Lethal White

Your gentle and upright disposition, your polished
mind, your unimpeachable honor, are known to and
appreciated by everyone…
Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm
Though the early evening was still bright, Della’s front garden lay in shadow,
which gave it a placid, melancholy air in contrast to the busy, dusty road that ran
beyond the gates. As Strike rang the doorbell, he noted two large dog turds on
the otherwise immaculate front lawn and he wondered who was helping Della
with such mundane tasks now that her marriage was over.
The door opened, revealing the Minister for Sport in her impenetrable black
glasses. She was wearing what Strike’s elderly aunt back in Cornwall would
have called a housecoat, a knee-length purple fleece robe that buttoned to the
high neck, giving her a vaguely ecclesiastic air. The guide dog stood behind her,
looking up at Strike with dark, mournful eyes.
“Hi, it’s Cormoran Strike,” said the detective, without moving. Given that
she could neither recognize him by sight nor examine any of the identification he
carried, the only way she could know whom she was admitting to her house was
by the sound of his voice. “We spoke on the phone earlier and you asked me to
come and see you.”
“Yes,” she said, unsmiling. “Come in, then.”
She stepped back to let him pass, one hand on the Labrador’s collar. Strike
entered, wiping his feet on the doormat. A swell of music, loud strings and
woodwind instruments, cut through by the pounding of a kettle drum, issued
from what Strike assumed was the sitting room. Strike, who had been raised by a
mother who listened mainly to metal bands, knew very little about classical
music, but there was a looming, ominous quality about this music that he didn’t
particularly care for. The hall was dark, because the lights hadn’t been turned on,
and otherwise nondescript, with a dark brown patterned carpet that, while
practical, was rather ugly.
“I’ve made coffee,” said Della. “I’ll need you to carry the tray into the sitting
room for me, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“No problem,” said Strike.
He followed the Labrador, which padded along at Della’s heels, its tail

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wagging vaguely. The symphony grew louder as they passed the sitting room,
the doorframe of which Della touched lightly as she passed, feeling for familiar
markers to orient herself.
“Is that Beethoven?” asked Strike, for something to say.
“Brahms. Symphony Number One, C Minor.”
The edges of every surface in the kitchen were rounded. The knobs on the
oven, Strike noticed, had raised numbers stuck to them. On a cork noticeboard
was a list of phone numbers headed IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, that he
imagined were for the use of a cleaner or home help. While Della crossed to the
worktop opposite, Strike extracted his mobile from his coat pocket and took a
picture of Geraint Winn’s number. Della’s outstretched hand reached the rim of
the deep ceramic sink, and she moved sideways, where a tray sat already laden
with a mug and a cafetière of freshly brewed coffee. Two bottles of wine stood
beside it. Della felt for both of these, turned and held them out to Strike, still
unsmiling.
“Which is which?” she asked.
“Châteauneuf-du-Pape, 2010, in your left hand,” said Strike, “and Château
Musar, 2006, in your right.”
“I’ll have a glass of the Châteauneuf-du-Pape if you wouldn’t mind opening
the bottle and pouring it for me. I assumed that you wouldn’t want a drink, but if
you do, help yourself.”
“Thanks,” said Strike, picking up the corkscrew she had laid beside the tray,
“coffee will be fine.”
She set off silently for the sitting room, leaving him to follow with the tray.
As he entered the room he caught the heavy scent of roses and was fleetingly
reminded of Robin. While Della grazed furniture with her fingertips, feeling her
way towards an armchair with wide wooden arms, Strike saw four large bunches
of flowers positioned in vases around the room and punctuating the overall
drabness with their vivid colors, red, yellow and pink.
Aligning herself by pressing the backs of her legs against the chair, Della sat
down neatly, then turned her face towards Strike as he set the tray on the table.
“Would you put my glass here, on my right chair arm?” she said, patting it,
and he did so, while the pale Labrador, which had flopped down beside Della’s
chair, watched him out of kind, sleepy eyes.
The strings of the violins in the symphony swooped and fell as Strike sat
down. From the fawn carpet to the furniture, all of which might have been
designed in the seventies, everything seemed to be in different shades of brown.
Half of one wall was covered in built-in shelves holding what he thought must
be at least a thousand CDs. On a table to the rear of the room was a stack of

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Braille manuscripts. A large, framed photograph of a teenage girl sat on the
mantelpiece. It occurred to Strike that her mother could not even enjoy the
bittersweet solace of looking at Rhiannon Winn every day, and he found himself
filled with inconvenient compassion.
“Nice flowers,” he commented.
“Yes. It was my birthday a few days ago,” said Della.
“Ah. Many happy returns.”
“Are you from the West Country?”
“Partly. Cornwall.”
“I can hear it in your vowels,” said Della.
She waited while he dealt with the cafetière and poured himself coffee.
When the sounds of clinking and pouring had ceased, she said:
“As I said on the phone, I’m very worried about Aamir. He’ll still be in
London, I’m sure, because it’s all he’s ever known. Not with his family,” she
added, and Strike thought he heard a trace of contempt. “I’m extremely
concerned about him.”
She felt carefully for the wine glass next to her and took a sip.
“When you’ve reassured him that he isn’t in any kind of trouble, and that
anything Chiswell told you about him will go no further, you must tell him to
contact me—urgently.”
The violins continued to screech and whine in what, to the untutored Strike,
was a dissonant expression of foreboding. The guide dog scratched herself, her
paw thudding off the carpet. Strike took out his notebook.
“Have you got the names or contact details of any friends Mallik might have
gone to?”
“No,” said Della. “I don’t think he has many friends. Latterly he mentioned
someone from university but I don’t remember a name. I doubt it was anyone