Lethal White (A Cormoran Strike Novel)

“Dad called me. Told me he thought Kinvara was about to do something stupid and told me to go straight down to Woolstone and stop it. I did ask why it had to be me, you know.”

“You didn’t tell us that at Chiswell House,” said Robin, looking up from her notes.

“Of course I didn’t, because the others were there. Dad said he didn’t want to ask Izzy. He was quite rude about her on the phone… he was an ungrateful shit, really he was,” said Raphael. “She worked her fingers to the bloody bone and you saw how he treated her.”

“What do you mean, rude?”

“He said she’d shout at Kinvara, upset her and make it worse or something. Pot and bloody kettle, but there you are. But the truth is,” said Raphael, “that he saw me as a kind of upper servant and Izzy as proper family. He didn’t mind me getting my hands dirty and it didn’t matter if I pissed off his wife by barging into her house and stopping her—”

“Stopping her what?”

“Ah,” said Raphael, “food.”

The dim sum placed on the table before them, the waitress retreated.

“What did you stop Kinvara doing?” Robin repeated. “Leaving your father? Hurting herself?”

“I love this stuff,” said Raphael, examining a prawn dumpling.

“She left a note,” persisted Robin, “saying she was leaving. Did your father send you down there to persuade her not to go? Was he afraid Izzy would egg her on to leave him?”

“D’you seriously think I could persuade Kinvara to stay in the marriage? Never having to lay eyes on me again would’ve been one more incentive to go.”

“Then why did he send you to her?”

“I’ve told you,” said Raphael. “He thought she was going to do something stupid.”

“Raff,” said Robin, “you can keep playing silly buggers—”

He corpsed.

“Christ, you sound Yorkshire when you say that. Say it again.”

“The police think there’s something fishy about your story of what you were up to that morning,” said Robin. “And so do we.”

That seemed to sober him up.

“How do you know what the police are thinking?”

“We’ve got contacts on the force,” said Robin. “Raff, you’ve given everyone the impression that your father was trying to stop Kinvara hurting herself, but nobody really buys that. The stable girl was there. Tegan. She could have prevented Kinvara from hurting herself.”

Raphael chewed for a while, apparently thinking.

“All right,” he sighed. “All right, here it is. You know how Dad had sold off everything that would raise a few hundred quid, or given it to Peregrine?”

“Who?”

“All right, Pringle,” said Raphael, exasperated. “I prefer not to use their stupid bloody nicknames.

“He didn’t sell off everything of value,” said Robin.

“What d’you mean?”

“That picture of the mare and foal is worth five to eight—”

Robin’s mobile rang. She knew from the ringtone that it was Matthew.

“Aren’t you going to get that?”

“No,” said Robin.

She waited until the phone had stopped ringing, then took it out of her bag.

“‘Matt,’” said Raphael, reading the name upside down. “That’s the accountant, is it?”

“Yes,” said Robin, silencing the phone, but it immediately began to vibrate in her hand instead. Matthew had called back.

“Block him,” suggested Raphael.

“Yes,” said Robin, “good idea.”

All that was important to her right now was keeping Raphael cooperative. He seemed to enjoy watching her block Matthew. She put the mobile back in her bag and said:

“Go on about the paintings.”

“Well, you know how Dad had offloaded all the valuable ones through Drummond?”

“Some of us think five thousand pounds worth of picture is quite valuable,” said Robin, unable to help herself.

“Fine, Ms. Lefty,” said Raphael, suddenly nasty. “You can keep sneering about how people like me don’t know the value of money—”

“Sorry,” said Robin quickly, cursing herself. “I am, seriously. Look, I’ve—well, I’ve been trying to find a room to rent this morning. Five thousand pounds would change my life right now.”

“Oh,” said Raphael, frowning. “I—OK. Actually, if it comes to that I’d leap at the chance of five grand in my pocket right now, but I’m talking about seriously valuable stuff, worth tens and hundreds of thousands, things that my father wanted to keep in the family. He’d already handed them on to little Pringle to avoid death duties. There was a Chinese lacquer cabinet, an ivory workbox and a couple of other things, but there was also the necklace.”

“Which—?”

“It’s a big ugly diamond thing,” said Raphael, and with the hand not spearing dumplings he mimed a thick collar. “Important stones. It’s come down through five generations or something and the convention was that it went to the eldest daughter on her twenty-first, but my father’s father, who as you might have heard was a bit of a playboy—”

“This is the one who married Tinky the nurse?”