Lethal White (A Cormoran Strike Novel)

“Well, that’s the joy of the public school system,” said Raphael. “In London, if you’ve got the money, you meet the same three hundred people everywhere you go… Yeah, when I first arrived at Drummond’s gallery, Francesca couldn’t wait to tell me that her big sister had once dated Freddie. I think she thought that made the pair of us predestined, or something.

“When she realized I thought Freddie was a bit of a shit,” said Raphael, “she changed tack and told me a nasty story.

“Apparently, at his eighteenth, Freddie, Verity and a couple of others decided to mete out some punishment to Rhiannon for having dared to replace Verity on the fencing team. In their view she was—I don’t know—a bit common, a bit Welsh?—so they spiked her drink. All good fun. Sort of stuff that goes on the dorm, you know.

“But she didn’t react too well to neat vodka—or maybe, from their point of view, she reacted really well. Anyway, they managed to take some nice pictures of her, to pass around among themselves… this was in the early days of the internet. These days I suppose half a million people would have viewed them in the first twenty-four hours, but Rhiannon only had to endure the whole fencing team and most of Freddie’s mates having a good gloat.

“Anyway,” said Raphael, “about a month later, Rhiannon killed herself.”

“Oh my God,” said Robin quietly.

“Yeah,” said Raphael. “After little Franny told me the story, I asked Izzy about it. She got very upset, told me not to repeat it, ever—but she didn’t deny it. I got lots of ‘nobody kills themselves because of a silly joke at a party’ bluster and she told me I mustn’t talk about Freddie like that, it would break Dad’s heart…

“Well, the dead don’t have hearts to break, do they? And personally, I think it’s about time somebody pissed on Freddie’s eternal flame. If he hadn’t been born a Chiswell, the bastard would’ve been in borstal. But I suppose you’ll say I can talk, after what I did.”

“No,” said Robin gently. “That isn’t what I was going to say.”

The pugnacious expression faded from his face. He checked his watch.

“I’m going to have to go. I’ve got to be somewhere at nine.”

Robin raised her hand to signal for the bill. When she turned back to Raphael, she saw his eyes moving in routine fashion over both the other women in the restaurant, and in the mirror she saw how the blonde tried to hold his gaze.

“You can go,” she said, handing over her credit card to the waitress. “I don’t want to make you late.”

“No, I’ll walk you out.”

While she was still putting her credit card back into her handbag, he picked up her coat and held it up for her.

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

Out on the pavement, he hailed a taxi.

“You take this one,” he said. “I fancy a walk. Clear my head. I feel as though I’ve had a bad therapy session.”

“No, it’s all right,” said Robin. She didn’t want to charge a taxi all the way back to Wembley to Strike. “I’m going to get the Tube. Goodnight.”

“’Night, Venetia,” he said.

Raphael got into the taxi, which glided away, and Robin pulled her coat more tightly around herself as she walked off in the opposite direction. It had been a chaotic interview, but she had managed to get much more than she had expected out of Raphael. Taking out her mobile again, she phoned Strike.

59

We two go with each other…

Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

When he saw Robin was calling him, Strike, who had taken his notebook out to the Tottenham for a drink, pocketed the former, downed the remainder of his pint in one and took the call out onto the street.

The mess that building works had made of the top of Tottenham Court Road—the rubble-strewn channel where a street had been, the portable railings and the plastic barricades, the walkways and planks that enabled tens of thousands of people to continue to pass through the busy junction—were so familiar to him now that he barely noticed them. He had not come outside for the view, but for a cigarette, and he smoked two while Robin relayed everything that Raphael had told her.

Once the call was over, Strike returned his mobile to his pocket and absentmindedly lit himself a third cigarette from the tip of the second and continued to stand there, thinking deeply about everything she had said and forcing passersby to navigate around him.