Lethal White

Urgent situation, my arse.
Tom had probably found out that his fiancée and his good friend had been
sleeping together. Maybe Tom was threatening to call Robin, or drop in on the
office in Denmark Street, to find out how much she knew. If Matthew thought
that constituted an “urgent situation” to Robin, who was currently standing
beside multiple pictures of a drugged and suffocated government minister, he
was wrong. With an effort, she refocused on the conversation in the incident
room.
“… the necklace business,” Layborn was saying to Strike. “Far more
convincing story than the one he told us. All that guff about wanting to stop her
hurting herself.”
“It was Robin who got him to change his story, not me,” said Strike.
“Ah—well, good work,” Layborn said to Robin, with a hint of patronage. “I
thought he was an oily little bastard when I took his initial statement. Cocky. Just
out of jail, and all. No bloody remorse for running over that poor woman.”
“How are you getting on with Francesca?” Strike asked. “The girl from the
gallery?”
“We managed to get hold of the father in Sri Lanka and he’s not happy.
Being quite obstructive, actually,” said Layborn. “He’s trying to buy time to get
her lawyered up. Bloody inconvenient, the whole family being abroad. I had to
get tough with him over the phone. I can understand why he doesn’t want it all
coming out in court, but too bad. Gives you a real insight into the mindset of the
upper classes, eh, case like this? One rule for them…”
“On that subject,” said Strike, “I assume you’ve spoken to Aamir Mallik?”
“Yeah, we found him exactly where your boy—Hutchins, is it?—said he
was. At his sister’s. He’s got a new job—”
“Oh, I’m glad,” said Robin inadvertently.
“—and he wasn’t overjoyed to have us turning up at first, but he ended up
being very frank and helpful. Said he found that disturbed lad—Billy, is it?—on
the street, wanting to see his boss, shouting about a dead child, strangled and
buried on Chiswell’s land. Took him home with the idea of getting him to
hospital, but he asked Geraint Winn’s advice first. Winn was furious. Told him
on no account to call an ambulance.”
“Did he, now?” said Strike, frowning.
“From what Mallik’s told us, Winn was worried association with Billy’s
story would taint his own credibility. He didn’t want the waters muddied by a
psychotic tramp. Blew up at Mallik for taking him into a house belonging to the
Winns, told him to turf him out on the street again. Trouble was—”
“Billy wouldn’t go,” said Strike.

---

“Exactly. Mallik says he was clearly out of his mind, thought he was being
held against his will. Curled up in the bathroom most of the time. Anyway,”
Layborn took a deep breath, “Mallik’s had enough of covering up for the Winns.
He’s confirmed that Winn wasn’t with him on the morning of Chiswell’s death.
Winn told Mallik afterwards, when he put pressure on Mallik to lie, he’d had an
urgent phone call at 6 a.m. that day, which is why he left the marital home early.”
“And you’ve traced that call?” said Strike.
Layborn picked up the printout of phone records, rifled through them, then
handed a couple of marked pages to Strike.
“Here you go. Burner phones,” he said. “We’ve got three different numbers
so far. There were probably more. Used once, never used again, untraceable
except for the single instance we got on record. Months in the planning.
“A single-use phone was used to contact Winn that morning, and two more
were used to call Kinvara Chiswell on separate occasions during the previous
weeks. She ‘can’t remember’ who called her, but both times—see there?—she
talked to whoever it was for over an hour.”
“What’s Winn got to say for himself?” asked Strike.
“Closed up like an oyster,” said Layborn. “We’re working on him, don’t
worry. There are porn stars who’ve been fucked fewer different ways than
Geraint W—sorry, love,” he said, grinning, to Robin, who found the apology
more offensive than anything Layborn had said. “But you take my point. He
might as well tell us everything now. He’s screwed every which w—well,” he
said, floundering once more. “What interests me,” he started up again, “is how
much the wife knew. Strange woman.”
“In what way?” asked Robin.
“Oh, you know. I think she plays on this a bit,” said Layborn, with a vague
gesture towards his eyes. “Very hard to believe she didn’t know what he was up
to.”
“Speaking of people not knowing what their other halves are up to,”
interposed Strike, who thought he detected a martial glint in Robin’s eye, “how’s
it going with our friend Flick?”
“Ah, we’re making very good progress there,” said Layborn. “The parents
have been helpful in her case. They’re both lawyers and they’ve been urging her
to cooperate. She’s admitted she was Chiswell’s cleaner, that she stole the note
and took receipt of the crate of champagne right before Chiswell told her he
couldn’t afford her anymore. Says she put it in a cupboard in the kitchen.”
“Who delivered it?”
“She can’t remember. We’ll find out. Courier service, I shouldn’t wonder,
booked on another burner phone.”

---

“And the credit card?”
“That was another good spot of yours,” admitted Layborn. “We didn’t know
a credit card had gone missing. We got details through from the bank this
morning. The same day Flick’s flatmate realized the card was gone, somebody
charged a crate of champagne and bought a hundred quid’s worth of stuff on
Amazon, all to be sent to an address in Maida Vale. Nobody took delivery, so it
was returned to the depot where it was picked up that afternoon by someone who
had the failed delivery notice. We’re trying to locate the staff who can identify
the person who collected it and we’re getting a breakdown on what was bought
on Amazon, but my money’s on helium, tubing and latex gloves.
“This was all planned months in advance. Months.”
“And that?” Strike asked, pointing to the photocopy of the note in Chiswell’s
handwriting, which was lying on the side in its polythene bag. “Has she told you
why she nicked it yet?”
“She says she saw ‘Bill’ and thought it meant her boyfriend’s brother. Ironic,
really,” said Layborn. “If she hadn’t stolen it, we wouldn’t have cottoned on
nearly so fast, would we?”
The “we,” thought Robin, was daring, because it had been Strike who had
“cottoned on,” Strike who had finally cracked the significance of Chiswell’s
note, as they drove back to London from Chiswell House.
“Robin deserves the bulk of the credit there, too,” said Strike. “She found the
thing, she noticed ‘Blanc de Blanc’ and the Grand Vitara. I just pieced it together
once it was staring me in the face.”
“Well, we were just behind you,” said Layborn, absentmindedly scratching
his belly. “I’m sure we’d have got there.”
Robin’s mobile vibrated in her pocket again: somebody was calling, this
time.
“I need to take this. Is there anywhere I can—?”
“Through here,” said Layborn helpfully, opening a side door.
It was a photocopier room, with a small window covered in a Venetian blind.
Robin closed the door on the others’ conversation and answered.
“Hi, Sarah.”
“Hi,” said Sarah Shadlock.
She sounded totally unlike the Sarah whom Robin had known for nearly nine
years, the confident and bombastic blonde whom Robin had sensed, even in their
teens, was hoping that some mischance might befall Matthew’s long-distance
relationship with his girlfriend. Always there through the years, giggling at
Matthew’s jokes, touching his arm, asking loaded questions about Robin’s
relationship with Strike, Sarah had dated other men, settling at last for poor

---

tedious Tom, with his well-paid job and his bald patch, who had put diamonds
on Sarah’s finger and in her ears, but never quelled her yen for Matthew
Cunliffe.
All her swagger had gone today.
“Well, I’ve asked two experts, but,” she said, sounding fragile and fearful,
“and they can’t say for sure, not from a photograph taken on a phone—”
“Well, obviously not,” said Robin coolly. “I said in my text, didn’t I, that I
wasn’t expecting a definitive answer? We’re not asking for a firm identification
or valuation. All we want to know is whether somebody might have credibly
believed—”
“Well, then, yes,” said Sarah. “One of our experts is quite excited about it,
actually. One of the old notebooks lists a painting done of a mare with a dead
foal, but it’s never been found.”
“What notebooks?”
“Oh, sorry,” said Sarah. She had never sounded so meek, so frightened, in
Robin’s vicinity. “Stubbs.”
“And if it is a Stubbs?” asked Robin, turning to look out of the window at the
Feathers, a pub where she and Strike had sometimes drunk.
“Well, this is entirely speculative, obviously… but if it’s genuine, if it’s the
one he listed in 1760, it could be a lot.”
“Give me a rough estimate.”
“Well, his ‘Gimcrack’ went for—”
“—twenty-two million,” said Robin, feeling suddenly light-headed. “Yes.
You said so at our house-warming party.”
Sarah made no answer. Perhaps the mention of the party, where she had
brought lilies to her lover’s wife’s house, had scared her.
“So if ‘Mare Mourning’ is a genuine Stubbs—”
“It’d probably make more than ‘Gimcrack’ at auction. It’s a unique subject.
Stubbs was an anatomist, as much scientist as artist. If this is a depiction of a
lethal white foal, it might be the first recorded instance. It could set records.”
Robin’s mobile buzzed in her hand. Another text had arrived.
“This has been very helpful, Sarah, thanks. You’ll keep this confidential?”
“Yes, of course,” said Sarah. And then, in a rush:
“Robin, listen—”
“No,” said Robin, trying to stay calm. “I’m working a case.”
“—it’s over, it’s finished, Matt’s in pieces—”
“Goodbye, Sarah.”
Robin hung up, then read the text that had just arrived.

---

Meet me after work or I’m giving a statement to the press.
Eager as she was to return to the group next door and relay the sensational
information she had just received, Robin remained where she stood, temporarily
flummoxed by the threat, and texted back:
Statement to the press about what?
His response came within seconds, littered with angry typos.
The mail called the office this morning g and left a message asking how I
feel about my dive shacking up with Cornish Strike. The sun’s been one this
afternoon. You probably know he’s two timing you but maybe you don’t give
a shit. I’m not having the papers calling me at work. Either meet me or I’m go
give a statement to get them off my back.
Robin was rereading the message when yet another text arrived, this time
with an attachment.
In case you haven’t seen it
Robin enlarged the attachment, which was a screenshot of a diary item in the