Lethal White (A Cormoran Strike Novel)

“Were there bottles inside?”

“Nothing, so far as I could see, and according to the family, Chiswell never entertained there. If he wasn’t drinking champagne himself, why was the box there?”

“You don’t think—”

“That’s exactly what I think,” said Strike. “I reckon that box was how the helium and the rubber tubing got into the house, disguised.”

“Wow,” said Robin, lying back on the unmade bed and looking up at the ceiling.

“Quite clever. The killer could’ve sent it to him as a gift, couldn’t they, knowing he was highly unlikely to open and drink it?”

“Bit slapdash,” said Robin. “What was to stop him opening it up anyway? Or re-gifting it?”

“We need to find out when it was sent,” Strike was saying. “Meanwhile, one minor mystery’s been cleared up. Freddie’s money clip was found.”

“Where?”

“Chiswell’s pocket. That was the flash of gold in the photograph you took.”

“Oh,” said Robin, blankly. “So he must have found it, before he died?”

“Well, it’d be hard for him to find it after he died.”

“Ha ha,” said Robin sarcastically. “There is another possibility.”

“That the killer planted it on the corpse? Funny you should say that. Izzy says she was very surprised when it turned up on the body, because if he’d found it, she would have assumed he’d have told her. He made a massive fuss about losing it, apparently.”

“He did,” Robin agreed. “I heard him on the phone, ranting on about it. They fingerprinted it, presumably?”

“Yeah. Nothing suspicious. Only his—but at this point, that means nothing. If there was a killer, it’s clear they wore gloves. I also asked Izzy about the bent sword, and we were right. It was Freddie’s old saber. Nobody knows how it got bent, but Chiswell’s fingerprints were the only ones on there. I suppose it’s possible Chiswell got it off the wall while drunk and sentimental and accidentally trod on it, but again, there’s nothing to say a gloved killer couldn’t have handled it as well.”

Robin sighed. Her elation at finding the note appeared to have been premature.

“So, still no real leads?”

“Hold your horses,” said Strike bracingly, “I’m leading up to the good stuff.

“Izzy managed to get a new phone number for that stable girl who can confirm Kinvara’s alibi, Tegan Butcher. I want you to give her a ring. I think you’ll seem less intimidating to her than I will.”

Robin jotted down the digits Strike read out.

“And after you’ve called Tegan, I want you to phone Raphael,” said Strike, giving her the second number he had got from Izzy. “I’d like to clear up once and for all what he was really up to, the morning his father died.”

“Will do,” said Robin, glad of something concrete to do.

“Barclay’s going to go back onto Jimmy and Flick,” said Strike, “and I…”

He left a small pause, deliberately dramatic, and Robin laughed.

“And you’re…”

“… am going to interview Billy Knight and Della Winn.”

“What?” said Robin, amazed. “How’re you going to get into the hosp—and she’ll never agree—”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” said Strike. “Izzy dug Della’s number out of Chiswell’s records for me. I just rang her. I admit, I was expecting her to tell me to piss off—”

“—in slightly more elevated language, if I know Della,” Robin suggested.

“—and she sounded initially as though she wanted to,” admitted Strike, “but Aamir’s disappeared.”

“What?” said Robin, sharply.

“Calm down. ‘Disappeared’ is Della’s word. In reality, he resigned the day before yesterday and vacated his house, which hardly makes him a missing person. He’s not picking up the phone to her. She’s blaming me, because—her words again—I did ‘a fine job’ on him when I went round to question him. She says he’s very fragile and it’ll be my fault if he ends up doing himself a mischief. So—”

“You’ve offered to find him in exchange for her answering questions?”

“Right in one,” said Strike. “She jumped at the offer. Says I’ll be able to reassure him that he’s not in trouble and that nothing unsavory I might have heard about him will go any further.”

“I hope he’s all right,” said Robin, concerned. “He really didn’t like me, but that just proves he’s smarter than any of the rest of them. When are you meeting Della?”

“Seven o’clock this evening, at her house in Bermondsey. And tomorrow afternoon, if all goes to plan, I’m going to be talking to Billy. I checked with Barclay, and Jimmy’s got no plans to visit then, so I called the hospital. I’m waiting for Billy’s psychiatrist to call me back now and confirm.”

“You think they’ll let you question him?”

“Supervised, yeah, I think they will. They’re interested in seeing how lucid he is if he gets to talk to me. He’s back on his meds and greatly improved, but he’s still telling the story of the strangled kid. If the psychiatric team’s in agreement, I’m going to be visiting the locked ward tomorrow.”

“Well, great. It’s good to have things to be getting on with. God knows, we could use a breakthrough—even if it is about the death we’re not being paid to investigate,” she sighed.