Lethal White

Barclay’s doing good work, though.

---

As opposed to Robin, who had found out nothing but an irrelevancy about
Rhiannon Winn.
The moth was still fluttering desperately against the sliding doors, frantic to
get at the light.
Idiot, Robin thought. It’s better out here.
The ease with which the lie about Vanessa being on the phone had slid out of
her mouth ought, she reflected, to have made her feel guilty, but she was merely
glad that she had got away with it. As she watched the moth continuing to bang
its wings hopelessly against the brilliant glass, Robin remembered what her
therapist had said to her during one of the sessions when Robin had dwelled at
length on her need to discern where the real Matthew ended and her illusions
about him began.
“People change in ten years,” the therapist had responded. “Why does it have
to be a question of you being mistaken in Matthew? Perhaps it’s simply that
you’ve both changed?”
The following Monday would mark their first wedding anniversary. At
Matthew’s suggestion, they were going to spend next weekend at a fancy hotel
near Oxford. In a funny kind of way, Robin was looking forward to it, because
she and Matthew seemed to get along better these days with a change of scene.
Being surrounded by strangers nudged them out of their tendency to bicker. She
had told him the story of Ted Heath’s bust turning green, along with several
other (to her) interesting facts about the House of Commons. He had maintained
a bored expression through all of them, determined to signal his disapproval of
the whole venture.
Reaching a decision, she opened the French window and the moth fluttered
merrily inside.
“What did Vanessa want?” asked Matthew, his eyes on the news as Robin sat
down again. Sarah Shadlock’s stargazer lilies were sitting on a table beside her,
still in bloom ten days after they had arrived in the house, and Robin could smell
their heady scent even over the curry.
“I picked up her sunglasses by mistake last time we went out,” said Robin,
feigning exasperation. “She wants them back, they’re Chanel. I said I’ll meet her
before work.”
“Chanel, eh?” said Matthew, with a smile that Robin found patronizing. She
knew that he thought he had discovered a weakness in Vanessa, but perhaps he
liked her better to think that she valued designer labels and wanted to make sure
she got them back.
“I’ll have to leave at six,” said Robin.
“Six?” he said, annoyed. “Christ, I’m knackered, I don’t want to wake up at

---

—”
“I was going to suggest I sleep in the spare room,” Robin said.
“Oh,” said Matthew, mollified. “Yeah, OK. Thanks.”

---

19
I do not do it willingly—but, enfin—when needs
must—
Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm
Robin left the house at a quarter to six the next morning. The sky was a faint
blush pink and the morning already warm, justifying her lack of jacket. Her eyes
flickered towards the single carved swan as she passed their local pub, but she
forced her thoughts back onto the day ahead and not the man she had left behind.
On arrival in Izzy’s corridor an hour later, Robin saw that Geraint’s office
door was already open. A swift peek inside showed her an empty room, but
Aamir’s jacket hanging on the back of his chair.
Running to Izzy’s office, Robin unlocked it, dashed to her desk, pulled one
of the listening devices from the box of Tampax, scooped up a pile of out-of-date
agendas as an alibi, then ran back out into the corridor.
As she approached Geraint’s office, she slid off the gold bangle that she had
worn for this purpose, and threw it lightly so that it rolled into Geraint’s office.
“Oh damn,” she said out loud.
Nobody responded from inside the office. Robin knocked on the open door,
said “hello?” and put her head inside. The room was still empty.
Robin dashed across the room to the double power point just above the
skirting board beside Geraint’s desk. Kneeling, she took the listening device out
of her bag, unplugged the fan on his desk, pressed the device into place over the
dual socket, reinserted the fan’s plug, checked that it worked, then, panting as
though she had just sprinted a hundred yards, looked around for her bangle.
“What are you doing?”
Aamir was standing in the doorway in his shirtsleeves, a fresh tea in his
hand.
“I did knock,” Robin said, sure that she was bright pink. “I dropped my
bangle and it rolled—oh, there it is.”
It was lying just beneath Aamir’s computer chair. Robin scrambled to pick it
up.
“It’s my mother’s,” she lied. “I wouldn’t be popular if that went missing.”
She slid the bangle back over her wrist, picked up the papers she had left on
Geraint’s desk, smiled as casually as she could manage, then walked out of the

---

office past Aamir, whose eyes, she saw out of the corner of her own, were
narrowed in suspicion.
Jubilant, Robin re-entered Izzy’s office. At least she would have some good
news for Strike when they met in the pub that evening. Barclay was no longer
the only one doing good work. So absorbed was she in her thoughts that Robin
didn’t realize that there was somebody else in the room until a man said, right
behind her: “Who are you?”
The present dissolved. Both of her attackers had lunged at her from behind.
With a scream, Robin spun around, ready to fight for her life: the papers flew
into the air and her handbag slipped off her shoulder, fell to the floor and burst
open, scattering its contents everywhere.
“Sorry!” said the man. “Christ, I’m sorry!”
But Robin was finding it hard to draw breath. There was a thundering in her
ears and sweat had broken out all over her body. She bent down to scoop
everything back up, trembling so much that she kept dropping things.