Lethal White

They cling to their dead a long time at
Rosmersholm.
Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm
By the time Robin found her way back across London to the unfamiliar
cricket ground, it was five in the afternoon and Matthew’s charity match was
over. She found him back in his street clothes in the bar, fuming and barely
speaking to her. Matthew’s side had lost. The other team was crowing.
Facing an evening of being ignored by her husband, and having no friends
among his colleagues, Robin decided against going on to the restaurant with the
two teams and their partners, and made her way home alone.
The following morning, she found Matthew fully dressed on the sofa,
snoring drunkenly. They argued when he woke up, a row that lasted hours and
resolved nothing. Matthew wanted to know why it was Robin’s job to hurry off
and hold Strike’s hand, given that he had a girlfriend. Robin maintained that you
were a lousy person if you left a friend alone to cope with a possibly dying child.
The row escalated, attaining levels of spite that had never yet been reached in
a year of marital bickering. Robin lost her temper, and asked whether she was
not owed time off for good behavior, after a decade spent watching Matthew
strut around various sports fields. He was genuinely stung.
“Well, if you don’t enjoy it, you should have said!”
“Never occurred to you I might not, did it? Because I’m supposed to see all
your victories as mine, aren’t I, Matt? Whereas my achievements—”
“Sorry, remind me what they are again?” Matthew said, a low blow he had
never thrown at her before. “Or are we counting his achievements as yours?”
Three days passed, and they had not forgiven each other. Robin had slept in
the spare room every night since their row, rising early each morning so she
could leave the house before Matthew was out of the shower. She felt a constant
ache behind the eyes, an unhappiness which was easier to ignore while at work,
but which settled back over her like a patch of low pressure once she turned her
footsteps homewards each night. Matthew’s silent anger pressed against the
walls of their house, which, while twice the size of any space they had shared
before, seemed darker and more cramped.
He was her husband. She had promised to try. Tired, angry, guilty and

---

miserable, Robin felt as though she were waiting for something definitive to
happen, something that would release them both with honor, without more filthy
rows, with reasonableness. Over and again, her thoughts returned to the wedding
day, when she had discovered that Matthew had deleted Strike’s messages. With
her whole heart, she regretted not leaving then, before he could scratch himself
on coral, before she could be trapped, as she now saw it, by cowardice disguised
as compassion.
As Robin approached the House of Commons on Wednesday morning, not
yet focused on the day ahead, but pondering her marital problems, a large man in
an overcoat peeled away from the railings where he had been mingling with the
first tourists of the day and walked towards her. He was tall and broad-
shouldered, with thick silver hair and a squashed, deeply pitted and lined face.
Robin did not realize that she was his object until he halted right in front of her,
large feet placed firmly at right angles, blocking her onward progress.
“Venetia? Can I have a quick word, love?”
She took a panicked half-step backwards, looking up into the hard, flat face,
peppered with wide pores. He had to be press. Did he recognize her? The hazel
contact lenses were a little more discernible at close quarters, even through her
plain-lensed glasses.
“Just started working for Jasper Chiswell, haven’t you, love? I was
wondering how that came about. How much is he paying you? Known him
long?”
“No comment,” said Robin, trying to sidestep him. He moved with her.
Fighting the rising feeling of panic, Robin said firmly, “Get out of my way. I
need to get to work.”
A couple of tall Scandinavian youths with rucksacks were watching the
encounter with clear concern.
“I’m only giving you a chance to tell your side of the story, darling,” said her
accoster, quietly. “Think about it. Might be your only chance.”
He moved aside. Robin knocked into her would-be rescuers as she pushed
past them. Shit, shit, shit… who was he?
Once safely past the security scanner, she moved aside in the echoing stone
hall where workers were striding past her and called Strike. He didn’t pick up.
“Call me, please, urgently,” she muttered to his voicemail.
Rather than heading for Izzy’s office, or the wide echoing space of Portcullis
House, she took refuge in one of the smaller tearooms, which without its counter
and till would have resembled a dons’ common room, paneled in dark wood and
carpeted in the ubiquitous forest green. A heavy oak screen divided the room,

---

MPs sitting at the far end, away from the lesser employees. She bought a cup of
coffee, took a table beside the window, hung her coat on the back of her chair
and waited for Strike to call her. The quiet, sedate space did little to calm
Robin’s nerves.
It was nearly three-quarters of an hour before Strike phoned.
“Sorry, missed you, I was on the Tube,” he said, panting. “Then Chiswell
called. He’s only just rung off. We’ve got trouble.”
“Oh God, what now?” said Robin, setting her coffee down as her stomach
contracted in panic.
“The Sun think you’re the story.”
And at once, Robin knew whom she had just met outside the Houses of
Parliament: Mitch Patterson, the private detective the newspaper had hired.
“They’ve been digging for anything new in Chiswell’s life, and there you
are, good-looking new woman in his office, of course they’re going to check you
out. Chiswell’s first marriage split up because he had an affair at work. Thing is,
it isn’t going to take them long to find out you aren’t really his goddaughter.
Ouch—fuck—”
“What’s the matter?”
“First day back on two legs and Dodgy Doc’s finally decided to go and meet
a girl on the sly. Chelsea Physic Garden, Tube to Sloane Square and a bugger of
a walk. Anyway,” he panted, “what’s your bad news?”
“It’s more of the same,” said Robin. “Mitch Patterson just accosted me
outside Parliament.”
“Shit. D’you think he recognized you?”
“He didn’t seem to, but I don’t know. I should clear out, shouldn’t I?” said
Robin, contemplating the cream ceiling, which was stuccoed in a pattern of
overlapping circles. “We could put someone else in here. Andy, or Barclay?”
“Not yet,” said Strike. “If you walk out the moment you meet Mitch
Patterson, it’ll look like you’re the story for sure. Anyway, Chiswell wants you
to go to this reception tomorrow night, to try and get the rest of the dirt on Winn
from that other trustee—what was her name, Elspeth? Bollocks—sorry—having
trouble here, it’s a bloody woodchip path. Dodgy’s taking the girl for a walk into
the undergrowth. She looks about seventeen.”
“Don’t you need your phone, to take photographs?”
“I’m wearing those glasses with the inbuilt camera… oh, here we go,” he
added quietly. “Dodgy’s copping a feel in some bushes.”
Robin waited. She could hear a very faint clicking.
“And here come some genuine horticulturalists,” Strike muttered. “That’s
driven them back out into the open…

---

“Listen,” he continued, “meet me at the office tomorrow after work, before
you go to that reception. We’ll take stock of everything we’ve got so far and
make a decision on what to do next. Try your best to get the second listening
device back, but don’t replace it, just in case we need to take you out of there.”
“All right,” said Robin, full of foreboding, “but it’s going to be difficult. I’m
sure Aamir is suspic—Cormoran, I’m going to have to go.”
Izzy and Raphael had just walked into the tearoom. Raphael had his arm
around his half-sister, who, Robin saw at once, was distressed to the point of
tears. He saw Robin, who hastily hung up on Strike, made a grimace indicating
that Izzy was in a bad way, then muttered something to his sister, who nodded
and headed towards Robin’s table, leaving Raphael to buy drinks.
“Izzy!” said Robin, pulling out a chair for her. “Are you all right?”
As Izzy sat down, tears leaked out of her eyes. Robin passed her a paper
napkin.
“Thanks, Venetia,” she said huskily. “I’m so sorry. Making a fuss. Silly.”
She took a deep shuddering breath and sat upright, with the posture of a girl
who had been told for years to sit up straight and pull herself together.
“Just silly,” she repeated, tears welling again.
“Dad’s just been a total bastard to her,” said Raphael, arriving with a tray.
“Don’t say that, Raff,” hiccuped Izzy, another tear trickling down her nose.
“I know he didn’t mean it. He was upset when I arrived and then I made it
worse. Did you know he’s lost Freddie’s gold money clip?”
“No,” said Raphael, without much interest.
“He thinks he left it at some hotel on Kinvara’s birthday. They’d just called
him back when I arrived. They haven’t got it. You know what Papa’s like about
Freddie, even now.”
An odd look passed over Raphael’s face, as though he had been struck by an
unpleasant thought.
“And then,” said Izzy, shakily, “I’d misdated a letter and he flew off the
handle…”
Izzy twisted the damp napkin between her hands.
“Five years,” she burst out. “Five years I’ve worked for him, and I can count
on one hand how many times he’s thanked me for anything. When I told him I
was thinking of leaving he said ‘not till after the Olympics,’” her voice
quavered, “‘because I don’t want to have to break in someone new before then.’”
Raphael swore under his breath.
“Oh, but he’s not that bad, really,” said Izzy quickly, in an almost comical