Lethal White (A Cormoran Strike Novel)

When he had procured another bottle, he said with a malevolent grin, “Izzy’s always liked bits of rough. Did you notice the charged look from Fizzy to Izzy when Jimmy Knight’s name was mentioned?”

“I did, actually,” said Robin. “What was that about?”

“Freddie’s eighteenth birthday party,” said Raphael, smirking. “Jimmy crashed it with a couple of mates and Izzy—how do I put this delicately?—lost something in his company.”

“Oh,” said Robin, astonished.

“She was blind drunk. It’s passed into family legend. I wasn’t there. I was too young.

“Fizzy’s so amazed at the idea that her sister could have slept with the estate carpenter’s son that she thinks he must have some sort of supernatural, demonic sex appeal. That’s why she thinks Kinvara was slightly on his side, when he turned up asking for money.”

“What?” said Robin sharply, reaching for her notebook again, which had fallen closed.

“Don’t get too excited,” said Raphael, “I still don’t know what he was blackmailing Dad about, I never did. Not a full member of the family, you see, so not to be fully trusted.

“Kinvara told you this at Chiswell House, don’t you remember? She was alone at home, the first time Jimmy turned up. Dad was in London again. From what I’ve pieced together, when she and Dad first talked it over, she argued Jimmy’s case. Fizzy thinks that’s down to Jimmy’s sex appeal. Would you say he’s got any?”

“I suppose some people might think he has,” said Robin indifferently, who was making notes. “Kinvara thought your father should pay Jimmy his money, did she?”

“From what I understand,” said Raphael, “Jimmy didn’t frame it as blackmail on the first approach. She thought Jimmy had a legitimate claim and argued for giving him something.”

“When was this, d’you know?”

“Search me,” said Raphael, shaking his head. “I think I was in jail at the time. Bigger things to worry about…

“Guess,” he said, for the second time, “how often any of them have asked me what it was like in jail?”

“I don’t know,” said Robin cautiously.

“Fizzy, never. Dad, never—”

“You said Izzy visited.”

“Yeah,” he acknowledged, with a tip of the bottle to his sister. “Yeah, she did, bless her. Good old Torks has made a couple of jokes about not wanting to bend over in the shower. I suggested,” said Raphael, with a hard smile, “that he’d know all about that kind of thing, what with his old pal Christopher sliding his hand between young men’s legs at the office. Turns out it’s serious stuff when some hairy old convict tries it, but harmless frolics for public schoolboys.”

He glanced at Robin.

“I suppose you know now why Dad was taunting that poor bloke Aamir?”

She nodded.

“Which Kinvara thought was a motive for murder,” said Raphael, rolling his eyes. “Projection, pure projection—they’re all at it.

“Kinvara thinks Aamir killed Dad, because Dad had been cruel to him in front of a room full of people. Well, you should have heard some of the things Dad was saying to Kinvara by the end.

“Fizzy thinks Jimmy Knight might’ve done it because he was angry about money. She’s bloody angry about all the family money that’s vanished, but she can’t say that in so many words, not when her husband’s half the reason it’s gone.

“Izzy thinks Kinvara must have killed Dad because Kinvara felt unloved and sidelined and disposable. Dad never thanked Izzy for a damn thing she did for him, and didn’t give a toss when she said she was leaving. You get the picture?

“None of them have got the guts to say that they all felt like killing Dad at times, not now he’s dead, so they project it all onto someone else. And that,” said Raphael, “is why none of them are talking about Geraint Winn. He gets double protection, because Saint Freddie was involved in Winn’s big grudge. It’s staring them in the face that he had a real motive, but we’re not supposed to mention that.”

“Go on,” said Robin, her pen at the ready. “Mention.”

“No, forget it,” said Raphael, “I shouldn’t have—”

“I don’t think you say much accidentally, Raff. Out with it.”

He laughed.

“I’m trying to stop fucking over people who don’t deserve it. It’s all part of the great redemption project.”

“Who doesn’t deserve it?”

“Francesca, the little girl I—you know—at the gallery. She’s the one who told me. She got it from her older sister, Verity.”

“Verity,” repeated Robin.

Sleep-deprived, she struggled to remember where she had heard that name. It was very like “Venetia,” of course… and then she remembered.

“Wait,” she said, frowning in her effort to concentrate. “There was a Verity on the fencing team with Freddie and Rhiannon Winn.”

“Right in one,” said Raphael.

“You all know each other,” said Robin wearily, unknowingly echoing Strike’s thought as she started writing again.