Lethal White

… her ungovernable, wild fits of passion—which
she expected me to reciprocate…
Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm
Strike returned to his two attic rooms in Denmark Street six days later, early
on Friday morning. Leaning on crutches, his prosthesis in a holdall over his
shoulder and his right trouser leg pinned up, his expression tended to repel the
sidelong glances of sympathy that passersby gave him as he swung along the
short street to number twenty-four.
He hadn’t seen a doctor. Lorelei had called her local practice once she and
the lavishly tipped cabbie had succeeded in supporting Strike upstairs to her flat,
but the GP had asked Strike to come into his surgery for an examination.
“What d’you want me to do, hop there? It’s my hamstring, I can feel it,” he
had snapped down the phone. “I know the drill: rest, ice, all that bollocks. I’ve
done it before.”
He had been forced to break his no-consecutive-overnights-at-a-woman’s
rule, spending four full days and five nights at Lorelei’s. He now regretted it, but
what choice had he had? He had been caught, as Chiswell would have put it, a
fronte praecipitium, a tergo lupi. He and Lorelei had been supposed to have
dinner on Saturday night. Having chosen to tell her the truth rather than make an
excuse not to meet, he had been forced to let her help. Now he wished that he
had phoned his old friends Nick and Ilsa, or even Shanker, but it was too late.
The damage was done.
The knowledge that he was being unfair and ungrateful was hardly
calculated to improve Strike’s mood as he dragged himself and his holdall up the
stairs. In spite of the fact that parts of the sojourn at Lorelei’s flat had been
thoroughly enjoyable, all had been ruined by what had happened the previous
evening, and it was entirely his own fault. He had let it happen, the thing that he
had tried to guard against ever since leaving Charlotte, let it happen because he’d
dropped his guard, and accepted mugs of tea, home-cooked meals and gentle
affection, until finally, last night in the darkness, she had whispered onto his bare
chest, “I love you.”
Grimacing again with the effort of balancing on his crutches as he unlocked
his front door, Strike almost fell into his flat. Slamming the door behind him, he

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dropped the holdall, crossed to the small chair at the Formica table in his
kitchen-cum-living room, fell into it and cast his crutches aside. It was a relief to
be home and alone, however difficult it was to manage with his leg in this state.
He ought to have returned sooner, of course, but being in no condition to tail
anyone and in considerable discomfort, it had been easier to remain in a
comfortable armchair, his stump resting on a large square pouf, texting Robin
and Barclay instructions while Lorelei fetched him food and drink.
Strike lit a cigarette and thought back over all the women there had been
since he’d left Charlotte. First, Ciara Parker, a gorgeous one-night stand, with no
regrets on either side. A few weeks after he had hit the press for solving the
Landry case, Ciara had called him. He had become elevated in the model’s mind
from casual shag to possible boyfriend material by his newsworthiness, but he
had turned down further meetings with her. Girlfriends who wanted to be
photographed with him were no good to him in his line of work.
Next had come Nina, who had worked for a publisher, and whom he had
used to get information on a case. He had liked her, but insufficiently, as he
looked back on it, to treat her with common consideration. He had hurt Nina’s
feelings. He wasn’t proud of it, but it hardly kept him up at nights.
Elin had been different, beautiful and, best of all, convenient, which was why
he’d hung around. She had been in the process of divorcing a wealthy man and
her need for discretion and compartmentalization had been at least as great as his
own. They had managed a few months together before he’d spilled wine all over
her, and walked out of the restaurant where they were having dinner. He had
called her afterwards to apologize and she had dumped him before he finished
the sentence. Given that he had left her humiliated in Le Gavroche with a hefty
dry-cleaning bill, he felt that it would have been in poor taste to respond with
“that’s what I was going to say next.”
After Elin there had been Coco, on whom he preferred not to dwell, and now
there was Lorelei. He liked her better than any of the others, which was why he
was sorry that it had been she who said “I love you.”
Strike had made a vow to himself two years previously, and he made very
few vows, because he trusted himself to keep them. Having never said “I love
you” to any woman but Charlotte, he would not say it to another unless he knew,
beyond reasonable doubt, that he wanted to stay with that woman and make a
life with her. It would make a mockery of what he’d been through with Charlotte
if he said it under circumstances any less serious. Only love could have justified
the havoc they had lived together, or the many times he had resumed the
relationship, even while he knew in his soul that it couldn’t work. Love, to
Strike, was pain and grief sought, accepted, endured. It was not in Lorelei’s

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bedroom, with the cowgirls on the curtains.
And so he had said nothing after her whispered declaration, and then, when
she’d asked whether he’d heard her, he’d said, “Yeah, I did.”
Strike reached for his cigarettes. Yeah, I did. Well, that had been honest, as
far as it went. There was nothing wrong with his hearing. After that, there’d been
a fairly lengthy silence, then Lorelei had got out of bed and gone to the bathroom
and stayed there for thirty minutes. Strike assumed that she’d gone there to cry,
though she’d been kind enough to do it quietly, so that he couldn’t hear her. He
had lain in bed, wondering what he could say to her that was both kind and
truthful, but he knew that nothing short of “I love you, too” would be acceptable,
and the fact was that he didn’t love her, and he wasn’t going to lie.
When she came back to bed, he had reached out for her in the bed. She’d let
him stroke her shoulder for a while, then told him she was tired and needed some
sleep.