Роберт Гэлбрейт - Lethal White

Strike and Robin were watching what was happening behind the car. Two policemen had seized the struggling Flick and were escorting her away. A few more cameras flashed. Caving under the weight of ministerial pressure, the armed policeman requested ID of Strike. Strike, who always carried a couple of forms of identification, though not necessarily in his own name, passed over his genuine driving licence. A queue of stationary cars grew longer behind them. The prince was due in fifteen minutes’ time. Finally, the policeman waved them through.

‘Shouldn’t have done that,’ said Strike in an undertone to Robin. ‘Shouldn’t have let me in. Bloody lax.’

The Mercedes swung around the inner courtyard and arrived, finally, at the foot of a shallow flight of red-carpeted steps, in front of an enormous, honey-coloured building that resembled a stately home. Wheelchair ramps had been set either side of the carpet, and a celebrated wheelchair basketball player was already manoeuvring his way up one.

Strike pushed open the door, clambered out of the car, then turned and reached back inside to assist Robin. She accepted the offer of help. Her left leg was almost completely numb from where he’d sat on her.

‘Nice to see you again, Corm,’ said Izzy, beaming, as she got out behind Robin.

‘Hi, Izzy,’ said Strike.

Now burdened with Strike whether he wanted him or not, Chiswell hurried up the steps to explain to one of the liveried men standing outside the front door that Strike must be admitted without his invitation. They heard a recurrence of the word ‘amputee’. All around them, more cars were releasing their smartly dressed passengers.

‘What’s all this about?’ Kinvara said, who had marched around the rear of the Mercedes to address Strike. ‘What’s going on? What does my husband need a private detective for?’

‘ Will you be quiet, you stupid, stup id bitch? ’

Stressed and disturbed though Chiswell undoubtedly was, his naked hostility shocked Robin. He hates her , she thought. He genuinely hates her.

‘You two,’ said the minister, pointing at his wife and daughter, ‘get inside.

‘Give me one good reason I should keep paying you,’ he added, turning on Strike as still more people spilled past them. ‘You realise,’ said Chiswell, and in his necessarily quiet fury, spit flew from his mouth onto Strike’s tie, ‘I’ve just been called a bloody murderer in front of twenty people, including press?’

‘They’ll think she’s a crank,’ said Strike.

If the suggestion brought Chiswell any comfort, it didn’t show.

‘I want to see you tomorrow morning at ten o’clock,’ he told Strike. ‘Not at my office. Come to the flat in Ebury Street.’ He turned away, then, as an afterthought, turned back. ‘You too,’ he barked at Robin.

Side by side, they watched him lumbering up the steps.

‘We’re about to get sacked, aren’t we?’ whispered Robin.

‘I’d say it’s odds on,’ said Strike, who, now that he was on his feet, was in considerable pain.

‘Cormoran, what was on the placard?’ said Robin.

Strike allowed a woman in peach chiffon to pass, then said quietly:

‘Picture of Chiswell hanging from a gallows and, beneath him, a bunch of dead children. One odd thing, though.’

‘What?’

‘All the kids were black.’

Still dabbing at his nose, Strike reached inside his pocket for a cigarette, then remembered where he was and let his hand fall back to his side.

‘Listen, if that Elspeth woman’s in here, you might as well try and find out what else she knows about Winn. It’ll help justify our final invoice.’

‘OK,’ said Robin. ‘The back of your head’s bleeding, by the way.’

Strike dabbed at it ineffectually with the tissues he had pocketed and began to limp up the steps beside Robin.

‘We shouldn’t be seen together any more tonight,’ he told her, as they passed over the threshold into a blaze of ochre, scarlet and gold. ‘There was a café in Ebury Street, not far from Chiswell’s house. I’ll meet you there at nine o’clock tomorrow, and we can face the firing squad together. Go on, you go ahead.’

But as she moved away from him, towards the grand staircase, he called after her:

‘Nice dress, by the way.’

33

I believe you could bewitch any one – if you set yourself to do it.

Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

The grand hallway of the mansion constituted a vast empty block of space. A red-and-gold-carpeted central staircase led to an upper balcony that split left and right. The walls, which appeared to be of marble, were ochre, dull green and rose. Sundry Paralympians were being shown to a lift on the left of the entrance, but the limping Strike made his way laboriously to the stairs and heaved himself upwards by liberal use of the banister. The sky visible through a huge and ornate skylight, supported by columns, was fading through technicolour variations that intensified the colours of the massive Venetian paintings of classical subjects hanging on every wall.

Doing his best to walk naturally, because he was afraid he might be mistaken for some veteran Paralympian and perhaps asked to expound on past triumphs, Strike followed the crowd up the right staircase, around the balcony and into a small anteroom overlooking the courtyard where the official cars were parked. From here, the guests were ushered left into a long and spacious picture gallery, where the carpet was apple green and decorated with a rosette pattern. Tall windows stood at either end of the room and almost every inch of white wall was covered in paintings.

‘Drink, sir?’ said a waiter just inside the doorway.

‘Is it champagne?’ asked Strike.

‘English sparkling wine, sir,’ said the waiter.

Strike helped himself, though without enthusiasm, and continued through the crowd, passing Chiswell and Kinvara, who were listening (or, Strike thought, pretending to listen) to a wheelchair-bound athlete. Kinvara shot Strike a swift, suspicious side glance as he passed, aiming for the far wall where he hoped to find either a chair, or something on which he could conveniently lean. Unfortunately, the gallery walls were so densely packed with pictures that leaning was impossible, nor were there any seats, so Strike came to rest beside an enormous painting by Count d’Orsay of Queen Victoria riding a dapple-grey horse. While he sipped his sparkling wine, he tried discreetly to staunch the blood still leaking from his nose, and wipe the worst of the dirt off his suit trousers.

Waiters were circulating, carrying trays of canapés. Strike managed to grab a couple of miniature crab cakes as they passed, then fell to examining his surroundings, noting another spectacular skylight, this one supported by a number of gilded palm trees.

The room had a peculiar energy. The prince’s arrival was imminent and the guests’ gaiety came and went in nervous spurts, with increasingly frequent glances at the doors. From his vantage point beside Queen Victoria, Strike spotted a stately figure in a primrose-yellow dress standing almost directly opposite him, close beside an ornate black and gold fireplace. One hand was keeping a gentle hold on the harness of a pale yellow Labrador, who sat panting gently at her feet in the overcrowded room. Strike had not immediately recognised Della, because she was not wearing sunglasses, but prosthetic eyes. Her slightly sunken, opaque, china-blue gaze gave her an odd innocence. Geraint stood a short distance from his wife, gabbling at a thin, mousy woman whose eyes darted around, searching for a rescuer.

A sudden hush fell near the doors through which Strike had entered. Strike saw the top of a ginger head and a flurry of suits. Self-consciousness spread through the packed room like a petrifying breeze. Strike watched the top of the ginger head move away, towards the far right side of the room. Still sipping his English wine and wondering which of the women in the room was the trustee with dirt on Geraint Winn, his attention was suddenly caught by a tall woman nearby with her back to him.