Lethal White (A Cormoran Strike Novel)

“Yerse, Queen’s Own Hussars. Aden and Singapore. Happy days.”

He didn’t seem happy at the moment. His ruddy skin had an odd, plaque-like appearance close up. Dandruff lay thick in the roots of his coarse hair and large patches of sweat spread around the underarms of his blue shirt. The minister bore the unmistakable appearance, not unusual in Strike’s clients, of a man under intense strain, and when his sherry arrived, he swallowed most of it in a single gulp.

“Shall we move through?” he suggested, and without waiting for an answer he barked, “We’ll eat straight away, Georgina.”

Once they were seated at the table, which had a stiff, snowy-white tablecloth like those at Robin’s wedding, Georgina brought them thick slices of cold roast beef and boiled potatoes. It was English nursery food, plain and unfussy, and none the worse for it. Only when the stewardess had left them in peace, in the dim dining room full of oil paintings and more dead fish, did Chiswell speak again.

“You were at Jimmy Knight’s meeting,” he said, without preamble. “A plainclothes officer there recognized you.”

Strike nodded. Chiswell shoved a boiled potato in his mouth, masticated angrily, and swallowed before saying:

“I don’t know who’s paying you to get dirt on Jimmy Knight, or what you may already have on him, but whoever it is and whatever you’ve got, I’m prepared to pay double for the information.”

“I haven’t got anything on Jimmy Knight, I’m afraid,” said Strike. “Nobody was paying me to be at the meeting.”

Chiswell looked stunned.

“But then, why were you there?” he demanded. “You’re not telling me you intend to protest against the Olympics?”

So plosive was the “p” of “protest” that a small piece of potato flew out of his mouth across the table.

“No,” said Strike. “I was trying to find somebody I thought might be at the meeting. They weren’t.”

Chiswell attacked his beef again as though it had personally wronged him. For a while, the only sounds were those of their knives and forks scraping the china. Chiswell speared the last of his boiled potatoes, put it whole into his mouth, let his knife and fork fall with a clatter onto his plate and said:

“I’d been thinking of hiring a detective before I heard you were watching Knight.”

Strike said nothing. Chiswell eyed him suspiciously.

“You have the reputation of being very good.”

“Kind of you to say so,” said Strike.

Chiswell continued to glare at Strike with a kind of furious desperation, as though wondering whether he dared hope that the detective would not prove yet another disappointment in a life beset with them.

“I’m being blackmailed, Mr. Strike,” he said abruptly. “Blackmailed by a pair of men who have come together in a temporary, though probably unstable, alliance. One of them is Jimmy Knight.”

“I see,” said Strike.

He, too, put his knife and fork together. Georgina appeared to know by some psychic process that Strike and Chiswell had eaten their fill of the main course. She arrived to clear away, reappearing with a treacle tart. Only once she had retired to the kitchen, and both men had helped themselves to large slices of pudding, did Chiswell resume his story.

“There’s no need for sordid details,” he said, with an air of finality. “All you need to know is that Jimmy Knight is aware that I did something that I would not wish to see shared with the gentlemen of the fourth estate.”

Strike said nothing, but Chiswell seemed to think his silence had an accusatory flavor, because he added sharply:

“No crime was committed. Some might not like it, but it wasn’t illegal at the—but that’s by the by,” said Chiswell, and took a large gulp of water. “Knight came to me a couple of months ago and asked for forty thousand pounds in hush money. I refused to pay. He threatened me with exposure, but as he didn’t appear to have any proof of his claim, I dared hope he would be unable to follow through on the threat.

“No press story resulted, so I concluded that I was right in thinking he had no proof. He returned a few weeks later and asked for half the former sum. Again, I refused.

“It was then, thinking to increase the pressure on me, I assume, that he approached Geraint Winn.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know who—?”

“Della Winn’s husband.”

“Della Winn, the Minister for Sport?” said Strike, startled.

“Yes, of course Della-Winn-the-Minister-for-Sport,” snapped Chiswell.

The Right Honorable Della Winn, as Strike knew well, was a Welshwoman in her early sixties who had been blind since birth. No matter their party affiliation, people tended to admire the Liberal Democrat, who had been a human rights lawyer before standing for Parliament. Usually photographed with her guide dog, a pale yellow Labrador, she had been much in evidence in the press of late, her current bailiwick being the Paralympics. She had visited Selly Oak while Strike had been in the hospital, readjusting to the loss of his leg in Afghanistan. He had been left with a favorable impression of her intelligence and her empathy. Of her husband, Strike knew nothing.