Lethal White (A Cormoran Strike Novel)

Strike had made a vow to himself two years previously, and he made very few vows, because he trusted himself to keep them. Having never said “I love you” to any woman but Charlotte, he would not say it to another unless he knew, beyond reasonable doubt, that he wanted to stay with that woman and make a life with her. It would make a mockery of what he’d been through with Charlotte if he said it under circumstances any less serious. Only love could have justified the havoc they had lived together, or the many times he had resumed the relationship, even while he knew in his soul that it couldn’t work. Love, to Strike, was pain and grief sought, accepted, endured. It was not in Lorelei’s bedroom, with the cowgirls on the curtains.

And so he had said nothing after her whispered declaration, and then, when she’d asked whether he’d heard her, he’d said, “Yeah, I did.”

Strike reached for his cigarettes. Yeah, I did. Well, that had been honest, as far as it went. There was nothing wrong with his hearing. After that, there’d been a fairly lengthy silence, then Lorelei had got out of bed and gone to the bathroom and stayed there for thirty minutes. Strike assumed that she’d gone there to cry, though she’d been kind enough to do it quietly, so that he couldn’t hear her. He had lain in bed, wondering what he could say to her that was both kind and truthful, but he knew that nothing short of “I love you, too” would be acceptable, and the fact was that he didn’t love her, and he wasn’t going to lie.

When she came back to bed, he had reached out for her in the bed. She’d let him stroke her shoulder for a while, then told him she was tired and needed some sleep.

What was I supposed to fucking do? he demanded of an imaginary female inquisitor who strongly resembled his sister, Lucy.

You could try not accepting tea and blow jobs, came the snide response, to which Strike, with his stump throbbing, answered, fuck you.

His mobile rang. He had sellotaped up the shattered screen, and through this distorted carapace he saw an unknown number.

“Strike.”

“Hi, Strike, Culpepper here.”

Dominic Culpepper, who had worked for the News of the World until its closure, had previously put work Strike’s way. Relations between them, never personally warm, had become slightly antagonistic when Strike had refused Culpepper the inside story on his two most recent murder cases. Now working for the Sun, Culpepper had been one of those journalists who had most enthusiastically raked over Strike’s personal life in the aftermath of the Shacklewell Ripper arrest.

“Wondered if you were free to do a job for us,” said Culpepper.

You’ve got a fucking nerve.

“What kind of thing’re you after?”

“Digging up dirt on a government minister.”

“Which one?”

“You’ll know if you take the job.”

“I’m pretty stretched just now. What kind of dirt are we talking?”

“That’s what we need you to find out.”

“How do you know there’s dirt there?”

“A well-placed source,” said Culpepper.

“Why do you need me if there’s a well-placed source?”

“He’s not ready to talk. He just hinted that there are beans to be spilled. Lots of them.”

“Sorry, can’t do it, Culpepper,” said Strike. “I’m booked solid.”

“Sure? We’re paying good money, Strike.”

“I’m not doing too badly these days,” said the detective, lighting a second cigarette from the tip of his first.

“No, I’ll bet you aren’t, you jammy bastard,” said Culpepper. “All right, it’ll have to be Patterson. D’you know him?”

“The ex-Met guy? Run across him a couple of times,” said Strike.

The call finished with mutually insincere good wishes, leaving Strike with an increased feeling of foreboding. He Googled Culpepper’s name and found his byline on a story about the Level Playing Field from two weeks previously.

Of course, it was possible that more than one government minister was currently in danger of being exposed by the Sun for an offense against public taste or morals, but the fact that Culpepper had recently been in close proximity with the Winns strongly suggested Robin had been right in suspecting Geraint of tipping off the Sun, and that it was Chiswell whom Patterson would shortly be investigating.

Strike wondered whether Culpepper knew that he, Strike, was already working for Chiswell, whether his call had been designed to startle information out of the detective, but it seemed unlikely. The newspaperman would have been very stupid to tell Strike whom he was about to hire, if he was aware that Strike was already in the minister’s pay.

Strike knew of Mitch Patterson by reputation: they had twice been hired by different halves of divorcing couples in the last year. Previously a senior officer in the Metropolitan Police who had “taken early retirement,” Patterson was prematurely silver-haired and had the face of an angry pug. Though personally unpleasant, or so Eric Wardle had told Strike, Patterson was a man who “got results.”