Lethal White (A Cormoran Strike Novel)

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.”

Then it’s true, thought Strike. He had too high an opinion of the Met to imagine that they would be slapdash in confirming the movements of the wife who had had easy access to the murder scene, and who had been prescribed the drugs that had been found in the body.

“Who else knew Papa always drank orange juice in the mornings? Who else had access to amitriptyline and the helium—?”

“Does she admit to buying the helium?” Strike asked.

“No,” said Izzy, “but she wouldn’t, would she? She just sits there doing her hysterical little girl act.” Izzy affected a higher-pitched voice. “‘I don’t know how it got into the house! Why are you all pestering me, leave me alone, I’ve been widowed!’

“I told the police, she attacked Papa with a hammer, over a year ago.”

Strike froze in the act of raising his unappetizing tea to his lips.

“What?”

“She attacked Papa with a hammer,” said Izzy, her pale blue eyes boring into Strike, willing him to understand. “They had a massive row, because—well, it doesn’t matter why, but they were out in the stables—this was at home, at Chiswell House, obviously—and Kinvara grabbed the hammer off the top of a toolbox and smashed Papa over the head with it. She was bloody lucky she didn’t kill him then. It left him with olfactory dysfunction. He couldn’t smell and taste as well afterwards, and he got cross at the smallest things, but he insisted on hushing it all up. He bundled her off into some residential center and told everyone she was ill, ‘nervous exhaustion.’

“But the stable girl witnessed the whole thing and told us what had really happened. She had to call the local GP because Papa was bleeding so badly. It would have been all over the papers if Papa hadn’t got Kinvara admitted to a psychiatric ward and warned the papers off.”

Izzy picked up her tea, but her hand was now shaking so badly that she was forced to put it back down again.

“She isn’t what men think she is,” said Izzy vehemently. “They all buy the little girl nonsense, even Raff. ‘She did lose a baby, Izzy…’ But if he heard a quarter of what Kinvara says about him behind his back, he’d soon change his tune.

“And what about the open front door?” Izzy said, jumping subject. “You know all about that, it’s how you and Venetia got in, isn’t it? That door’s never closed properly unless you slam it. Papa knew that. He’d have made sure he closed it properly if he’d been in the house alone, wouldn’t he? But if Kinvara was sneaking out early in the morning without wanting to be heard, she’d have had to pull it to and leave it, wouldn’t she?

“She isn’t very bright, you know. She’d have tidied away all the amitriptyline packaging, thinking it would incriminate her if she left it. I know the police think the absence of packaging is odd, but I can tell they’re all leaning towards suicide and that’s why I wanted to speak to you, Cormoran,” Izzy finished, edging a little forward in her armchair. “I want to hire you. I want you to investigate Papa’s death.”

Strike had known the request was coming almost from the moment the tea had arrived. The prospect of being paid to investigate what was, in any case, preoccupying Strike to the point of obsession, was naturally inviting. However, clients who sought nothing but confirmation of their own theories were always troublesome. He could not accept the case on Izzy’s terms, but compassion for her grief led him to seek a gentler mode of refusal.

“The police won’t want me under their feet, Izzy.”

“They don’t have to know it’s Papa’s death you’re investigating,” said Izzy eagerly. “We could pretend we want you to investigate all those stupid trespasses into the garden that Kinvara claims have been going on. It would serve her bloody well right if we took her seriously now.”

“Do the rest of the family know you’re meeting me?”

“Oh, yes,” said Izzy eagerly. “Fizzy’s all for it.”

“Is she? Does she suspect Kinvara, too?”