Lethal White (A Cormoran Strike Novel)

Tom got work troubles, wants to talk. Gone to pub with him (I’m on Cokes.) Back as soon as I can.

And then, at seven o’clock:

Really sorry, he’s pissed, I can’t leave him. Going to find him a taxi then come back. Hope you’ve eaten. Love you x

Still with her caller ID switched off, Robin had again phoned Tom’s mobile. He had answered immediately. There was no background babble of a pub.

“Yes?” said Tom testily and apparently sober, “who is this?”

Robin hung up.

Two bags were packed and waiting in the hall. She had already phoned Vanessa and asked whether she could stay on her sofa for a couple of nights, before she got a new place to live. She found it strange that Vanessa didn’t sound more surprised, but at the same time, was glad not to have to fend off pity.

Waiting in the sitting room, watching night fall outside the window, Robin wondered whether she would even have been suspicious had she not found the earring. Lately she had become simply grateful for time without Matthew, when she could relax, not having to hide anything, whether the work she was doing on the Chiswell case or the panic attacks that must be conducted quietly, without fuss, on the bathroom floor.

Sitting in the stylish armchair belonging to their absent landlord, Robin felt as though she were inhabiting a memory. How often were you aware, while it happened, that you were living an hour that would change the course of your life forever? She would remember this room for a long time, and she gazed around it now, with the aim of fixing it in her mind, thereby trying to ignore the sadness, the shame and the pain that burned and twisted inside her.

At just past nine o’clock, she heard, with a wave of nausea, Matthew’s key in the lock and the sound of the door opening.

“Sorry,” he shouted, before he’d even closed the door, “he’s a silly sod, I had a job persuading the taxi driver to take—”

Robin heard his small exclamation of surprise as he spotted the suitcases. Safe, now, to dial, she pressed the number she had ready on her phone. He walked into the sitting room, puzzled, in time to hear her booking a minicab. She hung up. They looked at each other.

“What’s with the cases?”

“I’m leaving.”

There was a long silence. Matthew seemed not to understand.

“What d’you mean?”

“I don’t know how to say it any more clearly, Matt.”

“Leaving me?”

“That’s right.”

“Why?”

“Because,” said Robin, “you’re sleeping with Sarah.”

She watched Matthew struggling to find words that might save him, but the seconds slid by, and it was too late for real incredulity, for astonished innocence, for genuine incomprehension.

“What?” he said at last, with a forced laugh.

“Please don’t,” she said. “There’s no point. It’s over.”

He continued to stand in the doorway of the sitting room and she thought he looked tired, even haggard.

“I was going to go and leave a note,” said Robin, “but that felt too melodramatic. Anyway, there are practical things we need to talk about.”

She thought she could see him thinking, How did I give it away? Who have you told?

“Listen,” he said urgently, dropping his sports bag beside him (full, no doubt, of clean, pressed kit), “I know things haven’t been good between us, you and me, but it’s you I want, Robin. Don’t throw us away. Please.”

He walked forwards, dropped into a crouch beside her chair and tried to take her hand. She pulled it away, genuinely astonished.

“You’re sleeping with Sarah,” she repeated.

He got up, crossed to the sofa and sat down, dropped his face into his hands and said weakly:

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s been so shit between you and me—”

“—that you had to sleep with your friend’s fiancée?”

He looked up at that, in sudden panic.

“Have you spoken to Tom? Does he know?”

Suddenly unable to bear his proximity, she walked away towards the window, full of a contempt she had never felt before.

“Even now, worried about your promotion prospects, Matt?”

“No—fuck—you don’t understand,” he said. “It’s over between me and Sarah.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes! Fuck—this is so fucking ironic—we talked all day. We agreed it couldn’t go on, not after—you and Tom—we’ve just ended it. An hour ago.”

“Wow,” said Robin, with a little laugh, feeling disembodied, “isn’t that ironic?”

Her mobile rang. Dreamlike, she answered it.

“Robin?” said Strike. “Update. I’ve just seen Della Winn.”

“How did it go?” she asked, trying to sound steady and bright, determined not to cut the call short. Her working life was now her entire life and Matthew would no longer impinge upon it. Turning her back on her fuming husband, she looked out onto the dark cobbled street.

“Very interesting on two counts,” said Strike. “Firstly, she slipped up. I don’t think Geraint was with Aamir the morning Chiswell died.”

“That is interesting,” said Robin, forcing herself to concentrate, aware of Matthew watching her.