Lethal White (A Cormoran Strike Novel)

“‘Least said, soonest mended,’ she always says. That and ‘least seen, most admired.’ That’s what I got if I ever wanted to go to the young farmers’ disco.”

Robin laughed. Tegan grinned, proud to have amused her.

“How did you find Mrs. Chiswell as an employer?” asked Strike.

“All right,” said Tegan, yet again.

“Mrs. Chiswell liked to have someone sleeping at the house if she was away for the night, is that right? To be near the horses?”

“Yeah,” said Tegan, and then, volunteering information for the first time, “she’s paranoid.”

“Wasn’t one of her horses slashed?”

“You can call it slashed if you want,” said Tegan, “but I’d call it more of a scratch. Romano managed to get his blanket off in the night. He was a sod for doing that.”

“You don’t know anything about intruders in the garden, then?” asked Strike, his pen poised over his notebook.

“Weelll,” said Tegan slowly, “she said something about it, but…”

Her eyes had strayed to Strike’s Benson & Hedges, which were lying beside his beer glass.

“Can I have a smoke?” she asked, greatly daring.

“Help yourself,” said Strike, taking out a lighter and pushing it towards her.

Tegan lit up, took a deep drag on the cigarette, and said:

“I don’t think there was ever anyone in the gardens. That’s just Mrs. Chiswell. She’s—” Tegan struggled to find the right word. “Well, if she was a horse you’d call her spooky. I never heard anyone when I was there overnight.”

“You slept over at the house the night before Jasper Chiswell was found dead in London, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you remember what time Mrs. Chiswell got back?”

“’Bout eleven. I got a right shock,” said Tegan. Now that her nerves were wearing off, a slight tendency to garrulity was revealed. “Because she was s’posed to be staying up in London. She went off on one when she walked in, because I’d had a fag in front of the telly—she doesn’t like smoking—and I’d had a couple of glasses of wine out the bottle in the fridge, as well. Mind, she’d told me to help myself to anything I wanted before she left, but she’s like that, always shifting the goalposts. What was right one minute was wrong the next. You had to walk on eggshells, you really did.

“But she was already in a bad mood when she arrived. I could tell from the way she came stomping down the hall. The fag and the wine, that just gave her an excuse to have a go at me. That’s what she’s like.”

“But you stayed the night, anyway?”

“Yeah. She said I was too drunk to drive, which was rubbish, I weren’t drunk, and then she told me to go and check on the horses, because she had a phone call to make.”

“Did you hear her make the call?”

Tegan rearranged herself in the too-high chair, so that the elbow of her smoking arm was cupped in her free hand, her eyes slightly narrowed against the smoke, a pose she evidently thought appropriate while dealing with a tricky private detective.

“I dunno if I should say.”

“How about I suggest a name and you can nod if it’s the right one?”

“Go on, then,” said Tegan, with the mingled mistrust and curiosity of one who has been promised a magic trick.

“Henry Drummond,” said Strike. “She was leaving a message to say that she wanted a valuation on a necklace?”

Impressed against her will, Tegan nodded.

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s right.”

“So you went out to check on the horses…?”

“Yeah, and when I got back Mrs. Chiswell said I should stay over anyway, because she needed me early, so I did.”

“And where did she sleep?” asked Robin.

“Well—upstairs,” said Tegan, with a surprised laugh. “Obviously. In her bedroom.”

“You’re sure she was there all night?” asked Robin.

“Yeah,” said Tegan, with another little laugh. “Her bedroom was next to mine. They’re the only two with windows that face the stables. I could hear her going to bed.”

“You’re sure she didn’t leave the house during the night? Didn’t drive anywhere, as far as you know?” asked Strike.

“No. I’d’ve heard the car. There are potholes everywhere round that house, you can’t leave quietly. Anyway, I met her next morning on the landing, heading for the bathroom in her nightie.”

“What time would that have been?”

“’Bout half-seven. We had breakfast together in the kitchen.”

“Was she still angry with you?”

“Bit ratty,” admitted Tegan.

“You didn’t happen to hear her take another call, round about breakfast time?”

Frankly admiring, Tegan said:

“You mean, from Mr. Chiswell? Yeah. She went out of the kitchen to take it. All I heard was ‘No, I mean it this time, Jasper.’ Sounded like a row. I’ve told the police this. I thought they must’ve argued in London and that’s why she’d come home early instead of staying up there.

“Then I went outside to muck out, and she came out and she was schooling Brandy, that’s one of her mares, and then,” said Tegan, with a slight hesitation, “he arrived. Raphael, you know. The son.”

“And what happened then?” asked Strike.

Tegan hesitated.

“They had a row, didn’t they?” said Strike, mindful of how much of Tegan’s break was slipping away.

“Yeah,” said Tegan, smiling in frank wonderment. “You know everything!”