Lethal White

believe it. It’s just so incredible. Raff… I wanted to go and see him, you know. I
really needed to see him… but he refused. He won’t see anyone.”
She gulped more wine.
“He must have gone mad or something. He must be ill, mustn’t he? To have
done it? Must be mentally ill.”
Robin remembered the dark barge, where Raphael had spoken in holy
accents of the life he wanted, of the villa in Capri, the bachelor pad in London,
and the new car, once the ban imposed for running over a young mother had

---

been lifted. She thought how meticulously he had planned his father’s death, the
errors made only because of the haste with which the murder was to be enacted.
She pictured his expression over the gun, as he had asked her why women
thought there was any difference between them: the mother whom he called a
whore, the stepmother he had seduced, Robin, whom he was about to kill so that
he didn’t have to enter hell alone. Was he ill in any sense that would put him in a
psychiatric institution rather than the prison that so terrified him? Or had his
dream of patricide been spawned in the shadowy wasteland between sickness
and irreducible malevolence?
“… he had an awful childhood,” Izzy was saying, and then, though neither
Strike nor Robin had responded, “he did, you know, he really did. I don’t want to
speak ill of Papa, but Freddie was everything. Papa wasn’t kind to Raff and the
Orca—I mean, Ornella, his mother—well, Torks always says she’s more like a
high-class hooker than anything else. When Raff wasn’t at boarding school she
dragged him around with her, always chasing some new man.”
“There are worse childhoods,” said Strike.
Robin, who had just been thinking that Raphael’s life with his mother
sounded not unlike the little she knew about Strike’s early years, was
nevertheless surprised to hear him express this view so bluntly.
“Plenty of people go through worse than having a party girl for a mother,” he
said, “and they don’t end up committing murder. Look at Billy Knight. No
mother at all for most of his life. Violent, alcoholic father, beaten and neglected,
ends up with serious mental illness and he’s never hurt anyone. He came to my
office in the throes of psychosis, trying to get justice for someone else.”
“Yes,” said Izzy hastily, “yes, that’s true, of course.”
But Robin had the impression that even now, Izzy could not equate the pain
of Raphael and Billy. The former’s suffering would always evoke more pity in
her than the latter’s, because a Chiswell was innately different to the kind of
motherless boy whose beatings were hidden in the woods, where estate workers
lived according to the laws of their kind.
“And here he is,” said Strike.
Billy Knight had just entered the restaurant, raindrops glittering on his shorn
hair. Though still underweight, his face was fuller, his person and clothes
cleaner. He had been released from hospital only a week previously, and was
currently living in Jimmy’s flat on Charlemont Road.
“Hello,” he said to Strike. “Sorry I’m late. Tube took longer’n I thought.”
“No problem,” said the two women, at the same time.
“You’re Izzy,” said Billy, sitting down beside her. “Haven’t seen you ’n a
long time.”

---

“No,” said Izzy, a little over-heartily. “It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?”
Robin held out a hand across the table.
“Hi, Billy, I’m Robin.”
“Hello,” he said again, shaking it.
“Would you like some wine, Billy?” offered Izzy. “Or beer?”
“Can’t drink on my meds,” he told her.
“Ah, no, of course not,” said Izzy, flustered. “Um… well, have some water,
and there’s your menu… we haven’t ordered yet…”
Once the waitress had been and gone, Strike addressed Billy.
“I made you a promise when I visited you in hospital,” he said. “I told you
I’d find out what happened to the child you saw strangled.”
“Yeah,” said Billy apprehensively. It was in the hopes of hearing the answer
to the twenty-year-old mystery that he had traveled from East Ham to Chelsea in
the rain. “You said on the phone that you’d worked it out.”
“Yes,” said Strike, “but I want you to hear it from someone who knew, who
was there at the time, so you get the full story.”
“You?” Billy said, turning to Izzy. “You were there? Up at the horse?”
“No, no,” said Izzy hastily. “It happened during the school holidays.”
She took a fortifying gulp of wine, set down her glass, drew a deep breath
and said:
“Fizz and I were both staying with school friends. I—I heard what happened,
afterwards…
“What happened was… Freddie was home from university and he’d brought
a few friends back with him. Papa left them in the house because he had some
old regimental dinner to attend in London…
“Freddie could be… the truth is, he was awfully naughty sometimes. He
brought up a lot of good wine from the cellar and they all got sloshed and then
one of the girls said she’d wanted to try the truth of that story about the white
horse… you know the one,” she said to Billy, the Uffington local. “If you turn
three times in the eye and make a wish…”
“Yeah,” said Billy, with a nod. His haunted eyes were huge.
“So they all left the house in the dark, but being Freddie… he was naughty…
they made a detour through the woods to your house. Steda Cottage. Because
Freddie wanted to buy some, ah, marijuana, was it, your brother grew?”
“Yeah,” said Billy, again.
“Freddie wanted to get some, so they could smoke it, up at the horse while
the girls were making wishes. Of course, they shouldn’t have been driving. They
were already drunk.
“Well, when they got to your house, your father wasn’t there—”

---

“He was in the barn,” said Billy suddenly. “Finishing a set of… you know.”
The memory seemed to have forced its way to the front of his mind,
triggered by her recital. Strike saw Billy’s left hand holding tightly to his right,
to prevent the recurrence of the tic that seemed for Billy to have something of
the significance of warding off evil. Rain continued to lash the restaurant
windows and Serge Gainsbourg sang, “Oh, je voudrais tant que tu te