Lethal White

Oh, this killing doubt!
Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm
It was almost midday when Strike arrived at Izzy’s mews house in Upper
Cheyne Row in Chelsea, a quietly expensive stretch of houses which, unlike
those of Ebury Street, were tastefully mismatched. Izzy’s was small and painted
white, with a carriage lamp beside the front door, and when Strike rang the
doorbell she answered within a few seconds.
In her loose black trousers and a black sweater too warm for such a sunny
day, Izzy reminded Strike of the first time he had met her father, who had been
sporting an overcoat in June. A sapphire cross hung around her neck. Strike
thought that she had gone as far into official mourning as modern-day dress and
sensibilities would permit.
“Come in, come in,” she said nervously, not making eye contact, and
standing back, waved him into an airy open-plan sitting and kitchen area, with
white walls, brightly patterned sofas and an Art Nouveau fireplace with sinuous,
molded female figures supporting the mantelpiece. The long rear windows
looked out onto a small, private courtyard, where expensive wrought iron
furniture sat among carefully tended topiary.
“Sit down,” said Izzy, waving him towards one of the colorful sofas. “Tea?
Coffee?”
“Tea would be great, thanks.”
Strike sat down, unobtrusively extracted a number of uncomfortable, beaded
cushions from beneath him, and took stock of the room. In spite of the cheery
modern fabrics, a more traditional English taste predominated. Two hunting
prints stood over a table laden with silver-framed photographs, including a large
black-and-white study of Izzy’s parents on their wedding day, Jasper Chiswell
dressed in the uniform of the Queen’s Own Hussars, Lady Patricia toothy and
blonde in a cloud of tulle. Over the mantelpiece hung a large watercolor of three
blond toddlers, which Strike assumed represented Izzy and her two older
siblings, dead Freddie and the unknown Fizzy.
Izzy clattered around, dropping teaspoons and opening and closing
cupboards without finding what she was looking for. At last, turning down
Strike’s offer of help, she carried a tray bearing a teapot, bone china mugs and

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biscuits the short distance between kitchenette and coffee table, and set it down.
“Did you watch the opening ceremony?” she asked politely, busy with teapot
and strainer.
“I did, yeah,” said Strike. “Great, wasn’t it?”
“Well, I liked the first part,” said Izzy, “all the industrial revolution bit, but I
thought it went, well, a bit PC after that. I’m not sure foreigners will really get
why we were talking about the National Health Service, and I must say, I could
have done without all the rap music. Help yourself to milk and sugar.”
“Thanks.”
There was a brief silence, broken only by the tinkling of silver and china;
that plush kind of silence achievable in London only by people with plenty of
money. Even in winter, Strike’s attic flat was never completely quiet: music,
footsteps and voices filled the Soho street below, and when pedestrians forsook
the area, traffic rumbled through the night, while the slightest breath of wind
rattled his insecure windows.
“Oh, your check,” gasped Izzy, jumping up again to fetch an envelope on the
kitchen side. “Here.”
“Thanks very much,” said Strike, taking it from her.
Izzy sat down again, took a biscuit, changed her mind about eating it and put
it on her plate instead. Strike sipped tea that he suspected was of the finest
quality, but which, to him, tasted unpleasantly of dried flowers.
“Um,” said Izzy at last, “it’s quite hard to know where to begin.”
She examined her fingers, which were unmanicured.
“I’m scared you’ll think I’m bonkers,” she muttered, glancing up at him
through her fair lashes.
“I doubt that,” said Strike, putting down his tea and adopting what he hoped
was an encouraging expression.
“Have you heard what they found in Papa’s orange juice?”
“No,” said Strike.
“Amitriptyline tablets, ground up into powder. I don’t know whether you—
they’re anti-depressants. The police say it’s quite an efficient, painless suicide
method. Sort of belt and—belt and braces, the pills and the—the bag.”
She took a sloppy gulp of tea.
“They were quite kind, really, the police. Well, they have training, don’t
they? They told us, if the helium’s concentrated enough, one breath and you’re…
you’re asleep.”
She pursed her lips together.
“The thing is,” she said loudly, in a sudden rush of words, “I absolutely know
that Papa would never have killed himself, because it was something he detested,

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he always said it was the coward’s way out, awful for the family and everybody
left behind.
“And it was strange: there was no packaging for the amitriptyline anywhere
in the house. No empty boxes, no blister packs, nothing. Of course, a box would
have Kinvara’s name on it. Kinvara’s the one who’s prescribed amitriptyline.
She’s been taking them for over a year.”
Izzy glanced at Strike to see what effect her words had had. When he said
nothing, she plunged on.
“Papa and Kinvara rowed the night before, at the reception, right before I
came over to talk to you and Charlie. Papa had just told us he’d asked Raff to
come over to the Ebury Street house next morning. Kinvara was furious. She
asked why and Papa wouldn’t tell her, he just smiled, and that infuriated her.”
“Why would—?”
“Because she hates all of us,” said Izzy, correctly anticipating Strike’s
question. Her hands were clutched together, the knuckles white. “She’s always
hated anything and anyone that competed with her for Papa’s attention or his
affection, and she particularly hates Raff, because he looks just like his mother,
and Kinvara’s always been insecure about Ornella, because she’s still very
glamorous, but Kinvara doesn’t like that Raff’s a boy, either. She’s always been
frightened he’d replace Freddie, and maybe get put back in the will. Kinvara
married Papa for his money. She never loved him.”
“When you say ‘put back’—”
“Papa wrote Raff out of his will when Raff ran—when he did the thing—in
the car. Kinvara was behind that, of course, she was egging Papa on to have
nothing more to do with Raff at all—anyway, Papa told us at Lancaster House
he’d invited Raff around next day and Kinvara went quiet, and a couple of
minutes later she suddenly announced that she was leaving and walked out. She
claims she went back to Ebury Street, wrote Papa a farewell note—but you were
there. Maybe you saw it?”
“Yes,” said Strike. “I did.”
“Yes, so, she claims she wrote that note, packed her bag, then caught the
train back to Woolstone.
“The way the police were questioning us, they seemed to think Kinvara
leaving him would have made Papa kill himself, but that’s just too ridiculous for
words! Their marriage has been in trouble for ages. I think he’d been able to see
through her for months and months before then. She’s been telling crazy fibs and
doing all kinds of melodramatic things to try and keep Papa’s interest. I promise
you, if Papa had believed she was about to leave him, he’d have been relieved,
not suicidal, but of course, he wouldn’t have taken that note seriously, he’d have

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known perfectly well it was more play-acting. Kinvara’s got nine horses and no
income. She’ll have to be dragged out of Chiswell House, just like Tinky the
First—my Grandpa’s third wife,” Izzy explained. “The Chiswell men seem to
have a thing for women with big boobs and horses.”
Flushed beneath her freckles, Izzy drew breath, and said:
“I think Kinvara killed Papa. I can’t get it out of my head, can’t focus, can’t
think about anything else. She was convinced there was something going on
between Papa and Venetia—she was suspicious from the first moment she saw
Venetia, and then the Sun snooping around convinced her she was right to be
worried—and she probably thought Papa reinstating Raff proved that he was
getting ready for a new era, and I think she ground up her anti-depressants and
put them in his orange juice when he wasn’t looking—he always had a glass of
juice first thing, that was his routine—then, when he became sleepy and couldn’t
fight her off, she put the bag over his head and then, after she’d killed him, she
wrote that note to try and make it look as though she was the one who was going
to divorce him and I think she sneaked out of the house after she’d done it, went
home to Woolstone and pretended she’d been there when Papa died.”
Running out of breath, Izzy felt for the cross around her neck and played
with it nervously, watching for Strike’s reaction, her expression both nervous and
defiant.
Strike, who had dealt with several military suicides, knew that survivors
were nearly always left with a particularly noxious form of grief, a poisoned
wound that festered even beyond that of those whose relatives had been
dispatched by enemy bullets. He might have his own doubts about the way in
which Chiswell had met his end, but he was not about to share them with the
disoriented, grief-stricken woman beside him. What struck him chiefly about
Izzy’s diatribe was the hatred she appeared to feel for her stepmother. It was no
trivial charge that she laid against Kinvara, and Strike wondered what it was that
convinced Izzy that the rather childish, sulky woman with whom he had shared
five minutes in a car could be capable of planning what amounted to a
methodical execution.
“The police,” he said at last, “will have looked into Kinvara’s movements,
Izzy. In a case like this, the spouse is usually the first one to be investigated.”
“But they’re accepting her story,” said Izzy feverishly. “I can tell they are.”