“‘I can’t believe this is happening,’” Strike quoted. “She’s consistent. On Saturday night she told us ‘I didn’t think this would happen,’ ‘it didn’t seem real—’”
“Try that in court,” said Wardle quietly.
“Yeah, what were you expecting, love, when you crushed up a load of pills and put them in his orange juice?” said Layborn. “Guilty is as guilty does.”
“Amazing, the lies people can tell themselves when they’re drifting along in the wake of a stronger personality,” said Strike. “I’ll bet you a tenner that when McMurran finally breaks her, Kinvara’ll say they started off hoping Chiswell would kill himself, then trying to pressure him into doing it, and finally reached a point when there didn’t seem much difference between trying to push him into suicide, and putting the pills in his orange juice herself. I notice she’s still trying to push the gallows business as the reason he’d top himself.”
“That was very good work of yours, connecting the dots on the gallows,” admitted Layborn. “We were a bit behind you on that, but it explained a hell of a lot. This is highly confidential,” he added, taking a brown envelope off a nearby desk and tipping out a large photograph, “but we had this from the Foreign Office this morning. As you can see—”
Robin, who had gone to look, half-wished she hadn’t. What was there to be gained, really, from seeing the corpse of what seemed to be a teenage boy, whose eyes had been picked out by carrion birds, and hanging from a gallows in a rubble-strewn street? The boy’s dangling feet were bare. Somebody, Robin guessed, had stolen his trainers.
“The lorry containing the second pair of gallows was hijacked. Government never took delivery and Chiswell never got payment for them. This picture suggests they ended up being used by rebels for extrajudicial killings. This poor lad, Samuel Murape, was in the wrong place at the wrong time. British student, gap year, out there to visit family. It’s not particularly clear,” Layborn said, “but see there, just behind his foot—”
“Yeah, that could be the mark of the white horse,” said Strike.
Robin’s mobile, which was switched to silent, vibrated in her pocket. She was waiting for an important call, but it was only a text from an unknown number.
I know you’ve blocked my phone, but I need to meet you. An urgent situation’s come up and it’s to your advantage as much as mine to sort it out. Matt
“It’s nothing,” Robin told Strike, returning the mobile to her pocket.
This was the third message Matthew had left that day.
Urgent situation, my arse.
Tom had probably found out that his fiancée and his good friend had been sleeping together. Maybe Tom was threatening to call Robin, or drop in on the office in Denmark Street, to find out how much she knew. If Matthew thought that constituted an “urgent situation” to Robin, who was currently standing beside multiple pictures of a drugged and suffocated government minister, he was wrong. With an effort, she refocused on the conversation in the incident room.
“… the necklace business,” Layborn was saying to Strike. “Far more convincing story than the one he told us. All that guff about wanting to stop her hurting herself.”
“It was Robin who got him to change his story, not me,” said Strike.
“Ah—well, good work,” Layborn said to Robin, with a hint of patronage. “I thought he was an oily little bastard when I took his initial statement. Cocky. Just out of jail, and all. No bloody remorse for running over that poor woman.”
“How are you getting on with Francesca?” Strike asked. “The girl from the gallery?”
“We managed to get hold of the father in Sri Lanka and he’s not happy. Being quite obstructive, actually,” said Layborn. “He’s trying to buy time to get her lawyered up. Bloody inconvenient, the whole family being abroad. I had to get tough with him over the phone. I can understand why he doesn’t want it all coming out in court, but too bad. Gives you a real insight into the mindset of the upper classes, eh, case like this? One rule for them…”
“On that subject,” said Strike, “I assume you’ve spoken to Aamir Mallik?”
“Yeah, we found him exactly where your boy—Hutchins, is it?—said he was. At his sister’s. He’s got a new job—”
“Oh, I’m glad,” said Robin inadvertently.
“—and he wasn’t overjoyed to have us turning up at first, but he ended up being very frank and helpful. Said he found that disturbed lad—Billy, is it?—on the street, wanting to see his boss, shouting about a dead child, strangled and buried on Chiswell’s land. Took him home with the idea of getting him to hospital, but he asked Geraint Winn’s advice first. Winn was furious. Told him on no account to call an ambulance.”
“Did he, now?” said Strike, frowning.
“From what Mallik’s told us, Winn was worried association with Billy’s story would taint his own credibility. He didn’t want the waters muddied by a psychotic tramp. Blew up at Mallik for taking him into a house belonging to the Winns, told him to turf him out on the street again. Trouble was—”
“Billy wouldn’t go,” said Strike.
“Exactly. Mallik says he was clearly out of his mind, thought he was being held against his will. Curled up in the bathroom most of the time. Anyway,” Layborn took a deep breath, “Mallik’s had enough of covering up for the Winns. He’s confirmed that Winn wasn’t with him on the morning of Chiswell’s death. Winn told Mallik afterwards, when he put pressure on Mallik to lie, he’d had an urgent phone call at 6 a.m. that day, which is why he left the marital home early.”
“And you’ve traced that call?” said Strike.
Layborn picked up the printout of phone records, rifled through them, then handed a couple of marked pages to Strike.
“Here you go. Burner phones,” he said. “We’ve got three different numbers so far. There were probably more. Used once, never used again, untraceable except for the single instance we got on record. Months in the planning.
“A single-use phone was used to contact Winn that morning, and two more were used to call Kinvara Chiswell on separate occasions during the previous weeks. She ‘can’t remember’ who called her, but both times—see there?—she talked to whoever it was for over an hour.”
“What’s Winn got to say for himself?” asked Strike.
“Closed up like an oyster,” said Layborn. “We’re working on him, don’t worry. There are porn stars who’ve been fucked fewer different ways than Geraint W—sorry, love,” he said, grinning, to Robin, who found the apology more offensive than anything Layborn had said. “But you take my point. He might as well tell us everything now. He’s screwed every which w—well,” he said, floundering once more. “What interests me,” he started up again, “is how much the wife knew. Strange woman.”
“In what way?” asked Robin.
“Oh, you know. I think she plays on this a bit,” said Layborn, with a vague gesture towards his eyes. “Very hard to believe she didn’t know what he was up to.”
“Speaking of people not knowing what their other halves are up to,” interposed Strike, who thought he detected a martial glint in Robin’s eye, “how’s it going with our friend Flick?”
“Ah, we’re making very good progress there,” said Layborn. “The parents have been helpful in her case. They’re both lawyers and they’ve been urging her to cooperate. She’s admitted she was Chiswell’s cleaner, that she stole the note and took receipt of the crate of champagne right before Chiswell told her he couldn’t afford her anymore. Says she put it in a cupboard in the kitchen.”