Lethal White (A Cormoran Strike Novel)

At once, Robin’s elusive memory dropped into view, as though it had been waiting for this tiny prod. Now she remembered exactly where she had seen the phrase “Blanc de Blanc,” but it had nothing to do with the case, and everything to do with her imploding marriage, with a lavender walk and a Japanese water garden, and the last time she had ever said “I love you,” and the first time she’d known she didn’t mean it.

56

I cannot—I will not—go through life with a dead body on my back.

Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

As Strike approached Henlys Corner on the North Circular Road the following afternoon, he saw, with a muttered oath, that traffic ahead had come to a halt. The junction, which was a notorious hotspot for congestion, had supposedly been improved earlier that year. As he joined the stationary queue, Strike wound down his window, lit a cigarette and glanced at his dashboard clock, with the familiar sensation of angry impotence that driving in London so often engendered. He had wondered whether it might be wiser to take the Tube north, but the psychiatric hospital lay a good mile from the nearest station, and the BMW was marginally easier on his still sore leg. Now he feared that he was going to be late for an interview that he was determined not to miss, firstly because he had no wish to disoblige the psychiatric team who were letting him see Billy Knight, and secondly because Strike didn’t know when there would next be an opportunity to speak to the younger brother without fear of running into the older. Barclay had assured him that morning that Jimmy’s plans for the day comprised writing a polemic on Rothschild’s global influence for the Real Socialist website and sampling some of Barclay’s new stash.

Scowling and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, Strike fell back to ruminating on a question that had been nagging at him since the previous evening: whether or not the cut connection halfway through his call to Robin had really been due to Matthew snatching the phone out of her hand. He had not found Robin’s subsequent assurances that all was well particularly convincing.

While heating himself baked beans on his one-ringed hob, because he was still attempting to lose weight, Strike had debated calling Robin back. Eating his meatless dinner unenthusiastically in front of the television, supposedly watching highlights of the Olympics closing ceremony, his attention was barely held by the sight of the Spice Girls zooming around on top of London cabs. I think marriage is nearly always an unfathomable entity, even to the people inside it, Della Winn had said. Perhaps Robin and Matthew were even now in bed together. Was pulling a phone out of her hand any worse than deleting her call history? She had stayed with Matthew after that. Where was her red line?

And Matthew was surely too careful of his own reputation and prospects to abandon all civilized norms. One of Strike’s last thoughts before falling asleep the night before had been that Robin had successfully fought off the Shacklewell Ripper, a grisly reflection, perhaps, but one that brought a certain reassurance.

The detective was perfectly aware that the state of his junior partner’s marriage ought to be the least of his worries, given that he so far had no concrete information for the client who was currently paying three full-time investigators to find out the facts about her father’s death. Nevertheless, as the traffic finally moved on, Strike’s thoughts continued to eddy around Robin and Matthew until at last he saw a signpost to the psychiatric clinic and, with an effort, focused his mind on the forthcoming interview.

Unlike the gigantic rectangular prism of concrete and black glass where Jack had been admitted a few weeks earlier, the hospital outside which Strike parked twenty minutes later boasted crocketed spires and byzantine windows covered with iron bars. In Strike’s opinion it looked like the bastard offspring of a gingerbread palace and a gothic prison. A Victorian stonemason had carved the word “Sanatorium” into the dirty redbrick arch over the double doorway.

Already five minutes late, Strike flung open the driver’s door and, not bothering to change his trainers for smarter footwear, locked the BMW and hurried, limping, up the grubby front steps.

Inside he found a chilly hallway with high, off-white ceilings, churchlike windows and a general suspicion of decay barely kept at bay by the fug of disinfectant. Spotting the ward number he had been given by phone, he set off along a corridor to the left.