Lethal White

… let us at least fight with honorable weapons,
since it seems we must fight.
Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm
Matthew, who had supposedly been out just for the morning, still hadn’t
come home. He had sent two texts since, one at three in the afternoon:
Tom got work troubles, wants to talk. Gone to pub with him (I’m on
Cokes.) Back as soon as I can.
And then, at seven o’clock:
Really sorry, he’s pissed, I can’t leave him. Going to find him a taxi then
come back. Hope you’ve eaten. Love you x
Still with her caller ID switched off, Robin had again phoned Tom’s mobile.
He had answered immediately. There was no background babble of a pub.
“Yes?” said Tom testily and apparently sober, “who is this?”
Robin hung up.
Two bags were packed and waiting in the hall. She had already phoned
Vanessa and asked whether she could stay on her sofa for a couple of nights,
before she got a new place to live. She found it strange that Vanessa didn’t sound
more surprised, but at the same time, was glad not to have to fend off pity.
Waiting in the sitting room, watching night fall outside the window, Robin
wondered whether she would even have been suspicious had she not found the
earring. Lately she had become simply grateful for time without Matthew, when
she could relax, not having to hide anything, whether the work she was doing on
the Chiswell case or the panic attacks that must be conducted quietly, without
fuss, on the bathroom floor.
Sitting in the stylish armchair belonging to their absent landlord, Robin felt
as though she were inhabiting a memory. How often were you aware, while it
happened, that you were living an hour that would change the course of your life
forever? She would remember this room for a long time, and she gazed around it
now, with the aim of fixing it in her mind, thereby trying to ignore the sadness,
the shame and the pain that burned and twisted inside her.
At just past nine o’clock, she heard, with a wave of nausea, Matthew’s key in

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the lock and the sound of the door opening.
“Sorry,” he shouted, before he’d even closed the door, “he’s a silly sod, I had
a job persuading the taxi driver to take—”
Robin heard his small exclamation of surprise as he spotted the suitcases.
Safe, now, to dial, she pressed the number she had ready on her phone. He
walked into the sitting room, puzzled, in time to hear her booking a minicab. She
hung up. They looked at each other.
“What’s with the cases?”
“I’m leaving.”
There was a long silence. Matthew seemed not to understand.
“What d’you mean?”
“I don’t know how to say it any more clearly, Matt.”
“Leaving me?”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
“Because,” said Robin, “you’re sleeping with Sarah.”
She watched Matthew struggling to find words that might save him, but the
seconds slid by, and it was too late for real incredulity, for astonished innocence,
for genuine incomprehension.
“What?” he said at last, with a forced laugh.
“Please don’t,” she said. “There’s no point. It’s over.”
He continued to stand in the doorway of the sitting room and she thought he
looked tired, even haggard.
“I was going to go and leave a note,” said Robin, “but that felt too
melodramatic. Anyway, there are practical things we need to talk about.”
She thought she could see him thinking, How did I give it away? Who have
you told?
“Listen,” he said urgently, dropping his sports bag beside him (full, no doubt,
of clean, pressed kit), “I know things haven’t been good between us, you and
me, but it’s you I want, Robin. Don’t throw us away. Please.”
He walked forwards, dropped into a crouch beside her chair and tried to take
her hand. She pulled it away, genuinely astonished.
“You’re sleeping with Sarah,” she repeated.
He got up, crossed to the sofa and sat down, dropped his face into his hands
and said weakly:
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s been so shit between you and me—”
“—that you had to sleep with your friend’s fiancée?”
He looked up at that, in sudden panic.
“Have you spoken to Tom? Does he know?”

---

Suddenly unable to bear his proximity, she walked away towards the
window, full of a contempt she had never felt before.
“Even now, worried about your promotion prospects, Matt?”
“No—fuck—you don’t understand,” he said. “It’s over between me and
Sarah.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes! Fuck—this is so fucking ironic—we talked all day. We
agreed it couldn’t go on, not after—you and Tom—we’ve just ended it. An hour
ago.”
“Wow,” said Robin, with a little laugh, feeling disembodied, “isn’t that
ironic?”
Her mobile rang. Dreamlike, she answered it.
“Robin?” said Strike. “Update. I’ve just seen Della Winn.”
“How did it go?” she asked, trying to sound steady and bright, determined
not to cut the call short. Her working life was now her entire life and Matthew
would no longer impinge upon it. Turning her back on her fuming husband, she
looked out onto the dark cobbled street.
“Very interesting on two counts,” said Strike. “Firstly, she slipped up. I don’t
think Geraint was with Aamir the morning Chiswell died.”
“That is interesting,” said Robin, forcing herself to concentrate, aware of
Matthew watching her.
“I’ve got a number for him and I tried it, but he’s not picking up. I thought
I’d see if he’s still at the B&B down the road as I’m in the vicinity, but the owner
says he’s moved on.”
“Shame. What was the other interesting thing?” asked Robin.
“Is that Strike?” asked Matthew loudly, from behind her. She ignored him.
“What was that?” asked Strike.
“Nothing,” said Robin. “Go on.”
“Well, the second interesting thing is that Della met Kinvara last year, who
was hysterical because she thought Chiswell—”
Robin’s mobile was pulled roughly out of her hand. She wheeled around.
Matthew ended the call with a stab of his finger.
“How dare you?” shouted Robin, holding out her hand. “Give that back!”
“We’re trying to save our fucking marriage and you’re taking calls from
him?”
“I’m not trying to save this marriage! Give me back my phone!”
He hesitated, then thrust it back at her, only to look outraged when she coolly
phoned Strike back again.
“Sorry about that, Cormoran, we got cut off,” she said, with Matthew’s wild

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eyes on her.
“Everything all right there, Robin?”
“It’s fine. What were you saying about Chiswell?”
“That he was having an affair.”
“An affair!” said Robin, her eyes on Matthew’s. “Who with?”
“Christ knows. Have you had any luck getting hold of Raphael? We know
he’s not that bothered about protecting his father’s memory. He might tell us.”
“I left a message for him, and for Tegan. Neither of them have called back.”
“OK, well, keep me posted. This all sheds an interesting light on the hammer
round the head, though, doesn’t it?”
“Certainly does,” said Robin.
“That’s me at the Tube. Sure you’re all right?”
“Yes, of course,” said Robin, with what she hoped sounded like workaday
impatience. “Speak soon.”
She hung up.
“‘Speak soon,’” Matthew imitated her, in the high-pitched, wispy voice he
always used when impersonating women. “‘Speak later, Cormoran. I’m running
out on my marriage so I can be at your beck and call forever, Cormoran. I don’t
mind working for minimum wage, Cormoran, not if I can be your skivvy.’”
“Fuck off, Matt,” said Robin calmly. “Fuck off back to Sarah. The earring
she left in our bed is upstairs on my bedside table, by the way.”
“Robin,” he said, suddenly earnest, “we can get through this. If we love each
other, we can.”
“Well, the problem with that, Matt,” said Robin, “is that I don’t love you
anymore.”
She had always thought the idea of eyes darkening was literary license, but
she saw his light eyes turn black as his pupils dilated in shock.
“You bitch,” he said quietly.
She felt a cowardly impulse to lie, to back away from the absolute statement,
to protect herself, but something stronger in her held on: the need to tell the
unvarnished truth, when she had been lying to him and herself for so long.
“No,” she said. “I don’t. We should have split up on the honeymoon. I stayed
because you were ill. I felt sorry for you. No,” she corrected herself, determined
to do the thing properly, “actually, we should never have gone on the
honeymoon. I ought to have walked out of the wedding once I knew you’d
deleted those calls from Strike.”
She wanted to check her watch to see when her cab would arrive, but she
was scared to take her eyes off her husband. There was something in his
expression that recalled a snake peering out from under a rock.

---

“How do you think your life looks to other people?” he asked quietly.
“What d’you mean?”
“You bailed out on uni. Now you’re bailing out on us. You even bailed on
your therapist. You’re a fucking flake. The only thing you haven’t run out on is
this stupid job that’s half-killed you, and you got sacked from that. He only took
you back because he wants to get into your pants. And he probably can’t get
anyone else so cheap.”
She felt as though he had punched her. Winded, her voice sounded weak.
“Thanks, Matt,” she said, moving towards the door. “Thanks for making this
so easy.”
But he moved quickly to block her exit.
“It was a temping job. He paid you attention, so you kidded yourself that was
the career for you, even though it’s the last fucking thing you should’ve been
doing, with your history—”
She was fighting tears now, but determined not to succumb.
“I wanted to do police work for years and years—”
“No, you fucking didn’t!” jeered Matthew, “when did you ever—?”
“I had a life before you!” Robin shouted. “I had a home life where I said
things you never heard! I never told you, Matthew, because I knew you’d laugh,
like my dickhead brothers! I did psychology hoping it would take me to some
kind of forensic—”
“You never said this, you’re trying to justify—”
“I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d sneer—”
“Bullshit—”
“It isn’t bullshit!” she shouted. “I’m telling you the truth, this is the whole
truth, and you’re proving my point, you don’t believe me! You liked it when I
dropped out of uni—”
“The hell d’you mean?”
“‘There’s no hurry to go back,’ ‘you don’t have to have a degree…’”
“Oh, so now I’m being fucking blamed for being sensitive!”
“You liked it, you liked me being stuck at home, why can’t you admit it?
Sarah Shadlock at uni and me underachieving back in Masham—it made up for
me getting better A-levels than you, getting into my first choice of—”
“Oh!” he laughed humorlessly, “oh, you got better fucking A-levels than me?
Yeah, that keeps me up at night—”
“If I hadn’t been raped, we’d have split up years ago!”
“Is this what you learned in therapy? To tell lies about the past, to justify all
your bullshit?”
“I learned to tell the truth!” shouted Robin, driven to the point of brutality.

---

“And here’s some more: I was falling out of love with you before the rape! You
weren’t interested in anything I was doing—my course, my new friends. All you
wanted to know was whether any other blokes were making moves on me. But
afterwards, you were so sweet, so kind… you seemed like the safest man in the
world, the only one I could trust. That’s why I stayed. We wouldn’t be here, now,
but for that rape.”
They both heard the car pull up outside. Robin tried to slide past him into the
hall, but he moved to block her again.
“No, you don’t. You’re not getting out of it that bloody easily. You stayed
because I was safe? Fuck off. You loved me.”
“I thought I did,” said Robin, “but not anymore. Get out of the way. I’m
leaving.”
She tried to sidestep him, but he moved to block her again.
“No,” he said again, and now he moved forwards, jostling her back into the
sitting room. “You’re staying here. We’re having this out.”
The minicab driver rang the doorbell.
“Coming!” Robin shouted, but Matthew snarled:
“You’re not running away this time, you’re going to stay and sort out your
mess—”
“No!” shouted Robin, as though to a dog. She came to a halt, refusing to be
backed further into the room, even though he was so close she could feel his
breath on her face, and she was suddenly reminded of Geraint Winn, and was
overwhelmed with revulsion. “Get away from me. Now!”
And like a dog Matthew took a step backwards, responding not to the order,
but to something in her voice. He was angry, but scared, too.
“Right,” said Robin. She knew she was on the edge of a panic attack, but she
held on, and every second she did not dissolve was giving her strength, and she
stood her ground. “I’m leaving. You try and stop me, I’ll retaliate. I’ve fought off
far bigger, meaner men than you, Matthew. You haven’t even got a bloody
knife.”
She saw his eyes turn blacker than ever, and suddenly she remembered how
her brother, Martin, had punched Matthew in the face, at the wedding. No matter
what was coming, she vowed, in a kind of dark exhilaration, she’d do better than
Martin. She’d break his damn nose if she had to.
“Please,” he said, his shoulders suddenly sagging, “Robin—”
“You’re going to have to hurt me if you want to stop me leaving, but I warn
you, I’ll prosecute you for assault if you do. That won’t go down too well at the
office, will it?”
She held his gaze for a few more seconds then walked back towards him, her

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fists already curling, waiting for him to block or grab her, but he moved aside.
“Robin,” he said hoarsely. “Wait. Seriously, wait, you said there were things
we had to discuss—”
“The lawyers can do it,” she said, reaching the front door and pulling it open.
The cool night air touched her like a blessing.
A stocky woman was sitting at the wheel of a Vauxhall Corsa. Seeing
Robin’s cases, she got out to help her hoist them into the boot. Matthew had
followed and was now standing in the doorway. As Robin made to get into the
car, he called to her and her tears began to fall at last, but without looking at him,
she slammed the door.
“Please, let’s go,” she said thickly, to the driver, as Matthew came down the
steps and bent to speak to her through the glass.
“I still fucking love you!”
The car moved away over the cobbles of Albury Street, past the molded
frontages of the pretty sea merchants’ houses where she had never felt she
belonged. At the top of the street she knew that if she looked back, she would
see Matthew standing watching the vanishing car. Her eyes met those of the
driver in the rearview mirror.
“Sorry,” said Robin nonsensically, and then, bewildered by her own apology,
she said, “I’ve—I’ve just left my husband.”
“Yeah?” said the driver, switching on her indicator. “I’ve left two. It gets
easier with practice.”
Robin tried to laugh, but the noise turned into a loud wet hiccup, and as the
car approached the lonely stone swan high on the corner pub, she began to cry in
earnest.
“Here,” said the driver gently, and she passed back a plastic-wrapped pack of
tissues.
“Thanks,” sobbed Robin, extracting one and pressing it to her tired, stinging
eyes until the white tissue was sodden and streaked with the last traces of thick
black eye makeup that she had worn to impersonate Bobbi Cunliffe. Avoiding
the sympathetic gaze of the driver in the rearview mirror, she looked down into
her lap. The wrapper on the tissues was that of an unfamiliar American brand:
“Dr. Blanc.”
At once, Robin’s elusive memory dropped into view, as though it had been
waiting for this tiny prod. Now she remembered exactly where she had seen the
phrase “Blanc de Blanc,” but it had nothing to do with the case, and everything
to do with her imploding marriage, with a lavender walk and a Japanese water
garden, and the last time she had ever said “I love you,” and the first time she’d
known she didn’t mean it.

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