Lethal White

particularly affectionate towards her as she joined him at the table in her muddy
jeans.
“Everything OK?” he asked, salivating as he watched her put ketchup on her
roll.
“Yes,” lied Robin, “all good. How is your leg?”
“Better than it was. What does this bloke we’re meeting look like?”
“Tall, black, glasses,” said Robin thickly, through a mouthful of bread and
bacon. Her early morning activity had made her hungrier than she had been in
days.
“Vanessa back on Olympics duty?”
“Yeah,” said Robin. “She’s badgered Oliver into meeting us. I don’t think he
was that keen, but she’s after promotion.”
“Dirt on Ian Nash will definitely help,” said Strike. “From what Shanker told
me, the Met’s been trying—”
“I think this is him,” whispered Robin.
Strike turned to see a lanky, worried-looking black man in rimless glasses
standing in the doorway. He was holding a briefcase. Strike raised a hand in
greeting and Robin slid her sandwich and coffee over to the next seat, to allow
Oliver to sit opposite Strike.
Robin was not sure what she had expected: he was handsome, with his high-
rise hairstyle and pristine white shirt, but seemed suspicious and disapproving,

---

neither of which trait she associated with Vanessa. Nevertheless, he shook the
hand Strike proffered and, turning to Robin, said:
“You’re Robin? We’ve always missed each other.”
“Yes,” said Robin, shaking hands, too. Oliver’s spotless appearance was
making her feel self-conscious about her disheveled hair and muddy jeans. “Nice
to meet you, at last. It’s counter service, shall I get you a tea or coffee?”
“Er—coffee, yeah, that’d be good,” said Oliver. “Thanks.”
As Robin went to the counter, Oliver turned back to Strike.
“Vanessa says you’ve got some information for her.”
“Might have,” said Strike. “It all depends on what you’ve got for us, Oliver.”
“I’d like to know exactly what you’re offering before we take this any
further.”
Strike drew an envelope out of his jacket pocket and held it up.
“A car registration number and a hand-drawn map.”
Apparently this meant something to Oliver.
“Can I ask where you got this?”
“You can ask,” said Strike cheerfully, “but that information’s not included in
the deal. Eric Wardle will tell you my contact’s got a record of hundred percent
reliability, though.”
A group of workmen entered the café, talking loudly.
“This’ll all be off the record,” said Strike quietly. “No one’ll ever know you
talked to us.”
Oliver sighed, then bent down, opened his briefcase and extracted a large
notebook. As Robin returned with a mug of coffee for Oliver and sat back down
at the table, Strike readied himself to make notes.
“I’ve spoken to one of the guys on the team who did forensics,” Oliver said,
glancing at the workmen who were now bantering loudly at the next table, “and
Vanessa’s had a word with someone who knows where the wider investigation’s
going.” He addressed Robin. “They don’t know Vanessa is friendly with you. If
it gets out that we helped—”
“They won’t hear it from us,” Robin assured him.
Frowning slightly, Oliver opened his notebook and consulted the details he
had jotted there in a small but legible hand.
“Well, forensics are fairly clear-cut. I don’t know how much technical detail
you want—”
“Minimal,” said Strike. “Give us the highlights.”
“Chiswell had ingested around 500mg of amitriptyline, dissolved in orange
juice, on an empty stomach.”
“That’s a sizable dose, isn’t it?” asked Strike.

---

“It could have been fatal on its own, even without the helium, but it wouldn’t
have been as quick. On the other hand, he had heart disease, which would have
made him more susceptible. Amitriptyline causes dysrhythmia and cardiac arrest
in overdose.”
“Popular suicide method?”
“Yeah,” said Oliver, “but it’s not always as painless as people hope. Most of
it was still in his stomach. Very small traces in the duodenum. Suffocation is
what actually killed him, on analysis of the lung and brain tissue. Presumably the
amitriptyline was a back-up.”
“Prints on the glass and the orange juice carton?”
Oliver turned a page in his notebook.
“The glass only had Chiswell’s prints on it. They found the carton in the bin,
empty, also with Chiswell’s prints on, and others. Nothing suspicious. Just as
you’d expect if it had been handled during purchase. Juice inside tested negative
for drugs. The drugs went directly into the glass.”
“The helium canister?”
“That had Chiswell’s prints on it, and some others. Nothing suspicious. Same
as the juice carton, like it had been handled during purchase.”
“Does amitriptyline have a taste?” asked Robin.
“Yeah, it’s bitter,” said Oliver.
“Olfactory dysfunction,” Strike reminded Robin. “After the head injury. He
might not have tasted it.”
“Would it have made him groggy?” Robin asked Oliver.
“Probably, especially if he wasn’t used to taking it, but people can have
unexpected reactions. He might’ve become agitated.”
“Any sign of how or where the pills were crushed up?” asked Strike.
“In the kitchen. There were traces of powder found on the pestle and mortar
there.”
“Prints?”
“His.”
“D’you know whether they tested the homeopathic pills?” asked Robin.
“The what?” said Oliver.
“There was a tube of homeopathic pills on the floor. I trod on them,” Robin
explained. “Lachesis.”
“I don’t know anything about them,” said Oliver, and Robin felt a little
foolish for mentioning them.
“There was a mark on the back of his left hand.”
“Yes,” said Oliver, turning back to his notes. “Abrasions to face and a small
mark on the hand.”

---

“On the face, too?” said Robin, freezing with her sandwich in her hand.
“Yes,” said Oliver.
“Any explanation?” asked Strike.
“You’re wondering whether the bag was forced over his head,” said Oliver; it
was a statement, not a question. “So did MI5. They know he didn’t make the
marks himself. Nothing under his own nails. On the other hand, there was no
bruising to the body to show force, nothing disarranged in the room, no signs of
a struggle—”
“Other than the bent sword,” said Strike.
“I keep forgetting you were there,” said Oliver. “You know all this.”
“Marks on the sword?”
“It had been cleaned recently, but Chiswell’s prints were on the handle.”
“What time of death are we looking at?”
“Between 6 and 7 a.m.,” said Oliver.
“But he was fully dressed,” mused Robin.
“From what I’ve heard about him, he was quite literally the kind of bloke
who wouldn’t have been caught dead in pajamas,” said Oliver drily.
“Met’s inclining to suicide, then?” asked Strike.
“Off the record, I think an open verdict is quite likely. There are a few
discrepancies that need explaining. You know about the open front door, of
course. It’s warped. It won’t close unless you shut it with force, but it sometimes
jumps back open again if you slam it too hard. So it could have been accidental,
the fact that it was open. Chiswell might not have realized he’d left it ajar, but
equally, a killer might not have known the trick to closing it.”
“You don’t happen to know how many keys to the door there were?” asked
Strike.
“No,” said Oliver. “As I’m sure you’ll appreciate, Van and I had to sound
only casually interested, asking all these questions.”
“He’s a dead government minister,” said Strike. “Surely you didn’t have to
sound too casual?”
“I know one thing,” said Oliver. “He had plenty of reasons to kill himself.”
“Such as?” inquired Strike, pen poised over his notebook.
“His wife was leaving him—”
“Allegedly,” said Strike, writing.
“—they’d lost a baby, his eldest son died in Iraq, the family say he was
acting strangely, drinking heavily and so on, and he had serious money
problems.”
“Yeah?” said Strike. “Like what?”
“He was almost wiped out in the 2008 crash,” said Oliver. “And then there

---

was… well, that business you two were investigating.”
“D’you know where the blackmailers were, at the time of—?”
Oliver made a swift, convulsive movement that nearly knocked over his
coffee. Leaned towards Strike he hissed:
“There’s a super-injunction out, in case you haven’t—”
“Yeah, we’ve heard,” said Strike.
“Well, I happen to like my job.”
“OK,” said Strike, unperturbed, but lowering his voice. “I’ll rephrase my
question. Have they looked into the movements of Geraint Winn and Jimmy—?”
“Yes,” said Oliver curtly, “and both have alibis.”
“What are they?”
“The former was in Bermondsey with—”
“Not Della?” blurted Robin, before she could stop herself. The idea of his
blind wife being Geraint’s alibi had struck her, somehow, as indecent. She had
formed the impression, whether naively or not, that Della stood apart from
Geraint’s criminal activity.
“No,” said Oliver tersely, “and do we have to use names?”
“Who, then?” asked Strike.
“Some employee. He claims he was with the employee and the bloke
confirmed it.”
“Were there other witnesses?”
“I don’t know,” said Oliver, with a trace of frustration. “I assume so. They’re
happy with the alibi.”
“What about Ji—the other man?”
“He was in East Ham with his girlfriend.”
“Was he?” said Strike, making a note of it. “I saw him being marched off to a
police van, the night before Chiswell died.”
“He was let off with a caution. But,” Oliver said quietly, “blackmailers don’t
generally kill their victims, do they?”
“Not if they’re getting money out of them,” said Strike, still writing. “But
Knight wasn’t.”
Oliver looked at his watch.
“Couple more things,” said Strike equably, his elbow still planted on the
envelope containing Ian Nash’s details. “Does Vanessa know anything about a
phone call to his son that Chiswell made on the morning of his death?”
“Yeah, she said something about that,” said Oliver, flicking backwards and
forwards through his notebook to find the information. “Yeah, he made two calls
just after 6 a.m. First to his wife, then to his son.”
Strike and Robin looked at each other again.

---

“We knew about the call to Raphael. He called his wife as well?”
“Yeah, he called her first.”
Oliver seemed to read their reaction correctly, because he said:
“The wife’s totally in the clear. She was the first person they investigated,
once they were satisfied it wasn’t politically motivated, obviously.
“A neighbor saw her go into the house on Ebury Street the evening before
and come out shortly afterwards with a bag, two hours before her husband came
back. A taxi driver picked her up halfway down the street and took her to
Paddington. She was caught on camera on the train back to wherever she lives—
is it Oxfordshire?—and apparently there was someone at the house when she got
home, who can vouch for the fact that she arrived there before midnight and
never left again until the police came round to tell her Chiswell was dead.
Multiple witnesses to her whole journey.”
“Who was at the house with her?”
“That, I don’t know.” Oliver’s eyes moved to the envelope still lying beneath
Strike’s elbow. “And that really is everything I’ve got.”
Strike had asked everything he had wanted to know, and had gained a couple
of bits of information he had not expected, including the abrasions to Chiswell’s
face, his poor finances and the phone call to Kinvara in the early morning.
“You’ve been a big help,” he told Oliver, sliding the envelope across the
table. “Much appreciated.”
Oliver appeared relieved that the encounter was over. He stood up and, with
one more hasty handshake and a nod to Robin, departed the café. Once Oliver
had stridden out of sight, Robin sat back in her chair and sighed.
“What’s that glum expression for?” asked Strike, draining his mug of tea.
“This is going to be the shortest job on record. Izzy wants us to prove it was
Kinvara.”
“She wants the truth about her father’s death,” said Strike, but he grinned at
Robin’s skeptical expression, “and, yeah, she’s hoping it was Kinvara. Well,
we’ll have to see whether we can break all those alibis, won’t we? I’m going to
Woolstone on Saturday. Izzy’s invited me over to Chiswell House, so I can meet
her sister. Are you in? I’d rather not drive, the state my leg’s in at the moment.”
“Yes, of course,” said Robin immediately.
The idea of getting out of London with Strike, even for a day, was so
appealing that she did not bother to consider whether she and Matthew had
plans, but surely, in the glow of their unexpected rapprochement, he would raise
no difficulties. After all, she had not worked for a week and a half. “We can take
the Land Rover. It’ll be better on country roads than your BMW.”
“You might need diversionary tactics if that hack’s still watching you,” said

---

Strike.
“I think I could probably throw them off more easily in a car than on foot.”
“Yeah, you probably could,” said Strike.
Robin was in possession of an advanced driving qualification. Though he
had never told her so, Robin was the only person by whom he would willingly
be driven.
“What time are we supposed to be at Chiswell House?”
“Eleven,” said Strike, “but plan to be away for the whole day. I fancy taking
a look at the Knights’ old place while we’re there.” He hesitated. “I can’t
remember whether I told you… I kept Barclay undercover with Jimmy and
Flick.”
He was braced for annoyance that he had not discussed it with her,
resentment that Barclay had been working when she wasn’t, or, perhaps most
justifiably, a demand to know what he was playing at, given the state of the
agency’s finances, but she simply said, with more amusement than rancor:
“You know you didn’t tell me. Why did you keep him there?”
“Because I’ve got a gut feeling there’s a lot more to the Knight brothers than
meets the eye.”
“You always tell me to mistrust gut feelings.”
“Never claimed not to be a hypocrite, though. And brace yourself,” Strike
added, as they got up from the table, “Raphael’s not happy with you.”
“Why not?”
“Izzy says he fell for you. Quite upset you turned out to be an undercover
detective.”
“Oh,” said Robin. A faint pink blush spread over her face. “Well, I’m sure
he’ll bounce back fast enough. He’s that type.”

---

41