Lethal White (A Cormoran Strike Novel)

“It wouldn’t be sponging,” said Strike. He jammed his cigarette in his mouth and started searching his pockets with his free hand. “They like you and you could stay there for a couple of weeks until—aha. I thought I had one. It’s only creased, I haven’t used it—don’t think so, anyway—”

Robin took the tissue and, with one hearty blow of her nose, demolished it.

“Listen,” Strike began, but Robin interrupted at once:

“Don’t tell me to take time off. Please don’t. I’m fine, I’m fit to work, I hadn’t had a panic attack in ages before that one, I’m—”

“—not listening.”

“All right, sorry,” she muttered, the sodden tissue clutched in her fist. “Go on.”

“After I got blown up, I couldn’t get in a car without doing what you’ve just done, panicking and breaking out in a cold sweat and half suffocating. For a while I’d do anything to avoid being driven by someone else. I’ve still got problems with it, to tell the truth.”

“I didn’t realize,” said Robin. “You don’t show it.”

“Yeah, well, you’re the best driver I know. You should see me with my bloody sister. Thing is, Robin—oh, bollocks.”

The traffic police had arrived, pulling up behind the abandoned Land Rover, apparently puzzled as to why the occupants were sitting fifty yards away on the verge, to all appearances unconcerned with the fate of their poorly parked vehicle.

“Not in too much of a hurry to get help, then?” said the portlier of the two sarcastically. He had the swagger of a man who thinks himself a joker.

Strike removed his arm from around Robin’s shoulders and both stood up, in Strike’s case, clumsily.

“Car sickness,” Strike told the officer blandly. “Careful, or she might puke on you.”

They returned to the car. The first officer’s colleague was peering at the tax disk on the ancient Land Rover.

“You don’t see many of this age still on the roads,” he commented.

“It’s never let me down yet,” said Robin.

“Sure you’re all right to drive?” Strike muttered, as she turned the ignition key. “We could pretend you’re still feeling ill.”

“I’m fine.”

And this time, it was true. He had called her the best driver he knew, and it might not be much, but he had given her back some of her self-respect, and she steered seamlessly back onto the motorway.

There was a long silence. Strike decided that further discussion of Robin’s mental health ought to wait until she wasn’t driving.

“Winn said a name at the end of the call there,” he mused, taking out his notebook. “Did you hear?”

“No,” muttered Robin, shamefaced.

“It was Samuel something,” Strike said, making a note. “Murdoch? Matlock?”

“I didn’t hear.”

“Cheer up,” said Strike bracingly, “he probably wouldn’t have blurted it out if you hadn’t been yelling at him. Not that I recommend calling interviewees thieving perverts in future…”

He stretched around in his seat, reaching for the carrier bag in the back. “Fancy a biscuit?”

62

… I do not want to see your defeat, Rebecca.

Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

The car park at Newbury Racecourse was already jam-packed when they arrived. Many of the people heading for the ticket marquee were dressed for comfort, like Strike and Robin, in jeans and jackets, but others had donned fluttering silk dresses, suits, padded waistcoats, tweed hats and corduroy trousers in shades of mustard and puce that reminded Robin of Torquil.

They queued for tickets, each lost in their thoughts. Robin was afraid of what was coming once they reached the Crafty Filly, where Tegan Butcher worked. Certain that Strike had not yet had his full say on her mental health, she was afraid that he had merely postponed the announcement that he wanted her to return to a desk job in the office.

In fact, Strike’s mind was temporarily elsewhere. The white railings glimpsed beyond the small marquee where the crowd queued for tickets, and the abundance of tweed and corduroy, were reminding him of the last time he had been at a racecourse. He had no particular interest in the sport. The one constant paternal figure in his life, his uncle Ted, had been a footballing and sailing man, and while a couple of Strike’s friends in the army had enjoyed a bet on the horses, he had never seen the attraction.

Three years previously, though, he had attended the Epsom Derby with Charlotte and two of her favorite siblings. Like Strike, Charlotte came from a disjointed and dysfunctional family. In one of her unpredictable effusions of enthusiasm, Charlotte had insisted on accepting Valentine and Sacha’s invitation, notwithstanding Strike’s lack of interest in the sport and his barely cordial feelings towards both men, who considered him an inexplicable oddity in their sister’s life.