Lethal White (A Cormoran Strike Novel)

“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, and it crucifies me…’ that’s Catullus again. A famous one.”

“Did you do Latin at university?”

“No.”

“Then how—?”

“Long story,” said Strike.

In fact, the story of his ability to read Latin wasn’t long, merely (to most people) inexplicable. He didn’t feel like telling it in the middle of the night, nor did he want to explain that Charlotte had studied Catullus at Oxford.

“‘I hate and I love,’” Robin repeated. “Why would Chiswell have written that down?”

“Because he was feeling it?” Strike suggested.

His mouth was dry: he had smoked too much before falling asleep. He got up, feeling achy and stiff, and picked his way carefully around the fallen notes, heading for the sink in the other room, phone in hand.

“Feeling it for Kinvara?” asked Robin dubiously.

“Ever see another woman around while you were in close contact with him?”

“No. Of course, he might not have been talking about a woman.”

“True,” admitted Strike. “Plenty of man love in Catullus. Maybe that’s why Chiswell liked him so much.”

He filled a mug with cold tap water, drank it down in one, then threw in a tea bag and switched on the kettle, all the while peering down at the lit screen of his phone in the darkness.

“‘Mother,’ crossed out,” he muttered.

“Chiswell’s mother died twenty-two years ago,” said Robin. “I’ve just looked her up.”

“Hmm,” said Strike. “‘Bill,’ circled.”

“Not Billy,” Robin pointed out, “but if Jimmy and Flick thought it meant his brother, people must sometimes call Billy ‘Bill.’”

“Unless it’s the thing you pay,” said Strike. “Or a duck’s beak, come to that… ‘Suzuki’… ‘Blanc de’… Hang on. Jimmy Knight’s got an old Suzuki Alto.”

“It’s off the road, according to Flick.”

“Yeah. Barclay says it failed its MOT.”

“There was a Grand Vitara parked outside Chiswell House when we visited, too. One of the Chiswells must own it.”

“Good spot,” said Strike.

He switched on the overhead light and crossed to the table by the window, where he had left his pen and notebook.

“You know,” said Robin thoughtfully, “I think I’ve seen ‘Blanc de blanc’ somewhere recently.”

“Yeah? Been drinking champagne?” asked Strike, who had sat down to make more notes.

“No, but… yeah, I suppose I must’ve seen it on a wine label, mustn’t I? Blanc de blancs… what does it mean? ‘White from whites?’”

“Yeah,” said Strike.

For nearly a minute, neither of them spoke, both examining the note. “You know, I hate to say this, Robin,” said Strike at last, “but I think the most interesting thing about this is that Flick had it. Looks like a to-do list. Can’t see anything here that proves wrongdoing or suggests grounds for blackmail or murder.”

“Mother, crossed out,” Robin repeated, as though determined to wring meaning out of the cryptic phrases. “Jimmy Knight’s mother died of asbestosis. He just told me so, at Flick’s party.”

Strike tapped his notepad lightly with the end of his pen, thinking, until Robin voiced the question that he was grappling with.

“We’re going to have to tell the police about this, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, we are,” sighed Strike, rubbing his eyes. “This proves she had access to Ebury Street. Unfortunately, that means we’re going to have to pull you out of the jewelry shop. Once the police search her bathroom, it won’t take her long to work out who must’ve tipped them off.”

“Bugger,” said Robin. “I really felt like I was getting somewhere with her.”

“Yeah,” Strike agreed. “This is the problem with having no official standing in an inquiry. I’d give a lot to have Flick in an interrogation room… This bloody case,” he said, yawning. “I’ve been going through the file all evening. This note’s like everything else: it raises more questions than it answers.”