Lethal White

arrogant snobs… )
“… but Spotty was awfully sweet,” Izzy admitted. “She’d follow you around
like a dog if you were in the garden…
“I don’t think Freddie meant to do it… but,” she said hopelessly, “oh, I don’t
know anymore. I don’t know what he was thinking… he always had a terrible
temper. Something had annoyed him. Papa was out, he took Papa’s rifle out of
the gun cabinet, went up on the roof and started shooting at birds and then…
well, he told me afterwards he hadn’t meant to hit Spotty, but he must have been

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aiming near her, mustn’t he, to kill her?”
He was aiming at her, thought Strike. You don’t put two bullets in an
animal’s head from that distance without meaning to.
“Then he panicked,” said Izzy. “He got Jack o’—I mean, your father,” she
told Billy, “to help him bury the body. When Papa came home Freddie pretended
Spotty had collapsed, that he’d called the vet who’d taken her away, but of
course, that story didn’t stand up for two minutes. Papa was furious when he
found out the truth. He couldn’t abide cruelty to animals.
“I was heartbroken when I heard,” said Izzy sadly. “I loved Spotty.”
“You didn’t by any chance put a cross in the ground where she’d been
buried, did you, Izzy?” asked Robin, her fork suspended in mid-air.
“How on earth did you know that?” asked Izzy, astonished, as tears trickled
out of her eyes again, and she reached again for her handkerchief.
The downpour continued as Strike and Robin walked away from the
brasserie together, along Chelsea Embankment towards Albert Bridge. The slate-
gray Thames rolled eternally onwards, its surface barely troubled by the
thickening rain that threatened to extinguish Strike’s cigarette, and soaked the
few tendrils of hair that had escaped the hood of Robin’s raincoat.
“Well, that’s the upper classes for you,” said Strike. “By all means throttle
their kids, but don’t touch their horses.”
“Not entirely fair,” Robin reproved him. “Izzy thinks Raphael was treated
appallingly.”
“Nothing to what he’s got coming to him in Dartmoor,” said Strike
indifferently. “My pity’s limited.”
“Yes,” said Robin, “you made that abundantly clear.”
Their shoes smacked wetly on the shining pavement.
“CBT still going all right?” Strike asked, who was limiting the question to
once weekly. “Keeping up your exercises?”
“Diligently,” said Robin.
“Don’t be flippant, I’m serious—”
“So am I,” said Robin, without heat. “I’m doing what I’ve got to do. I
haven’t had a single panic attack for weeks. How’s your leg?”
“Getting better. Doing my stretches. Watching my diet.”
“You just ate half a potato field and most of a cow.”
“That was the last meal I can charge to the Chiswells,” said Strike. “Wanted
to make the most of it. What are your plans this afternoon?”
“I need to get that file from Andy, then I’ll ring the guy in Finsbury Park and
see whether he’ll talk to us. Oh, and Nick and Ilsa said to ask if you want to

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come for a takeaway curry tonight.”
Robin had caved in to the combined insistence of Nick, Ilsa and Strike
himself that going to live in a box room in a house full of strangers was
undesirable in the immediate aftermath of being taken hostage at gunpoint. In
three days’ time, she would be moving into a room in a flat in Earl’s Court,
which she would share with a gay actor friend of Ilsa’s whose previous partner
had moved out. Her new flatmate’s stated requirements were cleanliness, sanity
and tolerance of irregular hours.
“Yeah, great,” said Strike. “I’ll have to head back to the office first. Barclay
reckons he’s got Dodgy bang to rights this time. Another teenager, going in and
out of a hotel together.”
“Great,” said Robin. “No, I don’t mean great, I mean—”
“It is great,” said Strike firmly, as the rain splashed over and around them.
“Another satisfied client. The bank balance is looking uncharacteristically
healthy. Might be able to hike your salary up a bit. Anyway, I’m going up here.
See you at Nick and Ilsa’s later, then.”
They parted with a wave, concealing from each other the slight smile that
each wore once safely walking away, pleased to know that they would meet
again in a few short hours, over curry and beer at Nick and Ilsa’s. But soon
Robin had given over her thoughts to the questions needing answers from a man
in Finsbury Park.
Head bowed against the rain, she had no attention left to spare for the
magnificent mansion past which she was walking, its rain-specked windows
facing the great river, its front doors engraved with twin swans.

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