‘Yeah, I’m here.’

Strike had never told Barclay about Billy’s story.

‘What exactly did he say, Barclay?’

‘He was ramblin’ on about the government, the Tories, whut a bunch o’ bastards they are. Then, out o’ nowhere, he says “and fuckin’ killers”. I says, what d’ye mean? An’ he says, “I know one who’s got blood on his fuckin’ hands. Kids.”’

Beep. B eep. Beep.

‘Mind you, they’re a bunch o’ bampots, CORE. He might be talkin’ about benefit cuts. That’s as good as murder to this lot. Not that I think too much of Chiswell’s politics meself, Strike.’

‘Seen any sign of Billy? Jimmy’s brother?’

‘Nothin’. Naebody’s mentioned him, neither.’

Beep. B eep. Beep.

‘And no sign of Jimmy nipping off to Oxfordshire?’

‘Not on my watch.’

Beep. B eep. Beep.

‘All right,’ said Strike. ‘Keep digging. Let me know if you get anything.’

He rang off, jabbed at his phone’s screen and brought up Lucy’s call, instead.

‘Lucy, hi,’ he said impatiently. ‘Bit busy now, can I—?’

But as she began to talk, his expression became blank. Before she had finished gasping out the reason for her call, he had grabbed his door keys and was scrabbling for his crutches.

25

We shall try if we cannot make you powerless to do any harm.

Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

Strike’s text requesting an update reached Robin at ten to nine, as she arrived in the corridor where Izzy and Winn’s offices lay. So keen was she to see what he had to say that she stopped dead in the middle of the deserted passage to read it.

‘Oh shit,’ she murmured, reading that the Sun was becoming ever more interested in Chiswell. Leaning up against the wall of the corridor with its curved stone jambs, every oak door shut, she braced herself to call Strike back.

They had not spoken since she had refused to tail Jimmy. When she had phoned him on Monday to apologise directly, Lorelei had answered.

‘Oh, hi, Robin, it’s me!’

One of the awful things about Lorelei was that she was likeable. For reasons Robin preferred not to explore, she would have much preferred Lorelei to be unpleasant.

‘He’s in the shower, sorry! He’s been here all weekend, he did his knee in following somebody. He won’t tell me the details, but I suppose you know! He had to call me from the street, it was dreadful, he couldn’t stand up. I got a cabbie to take me there and paid him to help me get Corm upstairs. He can’t wear the prosthesis, he’s on crutches . . . ’

‘Just tell him I was checking in,’ said Robin, her stomach like ice. ‘Nothing important.’

Robin had replayed the conversation several times in her head since. There had been an unmistakably proprietorial note in Lorelei’s voice as she talked about Strike. It had been Lorelei whom he had called when he was in trouble ( well, of course it was. What was he going to do, call you in Oxfordshire? ), Lorelei in whose flat he had spent the rest of the weekend (they’re dating, where else was he going to go?) , Lorelei who was looking after him, consoling him and, perhaps, uniting with him in abuse of Robin, without whom this injury might not have happened.

And now she had to call Strike and tell him that, five days on, she had no useful information. Winn’s office, which had been so conveniently accessible when she had started work two weeks ago, was now carefully locked up whenever Geraint and Aamir had to leave it. Robin was sure that this was Aamir’s doing, that he had become suspicious of her after the incidents of the dropped bangle, and of Raphael calling loud attention to her eavesdropping on Aamir’s phone call.

‘Post.’

Robin whirled around to see the cart trundling towards her, pushed by a genial grey-haired man.

‘I’ll take anything for Chiswell and Winn. We’re having a meeting,’ Robin heard herself say. The postman handed over a stack of letters, along with a box with a clear cellophane window, through which Robin saw a life-size and very realistic plastic foetus. The legend across the top read: It Is Legal To Murder Me.

‘Oh God, that’s horrible,’ said Robin.

The postman chortled.

‘That’s nothing compared to some of what they get,’ he said comfortably. ‘Remember the white powder that was on the news? Anthrax, they claimed. Proper hoo-hah, that was. Oh, and I delivered a turd in a box once. Couldn’t smell it through all the wrapping. The baby’s for Winn, not Chiswell. She’s the pro-choice one. Enjoying it here, are you?’ he said, showing a disposition for chat.

‘Loving it,’ Robin said, whose attention had been caught by one of the envelopes she had so rashly taken. ‘Excuse me.’

Turning her back on Izzy’s office, she hurried past the postman, and five minutes later emerged onto the Terrace Café, which sat on the bank of the Thames. It was separated from the river by a low stone wall, which was punctuated with black iron lamps. To the left and right stood Westminster and Lambeth bridges respectively, the former painted the green of the seats in the House of Commons, the latter, scarlet like those in the House of Lords. On the opposite bank rose the white façade of County Hall, while between palace and hall rolled the broad Thames, its oily surface lucent grey over muddy depths.

Sitting down out of earshot of the few early morning coffee drinkers, Robin turned her attention to one of the letters addressed to Geraint Winn that she had so recklessly taken from the postman. The sender’s name and address had been carefully inscribed on the reverse of the envelope in a shaky cursive: Sir Kevin Rodgers, 16 The Elms, Fleetwood, Kent and she happened to know, due to her extensive background reading on the Winns’ charity, that the elderly Sir Kevin, who had won a silver at the hurdles in the 1956 Olympics, was one of the Level Playing Field’s trustees.