Lethal White

souviennes… ”
“So,” said Izzy, taking another deep breath, “the way I heard it, from one of
the girls who was there… I don’t want to say who,” she added a little
defensively to Strike and Robin, “it’s a long time ago and she was traumatized
by the whole thing… well, Freddie and his friends clattering into the cottage
woke you up, Billy. There was quite a crowd of them in there, and Jimmy rolled
them a joint before they set off… Anyway,” Izzy swallowed, “you were hungry,
and Jimmy… or maybe,” she winced, “maybe it was Freddie, I don’t know…
they thought it would be funny to crumble up some of what they were smoking
and put it in your yogurt.”
Robin imagined Freddie’s friends, some of them perhaps enjoying the exotic
thrill of sitting in that dark workman’s cottage with a local lad who sold drugs,
but others, like the girl who had told Izzy the story, uneasy about what was going
on, but too young, too scared of their laughing peers to intervene. They had
seemed like adults to the five-year-old Billy, but now Robin knew that they had
all been nineteen to twenty-one at most.
“Yeah,” said Billy quietly. “I knew they’d gave me something.”
“So, then, Jimmy wanted to join them, going up the hill. I heard he’d taken a
bit of a fancy to one of the girls,” said Izzy primly. “But you weren’t very well,
after being fed that yogurt. He couldn’t leave you alone in that state, so he took
you with him.
“You all piled into a couple of Land Rovers and off you went, to Dragon
Hill.”
“But… no, this is wrong,” said Billy. The haunted expression had returned to
his face. “Where’s the little girl? She was already there. She was with us in the
car. I remember them taking her out when we got to the hill. She was crying for
her mum.”
“It—it wasn’t a girl,” said Izzy. “That was just Freddie’s—well, it was his
idea of humor—”
“It was a girl. They called her by a girl’s name,” said Billy. “I remember.”
“Yes,” said Izzy miserably. “Raphaela.”
“That’s it!” said Billy loudly, and heads turned across the restaurant. “That’s
it!” Billy repeated in a whisper, his eyes wide. “Raphaela, that’s what they called

---

her—”
“It wasn’t a girl, Billy… it was my little—it was my little—”
Izzy pressed the napkin to her eyes again.
“So sorry… it was my little brother, Raphael. Freddie and his friends were
supposed to be babysitting him, with my father away from home. Raff was
awfully cute when he was little. He’d been woken up by them, too, I think, and
the girls said they couldn’t leave him in the house, they should take him with
them. Freddie didn’t want to. He wanted to leave Raff there on his own, but the
girls promised they’d take care of him.
“But once they were up there, Freddie was awfully drunk and he’d had a lot
of weed and Raff wouldn’t stop crying and Freddie got angry. He said he was
ruining everything and then…”
“He throttled him,” said Billy, with a panicked expression. “It was real, he
killed—”
“No, no, he didn’t!” said Izzy, distressed. “Billy, you know he didn’t—you
must remember Raff, he came to us every summer, he’s alive!”
“Freddie put his hands round Raphael’s neck,” said Strike, “and squeezed
until he was unconscious. Raphael urinated. He collapsed. But he didn’t die.”
Billy’s left hand was still gripping his right tightly.
“I did see it.”
“Yeah, you did,” said Strike, “and, all things considered, you were a bloody
good witness.”
The waitress returned with their meals. Once everyone was served, Strike
with his rib-eye steak and chips, the two women with their quinoa salads and
Billy with the soup, which was all he seemed to have felt confident ordering,
Izzy continued her story.
“Raff told me what had happened when I got back from the holidays. He was
so little, so upset, I tried to bring it up with Papa, but he wouldn’t listen. He just
sort of brushed me off. Said Raphael was whiny and always… always
complaining…
“And I look back,” she said to Strike and Robin, her eyes filling with tears
again, “and I think about it all… how much hate Raff must’ve felt, after things
like that…”
“Yeah, Raphael’s defense team will probably try and use that kind of thing,”
said Strike briskly, as he attacked his steak, “but the fact remains, Izzy, that he
didn’t act on his desire to see your father dead until he found out there was a
Stubbs hanging upstairs.”
“A disputed Stubbs,” Izzy corrected Strike, pulling a handkerchief out of her
cuff and blowing her nose. “Henry Drummond thinks it’s a copy. The man from

---

Christie’s is hopeful, but there’s a Stubbs aficionado in the States who’s flying
over to examine it, and he says it doesn’t match the notes Stubbs made of the lost
painting… but honestly,” she shook her head, “I don’t give a damn. What that
thing’s led to, what it’s done to our family… it can go in a skip for all I care.
There are more important things,” said Izzy croakily, “than money.”
Strike had an excuse for making no reply, his mouth being full of steak, but
he wondered whether it had occurred to Izzy that the fragile man beside her was
living in a tiny two-roomed flat in East Ham with his brother, and that Billy was,
properly speaking, owed money from the sale of the last set of gallows. Perhaps,
once the Stubbs was sold, the Chiswell family might consider fulfilling that
obligation.
Billy was eating his soup in an almost trancelike state, his eyes unfocused.
Robin thought his deeply contemplative state seemed peaceful, even happy.
“So, I must’ve got confused, mustn’t I?” Billy asked at last. He spoke now
with the confidence of a man who feels firm footing in reality. “I saw the horse
being buried and thought it was the kid. I got mixed up, that’s all.”
“Well,” said Strike, “I think there might be a bit more to it than that. You
knew that the man who’d throttled the child was the same one burying the horse
in the dell with your father. I suppose Freddie wasn’t around much, being so
much older than you, so you weren’t completely clear who he was… but I think
you’ve blocked out a lot about the horse and how it died. You conflated two acts
of cruelty, perpetrated by the same person.”
“What happened,” asked Billy, now slightly apprehensive, “to the horse?”
“Don’t you remember Spotty?” asked Izzy.
Amazed, Billy set down his soup spoon and held his hand horizontally
perhaps three feet off the ground.
“That little—yeah… didn’t it graze the croquet lawn?”
“She was an ancient, miniature spotted horse,” Izzy explained to Strike and
Robin. “She was the last of Tinky’s lot. Tinky had awful, kitschy taste, even in
horses…”
(… nobody noticed, and you know why? Because they’re such fucking