Lethal White

partner rather than the man himself.
Robin copied down the details of a room in Putney (live-in landlady,
vegetarian household, must like cats), checked the time and decided to change
into the only dress she had brought with her from Albury Street, which was
hanging, ironed and ready, from the top of Vanessa’s kitchen door. It would take
her over an hour to get from Wembley to the restaurant in Old Brompton Road,
where she and Raphael had agreed to meet, and she feared that she needed more
time than usual to make herself presentable.
The face staring out of Vanessa’s bathroom mirror was white, with eyes still
puffy with lack of sleep. Robin was still trying to paint out the shadows with
concealer when her mobile rang.
“Cormoran, hi,” said Robin, switching to speakerphone. “Did you see
Billy?”
His account of the interview with Billy took ten minutes, during which time
Robin finished her makeup, brushed her hair and pulled on the dress.
“You know,” Strike finished, “I’m starting to wonder whether we shouldn’t
do what Billy wanted us to do in the first place: dig.”
“Mm,” said Robin, and then, “Wait—what? You mean… literally?”
“It might come to that,” said Strike.
For the first time all day, Robin’s own troubles were entirely eclipsed by
something else, something monstrous. Jasper Chiswell’s had been the first body
she had seen outside the comforting, sanitized context of the hospital and the
funeral parlor. Even the memory of the shrink-wrapped turnip head with its dark,
gasping cavity for a mouth paled beside the prospect of earth and worms, a

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decaying blanket and a child’s rotting bones.
“Cormoran, if you think there’s genuinely a child buried in the dell, we
should be telling the police.”
“I might, if I thought Billy’s psychiatrists would vouch for him, but they
won’t. I had a long talk with them after the interview. They can’t say one
hundred percent that the child strangling didn’t happen—the old impossible-to-
prove-a-negative problem—but they don’t believe it.”
“They think he’s making it up?”
“Not in the normal sense. They think it’s a delusion or, at best, that he
misinterpreted something he saw when he was very young. Maybe even
something on TV. It would be consistent with his overall symptoms. I think
myself there’s unlikely to be anything down there, but it would be good to know
for sure.
“Anyway, how’s your day been? Any news?”
“What?” Robin repeated numbly. “Oh—yes. I’m meeting Raphael for a drink
at seven o’clock.”
“Excellent work,” said Strike. “Where?”
“Place called Nam something… Nam Long Le Shaker?”
“The place in Chelsea?” said Strike. “I was there, a long time ago. Not the
best evening I’ve ever had.”
“And Tegan Butcher rang back. She’s a bit of a fan of yours, by the sound of
it.”
“Just what this case needs, another mentally disturbed witness.”
“Tasteless,” said Robin, trying to sound amused. “Anyway, she’s living with
her mum in Woolstone and working at a bar at Newbury Racecourse. She says
she doesn’t want to meet us in the village because her mum won’t like her
getting mixed up with us, so she wonders whether we could come and see her at
Newbury.”
“How far’s that from Woolstone?”
“Twenty miles or so?”
“All right,” said Strike, “how about we take the Land Rover out to Newbury
to interview Tegan and then maybe swing by the dell, just for another look?”
“Um… yes, OK,” said Robin, her mind racing over the logistics of having to
return to Albury Street for the Land Rover. She had left it behind because
parking places required a permit on Vanessa’s street. “When?”
“Whenever Tegan can see us, but ideally this week. Sooner the better.”
“OK,” said Robin, thinking of the tentative plans she had made to view
rooms over the next couple of days.
“Everything all right, Robin?”

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“Yes, of course.”
“Ring me when you’ve spoken to Raphael then, OK?”
“Will do,” said Robin, glad to end the call. “Speak later.”

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