Lethal White (A Cormoran Strike Novel)

“Damn!” she said. “I’m in Harley Street. I didn’t want to bother you, knowing you were with Chiswell, but Andy’s wife broke her wrist falling off a stepladder. I said I’d cover Dodgy while Andy takes her to hospital.”

“Shit. Where’s Barclay?”

“Still on Webster.”

“Is Dodgy in his consulting room?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll risk it,” said Strike. “He usually goes straight home on Fridays. This is urgent. I need to tell you about it face to face. Can you meet me in the Red Lion in Duke of York Street?”

Having refused all alcohol during his meal with Chiswell, Strike fancied a pint rather than returning to the office. If he had stuck out in his suit at the White Horse in East Ham, he was perfectly dressed for Mayfair, and two minutes later he entered the Red Lion in Duke of York Street, a snug Victorian pub whose brass fittings and etched glass reminded him of the Tottenham. Taking a pint of London Pride off to a corner table, he looked up Della Winn and her husband on his phone and began reading an article about the forthcoming Paralympics, in which Della was extensively quoted.

“Hi,” said Robin, twenty-five minutes later, dropping her bag onto the seat opposite him.

“Want a drink?” he asked.

“I’ll get it,” said Robin. “Well?” she said, rejoining him a couple of minutes later, holding an orange juice. Strike smiled at her barely contained impatience. “What was it all about? What did Chiswell want?”

The pub, which comprised only a horseshoe space around a single bar, was already tightly packed with smartly dressed men and women, who had started their weekend early or, like Strike and Robin, were finishing work over a drink. Lowering his voice, Strike told her what had passed between him and Chiswell.

“Oh,” said Robin blankly, when at last Strike had finished filling her in. “So we’re… we’re going to try and get dirt on Della Winn?”

“On her husband,” Strike corrected her, “and Chiswell prefers the phrase ‘bargaining chips.’”

Robin said nothing, but sipped her orange juice.

“Blackmail’s illegal, Robin,” said Strike, correctly reading her uneasy expression. “Knight’s trying to screw forty grand out of Chiswell and Winn wants to force him out of his job.”

“So he’s going to blackmail them back and we’re going to help him do it?”

“We get dirt on people every day,” said Strike roughly. “It’s a bit late to start getting a conscience about it.”

He took a long pull on his pint, annoyed not only by her attitude, but by the fact that he had let his resentment show. She lived with her husband in a desirable sash-windowed house in Albury Street, while he remained in two drafty rooms, from which he might soon be ejected by the redevelopment of the street. The agency had never before been offered a job that gave three people full employment, possibly for months. Strike was not about to apologize for being keen to take it. He was tired, after years of graft, of being plunged back into the red whenever the agency hit a lean patch. He had ambitions for his business that couldn’t be achieved without building up a far healthier bank balance. Nevertheless, he felt compelled to defend his position.

“We’re like lawyers, Robin. We’re on the client’s side.”

“You turned down that investment banker the other day, who wanted to find out where his wife—”

“—because it was bloody obvious he’d do her harm if he found her.”

“Well,” said Robin, a challenging look in her eye, “what if the thing they’ve found out about Chiswell—”

But before she could finish her sentence, a tall man in deep conversation with a colleague walked straight into Robin’s chair, flinging her forward into the table and knocking over her orange juice.

“Oi!” barked Strike, as Robin tried to wipe the juice off her sopping dress. “Fancy apologizing?”

“Oh dear,” said the man in a drawl, eyeing the juice-soaked Robin as several people turned to stare. “Did I do that?”

“Yes, you bloody did,” said Strike, heaving himself up and moving around the table. “And that’s not an apology!”

“Cormoran!” said Robin warningly.

“Well, I’m sorry,” said the man, as though making an enormous concession, but taking in Strike’s size, his regret seemed to become more sincere. “Seriously, I do apol—”

“Bugger off,” snarled Strike. “Swap seats,” he said to Robin. “Then if some other clumsy tosser walks by they’ll get me, not you.”

Half-embarrassed, half-touched, she picked up her handbag, which was also soaked, and did as he had requested. Strike returned to the table clutching a fistful of paper napkins, which he handed to her.

“Thanks.”

It was difficult to maintain a combative stance given that he was voluntarily sitting in a chair covered in orange juice to spare her. Still dabbing off the juice, Robin leaned in and said quietly:

“You know what I’m worried about. The thing Billy said.”

The thin cotton dress was sticking to her everywhere: Strike kept his gaze resolutely on her eyes.

“I asked Chiswell about that.”

“Did you?”

“Of course I did. What else was I going to think, when he said he was being blackmailed by Billy’s brother?”