Lethal White

Blanc de blanc
Suzuki
Mother?
Odi et amo, quare id faciam, fortasse requiris? Nescio, sed fieri sentio et
excrucior.
Hardly breathing in her excitement, Robin took out her mobile, took several

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pictures of the note, then refolded it, replaced it in the sanitary towel and
returned the package to the place it had been on the shelf. She attempted to flush
the toilet, but it was clogged and all she achieved was that the water rose
ominously in the bowl, refusing to subside, the cigarette butt bobbing there in
swirling tissue.
“Sorry,” Robin said, opening the door. “Loo’s blocked.”
“Whatever,” said the impatient, drunk girl outside, “I’ll do it in the sink.”
She pushed past Robin and slammed the door.
Jimmy was still standing outside.
“Think I’m going to take off,” Robin told him. “I only really came t’see if
that room was vacant, but soombody’s got in ahead of me.”
“Shame,” said Jimmy lightly. “Come to a meeting some time. We could use a
bit of Northern soul.”
“Yeah, I might,” said Robin.
“Might what?”
Flick had arrived, holding a bottle of Budweiser.
“Come to a meeting,” said Jimmy, taking a fresh cigarette out of his pack.
“You were right, Flick, she’s the real deal.”
Jimmy reached out and pulled Flick to him, pressing her to his side, and
kissed her on the top of the head.
“Yeah, sh’iz,” said Flick, smiling with real warmth as she wound her arm
around Jimmy’s waist. “Come to the next one, Bobbi.”
“Yeah, I might,” said Bobbi Cunliffe, the trade unionist’s daughter, and she
bade them goodbye, pushed her way out of the hall and out into the cold
stairwell.
Not even the sight and smell of one of the black-clad teenagers vomiting
copiously on the pavement just outside the main door could dampen Robin’s
jubilation. Unable to wait, she texted Strike the picture of Jasper Chiswell’s note
while hurrying towards the bus stop.

---

52
I can assure you, you have been on the wrong
scent entirely, Miss West.
Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm
Strike had fallen asleep, fully clothed, his prosthesis still attached, on top of
the bedcovers in his attic bedroom. The cardboard folder containing everything
pertaining to the Chiswell file was lying on his chest, vibrating gently as he
snored, and he dreamed that he was walking hand in hand with Charlotte through
an otherwise deserted Chiswell House, which they had bought together. Tall,
slim and beautiful, she was no longer pregnant. She trailed Shalimar and black
chiffon behind her, but their mutual happiness was evaporating in the damp chill
of the shabby rooms through which they were wandering. What could have
prompted the reckless, quixotic decision to purchase this drafty house, with the
peeling walls and the wires dangling from the ceiling?
The loud buzz of a text arriving jerked Strike from sleep. For a fraction of a
second he registered the fact that he was back in his attic room, alone, neither the
owner of Chiswell House nor the lover of Charlotte Ross, before groping for the
phone on which he was half lying in the full expectation that he was about to see
a message from Charlotte.
He was wrong: it was Robin’s name he saw when he peered groggily at the
screen, and it was, moreover, one in the morning. Momentarily forgetting that
she had been out at a party with Flick, Strike sat up hurriedly and the cardboard
file that had been lying on his chest slid smoothly off him, scattering its various
pages across the floorboards, while Strike squinted, blurry-eyed, at the
photograph Robin had just sent him.
“Fuck me backwards.”
Ignoring the mess of notes at his feet, he called her back.
“Hi,” said Robin jubilantly, over the unmistakable sounds of a London night
bus: the clatter and roar of the engine, the grinding of brakes, the tinny ding of
the bell and the obligatory drunken laughter of what sounded like a gaggle of
young women.
“How the fuck did you manage that?”
“I’m a woman,” said Robin. He could hear her smile. “I know where we hide
things when we really don’t want them found. I thought you’d be asleep.”

---

“Where are you—a bus? Get off and grab a cab. We can charge it to the
Chiswell account if you get a receipt.”
“There’s no need—”
“Do as you’re bloody told!” Strike repeated, a little more aggressively than
he had intended, because while she had just pulled off quite a coup, she had also
been knifed, out alone on the street after dark, a year previously.
“All right, all right, I’ll get a cab,” said Robin. “Have you read Chiswell’s
note?”
“Looking at it now,” said Strike, switching to speakerphone so that he could
read Chiswell’s note while talking to her. “I hope you left it where you found it?”
“Yeah. I thought that was best?”
“Definitely. Where exactly—?”
“Inside a sanitary towel.”
“Christ,” said Strike, taken aback. “I’d never’ve thought to—”
“No, nor did Jimmy and Barclay,” said Robin smugly. “Can you read what it
says at the bottom? The Latin?”
Squinting at the screen, Strike translated:
“‘I hate and I love. Why do I do it, you might ask? I don’t know. I just feel it,