Lethal White (A Cormoran Strike Novel)

“With you in a moment, cock,” she said, smiling. He settled to wait on a bench in the window.

Five minutes later, she was leading him to an upholstered pink chair at the back of the shop.

“What are you after, then?” she asked him, inviting him with a gesture to sit down.

“I’m not here for a haircut,” said Strike, still standing. “I’ll happily pay for one, I don’t want to waste your time, but,” he pulled a card and his driver’s license from his pocket, “my name’s Cormoran Strike. I’m a private detective and I was hoping to talk to you about your ex-husband, Jimmy Knight.”

She looked stunned, as well she might, but then fascinated.

“Strike?” she repeated, gaping. “You aren’t him that caught that Ripper guy?”

“That’s me.”

“Jesus, what’s Jimmy done?”

“Nothing much,” said Strike easily. “I’m just after background.”

She didn’t believe him, of course. Her face, he suspected, was full of filler, her forehead suspiciously smooth and shiny above the carefully penciled eyebrows. Only her stringy neck betrayed her age.

“That’s over. It was over ages ago. I never talk about Jimmy. Least said, soonest mended, don’t they say?”

But he could feel the curiosity and excitement radiating from her like heat. Radio 2 jangled in the background. She glanced towards the two women sitting at the mirrors.

“Sian!” she said loudly, and the receptionist jumped and turned. “Take out her foils and keep an eye on the perm for me, love.” She hesitated, still holding Strike’s card. “I’m not sure I should,” she said, wanting to be talked into it.

“It’s only background,” he said. “No strings.”

Five minutes later she was handing him a milky coffee in a tiny staffroom at the rear of the shop, talking merrily, a little haggard in the fluorescent overhead light, but still good-looking enough to explain why Jimmy had first shown interest in a woman thirteen years his senior.

“… yeah, a demonstration against nuclear weapons. I went with this friend of mine, Wendy, she was big into all that. Vegetarian,” she added, nudging the door into the shop closed with her foot and taking out a pack of Silk Cut. “You know the type.”

“Got my own,” said Strike, when she offered the pack. He lit her cigarette for her, then one of his Benson & Hedges. They blew out simultaneous streams of smoke. She crossed her legs towards him and rattled on.

“… yeah, so Jimmy gave a speech. Weapons and how much we could save, give to the NHS and everything, what was the point… he talks well, you know,” said Dawn.

“He does,” agreed Strike, “I’ve heard him.”

“Yeah, and I fell for it, hook, line and sinker. Thought he was some kind of Robin Hood.”

Strike heard the joke coming before she made it. He knew it was not the first time.

“Robbing Hood, more like,” she said.

She was already divorced when she had met Jimmy. Her first husband had left her for another girl at the London salon they had owned together. Dawn had done well out of the divorce, managing to retain the business. Jimmy had seemed a romantic figure after her wide-boy first husband and, on the rebound, she had fallen for him hard.

“But there were always girls,” she said. “Lefties, you know. Some of them were really young. He was like a pop star to them or something. I only found out how many of them there were later, after he’d set up cards on all my accounts.”

Dawn told Strike at length how Jimmy had persuaded her to bankroll a lawsuit against his ex-employer, Zanet Industries, who had failed to follow due process in firing him.

“Very keen on his rights, Jimmy. He’s not stupid, though, you know. Ten grand payout he got from Zanet. I never saw a penny of it. He pissed it all away, trying to sue other people. He tried to take me to court, after we split up. Loss of earnings, don’t make me laugh. I’d kept him for five years and he claimed he’d been working with me, building up the business for no pay and left with occupational asthma from the chemicals—so much shit he talked—they chucked it out of court, thank God. And then he tried to get me on a harassment charge. Said I’d keyed his car.”

She ground out her cigarette and reached for another one.

“I had, too,” she said, with a sudden, wicked smile. “You know he’s been put on a list, now? Can’t sue anyone without permission.”

“I did know, yeah,” said Strike. “Was he ever involved in any criminal activity while you were together, Dawn?”

She lit up again, watching Strike over her fingers, still hoping to hear what Jimmy was supposed to have done to have Strike after him. Finally she said:

“I’m not sure he was too careful about checking all the girls he was playing around with were sixteen. I heard, after, one of them… but we’d split up by then. It wasn’t my problem anymore,” said Dawn, as Strike made a note.